Fafnir's Journal Entry 30 - The Hunt

We still have not managed to find the beast that has been plagueing Smallville. Now it has taken one of our own — Aramil. At least his familiar, Jacob, was not taken, and we were able to determine from him that Aramil is now somewhere below Smallville, but is at least still alive.

Ghelt’s answer to finding the creature was to start digging (with only a shovel!!) in the middle of her front yard. The rest of us didn’t think this was a great idea, as excavating a passage can take a very long time. Also, we already know of at least one tunnel complex beneath Smallville, and it seemed to make more sense to check there first. Once Aramil was taken, Ghelt agreed to accompany us to the Everston estate to check them out. More than once, though, I heard her grumbling about how deep the hole she was digging would have been by now if she weren’t stomping about wasting time on a “fool’s errand” in tunnels that were obviously (to her) not where we should be looking.

Well, we have spent a day checking them out, and it appears that Ghelt was right about these tunnels being a dead end. So now we are headed back to Smallville, where Ghelt insists she will be digging straight down from her front yard. I spoke to Drusilia a bit, and she asked why we hadn’t taken her suggestion of checking to see if anyone in town had an unusually deep basement, or maybe had noticed a strange cave-in in their basement that might be a good starting place.... I am a little embarrassed to say that I hadn’t heard her suggest that before. If we were starting beneath the ground, at least we might lure the creature in more easily... after all, we know it doesn’t like the light.

In any case, it seems (by the behaviour of Jacob), that at least Aramil is still alive. All we can really do is continue to try to find him, even if our attempts to this point have been futile.

~=Fafnir Flamebrewer=~

Moonday, 17 Flocktime

We traveled back to the carnival to see if we could find some items for trade. Boy did we! I found a new, and nicer Mithrial Shirt, and a magic vest that should offer extra protection to someone exposed to disease, weather and other sundry things that can make one’s life not so pleasant.

Ghelt immediatly went back to work to find the creature, beginning to dig in her father’s garden. Fafnir and Drusilia convinced her that we shuld try to use other tunnels that ran under the town. They suggested returning to the Everston Estate, and using tunnels they had found in an adventure there.

I agreed, as that sounded like a faster method then digging a hole big enough for us to travel through.
As we were arguring, we heard yet another scream, this time from towards Fafnir’s house. When we arrived, we found that the floorboards had been torn up, and Aramil was missing. Jacob, Aramil’s toad familiar, was not missing however, and Drusilia spoke to him. She learned that Aramil was still alive, and that he had been taken below the town.

We hurried to the Everston Estate and under it as quickly as possible. We passed through a temple of Nerull, and I could hear a whispering, loud, as if someone were standing next to me.

Feed me. Feed me and I can give you endless power...

Drusilia must have seen me concentrating to ignore it, because she asked if I was alright. I told her I was, though I am unsure if she believed me or not.

After we left the temple the whisper faded once again, and it became easier to ignore it.

We came to a great underground lake. and Fafnir cast Spider Climb in Ghelt so she could walk across the ceiling and retrieve a raft that they believed was on the other side. She brought a raft back, fortunately, and we headed across.

We traveled through the caverns to a great rift, which Pockets headed down into. He called up that something was coming after him, and I lept into the pit, casting Feather Fall on my way down. when I landed I was face to face with a great black glob, for lack of a better term, I attacked it with my sword, but it only seemed to be split into many globs by my attacks. It reached out and touched me, and my clothing an armor disolved off my body. Drusilia manage to kill it with one of her spells, and Pockets lent me a cloak, so I had some clothing. We climbed up out of the cavern, and headed back the way we had come, certain that this way not the way we intended to go.

We returned across the lake, making a small detour into the ceiling; we were looking for other passages that led up, the direction that Jacob seemed to be indicating. The passage we found was a feed in to the cavern that had been blocked off.

It appears now that we will be following Ghelt’s idea for finding Aramil. Oh, well. Guess nothing is ever easy with us...