Tarn’tera 27

Shopping day. Keven needs better armor. Not sure what’s available, but we’ll go looking.

----

The obvious first place to go was the armorer’s shop, just underneath his room. As expected, they had a good selection of all the usual armor other people wear. Given Keven’s limited funds, Duromar expected him to end up in something he personally would never accept.

But the unexpected happened. Dediur had a set of elven chain mail for sale, human-sized that is. He was not the original forger, of course, not being elven; but he had purchased a damaged set and repaired it.

Duromar scoffed. “I’m still skeptical. A non-elven blacksmith repairing elven chain mail? It’s probably not worth any more than ordinary chain mail. I’ll give you 300 for it.” Making sure Keven couldn’t see, he gave Dediur an obvious wink, to get him to play along during the haggling.

Dediur fell into his chair dramatically, as if wounded. “How ludicrous! Why I’m twice the smith of any elf. I have no doubt my repairs have improved it beyond the original! I couldn’t possibly sell it for less than 900.”

He scowled in response and made a show of looking it over. “Maybe it’s a little better. I could go 400.”

“Ah, but see how perfectly my repairs blend in? I couldn’t let it go for less than 825.”

“I don’t know. Did you take the time to use elven steel? I could see 500 if you did.”

“To have used anything less would be an abomination! Armor must be repaired as good as it was new, or why repair it? That’s why it must be 750.”

Duromar held it up against Keven, pretending to measure the fit. He ignored the pale look on the kid’s face as the haggling went over his spending limit. “Alright, I might have been hasty. 600.”

Dediur sighed. “It’s cutting my own throat, but perhaps… 675.”

“It’s still repaired armor. 650.”

“Agreed. 650.”

Duromar handed him a mix of coins worth 660 in gold pieces. “I needed to pay next month’s rent as well. It’s almost due.”

He handed the armor to Keven. [-1 honor] “Try it on, make sure it fits. I know, it’s chain mail, so it’s likely. But make sure.” As expected, it fit.

They headed to Crazy Zedar’s next, with Keven’s expression growing more worried with every step. “Wait. I can’t... I don’t…”

Duromar stopped and held up a hand. “There’s no way I could let you pass that up. It’s the absolute best armor you can get. I’ll cover half of the cost. It’s worth it to know the man protecting my back has the armor to protect his own. Besides, I was just messing with you. Dediur repairs my elven chain mail, so I knew it was quality work.”

Keven murmured a quiet thank you.

“Now, Zedar’s. Let’s see what worthless junk he’s got this time.”

----

Have I mentioned Zedar’s before? I should check… Ah, I have. Good. Heard an interesting story about him. It seems he was in the Tilted Keg one night, and someone challenged Gurge to drive a spike through a board with someone’s head. Zedar was sitting closest.

Poor guy. As an amusing footnote, there is a chunk of board with a spike driven through it, nailed to the wall there. So I guess Gurge succeeded.

----

Duromar shrugged at Keven, who was holding up a set of Killer Whale Barding made of chainmail. “Some things defy explanation. He’s Crazy Zedar.”

They both admired the shiny set of Full Plate sized for a gnome. Not as good as elven chain mail of course, but very pretty to look at. As far as Duromar knew, there wasn’t a single gnome in the keep, nor one in the halfling camp outside. And there probably hadn’t been one in quite some time, judging from the dust settled in the joints.

They didn’t find anything useful but enjoyed the visit anyway.

----

Adnar’kerz 2

A few days later, it was clear that Keven’s wounds were healing well, but it would be three more days before he was ready to go back out. With winter months having started, Duromar was grateful for the extra heat his room got, being right over a forge.

They’d spent a fair part of the day with the smith, Arkky. Unable to convince Keven to start using the ideal choice of sword to go with his ideal armor, Duromar had reluctantly given up on getting him to switch, at least for a while. However, based on his own experiences with standard quality swords, they broke all too often.

Therefore, it was wise to get a replacement now. But it wasn’t straightforward. Keven’s sword was some kind of exotic weapon the smith had never seen before. It was single-edged and slightly curved. Arkky said it most closely resembled a falchion, but he’d never made one of those before, so was less than confident about making a duplicate of Keven’s blade.

It was a family heirloom, and he’d had to do most of the work teaching himself how to use it since the militia camp Keven had been assigned to didn’t bother to teach the recruits anything. At least, according to Keven.

The net result was that Arkky would try to forge one, partially for the challenge, but it would take a few days to get to it.

