Chapter 15

Madame Hukiel

We awoke in the church, thankfully. I didn't want any more waking up in random places, once was enough for me. I stood up and stretched. I pulled something out of my pocket and said, "A ring."

Adamis pulled something out of his pocket and said, "Yes, a ring."

Cynwyd said, "Why we trade this mace for that ring?" She looked straight at Adamis.

Adamis looked at the ring and at the mace, "But I want it."

I entered the conversation, "Yes, but Cynwyd can't use a mace, and you have no need for a ring."

"Is it magical?" Thoros asked.

"I don't know." I said. "Cynwyd?"

Cynwyd sighed and said, "Of course. Set the rings on the floor and I can check."

We all placed the rings on the floor and Cynwyd whispered something too faint I couldn't hear and she said, "Both of them are magical."

Adamis took the ring and was about to put it on, "No!" I pulled his arm away. "What if you turn into a horrible monster! Or your behavior is affected!"

A cleric walked in and said, "You know, I used to be an adventurer, and when we found a magic item, we would take off all our weapons and hand them to our friends and put the ring on weapons drawn just in case we went crazy."

I shrugged and said, "Sure lets do that."

I handed all my weapons to my comrades and put on the ring. I didn't notice anything different. "Do I look anything different?"

"No." Cynwyd said.

I took the ring off and inspected it. There appeared to be some symbols on it, but I couldn't read them.

Cynwyd held out her hand and said, "Ring."

Adamis handed the ring to her. Cynwyd handed all her weapons to us and she put on the ring. Se immediately turned invisible. She turned visible as she was smacking Adamis' and Thoros' heads. Then she turned invisible again. She took the ring off.

The cleric said to me, "May I see your ring?" I handed to ring to him and he looked at it, held it up in the light and motioned for me to come closer. I came up beside him and looked at the ring. "Don't you think those look like scales?" He anded the ring to me.

I took the ring and put it on.

"Perhaps they are dragon scales," Cynwyd suggested. "Perhaps it gives you some kind of armor."

"Huh, good idea. Poke me with a knife." Cynwyd took out her knife and poked me, the knife went slowly in deeper and deeper, I still felt pain. "Nope. Please stop."

Maybe I can breathe underwater? I thought. "I there a bucket of water?"

The cleric looked at me odd and said, "There is a bucket and mop over there, why?"

"I was wondering if I could breathe underwater." I said.

"There is a fountain outside, come with me." The cleric motioned for us to follow him.

Outside there was a fountain two feet deep, five feed wide and twenty feet long. I breathed in some air and stuck my head in the water. After thirty seconds I felt fine. After a minute I had no problem with not breathing, but just in case I breathed in and immediately brought my head up into clear air and blew hard out of my nose. "Vlacus!" I exclaimed.

"I breathed in underwater. I don't have to breathe underwater though." I explained.

Thoros asked, "Well, could you swim better perhaps too?"

I knew there was a small river a few minutes away. We walked to it. I looked for a deeper than usual part and found a part where I couldn't even find the bottom. I jumped in and began swimming. I swam incredibly fast, I swam faster than I could run! I leaped out of the water like a fish, rolled and stood up. "Whoa."

Adamis said, "I wanna go back to the Borderlands."

"Alright, let's go." I said.

After this point I stopped recording my adventures. Here is a brief summary of what happened.

When we got back to the Borderlands a Madame Hukiel asked for us and paid us to find her son and saughter who had gone adventuring. We went south with her to her village of Oakhurst and discovered the children had gone south with a Paladin and Ranger to the Sunless Citadel. A place where Dragon worshippers reside.

We headed that way and entered the Sunless Citadel, killed some rats.

We encountered a tribe of Kobolds who had kept a baby dragon. Theirleader was a powerful mage whose name I can't remember. Nonetheless, the goblins had taken the dragon for some Druid they had.

We explored the Citadel, which was underground btw, and found the dragon who attacked me. Since I speak two dragon languages we were able to communicate with the white dragon child. We tricked him into fighting his captors, or Kobolds and we planned on attacked the dragon during the fight.

In the fight we killed the Kobolds, including the sorceress. We tricked the dragon into giving us a key to a door we had found and the wizardess' magic book for Cynwyd.

After this we left and went to a mysterious dragon door we found, had some trouble with crystal orbs which caused us to be fearful and ran away and made it past a few traps until we made it to the end, fought a small troll and an annoying magic creature thing with wings and gathered a whole lot of treasure. We decided to give up.

We left the sunless citadel and went to Madame Hukiel who paid us more to go back down and search for her children.

So we went back down, with some reinforcements, and attacked a Goblin lair we decided to avoid earlier. We killed the Goblin leader, and stole a wizardess' magic book (what's with the female mages?) and headed into a cavern beneath the throne room.

In this cavern we killed some bugbears and goblins and made our way to the Druid's underworld garden and the Gulthias Tree. The Gulthias Tree is a tree which grew out of a stake which had been plunged into the heart of a vampire. The Sapling had gained evil powers from the vampire and the Druid was using the tree for some kind of Hive Mind attempt which had already ensnared the two children.

Long story short, I was the one who went one on one with the evil druid because I figured the Gulthias Tree had something to do with the Hive Mind. The Druid had shrouded the area in mist, and I made my way to the Gulthias Tree to cut it down. The Druid was there and we had a fight. He decided to heat all the metala of my body. Which was a dumb move for such an intelligent man.

My sword and knives began to glow red hot. Vines were attacking me and grabbing me and the crazy Druid was screaming "You are not worthy! You will be turned into fertilizer!"

I said, "I've met crazy people like you. And when I see you it reminds me of the One I have sworn to kill." I took my sword and plunged it into the Gulthias tree, which caught fire.

"NOOOOO!" The Druid screamed. And I picked up my knife, my hand burning, and threw it at the mad Druid. It plunged into his flesh and he was burned alive.

The fighting was done, and that pyromaniac Thoros helped the fire of the tree to burn bigger and brighter.

I said, "That was the sword I left home with." I thought the sword was melted and ruined, but it was fine and I packed it back in my staff, and no one was the wiser as to the staff's true nature.

Madame Hukiel paid us a handsome amount of money and I left the place more charismatic than before (because of a spell which I activated by saying a word in the language of dragons).