A Mournful Journey

I headed towards a shrine to the deity Heironeous, and there met an interesting fellow, who seemed to have been talking crazy. He freaked out when he saw me and was talking jibberish, most of which I couldn't understand. I did happen to make out a little bit though. He kept going on and on about Elves, dancing naked with trees. Honestly he was a bit creepy, so I figured it would be best to have left him alone. I decided to head to the Tavern, maybe get some accomodations for the night, and could use a nice drink.

Walking down the street and there he was. He had most certainly grown since I last saw him, but there was no mistaking it. A sight to behold. So much I needed to say. I needed to get him to accompany me. However, my brother's appearance into the town added a bit of a wrinkle. I figured I would bide my time just a bit and see what all was known.

It was for this reason that I said nothing as we walked towards each other. As I expected he didn't recognize me. However he did stop me and talk to me a bit. He introduced himself and told me, though I already knew, that his name was Llan. It appears that he had met Jackle, as he thought I looked a bit like him, but it didn't seem as if he knew much more. It would be best, I think not to reveal any of my secrets involving him at this time. He informed me that he and my brother had agreed to help the town out. It seems they had been suffering from attacks by a local ettin.

I agreed to help them in their search for the ettin, and no sooner had I agreed, then behind Llan I could see the ettin approaching the town. Ever so calmly I asked Llan about the alert system of the town. When he imformed me that there was not set system to alert people, and that If I saw something to just yell and awake the town, I replied with "so you mean something like" and at this pointed behind him and and yelled, "THERE'S AN ETTIN RIGHT BEHIND YOU!". Sure enough the town began to wake, and as Llan looked behind him, the ettin turned around and ran into the forest.

A crowd soon began to gather around us. Included in the crowd seemed to the leader of the town as well as my brother, who it appears in all the confusion forgot to get dressed and came in his pajamas. Some things never change! As Llan and I informed the town of what had happened, Jackle ran back and got dressed. After his return the three of us headed into the forest in pursuit of the ettin alone, as the rest of the town was not interested in helping us. It is frustrating sometimes, when a town will not help those who have come to help them.

While tracking the ettin's path through the forest (let's be honest it would've been hard to miss his path) we came across a band of orcs. Jackle, of course, just wanted to jump into battle. I on the other hand didn't want to waste time, or spells, before we got to the ettin, so I started up a conversation with the leader of the orcs. It seems they too were tired of the ettin as he had made their lives difficult. Though I couldn't put much faith in their word, and doubted the length of their memories, in exchange for letting them live I was able to get them to promise to leave the town alone for 3 changings of the season.

Finally the tracks led us to some ruins of an old keep. Llan and Jackle told me an old town legend of a soceror who used to terrorize the town. Three adventures from the town went off to face the sorceror. Neither the adventurers or the sorceror were ever heard from again.

It was at this time we decided to make camp and rest for the night, in hopes of catching the ettin off guard tomorrow, as we figured he'd surely be waiting for us tonight.