That night, Duromar was relaxing in the Tilted Keg when the watch change bell rang out, signaling the gates closing for the night. As usual, not long after, the crowd got a little bigger with now off-duty guards coming in. Right behind them was a very expected but welcome sight.

“S-s-so here you are! I th-thought you’d b-be in a b-b-b--tavern.”

“Torendrock!” He jumped up and grabbed a chair from another table for the dwarf, ignoring the squawk of protest from the former occupant on the floor. Duromar leaned over to peer behind him. “Did the others come too?”

“Aich! No. Halamin won’t be c-coming.” He sat down, then leaned closer and whispered, “Thieves guild problem, I suspect. And Marigold was buried nose deep in those b-books you gave her.”

“Huh. Hope he hasn’t gotten himself in deep. Well, it’s good to see you. Ready to hunt some gnolls?”

“Ha! Very.”

“I’ve got a sidekick of sorts, kid named Keven. He’s healing right now, can’t afford the temple’s rates, so it’s the natural way for him. Couple weeks.”

“J-Just us, then. N-gnolls you say?”

“Yup. They had trolls guarding the place, but I burned them up. Should be interesting.”

----

Adnar’kerz 4

Yup, that date is correct. I tried to suggest I could carry him, but Torendrock shut that down hard. Camped out last night after walking all day. I write this here since I know he can’t read it, but man does he walk slow! It’s partially the short legs, and partially the heavy armor, and it’s completely his stupid pride.

Well, I knew it going in. We’ll have to be meticulous about clearing out the caves since we’ll be staying here unless we get seriously injured. That means rechecking the goblin and bugbear caves, making sure we have no stragglers. But not today. Today we’ll check out the gnoll caves.

----

The troll room seemed undisturbed, for the most part. The copper coins were still scattered about, suggesting the gnolls didn’t want to bother picking them up either. What was different, however, was the opening on the side wall. There was a passage there that had been hidden before but now was wide open. It looked to be packed full of filth and debris. Best guess was the trolls had lived in there once, and moved out to the outer room when the lair became too full.

They checked the hallway to the barracks. Coming around the corner to the barracks door, they suddenly found a guard standing watch. He was alert but too slow. Duromar cut him down [-40] before he could even call out an alarm. [+68 E.P.]

With the door to the barracks still closed, and any occupants seemingly unaware, they quickly checked the hyena room to leave nothing at their backs. It was empty, thankfully.

They stacked up in front of the door and burst in, surprising the gnolls. This time, they weren’t all sleeping, and the room had been rearranged. Duromar was able to make it halfway across the room to the first startled gnoll and [-26] took that one [-29] out, but that was as much as he could do before the gnolls were up and defending. Torendrock placed himself as a block just past the doorway. Duromar took another down [-34] and struck at a fourth [-27], who stayed up. Two gnolls engaged with him, uselessly, and the third attacked the dwarf but was deflected by his shield. The return swing of his battle axe was a clean miss. The gnolls rallied as three more joined the fight. Unable to cover all sides, one came at Duromar’s back [-5 dam]. One at his front fumbled and dropped his weapon, though. Ignoring that one, he took down [-27] the other two [-25] and turned his back on the unarmed opponent. He could see the dwarf facing two and doing well, with one clearly hurt. A good hit [-26] wasn’t quite good enough for both, but the second [-28] cleared his reach. A moment later Torendrock dropped one as well with an especially impressive hit. There were only a few left, so he left one with Torendrock and charged the one who had just woken up. It took both blows [-26] but nothing [-25] more. And right behind that was the final one, which went down swinging [-26] but down [-22] it went. Duromar surveyed the room. There was one still trying to take out the dwarf, but his injuries were serious, and nothing had made it past Torendrock’s shield technique. His axe technique could perhaps use some work as he swung wildly, hitting the wall instead of the gnoll. But it finally ended. [+340 E.P., +1 honor]

“Ha!” The dwarf looked around. Two gnolls at his feet, eight strewn around the room by his ally. “Showoff.”

They collected loot, not bothering with the weapons or armor. Torendrock’s eyes seemed to glitter with greed as he learned just how wealthy the gnolls were.

“You know, I heard a rumor once. Dwarves don’t actually love gold.”

“Ah…”

“They just say that to get it in bed.”

Duromar ignored the utterly bemused expression on his friend’s face. “I think I’d like to see what’s downstairs now.”

