Oops, I killed her in vein. I cut out her heart, got lost in the game. Oh baby baby.

Go somewhere, kill somebody. Why can't it be "Go somewhere, sleep with somebody."? Or better yet, "Go somewhere, do something for fame and glory, then sleep with many somebodies."

Either way, we went to kill somebody. In an elven city no less. We somehow managed to not piss of the entire city and get thrown into jail (first time!) and the house we tracked the assassin to had a nice little hole in the ground with dead bodies around it. Ya think? Yep. That way.

Nothing terribly exciting inside the underground complex; we didn't get a chance to explore because we ran into a chapel with a dude chanting something magic like. It was dark inside. Then there was a scream, the chanting stopped, and I ran in to kill things.

The assassin popped out of the darkness to kill our escort, and then started attacking us, so I chopped her into tiny little pieces -- when I could see her, since she was all covered in shadows and flitting around out of site.

After I killed her (go me!) it turns out she was a good guy; a very pissed wizard came in and was like blah blah blah blah. Whatever, they dealt with it. But it turned out that the woman who told us to go kill things was evil. So we went to go kill her. And we brought with us for some reason the traitor who was suckerd into helping her out because she was a hottie. Which I can totally understand, okay?

She had a trap for the wizard, so his lazy ass stayed in some spell. I killed some giant-type baddie, then traded blows wih an enormous pile of fire, like a gigantic one, with arms and shit that hurt. Some kind of an elemental I suppose, but bigger than I've ever seen. After all the battle we had seen that day, I finally had to play cat and mouse and string it along the length of the cavern until the others finished her off, so it wouldn't kill their weak tiny bodies.

Except they couldn't finish her off. So I came back, and they cast fly on me, and I flew up and killed her ass really lots. Oh, then I got killed as she died (again, she somehow came back the first time. I should learn that trick).

Which sucked. At least I no longer have herpes, what with being dead.

Sneaking into cities for fun, and no profit.

Oh my god. It was all like "sneak in here, sneak in there". No glory, no killing, no smacky-whacky.

See, we were asked to help sneak a team of people into the city where the nothrog king was, so they could do bad stuff to the nothrog king. Excellent start, lots of potential for smacking stuff with my axe.

In order to do that, we had to bug an associate of ours in that city where we got arrested for a bar brawl (no, not that city...not that one either...not that one... yeah THAT one!). So we had to sneak back in (easy, oby disguised us with some mumbo jumbo). Then we talked to the guy, and he said yes, so we went back to the other city.

And then oby got a headache so we all went to bed! Must be all those undead crawling on his spire. I know it gives me no end of grief!

I redeaded the undead. And met future me!

I made a sled in the winter. It was fun. I like the snow.

And then spring came, and with it the undead. They crawled all over oby's spire (and I thought crabs were bad) and we had to come kick some butt. There were mobs of them in the hallways and we couldn't stop them from advancing towards the students. So we had to fight a retreat while rescuing the wiz dweebs. It was fun! I couldn't miss -- I felt like a human lawnmower, wham wham wham and limbs flew. Total whack-a-mole orgy dead fest.

Unfortunately we had to stop, and it seems like oby's old school got decomissioned permanently in the process. We took the four-eyes and their pocket protector familiars to the tower that blinked between nighttime tentacle island and normal world. I guess they're going to setup a new school for nerds. I hear they're going to try to invent something called a slide rule. whatever.

Eventually the summer chugged along and some guy wanted to pay us to kill things. Actually he said capture, it was a general who's lieutenant went a little whacko and started killing things. We (well somebody) tracked him to a village where he was piling up bodies like they were undead mobs in a tower of wizards to be.

I got in a bunch of smacks, and our casters didn't seem to be doing much (later they said he was "protected" somehow but I wasn't really paying attention, they use big words and stuff). Eventually he jumped up on a roof and borrow and I followed him... err, borrow a little easier as he walked up the wall. I kinda slipped.

I think it was malakar who ringed us in a whirling circle of blades, it looks like a trick I've seen before. Once he started paying attention to me, he delivered a world of hurt. I recognize all the moves, I can totally see myself doing them someday -- other than the go-crazy-kill-innocent people moves that is. I only do those when I think they probably aren't really quite very innocent mostly.

