Chypirius, Liberator of the Common Chest Bat

Corellon, how does Pavel do that! Suddenly, as though he'd been there all along, *Poof*, it's like he appeared in a puff of smoke, all demanding answers. He brought rope, torches and thieves picks and did come to our rescue. Hmm... Maybe he's turning a new leaf! We'll see...

This topsy-turvy underground assassin's lair is wild. We've climbed and fallen and jumped and swam until we found this "psychic girl". I can't believe I fell for that!

She had somehow morphed into Eugenium, but was still wearing her girl clothes, so we weren't fooled for long. We wanted her alive for questioning, and I gave her multiple opportunities for surrender, but she never did, and instead she met the wrath of our weapons!

Are we a little evil? I keep finding myself killing people, and when I capture villains instead of killing them, I am punished! I don't understand the world sometimes.

We have the key though!

We need to escape the shackles of the adults and venture out onto our own...

...but where IS Eugenium?

Chypirius, Polytechnic Explorer

Tamsen and I are back in Valon, and no one understands what incredible adventurers we are! Suddenly this town feels so suffocatingly small.

Eugenium is missing! We so need to speak to Nanu and see what's up. I guess Pavel is missing too, but he's always running off, so I'm not too worried about him.

Anyways, so there is this new girl who has the dreams too. Wait... Wait a second... If she is having the dreams does that mean that either Eugenium or Pavel is dead?! OK, I can't think that way right now, as I am trapped in the dungeons beneath Lower Valon Polytechnic. Oh yeah...

So the girl, Merritt. Weird religious type. She seems nice, but she showed up when I was doing dream sluething before I knew she shared our dreams. Maybe I was rude. I hope not!

So our dreams... Badgers... Teens... and a key! By getting a young gnome (Ustelm, Finniwick's nephew) to chat with Mr. Squeeks, the beaver, and with some sleuthing at the Lower Valon Polytechnic with Tamsen, we discovered that Mr. Squeeks found the key in his burrow, brought it out, and a group of LV kids snagged it and gave it to the school as a gift, since their motto says something about a beaver and the key of knowledge or something.

So, the key went missing (it was in the display case) and some totally dark-cloud girl told Tamsen the janitor took it. He lives in the basement. So Merritt got an awesome make-over (!) (OK, maybe it was a little embarrassing - she went from not even trying to trying too hard), and then we all hung out at the Pendulous Bosom,(where someone thought Merritt was a loose lady!) and we hung until night fall... so we could break into the school!

Long story short (too late, I know), we found ourselves face-to-face with the school principal, found Balbum, the janitor, tied up, basically naked (not pretty), then saw the dark-cloud girl run off. That conniver! We chased her into the (dungeons?!) of the school! Trap doors, pits, water slides, many bruises and scrapes, and we realized we were in no way prepared for this kind of adventure! Now we just gotta find her.

Oh, and yeah, Merritt kind of kicks ass! We got into a fight with these two jerks in the pit and she'd get all glowy and throw light at them. It was pretty cool.

Man oh man, if only we had better prepared. Hopefully there'll be a next time...

From the Diary of Tamsen Larkspur

Catastrophe!

One would think that when you defeat an evil wizard, free twenty slaves and catch the most notorious crooks in Valon that one would be treated as a heroine. One should expect songs and dances and parades.

But, instead, what does one get?

SCREWED.

Jarrow and Astrid, involved parents that they are, have taken the chalet away. I now must sleep in the main house, in that pink dungeon where I grew up. It's a kind of torture to lay in a tiny pink bed mere steps away from my parents, whom I loathe so much.

I never thought I'd say this, but I wish I'd never returned to Upper Valon. I long to be adventuring. I've grown so much. I can crawl up walls like a spider and make people vomit fire, and these people expect me to study for Etiquette exams? I have a pact with the infernal, for Correllan's sake!

Speaking of infernal things, we had another dream. In this one I'm some sort of burrowing mammal and I'm digging and digging and reaching for something shiny. Then I surface and there are human teenagers looking at me. We think maybe it has something to do with the poor people school in lower Valon, as their mascot is the badger. We'll see.

P.S. I almost forgot to mention that I almost died and stupid Pavel stole some burglar gloves off me. I hate, hate, hate Pavel and his stupid face. I'm gonna get him some day, I swear it.

xoxo
Tamsen Larkspur

Chypirius, a rat in a cage

After our glorious battle in the dungeons of the keep, the teens thanked us for our help. Pavel then saunters into the room like he owns the place. Whatever.

I summoned the spirits of the muck and the dank underground to build us a campsite! You should have seen it… little fungus sprites, rock brownies and muck nixies all came out, sang a song, built us a campsite and whipped up a fantastic meal. We settled in for the night.

The next day, we killed the evil goblin woman who was keeping the girls captive, and we all gathered in the great hall, the teen boys, the teen girls, and us, the teen adventurers, and we were ready to have ourselves an awesome party, when guess what happens… I’m sure you can guess… Some jerk adult comes and spoils our fun.