Down the stairs, they took the left fork of the hallway. The first door was actually a double door and led into a rather large torch-lit room, set up with benches that resembled a place of worship. The floor was covered with red and black tiles in a checkerboard pattern and it was only two steps onto that floor that Duromar froze in place.

“Problem. I think I just stepped on a trap.” Both unmoving, they looked around for something to happen. But nothing did.

“S-step back?”

He did so, and they looked at the tile he’d stepped on. It was clearly sunk lower than the others. They waited, but nothing continued to happen. Experimentally, he stepped on another one. It sank as well, and this time he noticed all the tiles around it raised up slightly.

“That’s not good. It must be some kind of puzzle room.”

Every tile acted the same, though. Step on it, and it sank down while the ones around it came up just a bit. Carefully, but stubbornly, they crept across the room, leaving lines of tiles at varying heights. Baffled, but with nothing having attacked yet, they continued on.

It was a bedchamber. Likely for the head priest. The bed had nothing valuable under it or hidden in it. The cabinet wasn’t even locked and had gold, a set of chainmail, a few potions, and a scroll that was probably magic.

They left the bedchamber and retraced the path back across the puzzle floor carefully. Nothing continued to happen, and they were able to leave the worship chamber.

The next room was a well-lit barracks. It was spotlessly clean, every bunk made to unwrinkled perfection. Every bunk had a footlocker as well, each locked. None of the beds were occupied, as all the residents were gathered in a circle around two who were sparring with strange segmented weapons. They didn’t seem to be gnolls, exactly, perhaps a cousin to them, but smaller.

One of the ones sparring barked out a single command and all eight rushed at the pair of adventurers. Duromar hit the commanding one [-15] twice [-21], but he didn’t go down. Torendrock hit the other one. They in turn tried to use the segmented weapons to disarm them, coming very close to pulling Torendrock’s axe out of his hands, but luckily they failed. Duromar took his down [-19], but then [Fumble!] clumsily smacked into Torendrock, knocking himself off balance. He flailed for a few moments, still hitting the other pseudo-gnoll [-15] and killing it. Bereft of an opponent, the dwarf edged forward to find a new one, critically chopping right through one and killing him, continuing on to hit a second. Stepping to find his own, Duromar hit [-19] again. But [Fumble!] he was still off-balance, and it showed a moment later when his opponents hit [-7 dam] him while [-4 dam] he was unsteady. He whittled the numbers down [-17] by one [-15] and then half were down. There was snarling in some bestial language, and it was obvious they wished to retreat. But retreat would have to go through the enemy, so they fought on. It was just butchery now [-20], cutting down the few [-17] left. And then it ended in a shocking blow [Crit! Severity 18, Face (lower center), -64, +1 honor] that carried through three of them at once, ending it. [+819 E.P., +2 honor]

They searched the room. The keys to the padlocks on the footlockers were on the creatures, which took some time to match up each key with the correct lock. But despite that, the lockers held nothing valuable. Nor did they have anything on them.

Given how much the gnolls had, and this barracks had a disciplined military look, there had to be treasure somewhere. The storage cabinet had essentials, but nothing valuable. After tossing the room twice, they finally gave up, stumped.

They moved onto the next room. It could perhaps, if one was generous, be called an armory. There was a massive pile of weapons in it, several hundreds of weapons, but most were broken. Seeing not even a single greatsword, Duromar dismissed it as worthless and went to move on.

The final room at the end of this hallway had a stench that extended ten feet past the closed door. More used to foul smells, Torendrock pushed through and quickly took a peek in. He closed the door quickly and retreated.

“S-storage. Nasty.” was all he said, then kept going as if the smell would follow anyone too slow to leave. They walked past the bottom of the stairs and kept going the other way.

The next room was a bit smaller, really more of an antechamber. There was only a single guard in it, but chained to the wall was a gnome in very poor shape. The guard had remarkable reflexes, sweeping up his morning star in an attack, but was cut down [-30] in short [-23] order. [+68 E.P.]

Torendrock pulled out a small vial of healing potion and fed the gnome a single sip while Duromar checked the body. The guard must have been somewhat important, as he was wearing what looked like a bright gold ring in addition to some coin and a strange manacle-like anklet. He also had a key to the chains and in short order, the gnome was released.

Rubbing his wrists, he smiled in appreciation. “My thanks, both of you. Coming here by myself was a rather poor choice, it seems. I am Krik, lately of Frandor’s Keep.”

“Torendrock. And he’s Duromar.”