At some point, he killed me. Or should have, later I found out a spell from malaker saved me... but it didn't save malakar, who had to be resurrected by a spell from oby! malakar came back less bear-like, in fact a lot more nothrog like. half nothrog, in fact!

there's nothing more satisfying than exploding poo

I guess when it comes to dirty surprises, I get a +10 competence bonus due to practice, practice, practice. Did I ever tell you about the time I bluffed that wench into thinking I gave her mummy rot? Best 10 silver I ever paid a gnomish illusionist. You should have seen the look on her face! And that's absolutely nothing compared to the enlarge appendage maneuver I learned in warblade college -- now *there* is a swift action boost (and a yelp) if I ever saw one!!!

Still, this one may have been my most classic. We were going to attack witchthorn to lift that pesky geas, and that got me thinking. Nothing says surprise round like exploding runes in a box of dwarven poo!

Unfortunately, ahem, I got tagged a bit with the... projectiles... because something compelled me into this cool looking circle of mushrooms. I just didn't want to leave it, until I was forced to re-think things later in combat.

Still, it started off with a bang :) And this strange plant thing in the ground tried to pin me between it and this attacking tree-thing. Good thing I have an axe! I used the mass of the plant thing against itself and whacked everything I could see. It was close though, this nasty mass of vapor was drifting down and I only narrowly got out of it's way. I don't want to know what might of happened if it caught me.

My companions were doing a number on the surrounding baddies, but witchthorn himself managed to stay out of the way for the most part. It was only at the very end when we managed to focus on him and he had to blink away from us. He played it smart, and offered us a deal: leave him be, and the oath is nullified.

Sweet! So we did. I hope he'll never realize that during those few rounds when oby was trying to magically locate him, I .... fertilized one of his beloved trees. BWAHAHAHAHAHA. Nothing says "grow, plant" like a little used ocelot pot pie.

angry pussy

You kill a god, you expect a little vacation. But ooooh no, can't have that.

I was illin' and chillin' at the mess hall -- thinking about taking a prestige class level in Illin' Chiller, when a ruckus ensued. And this had nothing to do with what I owed that pimp, so it came as a real surprise!

A guard burst into the mess hall babbling about some giant heavenly demon thing dude who was arguing with Malaker. I ran out of the hall, hoping to get a chance to strike Malakar with my axe again, but it turned out this dude was the bad guy. Okay, bad-er guy.

I ran up to smack him with borrow, who had just come up from the dwarven hall (somehow arriving at the same time despite him being further away and having really tiny tiny legs). We were held back by a mysterious invisible wall of force (I can think of some good applications for that one!), but Oby blinked into existance and got rid of it with that magic stuff.

We just got off a smack or two before he cast some obnoxious spell and I was paralyzed. Just when I had a good chance to maybe use iron heart surge, oby turned the giant demon-angel thing into a very, very angry pussy... cat.

We locked the pussy away in a cage (deja vu!) and brought it into the chapel to figure out the next steps. At which point a magical-type elvish dude who wasn't undead popped into the chapel and started babbling about the book, and some test, and that he was 1,000,000 years old and he wore depends or something.

I wasn't listening, I was making coochie-coochie-coo noises and trying to pet the angry kitty.

I only axed him once: death or cake?

I killed a god. I killed a god. I killed a god. I killed a god.

Did I mention I killed a god?

I killed a god.

Did YOU kill a god? No, no, no you didn't. I did. hahahahaha, sucks to be Not-Durthen. Here's how:

So we flew to the moon (which was as fun as it sounds) and then landed and Oby started casting something to help us track down the evil god-thing. Soon after he finished, a pair of dragons appeard in the sky and started attacking us. I let those ranged-types do most of the damage, waiting for a chance to whack one with my axe.

The rest of the party dropped the scaly birds, and then evil malakar appeared -- total deja vu. And like last time, we tried to kill him! And unlike last time, he morphed in to a humongous tenticled mass. Still sexier than the normal Malakar...

At this point, the rest of the battle was filled with explosions and craziness. I had a ton of buff spells on me, and was able to walk right up to the aspect's feet-tentacles and hew away. He kept smacking me back into a cliff and I kept running back for more.

