Ghelt Killed The Mule. Poor “The Mule.” He never knew what hit him. One minute he’s standing there, surrounded by friends, the next minute, he’s floating to his death. Poor Mule.

It all started after we freed the slaves. Someone had the not so bright idea to ask the Kobold slaves for help. Despite my insistance that kobolds should not be trusted, the rest of the party seemed to think it was a good idea, so I went along with it... for a while.

When we arrived at the kobolds’ cave, they proceeded to show us the “shortcut” they had told us would take us to the Heart of Nerull. The “shortcut” turned out to be riding in a sealed barrel down an underground river! As I was starting to state that there was no way in the Nine Hells that I was going to ride in a barrel down the river, the two dimwits (Trap and Korin) jumped into barrels, were thrown into the river, and floated away!

This was enough for me! I was ready to take The Mule, and head back out of the caves — either to take the overland route, or to go back to Smallville. The normally sane Ghelt decided at this point that I would NOT be leaving, but instead me and The Mule would be going down the river! Before I knew what she was doing, she had tied two barrels to the poor beast and heaved him into the water! With a pathetic moan, the poor beast was swept away. Then she turned to me with a crazed look in her eyes... She was a little too quick for me, and quickly stuffed me into a barrel! Certain that this would lead to my death, I did the only thing I could — I let a lightning bolt fly, destroying the barrel and wounding some bystanders.

This gave me the element of surprise, and I began running towards the exit. Ghelt rounded up a bunch of the kobolds and began giving chase. I turned invisible, and I thought for a minute I would get away, but there were too many kobolds, and eventually they were able to find me. As a last ditch effort to keep myself from what I believed to be a watery grave, I tried another Lightning Bolt, but to no avail. Ghelt was able to get a hold of me and soon had me tied up.

Before long, they had thrown me in a barrel and I was tossed into the river. There were many bumps and scrapes during the journey, the most painful of which was a very large WATERFALL that the barrel went over! I was quite sore when someone (it turned out to be Korin) began steering my barrel towards shore. The halfing had decided to pop the lid on his barrel after going over the waterfall — and it’s a good thing! Had he waited any longer, all of our barrels would have fallen over another waterfall, to our certain death!

As it is, we are all safe on the shore of a small lake, between the two waterfalls. All of us except “The Mule” that is. Thanks to Ghelt’s insistance that we travel underwater instead of overland, he is dead.

I am glad the party is OK, but I am still angered at Ghelt’s actions. There is no reason that I should not have been allowed to make my own decision about how to travel! I am after all, a fully grown Gnome, not a child!

Once we were out of the barrels, I considered just packing up and heading back to Smallville. If this is how things are going to be, I am not sure I still want to be part of this group! The only thing stopping me is the feeling that something must be done to prevent the Heart of Nerull from falling into evil hands. I would not feel right abandoning my quest at this point.

So, I will travel onward with the group. But I will be keeping an eye on Ghelt. I no longer feel I can really trust her with the party’s safety.

~=Fafnir Flamebrewer=~
Flocktime 3, 592 CY