“How long have you been here? Before the trolls were killed or after?”

The gnome thought for a moment. “Must be after. I didn’t see any on the way in but I did find a concealed door that led to a troll lair. Foul place. Found a gender-bender in there, but that was the only valuable other than copper coins, and who picks those up on the way in?”

“Wait, a what?”

“Gender bender. He should have had it on him, only decent treasure I found.” Torendrock was nodding as if he knew what the gnome was talking about.

Duromar looked between the two, then pulled out the anklet. “This thing?”

“Yea. Fun for a prank. Change ye from male to female or vice-versa. Breaking the curse needs another one or a wish to undo it.”

“Valuable?”

The gnome looked distinctly uncomfortable at this question. “At least 2000 to the right buyer.”

Duromar held the anklet in his hand and looked at his friend. The dwarf just shrugged, understanding the silent question. Duromar nodded, and then tossed it to the gnome. [-1 honor] “If you dug in that nastiness to find it, you should be the one to sell it. Right. Enough wasting time. You can head out if you like or follow us. In either case, time to find out the answer to the classic question, what’s behind the next door?”

While the question was meant to be rhetorical, he got an answer anyway. Krik said, “Torture room.”

Sure enough, it was. The walls of the room were lined with cages, mostly empty but a few held the corpses of small humanoids. Gnomes or halflings most likely.

They did a walkthrough to make sure no cage held a living occupant when it hit him. The first claw wasn’t too bad [-2 dam], the second claw slid off his armor, but the bite hurt [-13 dam] a fair bit. It was a large cat of some sort, maybe a jaguar or leopard, but it couldn’t be a cheetah. He swung before it could attack again [-29] and it went down [-30] easily. [+441 E.P.]

“Aw, hell. I love big cats.” He took a closer look. “Leopard, I think. Jaguars have a bigger jaw. Can’t be a cheetah, they never attack prey taller than six feet.” He sighed. “Sorry, kitty.”

Krik looked nervously at the tops of the other cages. “Say, I don’t mean to be a burden, but do you have a short sword I can borrow?”

Torendrock grinned and nodded, digging through his back to pull one out. “Here ya go. S-sorry, haven’t got armor in your size.”

There was another connecting room, but it was just a small kitchen with rotting meat in a corner. They moved on quickly. Right out of the kitchen led to a mess hall. The mess had a dozen gnolls in it sitting around a few tables with the remains of a meal on it. However, the cackle of gnolls were collectively moaning and clutching at bellies. Whatever they had just eaten didn’t seem to be sitting well.

Despite the obvious illness, the violent creatures grabbed weapons and staggered to the attack faster than expected. Not a single blow hit well, though, and they were visibly weak swings. Smirking to himself about how easy this would be, Duromar immediately fumbled his first blow and dropped his weapon at the feet of his opponent. He did manage to hit with the second [-28] but the gnoll stayed up. Down to a single weapon, he hit again [-23] and somehow cut down two at once. He reached for the blade but had to duck back from a blow before he had it in hand. That gnoll went down [-30] a moment later. He gave up on getting it back and simply used two hands on the next attack. It paid off very well, cutting down one [-49] and very nearly a second. Perhaps it was the confusion, but the gnoll next to that one fumbled an attack and hit the injured one again. Ignoring those two for a moment in hopes they would turn on each other, he attacked a different one [-31] and took it down. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Torendrock taking one down as well, but with another good blow [-33] he added to his count. And [-26] another. With the number whittled down, one that was crowding Torendrock switched targets unexpectedly and landed [-3 dam] a blow. His response was [-24] enough, barely. Tired of the back and forth, he cut down the last two [-43] at the same time. [+646 E.P., +1 honor]

Finally, he picked up his sword and inspected it. The handle wrapping was a bit loose, but it was an easy fix. They collected coins, finding a small key in one pouch. Nothing else was worth taking, especially the food.

From the mess hall, they found themselves back in the main hallway, where Krik decided he’d had enough.

“I’m thinking you two didn’t leave anything kicking on the way in, given how that went. So, if it’s all the same to you, I’ll get going now.”

Duromar just nodded and gestured at the next door. “Fine by me. I’ve got doors to kick in.”

“Aye. K-keep the blade. Stay safe.”

He then did as he’d said, and kicked in the door. It was a smaller barracks, and cleaner than most other rooms, almost to the quality of the elite’s room. He ignored that and charged right across the room into prepared bow fire. Nothing got through, but he [-23] got one of [-23] them. While they grabbed axes, he took down [-28] two more [-31].