I really hurt him with a viscious pair of axe swipes; but I dealt the killing blow soon after. What a mighty feat by Durthen!

Small side effect; he blew up and killed Livia and drastically injured the rest of our party. Oh well....

I KILLED A GOD. HAHAHAHAHA.

Malakar stayed the same (evil) but now we got to hit him! yay!

Step one in killing a deity is apparently standing around in a circle chanting some crap. I wasn't really paying attention, I was thinking about this Oleanth thing. I can understand why, if you're going to be stuck in a tower for thousands of years, that you do it as 4 seperate versions of yourself. You've got a hand for bridge right there, so the years won't be too boring.

But why not 1 male Oleanth and 3 hottie female Oleanths? Bridge can be fun, but there are other ways to pass thousands of years. Plus, now he has to darn his own socks instead of having herself do it for himself. Gee, for a wizardy type, that Oleanth is pretty stupid sometimes.

Apparently while I was thinking about this, a giant dragon swooped in and stole one of the too many male Oleanths, and Malakar went chasing after them faster than I've ever seen him run -- it's like the dragon stole a continual flame torch or something.

So we hustled after them with a cleric on loan from one of the other (male!) Oleanths. Got to a clearing where his tracks disappeared, and we stopped to collect our thoughts. My thoughts involved a dragon swooping down, flying into the sky, and dropping me on my head. YES! What a dumb dragon -- my head is the safest thing for me to land on. Thank god it wasn't one of my weapon hands, or my running feet, or my entertainment crotch.

A short healing spell from the cleric later, and I ducked off into the woods to wait for the dragon to come close. The other guys did stuff, and the dragon got close, and I wacked it, and eventually something killed it (not me, unfortunately).

After the dragon bought it, Malakar stepped out of the woods so I ran after him to smash him in the face with my axe.

Malakar was kind of a pain, he managed to deal me a fair amount of damage. Also wiped out the cleric that came to help us. Still, in the long run he managed to not get out of the way of my axe -- a fatal mistake.

Later my friends told me Malakar was possesed by evil, which meant I did the right thing by trying to kill him. Hey, I just trust my instincts -- they're based on a high 8 wisdom after all. I bet I subconsciously noticed the glowing blue axe with my -1 spot. yep. I must have noticed it, which is why it made sense to smash his face in. Damn but I am good.

After fighting that dragon though, I have this great idea for a new maneuver where I use my opponent's bulky size against them. And I'll be practicing close quarters fighting next time something tries to swoop in on me like that, I bet I can get a blow off first! That's what she said!

Paying our Temple Dues...with Interest!

To be honest, I expected the spider chick's dad would be, well, a daddy long-legs. And maybe he is -- the head scholar we met claims he adopted her. So her true daddy long-legs might be sitting on the side of a house somewhere, pining away for his lost daughter. Maybe when we pull both halves of her corpse out of the bag of holding, we'll track him down and let him know.

I know that seems unusually caring of me given that I cut his daughter in half with my axe, but I just want our cleric to speak with dead and ask "Who's your daddy?". Can you blame me?

So, our next lead was the "Basc" trading company. It was right next to the Allen Qaeda Sand Emporium. The funny thing is, I think we could learn a lesson from their subtlety. Ahem, anyways.

We send in Livia to setup a meet with the trading company owner/manager, and she manages to do it without getting killed -- the owner lady pops into our (new) inn and Livia convinces her she wants to get involved in some illicit trading. Owner lady says to meet her at the trading company after nightfall, so we hang out in a nearby alley and keep track of Livia magically while she does the deal. Oby goes in as her manservant -- he finally took down his daily disguise so nobody would recognize him as the old feeble man he really is.

Finally, things start returning to normal. Livia and Oby get held up and manacled and Livia babbles about a coin and gets the trader lady all kinds of interested. Fortunately for us (not them) Livia leads them down the alley we just setup for an ambush. The fight was billed as "Monkeys In A Barrell" on HBO if you're interested in watching it again. Only the warlock got away!

