Me & Dunwoody were passin through the Black Forest as part of a caravan led by a tangly, black-haired sot goes by the name, Migellito. He put up a tent, but prolly woulda looked more at home in a tree, me & Dunwoody got to wanderin & fell in w/ another dwarf named Farley, two fighters walked from back talking bout a nearby town called Bridgewater, maybe go to the tavern for some cups… we saw some smoke risin up over there & walked toward it in the road when we come up on an old fellow luggin round a batch of kindlins on his back, asks us where we headed, tells us not to keep on this main road, a band of orcs been trashin this place called Bridgewater, we ask him some other questions but the fellow don’t seem right, he guides us to a hidden door to get into the town unnoticed, I’d tell ya where that is, but I’d hate to be leadin ya to trapped, so we didn’t feel right bout it, turned round, decided to head up where Migellito said some ruins of a castle were he said it was Nicodemus Castle, the old man said he’d never heard of no Nicodemus…
It didn’t take us too long to get up there, Dunwoody helped me take some load off so I could keep up & the fighter Taurus started movin around all stealthy, talkin bout scouty orcs, sayin we needed to get in these ruins quicklike, I spotted where some breakage in the walls may let us in northeastside, I tied Dunwoody up to some branches & we all upped over rubble & into the wall, I could hear Taurus sniffin & he started talkin bout smoke & orcs, we could see to the west what may be the main tower up a slopey bit & Taurus was talking bout probly a good place to start or get down underground but then we decided to near some stairs east that were closer to where we'd entered the rub, I worked the stairs, slow eyeing where they meet lookin round for anything tricky seemed okay & Farley was up behind me checkin it out as well we got up to where we could see down another corridor where it got darker & led to a dark doorhole… me & Farley moved through the hole & crept inside, Taurus & Leo, the paladin, who kept tellin Taurus on the way here orcs were no deal cause he’d slayed 100 of’m in one sittin before, me & Farley's eyes adjustin see it’s a pretty big room, a courtyard or somethin, stuff wasted & broken all about, Taurus & Leo come in, Leo now talkin about his collection of light stones… I get to creepin round the west wall & not too far from the doorhole I notice another door not too far way, an old, wooden door, it opens up w/ no problem, I listen for a bit & then move into wherever it goes wanderin if maybe this’ll lead down somewhere, but then somethin furry hits my helm & I jump back & there’s a spider wigglin hissy beside me, I hop to the side of the door & Leo is on the spider before I know it, I pull my flail, Leo slashes the thing & then I pound it w/ my flail, it retreats up into the sky by some rubble & wood where we look up & see its webs up there, Taurus inches in, pullin on his bow, readies up & darts the spider down, pop onto the ground; Taurus throws a lit torch up at the webs but it just comes back down again & Leo throws down a light stone we notice some tinkling over in the corner of the closety room, looks to be silver & copper all sprayed about, we get to pickin some up & I started goin through some refuse over in a corner & come up w/ a small, empty, ivory box, I put it in my backpack, help gather the rest of the coins, then as there’s a thin stair @ the back of the closet, going up, against the wall, I decide to climb up there, get my head up over a rotten, wooden flet & see where rub has caved in all above it but not onto it, there’s a dark space between the rub & flet but I cant see nothing in there & I inch back down look to see maybe what Farley's seen in the rest of the room which isn’t much, but as we all wander further we see a stair leadin up in the northeast corner & move that way, gettin up there to find lots of broken marble about, Taurus is goin round w/ his torch collectin a few sizable chunks that may be of value & I spot him one that's an intact, small statue & after snoopin a bit more we see there’s a west corridor on the west wall, we peak into it & see two doors to our left & right & then down the corridor bout thirty foot there some double doors, Leo busts into the door on the southwall of the corridor & we funnel in, there aint much there, bunch a trash, not even worth goin through it doesn’t seem but then there’s somethin about the west wall of this room that looks fishy to me, perhaps somethin on the other side may lead to that room behind the double doors, I start talking bout lookin for a secret door, passageways i got a thing for secret constructions & Leo gets miffy & starts arguin about how he doesn’t wanna take no time, he just wants to bust down doors & no need to have a secret door to a place he can just bust into but when he gets back out in the hall he realizes those double doors don’t lead to the south but the east & he’s all turned around while I’m back in hall now thinkin I woulda been done creepin the wall by the time he stopped goin on about it anyway so Leo steps up & pounds in the door across the hall now, on the northwall of the corridor & we funnel in where there’s a fireplace back on the northwall, we all split to search different stuffs & Farley nearby has the same thing happen when he examines a cask as I have touchin some cabinet, collapse & crumble & then Leo now back there @ the fireplace w/ Taurus, throwin one a them light stones in there & stickin his head in the flue & next thing he knows he’s got a giant tick problem comin down that shoot onto him he’s shakin around, Taurus swings his torch @ it, but it doesn’t light fire, but like I always heard, you put that fire on it, it at least keeps that head in retreat from stickin in ya, so Farley runs over there, I'm movin that way so lightin another torch to maybe by time I get over there delay that head from gettin in there but Taurus sayin he already tried w/ the fire… they’re all scramblin & I watch as the tick finally gets splattered all over Leo’s shiny, plate mail who knows what kinda blood that thing had last sucked on & so we all go back to lookin around & find some various things under the collapsed cabinets I pull out a large, iron spoon & slip into my pack… talk turns to getting back to the caravan before everyone's sleep & so we rest for a few moments, bag up turn back out we came, takin us a bit, & it’s pitch black out there now, I light a torch up too & when I get near Dunwoody I can hear him makin that noise he makes when he knows it’s me, we get back to the caravan where a gypsy lady likes that ivory box enough to fork 50 gold for it, though I only got three silver for the spoon, it was better than nothing we split it all up which came to bout 14 gold, 9 silver & 17 copper each. Found a nice little niche to ride out the night, pulled out my drum & Dunwoody got to hawin until someone started yellin, perhaps I’ll run into these blokes another time…
- Ringo the Dwarf
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