Journal entry number 1 by Mellaris Uldreiyn, stereotypical Elf ranger!

Entry I

10/25/2015

Until last night I was part of the guard of an important trading caravan. Thanks to some ignoramus I won't name, I got cut off along with my other five colleagues, and now I'm stuck in a dingy tavern with the lot of them. We're all sitting around a table for the sole purpose of filling our guts, and no one is too talkative, except for -

Ruby the Wizard. She seems to me like your stereotypical overzealous performer. Definitely too outgoing for her own good, and she talks way too much.

Ko'ruk is some form of half-orc that's had his eyes glued to me for the last half-hour. He keeps drumming the hilt of his greatsword that's leaned against the table's rim... I'm not sure if he wants to throw it at me or ask me a question.

Ellie, a half-elf Rogue, is mostly keeping to herself. She's not passive - her eyes have been darting across the room any time I've thrown her a glance, and it's almost as if she's eating her food in a disarming manner.

Melek is a Dwarf paladin that certainly seems the most… respectable of the six of us. He's made occasional small talk with Tom, the friendly tavern keeper, and is the only one of us without a drink in his hand.

Juniper has been mostly quiet from the very beginning. From what I can tell, she's a druid of some kind, but I haven't been able to get a read on her personality traits… Perhaps we have the most in common.

Ko'ruk the angry half-orc starts asking me some surprisingly personal questions about my past and the Grimvald. I manage to dodge around a complete answer but before things escalate, an older man busts through the door, falls to the ground with an arrow in his back and dies. He's followed by a pair of angry looking skeletons.

The skeletons go down fairly easily in the face of six warriors, but after sticking my head out the window I notice… oh.

Well, the whole village ison fire and more undead bone-walkers are clattering down the street in search of victims. Tom, the friendly barkeeper, hands us a healing potion and suggests we go bail out lord Chumley from the village manor. It's not something I'm too enthusiastic about, but Ellie suggests there may be payment waiting in the aftermath.

The road to Chumley's manner is also conveniently teeming with skeletons. One of them lands a nearly mortal blow on Ruby the Wizard, but I managed to pick him off before things got much worse. Ko'ruk barrels in - like the mindless tank he is - and cleaves a second clean in two, and the third falls after a shot from me and another swift kick from the half-orc.

To get to the manner I have to stealth ahead to make sure the coast is clear. It's not. Skeletons are clattering straight towards me. Before I have the chance to turn tail and run, however, Ko'ruk throws Melek the Dwarf 20 yards up, who then manages to rush to my aid. Just as I turn my back to escape, an arrow strikes just under my collarbone, leaving me breathless and dizzy with pain. Luckily a nearby house has a fragile window, which I quickly shatter to duck and hide. The surprised old man is reluctant to house me as the others fight it out, but it ends right away as I safely throw the door open and feather the last skeleton in the forehead.

After that, we make it to the manor fairly easily. We all have a quick look around, but no one spots anything noticeably dangerous. Melek the Dwarf kicks the door down - the first longhall is fortunately empty. There's a fancy suit of armor on the wall that seems fishy to Ruby, so Ko'ruk (in his rich wisdom) punches it. Itpunches back. I'm nearby enough to deal it a pair of scimitar slices upon reflex, after which we pretty much dogpile the thing and it goes down eventually.

Immediately following the incident I notice the wall by the staircase is a different color - probably a secret door. Melek bashes it in with his hammer and Ellie darts in silently to check it out.

What's inside is somewhat surprising and somewhat not at all - there's an altar to some sort of demon-god and a letter to the lord of the manor - apparently he's being paid for a smuggling job and being told by his employers not to go overboard with necromancy.

Well, now we know where all these skeletons came from - I should've known it was a high-up stuffy town lord. No surprise there - typical, even.

Back in the main room, we open a side door and whiff at a skeleton about 3,000 times before I shoot it down through the eye-socket. The butler's bed in another room is covered with blood and we split his life savings of 60g between us. Up the stairs Ko'ruk spies Lord Chumley standing over a huge ogre corpse - the half-orc tries to stealth throw his javelin, catching the lord in the shoulder - and unfortunately rousing the ogre. The whole rest of the party works on taking the massive thing down - I go to disable Chumley by hitting his foot, but miss and graze his side.

After a grueling fight the ogre falls, and Ruby manages to charm the man and we get some answers out of him. He doesn't know who his employer is, just that they always sign letters with a "W". He says he spawned skeletons on the village "because it seemed like a good idea at the time", as if I needed any more reason to hate these types of unbelievably ignorant nobles.

In the end, the town guard arrives and we hand Chumley over to be taken to justice. We're given a letter of recommendation for the city guard by the captain. Seeing as that's a guaranteed money source and we're all in need of some at the moment…

...We're headed for Spindlestone City.