We did manage to trap two soldiers, who let us know about a secret underground temple after peeing their pants. I guess they didn't want to ask for a hall pass for the bathroom.

Clearly, it would be a brilliant idea to sneak into the temple while they were on full alert. Don't ever say we are not brilliant!

Downstairs was the warlock, whom we quickly dispatched. Things got more interesting when we found the main altar. I ran in past a bunch of guards to attack the head priest, while some orb floated past and turned into a tentacled mass which blocked the doorway -- and no, it wasn't Sorcha. It was a bigger tentacled mass, and Oby wasn't making googly eyes at it.

The head priest started out rather wussy. I even managed to drop the guards that surrounded me with a sweet whirl of my axe! You perform it by drawing a circle with the stylus on the touch pad, centered around Link. It can be a little hard -- try drawing bigger circles if you have difficulty.

Things were definately going my way, at least until the priest turned into yet another tentacled mass -- smaller -- and tried to eat my head. I tried to tell him oby's brain would be a nicer snack, but he wasn't listening. Finally my prayers were answered, as I was teleported away from his grip and left Erson in his clutches instead.

And here we are, in the middle of a fight while I take the time to write Dear Diary. It's amazing what you can do with a free action when you own a magical Blog Of Posting.

Oby shrank his wood! Crate, that is.

There's only one thing more exciting than slaying a giant evil spider bitch -- namely, slaying a giant evil spider bitch and then going back into your bedroom to play a few rounds of pinochle.

What? What did you think I was going to say?

You know, I hope the others don't find out how much I love card games -- but that lady I met really plays a mean hand of pinochle. I bet she's got at least 5 ranks in profession gambler! Too bad I'll have to play it up like we was fooling around all physical-like so they'll never know. She's hot and all, but just not....dwarfy...enough. You know? Growing up in a dwarf hold lets you appreciate a woman with a REAL constitution score....

But, alas, no pinochle for me. Woe came out and met the peeps, and Oby noticed his pendant was back on the radar (I wish I knew what radar was) so we decided to chase it down while the going was good.

We made our way over there and Oby muttered for 10 minutes and some dude popped out of a roof near by and we started teleporting around and then it was like 25 hours of chasing a greased rabbit (now THERE'S a game for the bedroom) where the most fun part was smashing through an iron wall (who did that, anyways? us or him?). Smashing is a high art, thank you very much.

The rabbit's name was Flinn, and he had a sister named Laura and a cousin named Boyle -- but that's neither here nore there. He did claim the pendant was planted on him, and we just believed him because we're too lazy. But he had a connection with some smuggler's ship, so we decided to follow that lead.

At this point, we tried to get all clever and disguised Livia as Flinn and she ran in and dropped off Flinn's papers and tried to find out what was up. All we got was a look at their cargo, which looked legit. So we sent the sneaky midget in to do his job -- 'cept this time he couldn't give us any lip because he had no lip. We should keep him as a pink cloud. It really was pink -- don't tell him, it's too funny.

Our fluffy cloud found a crate that looked different, and we decided to float Oby inside, invisible, to shrink it down and teleport or fly back. That almost worked, except he triggered some signal on his way in and pissed everybody off.

We did get away, though, and made it back to the inn. Where, oddly enough, the giant Moo Cow bad guy came and found us. How? Maybe he'd marked his crate.

Anyways, at this point there was no beating around the bush. He obviously knew we had his shit, and we wanted to know what the shit was and how it was connected to us. The dude seem pretty straightforward -- $10 says he's lawful evil -- and I got tired of trying to be inventive. Fact of the matter is, we found out it was connected to a shipping company and that it's contents weren't going to level a city or anything (just a bunch of potions) so for the moment we let him go.

S'not like we can't tell the city guard on him before he leaves port. I wonder why we aren't, I bet we can drop an anonymous tip using some of our fancy magicz... and just when they're inspecting the ship, oby can dismiss his shrink spell *grin*

I didn't touch obegard's package.

It's really hard to find good help these days -- but damn, the chef we snagged for our keep knows how to make a fine whores-devours. I love those little snacks, especially those little salty fish tacos she makes. mmmm good!