Torendrock, huffing hard, finally caught up. “Are ye g-going to leave me any?”

He didn’t reply, hitting [-24] twice [-27] and dropping another. With two left, both injured, he took one final attack [-29] and dropped both. [+374 E.P., +1 honor]

“No,” he said [+1 honor], then grinned.

While he searched the bodies, strangely finding nothing, Torendrock went over to a small pen in the corner of the room that held some small animals. He grunted and cut them down, then started searching the room.

“Ok. I’m coming up empty. There’s no way they had nothing. The others have had too much.”

It took an hour of searching, but they finally discovered the stash hidden in the animal pen. It was almost entirely silver, unfortunately, but it was so much silver that it explained why no other previous gnoll had silver. This bunch had cornered the market, so to speak.

In the process, Duromar got a better look at the animals and realized they were gnoll cubs, not animals. Disturbed, he wondered if Torendrock had known.

The next barracks was mostly deserted. There were no gnolls at all, but there was one goblin, tied to the foot of a bed, beaten unconscious.

They tossed the room, not expecting to find much. Duromar cut the goblin loose, who roused slightly as he was freed. He looked fearful and started babbling something in a language Duromar didn’t know.

“Sorry, I only speak common.” He turned to the dwarf.

“D-Dwarven and common.”

The goblin tried some other language but subsided when Duromar just shook his head. He offered a hand to help the goblin up, and pointed him out the door, specifically gesturing down the hallway to the exit. The message seemed clear because a moment later he took off on a limping run.

There were only two doors left at the end of the hallway now. Picking one, Duromar kicked it in again. Inside was the largest gnoll he’d ever seen, who snatched up two weapons as the door slammed back. A greatsword in one hand, and a longsword in the other. “Dibs!” he yelled as he charged.

He swung a bit low, but the blow was perfect [Crit! Severity 15, Shin, -44, +1 honor], knocking the gnoll to the ground and causing him to drop both weapons. Despite the impressive damage, the gnoll chieftain, for this was what he probably was, wasn’t down and was in fact rolling back to his feet, favoring one significantly. He struck again [-26] as the weapons came back up but the tough gnoll was still standing, if just barely. He blocked, parried, and flattened him [-28] permanently. [+630 E.P., +2 honor]

“Yer a pisser to adventure w-w-with.”

“I called dibs! He had two swords, how could I not want to face him one-on-one?”

He snatched up the sword. “And this is the spoils of victory!” He swung it a few times, then a few more with a curious expression. “It’s even magic. Definitely keeping this one.”

The room was, to be kind, an utterly foul pigsty of a disgusting mess. But, there was also treasure everywhere. It took half an hour to pick all of it, sorting through the mess, but it was worth it. Strangely, there was also the dried and desiccated corpse of a kobold hanging from the ceiling. Without a word, the dwarf cut it down and hacked it apart, not stopping until there was a gleam from a gem hidden inside.

“What?! Why?? How?!”

Torendrock chuckled. “Had a hunch. Hiding gems in stuffed animals is an old trick, so I thought maybe…”

In addition to the sword, the chieftain’s armor appeared to be magical, so Torendrock insisted on removing it to sell.

Finally done, they moved onto the last door. It was yet another barracks, but only about half full. The occupants were laughing at some discussion they were having but were quick to grab spears with the intrusion. Duromar charged, hitting [-26] and killing one, but in his haste, he stepped on something unfortunate and slipped, falling to the ground with a hard impact. Spears flew, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, with only one [-7 dam] getting through. Another volley flew as he tried to get up. Torendrock moved past him, hitting the probable leader to cover him. He lashed out once [-24], but was too off-balance to get a second in. Coming back to his feet, he took down one [-32] and then a second [-24]. With half down already, it seemed especially foolish when one of the gnolls fumbled an attack and hit another one. Gnolls seemed especially prone to that, for some odd reason. It was short work to finish things with [-23] two more [-29] down. Torendrock then took down the last one. [+340 E.P., +1 honor]

MInes of Chaos: 5 of 11 regions cleared

Ogre (1/1) Goblins (196/196) Owlbear (1/1) Bugbears (35/39) Trolls (2/2) & Gnolls (60/90)

[+5 honor]

Collecting treasure was the work of a few minutes. They spent another hour double checking all the rooms, but they hadn’t missed any.