This ranger, hired by the council to find us, insults us and demands we leave with him. Yeah right. We are independent and we make our own rules!

We said goodbye to our rescued friends and Pavel locked up the ranger jerk long enough for us to be on our way without him.

It was a great sight to return to the village of Tilleasy. These people have it made. Their lives are so loving, so real. These are the kind of people who like really matter. We gave Xavier the keys to the keep. I hope he finds a good use for it. I sang and juggled for the kids again, and curled up in front of their fireplace.

In the morning, we asked for two donkeys and a cart to escort the criminals we had captured earlier back to Valon, and wandered back to our city.

We arrive, prepared for a heroes return, and no, instead we are manhandled by the guards, lectured by the council, and I am forced to go back home. No one noticed me coming in, or if they did, they didn’t care. That’s for the best. I’m either ignored, or go to bed with a black eye. I’m glad it was the former. I hope that starting tomorrow night I can go back to staying in Tamsen’s chalet. I hate my family. I want to leave Valon for good. I’ve learned so much more out there living life than I’ve learned in all my years at that prison they call school or trapped in the cage of a bedroom.

Chypirius, keeper of the key

Man oh man, this place is gigantic! We got the key! Oh yeah! We are so going to save the chosen ones!

We defeated Theinthadall and most of the goblins of the keep. We are exploring the place (we've found an enormous basement...), we are going to free the slaves, take the prisoner from the village to Valon. Wow, this is why I became an adventurer.

Life is good.

Also, I have a magic amulet! It makes me luckier, I think. It's too bad it came from a creepy man in all leather jumpsuits though.

It's been a blur of excitement: battle and exploration. Pavel is missing again, but Eugenium is back. Are they secretly the same person? Oh Corellon, what if they were both murdered and replaced by a doppleganger?! No, I don't think they were, but maybe I should be extra careful.

And Tamsen, yeah, um, she can climb walls now.

From the Diary of Tamsen Larkspur

Dear Diary,

So we went back to that keep and were nearly killed by a dire board and some goblins. Stupid Pavel decided this was a marvelous time to show his stupid face again. Just as he was running up, Eugenium ran off! What is wrong with these boys? Are they just cowards? At least Chyp is dependable.

Chyp and Pavel were both unconscious from the fray (I hadn’t even been hit!) when the wizard Thienthedel showed up and I got him to call off his goblins and revive the boys. He took us down to the barracks (Merrick from school was don there. A Slave!) Thienthedel was going to make us sleep there, but Chyp got him to agree to letting us rest in his private chambers instead.

It was kind of awkward. All of us on furs and Thienthedel on his girly bed with goblin guards watching always. I had this brilliant idea that of course nobody listened to. I suggested we steal something of Thienthedel’s and throw it into the pond, drawing him out of the keep. BUUUUUUT NNOOOOOOO. Don’t listen to Tamsen. Anyway, they tried to shackle our legs. (As if!) We totally ran and then killed a bunch of goblins on the draw bridge. Who knows what we’ll do next. We think the first key is in there, so we have to go back in don’t we?

Here’s something weird…. I’m still adjusting to my warlock powers and some of them are… well, a little dark. I can make people vomit magical fire and conjure magical crowns of thorns and shoot lazers and stuff. I guess that's just what you get when you make a pact with the infernal but this is both frightening and awesome. While I was on the bridge I realized I could climb walls like a spider if I wanted to. I was even able to make little webs come out of my hands and feet. Being a warlock is so gross!

I didn’t tell the others. I think maybe I’ll surprise them.

Hearts,

Josh

Chypirius, getting the hang of this!

Our battle in the keep nearly ended in all our deaths, until Thienthidall, the elven lord of the keep, arrived and took immediate interest in us.

I plucked at my strings and started to write a song about him and his marvelous keep, attempting to get on his good side, and it seemed to work! Although he did strip us of our weapons, we were escorted to his chambers instead of the caverns below.

En route to his chambers, we passed through the men's slaves quarter, where Pavel recognized a kid named Merrick.

So we slept with one eye open in his chambers. He seemed kind of pervy to me, so I wasn't sure if I'd wake up with a goblin's battleaxe in my skull or Thienthidall's hands down my pants, but we made it through the night, unmolested by neither axe nor hand.

We were brought down to have breakfast, where after some decent porridge, it became startlingly clear that we were to be turned into servants ourselves! We decided to run. It seems as though Tamsen had a great idea the night before, but neither Pavel or I paid it much heed, with fear of molestation and all. She had thought we should snag one of his belongings for the pool later on. Great idea! Too bad we didn't. I grabbed a bowl on the way out, but I'm not sure who the pool will define as the owner of this earthenware.

So we fought, we kicked and we cast our way out the keep. We've slaughtered many a goblin on this drawbridge. Battle is becoming easier! I'm getting the hang of this.

Things to consider: To flee and try casting earthenware into the pool, to stand and fight, and who is Bruise? Is he just a toughie or is he secretly running the show? (Oh yeah, some goblins mentioned him as the reason they stay and called Thienthidall a weakling... food for thought.)

I guess we'll see...