Oh yeah, the chef was cooking her tacos because we had a visitor: Sorcha. Obegard thinks she's going to be hot under that hood, I think she'll be all tentacly -- which has it's uses mind you, but I suppose we're straying from the point.

The point is, Sorcha wanted us to run around and save the free kingdoms again. Frankly, if she wanted us to save the free kingdoms she'd have let us keep that chest of loot we stole from her originally. So we had to hoof it over to someplace 1,000 miles away. And by hoof I mean walk! Our benevolent wizard thought we should walk there. Worst wizard ever, can't he just wave his hands and make us poof there?

At least we got to do this thing he calls shadow walking. The world got all shadowy -- kinda like that just-before-dawn at the bar moment after your 18th pitcher of local village ass-beer. All swimmy and dark and thinks swoop past you real fast, except when your done you've moved a long distance and you're not waking up next to somebody who you *KNOW* isn't able to cough up the cure disease spell from the local cleric. Again. Sigh.

So we get into this city where they're all lawful and crap and super anal about punching people in the face or blasting them with spells. I do a fantastic job of not punching people in the face, until we're at this bar talking to this guy who finally had some info...and these drunk kung-foo types get all up in our face and whack me on the head with the mug. I even managed to keep my cool until he flipped me over his head and slammed me into the wall. So, I punched him.

I gotta say -- and don't you be tellin nobody -- those was some tough bastards. But we whacked 'em, except my not-so-bright colleagues started spellcasting in front of everybody and had to hoof it out when the town guard came.

Of course, I got arrested. They got away. To be honest, a quiet night in jail was rather refreshing. No need to listen to that bear of a cleric snoring like he was a hibernating or something. The judge had nothing on me and the fines were trivial and covered by our little insurance fund.

The next day had only one thing of note -- some chick got all up on oby's package. That is to say, she touched it. In public. I mean, once she gave it to him it was his package soo..... oh yeah, and we later found out she lifted his little school necklace. Cute broad.

I should have spent that night in jail again. Of course we wake up and there's some spider chick climbing on the ceiling and once she grew 8 hairy legs I stopped thinking Spiderman's Hottie and started thinking Janean Garofalo. So I cut her in half with my axe. It was sweet. Suck on that, liberal media!

And now it's the middle of the night, and I'm sleepy again. Back to bed, and the cute sorceress that's waiting there...

Keep on performing!

My professional interaction with the keep has been primarily through dungeon crawling. We've worked only one project this quarter, the elf necromancer assasination (project ear-stab!), but we covered all three floors very closely for many rounds.

During these rounds I've fought a vampire hottie in the keep's lobby, ransacked the keep's library, destroyed a coffin in the keep's secret room, blundered through the keep's traps, fough an ethereal lab assistant, and alomst got killed by a giant bone lizard-dragon. Finally, we killed a poop golem in the bottom floor of the keep and freed a bunch of pansy human prisoners. We're about to leave the keep's bottom floor.

I've found the keep to be fairly frustrating, as it should be, and filled with a variety of traps and bad guys. I would say the keep's strengths are it's suprisingly large set of underground floors, it's creative trap rooms, and interesting enemies. And watching people pull levers and get hit by chain lightening was pretty funny.

I think the keep's biggest weakness is a lack of good treasure. Also, frankly, who keeps bugbears around these days. I think the keep needs to work on it's prisoner selection.

Finally, I recognize the keep is going up for promotion to castle. I am sorry to say this, but honestly I don't think it's ready. I think the keep should build itself a second floor and add crenelations. It should also add a moat. Until it's had the moat and crenelations for at least a quarter and proven that it can be a castle I don't think we should promote it quite yet.

He'd make nice shoes.

There's something to be said for adamantium -- but back to that in a moment.

I got tired of guarding the dwarves and rejoined the other half of the party. We were off to "negotiate" with Rime, though I doubted he'd listen to reason. Heh.

... I mean, what kind of a lizard names her spawn "Rime"? What was she thinking? Maybe the egg was lime-colored and had a speech impediment? I don't know. Frankly it's the most retarded name I've heard yet. I bet he has a brother named Isuckalot, or maybe a sister named Myboobsareflat. I swear if I met Rime's mother I'd punch her right in the snout. No wonder he turned to an evil god. You're just asking for a fucked up kid with a name like that.

