Master Clovis was one of the leading merchants in all of Grom. The construction of affordable but efficient magical powders and devices was a very lucrative trade . Now Clovis was reaping the fruits of his reward. A network of thriving businesses, several palatial mansions, even the respect of his fellow aristocrats and nobles. It wasn't an easy path though. The master merchant started as an out of luck adventurer , but after years of struggle he earned his place in society.

Clovis sighed, despite his humble beginnings he missed his adventuring days. More specifically he missed his companions. The faithful cleric Fetch, the off note bard Tyris, the half insane warrior Frank, and of course...

*SLAM*

Clovis's ear rung as the door to his outer office was slammed. His next appointment was with his warehouse manager, but from the sound of the door and the stomping on the ground, he knew his plans had just been rescheduled.

"You can't go in ...ooooofff", yelped his secretary from outside his office.

*CRASH*

"That was the lamest adventure ...EVER! ", declared Ymir the dwarf as she stomped into the room. The youthful dwarf maiden was average of stature for her race, had long curly brown hair , and an aristocratic air to her. Despite the years that Clovis had known her, she was still relatively unchanged from when he first met her. Slightly better armor, a shinier axe, bigger boots, but still the same dwarf he met 46 years ago.

"Adventure? Don't you have a mercenary company to run?", smiled Clovis curious to the tales of daring that the dwarf was sure to tell.

"Of course I do! Why do you think I'm adventuring? Mercenary armies are expensive to operate ! ", fumed the dwarf maid, her light brown curly hair almost radiating steam from her anger. Clovis considered explaining to his friend that she should probably have cut her losses and sell her interest in her small army, but ruled against it. Dwarves as a species were very possessive and his friend was no exception.

Ymir clenched her teeth and shook with anger, but a tumbler of dwarven spirits pushed her way calmed the dwarf down.

The dwarven maid took a sip of the drink , and took a deep breath. "Thanks. I needed that. I was saying, I'm kind of short on cash , so I've been adventuring on the side to make ends meet. Between the Third armies enforced peace, and that dick Kalidor lowballing me on contracts with his Kalhounds, things have been tight. It didn't help that I had all those sculptors and poets on retainer as well. Until the next war or big merc contract comes up, I have to do the occasional odd job. "

Clovis nodded, and motioned for her to continue. A rousing tale was sure to come he thought as he poured himself a glass of lichen rye.

"Well ...a very distant cousin sent out a cry for help recently. Seems he's an ousted prince or something and needed help recovering his ancestral home from a dragon of all things.", continued the dwarf.

"A dragon? Cha ching! ", smiled Clovis as he raised his glass in a toast. Ymir however was still not in a celebratory mood.

"Yeah...that's what I thought too...but that's not how things turned out. ", grumbled the dwarf.

"Well...my cousin was holding try outs at some halfling burrow or something. He should have scheduled it in a tavern or something like a real adventurer would, but I guessed he wanted to save some bucks. He held it at some out of the way estate. When I finally arrived the rookie already hired 13 other guys. ", continued the dwarf.

"13! Four or five is a good number, six or seven is pushing it...but 14 guys for an expedition? That's not an adventuring party, that's a platoon. ", exclaimed Clovis in shock.

"I know right? My idiot cousin, hired twelve dwarves and decided to hire a chubby halfling as well , because he was superstitious of all things . He didn't like the number 13 or something like that. The dummy should have just fired one of the more useless dwarves, like the super fat one. Also he had a wizard on retainer, but he only worked on occasion. He had other errands or something to do as well.", complained Ymir.

"Hmm...an army of dwarves. That's a lot of adventurers, but at last they're dwarves. Good constitution, magic and poison resistance. At least they weren't...tieflings or Zugfolk or some other bizarre genetic throwback.", commented Clovis, trying to appeal to his friend's racial pride.

Ymir chuckled at the thought, but her scowl returned. " Yeah, well some of these guys were really scraping the dwarven talent pool. Besides the twins, the rest were idiots, like the super chubby one I mentioned, or those pair of old geezers. Anyways, I was thinking of leaving this clown show right then and there , but I needed the cash, and a fifteenth of a dragon's horde was still a lot of treasure. Besides, I was pretty sure some of these newbs wouldn't make it through the first encounter. How wrong I was..."

"They performed admirably I take it?", inquired the artificer.

"Hell no! I meant despite their ineptitude, they all survived. I was out scouting on our first night, with the sexy twins. ", waxed the dwarf.

Clovis raised an eyebrow at the mention of the twins. For some odd reason, he always found tales of Ymir's romantic life interesting.

Ymir smiled naughtily as she continued her tale," Well after a slight diversion, we return to find the rest of the guys, minus the conveniently missing wizard, stuffed into bags, being sat on by trolls."