“I was wondering. Why did all of them fight to the death? And not once did a second group show up to help out in a fight. Some of these were fairly loud fights.”

“N-gnolls. N-nasty loud b-bastards who hate each other as much as w-we hate them. Almost n-never run from a fight. D-don’t expect that from other monsters.”

“Sure. Oh, speaking of other monsters, you have got to see the bugbear caves right next to here. It’s funny as hell what they did. Also, I wanted to make sure they were cleaned out, so don’t assume they’re empty. Should be, but…”

They went back out, and over by one cave. Duromar just silently gestured at the signs, letting him read them.

MINES OF CHAOS MERCENARY GUILD

Interested in hiring the guild for a foray into another cave or the wilderness?

Please ring the bell!

Interested in joining: Be a member of the few and the proud. Meet exotic humanoids and kill them or force them to serve you. All races, creeds and classes welcome for a tryout. Favorable pay. Ring the bell, then enter and find the recruiting station. Those accepted will receive an immediate bed assignment and hot meal.

“Isn’t that fantastic?”

“D-do we ring the bell then?”

He shrugged in response, then went ahead and rang the bell. “I’m not sure if any are in there, so let’s not wait.” Suiting words to actions, he went in, keeping mostly to the right as before. Soon enough, they came into the torchlit area. The desk was still there, but the nameplate was missing.

WELCOME TO THE MINES OF CHAOS MERCENARY GUILD

Congratulations, in discovering this installation, you have passed the first tryout. Ring bell for sergeant. Please sign in while you wait.

In the room just past the desk were four bugbears, arguing in some language, and occasionally gesturing at the tunnel they had just walked out of. There was a sudden urgency in one voice and a directly pointing finger. One of the four said something final and walked over to the desk to sit down. The other three fell silent.

“Ah. Um. Welcome. Um. New recruits.” He paused, and sat down, then turned to the others, saying something Duromar didn’t understand, and getting a single word response. “Ledger! Please sign ledger.”

Duromar pretended to think about it. “Are you the sergeant then?”

The bugbear hesitated, then shook his head. “Corporal Khann. Sergeant Durag, uh… not here right now.”

“You know, I met with the sergeant once. He offered to let me join the guild, and even get my pick of which races to hunt down.”

The bugbear started to nod, but Duromar continued. “I chose bugbear.”

They must have read it in his body language because all four grabbed weapons and attacked, one hitting [-14 dam] him. Duromar attacked back, hitting [-27] twice [-37] and downing one of the four. The remaining three attacked again, but it was his blow that went home [-25], downing a second, then [-26] a third, then [-21] the last. [+643 E.P., +1 honor]

MInes of Chaos: 5 of 11 regions cleared

Ogre (1/1) Goblins (196/196) Owlbear (1/1) Bugbears (39/39) Trolls (2/2) & Gnolls (60/90)

The only loot was a sack behind the desk. Coins and a few weapons only. They made a cursory check of the other rooms but nothing was changed and they headed out, stepping out into bright winter sunlight.

“So, what now? I’m hurt enough I could use a day, maybe two, to heal, but not hurt so bad I couldn’t continue.”

“Aye. Camp for a d-day. Try another cave t-tomorrow if ye feel healed enough.”

Back at the campsite, Torendrock brought out a familiar-looking small keg. “Been saving this for a g-good day. 15 gallons of Kromian ale!”

“You still have that? I say any day you open a keg of ale is a good day, but I’ll drink to friendship!”

----

I’m very slightly puzzled. Also more than just a bit drunk, so pardon my sloppy writing. Anyhow, I noticed that the goblin numbers dropped from 200 down to 196. So, four escaped, but are now gone. The bugbears were listed as cleared, but they’d set up again, with just the four I missed. Looking at the numbers for gnolls, I have to assume there are more, somewhere, that are going to move back, perhaps even into the same caves, so I’ll have to clear it again or find the new lair. Overall, I quite appreciate the fact that I don’t have to track down each and every single creature for it to count. Wouldn’t have expected sixty out of ninety to count, but I’ll take it.

Knowing there are more out there is definitely something to keep in mind.

Used up my armor repair kit again, patching seven of the eight holes in it. I need to stop getting hit! Swords are still in great shape at least.

P.S. [Damage: 692 E.P.], [MVP: 1838 E.P.] & [Converting 16 honor to 4 Honor].

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Name: Duromar

E.P.(+5%): 42126

Next Level: 48001

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Name: Torendrock

E.P.(+15%): 6141

Next Level: 8001