Anyways, "Rime" decided to make us jump through hoops -- he left some water breathing potions and a note and had us swim downriver to meet him. He was a little vague about where, I had a feeling the potions would run out just as we got sucked into a whirlpool but Obegard swore up and down they was nothing funky about them.

Off we went into the underground river. A bit chilly, but the ladies like it when I bathe so I try my best to do it every few weeks. I should be good to go until the next full moon or so -- those are real easy to note because Malakar starts howling when it's full. Freakin' shifters.

We finally spotted something non-river like -- an old bridge. I climbed up the side and lowered a rope for the less althletically inclined. Frankly I should have just tossed the midget up there, but he'd probably get all bitter and stab me with his little paring knife, or "shortsword" as he calls it. And then it might get infected and itch... so I just went ahead and climbed.

On one side of the bridge was something that screamed "no plot here" so we hung a left and went towards a large room with two small ante-chambers; one that was a mess hall and one that was an abandoned shrine to Kor. I popped off a quick prayer, since I'm tight with that deity and all.

In the large ominous room was a throne at the far end and a giant pile of treasure. Spotting the treasure, I immediately wanted to RUN THE HELL away. I mean that can't be good. In all my years of running around smashing bad guys for loot, you know they don't just leave that stuff in piles. There'd be some kind of zombie dragon unicorn pony with laser eyes and an aura of transmute-gold-to-electrum standing invisible right above your head, waiting to shit 2 gallons of acid down your neck before you could touch a copper.

I was right.

Oh look, an ginormous dragon. He was all prepared to whack us -- that poorly named Rime fellah had laid a trap, pissing off the dragon so he'd kill us. But they didn't plan on my smooth talking ways.

See, the dragon was all like "wassup, I'm gonna kill you" and I was like "wassup, wanna trade some of that gold for some mythril shirts?" and of course he did. So we traded less usable loot for fungible cash. I love dragon greed.

Of course, it wasn't going to be that easy. Rime came in with a posse and a nasty looking wizard lizard (see, at least that Rimes...) and started with the attacking and all that.

I finally got a chance to use my shiny new dwarven waraxe, so I called out the impressive wizard and tried to smack him down mano y mano. And tried. And tried. And tried. Damn thing barely made a dent -- even after some impressive leaps of mine chasing his ass around.

Now, they don't call me "Smart Durthen" for nothing. Well, they don't...but they should. See, I had held onto that admantium dagger we found earlier, and finally switched to that. It cut through his skin like an admantium weapon through stoneskin. I mean hot knife through butter.

So, while the other guys and the dragon were doing stuff, I killed the lizard wizard. The one who's name actually rimes. I didn't really pay attention to what the rest of the people did. I think the dragon breathed on people or something.

And now the fight's over, and Obegard is skinning and preserving that lizard wizard. Kor bless his very disturbing habit, 'cause daddy needs a new pair of shoes.

Leap-frog, leap-ouch.

Now that was a battle!

Well, except for the really dark part at the end where I was all alone, and everything hurt, and the dwarf kids were making fun of my cave blindness again. I didn't like that part, but that furry cleric woke me up with that wand (1) and it got better. The only downside is there weren't any more meat bags for me to practice smacking with my hammer (2) at that point :(

It started out with this really boring hike up to some giant-sized Giants hurling boulders down at the army. I went along with this motely band of (as rumor has it) heroes because I alone in my squadron was cool enough to have a potion of invisibility on hand. (3) So we hustled up that hill to smack 'em around a bit.

I knew we were off to fight some giants, so I was practicing this move I call the "Suck my Cookie Jar, Bitch" (4) I got to use that a few times, and those ugly, tall, cookie-eating bastards sure did learn to fear my hammer. And my ups!

After that we had to hustle over to this fortified fall-back position where a part of the invading army was supposed to be heading towards. We had a few minutes while I got there and I thought about some of my other moves I could use during the next battle. Just as I finished mentally reviewing them, along came a band of nothrog all up in our face and shit.

