I spent time and money paying old and unlearned sages to tell me that they knew nothing about the strange writings on the ring I picked up from the goblin king a couple weeks earlier. They were, however, able to tell me that it was made of some rare dwarven silver and most likely created a few hundred years prior. You can imagine my excitement at receiving such profound information. The punks I hired, names Fajer, human kid, Umgrell another human kid, and Gert a half-elf punk like myself, informed me that the Black Deaths were pissed about the warehouse incident and the fire bombing incident. In fact a retaliatory strike was to be launched at the Orse residence, but was currently on hold due to the large guard detail that had been placed there, to counter such an attack.

Towards the end of the week, the Orse serving wench told me that an Uncle, or some other pseudo relative, of Lifestyles Lubricated had dropped by with a "treasure map", and convinced the, easily impressionable, fellow members of my party that they should seek out and return the treasure, for a small portion of the loot. They left a day later, heading for OldRed. I bought a horse, yes you can imagine my surprise, when Y'Ranwelun, horse thief of little renown, actually purchased a horse, and followed after them.

I tried to stay about a day or so behind them, but eventually I got too close, as one night, while setting up camp, I heard a scurrying sound approaching my camp. I immediately jumped on my horse and split. I later returned and found some wolverine droppings littering my camp. Now who could that be I wondered? The next morning, I found the remains of some dead boar, near an area that had apparently been the encampment of my erstwhile travelling companions. Later in the journey, I found the corpses of some Bugbear, who'd apparently met their demise at the hands of my party as well. I knew it had to be them, for not only were the bugbears' pouches empty, but their toenails had been cleaned as well.

Soon after, I reached the shore, and spotted a distant lighthouse. It was old and abandoned, but I figured this must have been the motley crew's destination. It was near evening, so I held back and waited to see where they could be. During the evening, I smelled smoke, and soon spotted their fire. They were cooking giant crab legs over an open fire. If it weren't for the fresh boar that I had picked up along the way, I would surely have joined them for the shelfish feast. As it was, I decided to conceal my location until such a time, as I could make a grand entrance.

The next day, I staked out the beach, the group had apparently entered a cavern that was accessible only during low tide. After a few hours, they came limping out dragging a large beast behind them. They quickly built a bonfire and tossed the creature on. Only a troll would deserve such treatment. And from the looks of the party, they'd been hard pressed to defeat it. I knew it was time to join in on the fun, as I didn't want anyone to die without me, so I clambered down the dunes and walked up to the party.

The din of the party's exultation upon seeing my arrival was embarrassing. Amidst the "Thank the gods, Y'Ranwelun is here!" I was able to calm them down enough to find out that the troll had almost killed a few of them, and that Refanij and Reiltis had dove headlong into the water to attack the swimming troll, while the cowardly Bran had climbed out of the water, to wait for the underwater events to unfold. Refanij was now staring daggers at Bran, much the way Orion and Barda had done the week before.

Having lost their will to fight any more this day, we all gathered around the campfires and sang Kumbaya into the wee hours. The next day, when the tide was low we entered the cavern again. The cave ended at a metal door, that was embedded into a rock wall. It was devoid of any handles hinges and the like. Careful inspection revealed nothing about how it was to be opened. Luckily, Orion had been wise enough to memorize the reduce spell, and shrunk it down enough, so that it fell from the door frame. Inside was revealed another small cavernous room.

This room had a ledge 20' above, with a 5 foot high opening. As the ponderous folk threw grappling hooks, I scaled up the wall and onto the ledge. Another room opened up that again ended with a featureless door. Bran and Refanij were able to haul up the pathetic tRojan, and we soon set about shrinking the second door. I stayed near the ledge with bow drawn, Refanij and Bran were in front of me, Troj-enz was beside me. The rest of the party stayed in the room below. The door dropped, and out wafted a hideous smell, apparently coming from the three gruesome undead creatures sitting at a table inside. I released an arrow, which missed horribly, then yelled "Retreat!" as I dropped over the side of the cliff to the ground below. Kimono Ultra-thin was right behind me, and Refanij soon after. Bran, unfortunately, took this opportunity to faint.