"They...were in bags...being sat on?", chuckled Clovis.

"Yes! I would have laughed out loud if it weren't so pathetic, and I wasn't associated with such a group. I spotted the wizard hiding behind a rock. I gave him the signal to fireball their flammable asses but he was instead using a ventriloquism spell or something . I almost turned around and stormed off right there. Sadly, their idiot leader was my distant cousin , and I can't leave kin , even incompetent kin to trolls. I figured I would kill the trolls then leave. So , with my axe, the twins and I laid waste to the bad guys. ", shrugged Ymir.

"So after that you left? ", asked the artificer. He considered pressing for details about the battle, but a warrior of Ymir's skill would have most likely been insulted by relaying a battle with mere trolls.

"Well, that was my plan, but things weren't what they seemed. The trolls were tougher then regular trolls, but no match for me. After we killed them I was greatly surprised at how much treasure they had. Bags and bags of copper, silver and gold. Also magical blades, some really nice ones. I wanted one, but my idiot cousin took one and gave the other to the wizard.", exclaimed the dwarf.

"He gave a wizard a magical sword? What is this? Amateur hour?", exclaimed Clovis in disgust at the mage's greed. Dividing magical items to members of a group that could best use them was common practice. The artificer hated money grubbing adventurers that demanded a share in all the treasure, even the magical items they couldn't use. Their behavior was the root of all the tales of adventurer avarice.

"Well , I was considering to just leave this pack of goobers, but the troll horde was really amazing. I figure that if the trolls had this much loot, the dragon must have been really loaded. I thought I could put up with this nonsense and suck it up till we kill the beast.", shrugged Ymir. " Anyways...I considered it was just a rough start and things would get better from there. For awhile, it did. We stopped at the wizard's skinny half elf buddies place, and it was remarkably relaxing. After that ..it was all down hill. ", the dwarf said shaking her head.

" We trekked through some mountains, and I thought everything was smooth sailing. Us being all dwarves and in our natural habitat, what could go wrong ? Well, foolish me! First night, we get ambushed by goblins if you can believe that. I mean , its a cave...with a narrow passage. A few of us should have been able to hold them off, especially with 13 dwarves. How wrong I was. The goblins just swarmed us. I took out several dozens, but the yammering little beasts just swarmed past me to attack the others. ", Ymir snarled with clenched fists.

"You...you were captured ...by goblins?", asked a shocked Clovis.

"What? Hell no. The critters captured my group, and then collapsed a tunnel on me. Hoping to crush me or something stupid like that. Grom to goblins..Grom to goblins... I'm a dwarf, I just dig myself out . I would have left those fools, but I wanted some payback on those goblins. ", scoffed the dwarf maid.

*cough cough*, stammered Clovis.

Ymir sighed, "Ok...I really wanted one of those magical blades. I thought the goblins would have killed those guys and I could just help myself out to their loot on their corpses. Hey don't give me that look. You'd have done the same thing. "

Clovis sighed and shrugged. He admitted he probably would have in that situation.

"So there I was lost, trying to use my dwarven senses to locate my group. It was a literal warren or maze, minus the minotaurs. I almost gave up hope ...but then I heard the singing. ", continued the dwarf.

"Singing? Like the dwarves were singing? ", asked Clovis.

"Err...no the goblins were singing. They were singing really good too. In common as well. It wasn't an old war song or battle chant, but they seemed to have made it up on the spot. A catchy little ditty about going "Down town to goblin town" or something like that. ", commented the dwarf. She attempted to sing a few bars of the tune, but it came out badly so she shrugged and continued her tale.

" Well...I thought they were to be eaten at that point, at least some of them anyways. That halfling was really fat, I was pretty sure him or the super chubby dwarf would have been devoured first. I used my...racial power...of invisibility and snuck into the Goblin's throne room. I was about to kill them all, but the wizard showed up , and chaos ensued. I wasn't sure what happened by I just started killing stuff randomly. I slammed my axe into the Great Goblin, and almost killed him, but that cheesy wizard kill stole him from us. I would have just lost it, but you know I don't adventure for the fame. "

Clovis sputtered his drink at the blatant lie. " Instead of joining in, the other dwarves took the opportunity to run. It was like trying to follow penguins with their heads cut off. By Moradin , it was a miracle we made it out. We lost fatty the halfling , and we almost lost the twins, but by Clandgeddin we somehow got through the mountains.", declared the dwarf proudly.

"So we are down to 14 shares with the halfling out of the way? ", asked Clovis inquisitively.

"Nah...chubby found us later. Good timing too, since that's when it really got crazy.", shrugged the dwarf.