It was interesting for a human to grow up with elves. Ebin’s parents adventured with Aramil and Felosial Starsliver for several years until Ebin was born. Neither one of the foster parents talked about what happened and as Ebin grew he stopped asking. Ebin learned much from his elven parents, but like most humans, soon grew restless for adventures of his own. Joining the local militia was good for a while. It allowed him to learn how to defend himself and friends. He learned all he could until again he grew restless and yearned to see the world. Then he worked on a few caravans as a guard. It was a means of seeing new places, and meeting new people. However he would only sign up for one-way trips. He’d help get the caravan safely there, then collect his wages and join another caravan going someplace else. After a while this too got boring, so Ebin decided that a little freelance adventuring was a good idea. Being a sword for hire was nothing if not entertaining. At least until the last group he was with tried to kill him because he refused to be a part of a murder. The last Ebin saw of them was when he ducked out the back door of an inn almost 3 weeks southwest of where he is now.

Ebin had been in Yartar for about 3 days when the remains of a caravan showed up with a strange story of trolls, a druid and a dwarf with a bag of snakes. Ebin immediately gathered his things and was going to go out to investigate when someone in the inn mentioned it would be safer to go in a group. Counting Ebin there were 4 going, but not till morning. Although Ebin was anxious to go he decided that help would be best and, as patiently as he could, Ebin waited for morning. It took almost half a day to find the wreckage of the caravan, and the trail left behind was extremely obvious. After 2 days of following the trail it was obvious that there was more going on here than just caravan raiders.

Character sheet: Ebin Starsliver [Human Fighter]

Well, the 3 militia members and I walked for a couple of days heading due north, when I came across this guy sitting on a log. No armor, no obvious weapons, and a rat sitting on his shoulder. Well, it doesn’t take a genius to know a spellcaster when you see one. He introduced me to his friends and we began to talk. Noticing the holy symbols to good deities on a male elf and a female cleric, I began to relax until this female elf started calling me a “Zhent.” Whatever that is, and she kept insisting on looking through my things. At some point during the discussion, I noticed that my 3 friends and the spellcaster had left. That’s about the same time the male elf, Areon I think his name is, yelled something and was off. Following I saw the sorcerer and my 3 friends on the roof of this building. We all ran over only to find out that there wasn’t an emergency yet. After trying a couple of ideas we were levitated and pulled across this river to the roof of another building. I was never so scared in all my life. I got my composure just in time for the sorcerer, Tyan I think it is, to hit the roof of this building with several spells making a lot of noise. That’s when the cavalry came from the first building and started running across the bridge towards us. I shot a few arrows at them, then grabbed my shield and sword and started attacking the creatures that climbed up the wall to get us. One minute everything was great then I miscalculated and was hit by several opponents at once. When I came to they were fighting a hill giant and doing fine, so I downed a few of my potions and I’m ready for more.

Well, we are alive for the moment, but with the size of that sarcophagus I’m guessing it’ll be a miracle if we see the end of the week.

After getting off the roof of the building we devised a plan to attack the hydra. It sort of worked and after several tactical retreats we were able to slay the beast, but that was the least of our worries. We tried several ideas to get sunlight into the large stone coffin we found, but nothing worked. As the sun began to set we made the first unanimous decision I’ve ever seen any group make. We ran and hid for the night.

We heard a very angry howl during the night, but the vampire was unable to find us. I hope to deal with it during the day tomorrow. It’s either that or we run some more. I hate the undead.

We tossed around a couple ideas to expose the vampire to sunlight, until it started to rain. Areon said it looked like it was going to rain for a couple of days so it was decided we crack open the coffin and kill it the old fashioned way, with brute force. After hammering on the lid for a while we got a small hole in the top. Tyan dropped a spell as I backed up a bit. The lid exploded up and out and the large vampire leaped from it. Due to the immense cloud coverage, the sunlight never touched it as it rose from its sleep. Two thoughts ran through my head at this moment. The first was I needed to protect them from this beast so they can complete this mission. The second I spoke out loud, “this is going to hurt.” I muttered as I charged forward to attack the vampire. I got nailed twice and was barely standing so I decided get back, take some healing and attack again. The creature hit me again....

All was peaceful for a while. I was resting in an open field. I’m not sure how long I was there, only that after a time I heard a voice telling me I wasn’t done yet and that I needed to go back. I said “okay.” Looking up I see the face of some guy chanting over me. I soon notice that I’m in a tavern and my current companions tell me that we were victorious against the vampire and they decided to have me raised. Grateful to be back, even though I’m confused of my “dreams” while I was out, I figured I should travel with them a while longer. Well, we’ll see where this leads me.

We found someone in town to teleport us directly to the barbarian tribe that the statue belongs to. It was kind of tense for a while being as we dropped right in the middle of camp. Fortunately for us Areon knows them well and they accepted us and the statue gratefully. There was a feast and a place to spend the night. In the morning we went to visit Areon’s parents. Nice people. After a quick breakfast Tyan asked if they could teleport us somewhere, and without batting an eye they asked where we wanted to go. After some discussion we were teleported to a town a few miles from the desert. I forget the name, but it’s obvious it’s an evil place. It’s full of the Zhents that Theona keeps talking about, and she was twitching like mad. It obviously took all her will to not kill everything on sight. We got some supplies for our desert trek and later in the day we left town to go find the ruins of some place or other and get some powerful artifacts before some Red Wizards do. This sounds like it will be entertaining if nothing else. I just hope Theona relaxes before she has a heart attack.

Every traveler has heard this story. Adventurers come across an old man in need of some assistance. So our adventurers help him out and receive some small trinket in return for the favor. Later on the small trinket turns out to be a major magic item. Most of us tend to dismiss it as a drunken story, or a means to encourage others to help fellow travelers, either way no one really believes it to be true. Until recently I thought the same way. We had left town and hadn’t gone far when we came across this old man attempting to get his mule to pull his cart out of the mud. We stopped to help and bought some small items off of him and bid him a good day being as he was traveling in the other direction. Later that night Theona had discovered that the twine she bought off the old man had turned into troll gut rope, and her fishing hooks had become magic arrows. On inspection Deitrica told me that the flasks of holy water I purchased had become a major healing potion. I couldn’t believe my eyes; I swore to myself that I would pay more heed to similar stories because I know no one will believe me unless they had experienced the same thing.

We traveled a couple of day with no trouble till one night. I was startled out of a deep sleep to sounds of fighting, and found us under attack. Goblins on wolf back. It was fun for a while, but just as we were staring to clear thing out this strange goblin-wolf like creature leaped out of nowhere. It seemed to be here one second and gone the next. I attempted to fight it, but was unable, then suddenly I got the sensation that this creature was our friend and we shouldn’t be fighting it. I tried to tell me companions it was all a big misunderstanding, but they then attacked me as well as it. Theona hurt me the most by damaging my strength, so I went after her, tripped, and was unable to get up. Something very heavy was on my back. Then everything thing seamed to be in a daze for a while. When the haze in my mind cleared I was tied to the wagon wheel.

In the morning my head hurt, but I clearly understood I was under a spell. My companions didn’t hold it against me, although they did harass me a little.

Today we see the end of the mountains and far in the distance the desert. This is getting more exciting every day.

Well, now we are in the desert and traveling at night to avoid the effects of the intense heat. The past few days have been kind of slow. The only real excitement was when we were attacked by this thing called a bullet. We defeated it and skinned it. We’re going to sell it to an armor smith. We also came up against some ghouls, but Deitricha dusted them real quick. I hope we get to our destination soon, that’s when the real fun will begin.