He fell near the ledge, and we could see his hand hanging over the side from below. A couple of the party were shooting arrows and daggers up at the undead creatures, while I climbed back up the wall, in hopes of dragging Bran to safety. Unfortunately my companions' aim was true, and they dropped one of the ghastly ghouls atop my head just as I started to climb. I collected my battered body, and again attempted to climb up the wall. This time I made it, and got into a tug of war with an undead fiend and Bran. Luckily an arrow from the mute wood elf dropped the creature before I could toss Bran's body over the ledge. I quickly checked to see if he was alive, which he was, and barely resisted the temptation to swipe his pouch, while he lay unconscious.

A few of the others came back up on the ledge, to help the fainting crusader, and collect daggers. I went into the opened room to inspect its contents. Inside were a table and chairs hewn from the rock, a large padlocked chest, and a gold ship's nameplate. I inspected the chest for traps, as did Refanij, and then proceeded to stick myself with a poisoned needle while opening the lock. Figuring I was a goner, I opened the chest anyway, in hopes of finding something useful inside. There were plenty of flasks, scroll tubes, gems, coins and jewelry. I spotted a rather attractive ring, and decided to teleport it, with my wand, to my horse's saddle bags, before turning to the rest of the party, and informing them that I had opened the lock, but was dying of poison.

Bran the Good Crusader, who I had just recently risked my life trying to save, offered to cast slow poison on me, only if I agreed to perform some service for him and his god. What ever happened to appreciation? I began to argue with him, until I felt faint, and dizzy, I could barely slur out, OK I agree, while crossing my fingers behind my back, and then he reluctantly cast his spell. I have to say that it helped considerably, I felt the affects of the poison disappear almost immediately. That’s when he told me that in three hours, when the spell wore off, I'd still probably die. Yes I was overjoyed. Orion offered to heal the wounds I'd received when the ghoul fell on my head and help counteract the damage the poison had done to me. Surprisingly enough, there was no fee of service attached to his offer, and I hadn't even saved his life in the recent past.

We all got to work and hauled out the loot. We inspected the items in the chest, and Delos unfortunately uncorked a potion that immediately exploded into flames, igniting him on fire. I wasn't sure if this was part of being a fire mage or not, so I watched the show with interest. Bran's concern over the potential loss his semen depository, proved to me that this was not supposed to happen. After putting Dullass out, we healed him up, without incident or promises of future service. We then continued to check out the treasure. I inspected one particular scroll that contained some mighty powerful spells, including meteor swarm. After 3 hours passed, I found myself alive and hale, apparently the poison wasn't so bad after all. We set camp for the night, and I took the opportunity to inspect the ring. It was a beautiful piece of jewelry, but completely devoid of magic. After an evening of recounting the past day's events, I was furious at Bran for bargaining with my life for a service to him. I could understand such behavior from humans, but not after I'd been injured risking my life to save his. Revenge would be mine.

The next day, we packed up the items, including the gold ship name plate, which was so large, we had to drag it on a litter behind my horse, and headed back to Rel Mord. The others were honor bound to return all the treasure to Resevoir Tip's uncle, so that he could collect his majority of the share. We dedided that since I was not part of the original deal, I would hold the mighty potent scroll, and enter Rel Mord apart from the rest of the group. Bran argued against this tactic, calling it dishonorable, you can imagine how false sounding his call for "honor" sounded, in light of recent events. His argument was summarily ignored by all. We agreed that the scroll would be "my payment" since, I was separate from the original deal. Of course it was understood that the scroll was the property of the party in general and that I'd keep hold of it for now. For it seems, that although some of the others didn't trust me with it, they didn't trust anyone else with it either.