So there I was in the front line, standing right behind this 4 foot barrier (5). I was all "whack whack" and "smack smack". Next to me was that furry cleric, magically enlarged and slamming his greatsword around like nobody's business. I have to say, I gained a few bits of respect for that honey-eating hulk of a worshipper as he really put the fear of god into the nothrog. (6)

Speaking of that band of heroes, they seemed to hold up pretty good.

Besides that cleric, there was this tiny little skulking fella who'd occaisionally pop into battle to stab people in the back. Not exactly my cup of tea but it seemed to do the trick. And there was this frail-looking magicky type who wasn't much on the fireballs (unlike every other magic type I've seen) but he sure did boost my reflexes with a spell of his and I caught a nasty looking pair of flaming arrows dropping another magicky-type nothrog. And there was this chick who was all into cat-fighting for her god (7) with the slapping and the smacking of her bare hands. I think her god liked her, because she slapped pretty hard.

After gutting some nothrog and a few overgrown puppies and their owners (8) -- including one stupid enough to try to jump over us (unlike that barrier, we can't be so easily ignored) -- we finally met some real foes. It was the giants again, except surrounded in full metal armor like a smelly twinkie (9).

The furry cleric had taken a pretty good beating and had backed off from the barrier in order (I am guessing) to try to heal himself. Why he bothered backing up I'm not sure, the stupid peons just kept going after him. I was doing pretty good myself, avoiding blows from the plate-armored giants and whacking and smacking like it was my birthday (10).

And then I think I fell asleep. I just remember catching this really big gleaming axe head coming for my head, out of the corner of my eye. I got my shield up in time to keep my head but I think the edge of my shield connected right with my temple. At least, that's the last thing I remember and my helmet has this shield-edge shaped dent in it.

So here I am. I think we're far away from the city, and there's this magicky looking fellow who the band I was with seems to know.

-Durthy

(1) I like that wand! Except it's kinda slow. But I sure had plenty of time to watch my wounds stitch themselves up as we jogged from battle to battle. Hehe, I totally stuck a "good for a flagon later" silver piece in this really nasty hole in my arm as it was healing. I'm definately going to remember to dig it out that next night out on the town when I run out of coin... again.

(2) And shield! Nothrog blood does rather dull the shiny spikes, but if you hit them really hard with the hammer after perforating them with the shield spikes, you get this really cool effect where their blood jets out of the holes. I'm thinking of re-arranging the spikes to form a "D" for Durthen! Then I could get them to spray my name on walls as I whack my way to fame!

(3) She's really cute, okay?

(4) You see, the dwarven children were all shorter than me, so as much as they could make fun of me for other things it was always I who could reach the cookie jar. ha! This was a source of great amusent for me.... at least until I encountered my first incredibly large abyssal, one that dwarfed (hahaha) even me. After seeing that, and consulting with wise Rhigl, I started practicing this attack where I leap up in the air and bonk really large monsters smack in the head. Kinda like they had a cookie jar way up there out of reach. Suck it!

(5) Worst. Barrier. Ever. I think at one point a giant in plate armor actually used it to wipe his ass during battle. That's probably why all the nothrog jumped over it, to avoid giant poop stains. Note to self -- next time there's a barrier, ignore it and stand up against a building where you can't be flanked.

(6) And by god I mean a giant bear with a giant sword.

(7) I would love to see her fight a gelatinous cube of coconut oil. The kind that dissolves armor but leaves skin alone....

(8) Never pet a Warg -- with anything other than a reach weapon of course :)

(9) There was this strange old dwarf back where I grew up named Hoth-Tess Twinkie. He had this yellowed complexion and a love of marshmellows. We used to joke that if you squeezed him really hard he'd squirt a white filling out each end. He was still around when I left for the lands above -- rumor has it he'll never expire.

(10) On my coming of age birthday in the halls below, my adopted dwarven mother gave me an abyssal piniata with DR 5/good. I remember having soo much fun hitting it.. it was a shame when the priest of Moradin blessed the stick I was hitting it with so I could finally get to the candy inside.

Durthen Morgrin: LFG

My faith in Rhigl Farbellows has long since proven itself. The story is as follows.

Growing up a lone human child in dwarven halls taught me many lessons. First amongst them:

You have to be in the spotlight for the right reasons!

But back to that in a moment. The dwarves have taught me honor and devotion, yet I see they suffer constantly under the viscious onslaught of the Abyssals. It is not their honor nor devotion alone which preserves their way of life from the evils of those creatures. It is their strength at arms. The might of the war hammer and the glory of battle.

I go out there to fight against injustice. To stop the horrors I've seen. I'll be honest, those Abyssals are not so great. And look what's happening above ground these days! Those short-lived funny little elves all prancing about with their death mumbo jumbo and mutter-shmutter. At least the knights of Deverenia have true strength at arms.. but the glory's all been had in that land. And they're not terribly nice either. And the Nothrogs, well, I've seen their way of life too and man do they have some rock solid abs! But they just don't know how to stop with the killing and cruelty.

Really, the dwarves were right to ally with these human tribes. They need all the help they can get -- and they don't mistreat their kids, abandoning them and leaving them all alone to ... grumble grumble ... my point here is that this is a nation worth saving. A challenge just asking for someone to come along and lend a sword. Or a hammer. Or a hammer and shield. A shield with spikes -- these really shiny spikes that were worth every ounce of gold. The light just gleams off the spikes and highlights my biceps, which by the way are absolutely screaming -- this breastplate (of the finest, shiniest dwarven mythril) -- leaves just the right amount of bare arm for the ladies to admire and the foes to, well, shiver in fear over and all that.

Anywas, my point is that it's clear this rag-tag nation needs a little help. And here I am. It doesn't hurt that I've gained a wee bit of notoriety along the way. And it doesn't hurt that I am no longer viewed as that frail human that the damn dwarves could not bring their honorable selves to admit they disdained with his weak vision and his... okay, on topic now Durthy. Stay on topic. These abovelands are where I will make my mark.

Ah now, the topic is Righl Farbellows. Now that is an honorable dwarf. The finest wrestler in all of Larisnar, or I'll have you face me right now in any form of combat you choose (except that pansy mumbo jumbo blasty froo-froo from a distance crap!). That man taught be about discipline! Err, that dwarf I mean. That was a dwarf worthy of being a man! Yes! You heard me.

It's too bad I didn't shape up as a wrestler. But I learned a few things from Righl, I did.

1) Practice. Practice with your warhammer. Practice with your shield. Sit ups. Push ups. Push downs. I do 65 sets of Push Sideways every morning before my Wheaties(TM) -- my favorite dwarven breakfast travel ration, courtesy of Mikhal of Jhordan Hall. Great Dwarf. But recognize that my devotion to my skills at arms have lead me to unparalled feats of trained might! There isn't a moment you won't catch me working out. Ahem, I have a pocket set of hand weights, in case you're wondering what that bulge is and where my hands are...

2) Strength, Speed, and Power. My body is a finely tuned instrument which is tuned finely as an instrument. It is my body that swings my hammer, my body that aims the blow. It's my body that fights for me and it is my body I develop. In the body I trust. I also happen to oil it most mornings when I'm out there practicing -- rust is never, ever good!

3) Accolades are okay. There is no need to be humble! When you have spent years of your life training for one thing, it is only reasonable that you accept the fruits of your labor. Kord would have it no other way, Bless him and all that jazz.

So these are the lessons I learned from Rhigl Farbellows, in the earthen bowels deep beneath your feet. And this is why I prowl the overlands, defending this human empire in it's glorious conflict with the evil nations of whatever. And this is why I have come to the city of Merrick.

I will be known.*

-Durthen Morgrin

*(and I kinda wanna save the children. but don't you dare tell anybody.)

Description: If you can't tell, Durthen is covered in shiny (but pretty light) armor, is draped with weaponry and bulging muscles, and stands out in a crowd. If you find a crowd he doesn't stand out in, you'll find Durthen in the nearest store shopping for neon green silk. He occaisionally evinces dwarven mannerisms but won't readily admit it.

Mechanics: Smashy smashy. Bashy bashy. He leaps, he ducks, he grunts, he kills. He also can be had for only 6 easy installments of 19 platinum (shipping and handling for only 6 blue diamonds of at least 5,000gp each, or 2 bars of ferengi latinum)!