29 Highsun Well, what a fantastic start after my long voyage! I barely had my feet on the ground, when I spotted some likely compatriots to show off my talents to. An odd bunch, for sure, but I suppose I left 'normal' behind me in the city. I'm more used to seeing other Sverfneblin, cliques of Drow, or the rare muzzled Illithid, but out here, I guess I could find anything! The prospect is so exciting! Among the group was Knock (weird name for a person), a half-elf if his ears and eyes were any sort of give-away, one who held his faith quite highly, and I can respect that. Anything where you gain from doing your duty is surely worth holding in high regard in your life. Next was Elaria, a noble Elf with magic just sparking from her fingertips. I'll have to ask her about her spells later, because the stuff she tossed out later was fantastic! Next was Aiden, a roguish type who seemed quite brave for a skinny Human. Most of his kin that I've seen of that build tend to hide and wait, but he was right up there with the guys in armour. Another was Aragorn and his fluffy puppy dog, they looked adorable when I first saw them, and I thought he might have been someone's kid, but no, he's a real adventurer, and he can summon weapons out of nowhere! How cool is that? I mean, fascinating. It was fascinating. Last was Plank. Plank. Who calls their kid Plank? He's a Tiefling, and a big one at that. He was one of our front liners, running into battle and smacking things good and hard. We set off on a quest set by the town's Mayor, to find out who's been bothering the local farmers and their stock. It wasn't that far from Hope, not that that seemed to help the farmers, as we found the place being scavenged by big bird dinosaur things, later found out to be 'Scaleshrike'. All I can really tell is that they have venomous claws, feathers that make for great fletching, and are super aggressive for scavenger birds. Or maybe they're just opportunists. In any case, we dealt with them, with Elaria keeping her distance from the battle, a good or bad approach, depending on whether you like being picked off from afar with no backup or not, while I kept close to the rest and used the pigsty as cover. Aiden and Aragorn tried using the sty's roof to get some advantage, but the Scaleshrikes apparently have the ability to fly, and got up there with them. Nothing a Fire Bolt or two didn't fix. Once they were dead and properly butchered, we investigated the farm, and found not a single living creature save a few penned pigs left behind. There was a single corpse, belonging to a fallen Lizardfolk, clearly dead by the fact that their head was at rest beside them, with a hand axe laying close by. We guessed everything of value had been taken, though Knock noted an anomaly in the floorboards within the main farmhouse, and with a little prying from yours truly, we discovered what was likely the farmers' life savings. We decided to hang on to them, strictly for the purpose of returning them to the proper owners should they have survived all this. Leaving the farm, following the trail left by lizardfolk tracks, we headed back into the swamp, hoping to catch up to these kidnappers and the captives before they did something terrible. I'm not sure how close a lizardfolk is to a Trogladyte, but the latter eat other sentient beings if it's convenient. Knock seemed to have gotten a little lost this time, after having been an excellent navigator thus far, and we ended up outside some hideous statue of a demonic face, with its mouth agape wide enough to be a full-sized doorway into the ground underneath the swamp. We decided it was best not to get ourselves involved in whatever was going on down there, and settled on a little spit of dry land in the middle of a pond connected to the banks by lengths of wood. Clearly, the place was reliably dry, and the surrounding water provided a good way to alert us if someone came splashing our way. During Aiden and Elaria's watch (the poor girl took two watches, I envy someone who can function with such little sleep), just that happened. Lizardfolk, clearly not happy with what they'd bagged already, came at use while most were asleep. It was a tense battle, and it looked like we were going to end up in a Lizardfolk cage by morning. Aragorn got grabbed first and was nearly dragged away before he broke himself free, Plank (I can never take that name seriously) got hit with poison, and Aiden was knocked out before I could get to him. Knock really pulled through with his clerical gifts, though, providing some kind of magic that healed us, and even managed to send a few of them to sleep! After that, we managed to regroup and kill all but one, who we (I) tied up, and then the only two who could speak his native tongue, Knock and Elaria, questioned him. We managed to find out not only what they were doing with all those people they'd taken, but also where they were! Apparently some big tribute ceremony was about to go down, where they were making offerings to some Dragon called Throstulgrael, and whoever gave the best tribute of the three competing tribes (Muckmarsh, Dusk Dusk, and Rootwater) would be crowned the Lizardfolk King. I thought there was meant to be more tribes, but I guess they weren't invited for some reason. 30 Highsun The next day, our captive, whose name was Brashk (another dumb name) lead us to the outskirts of where this meeting was taking place at Ringcurrent Island, a big stretch of wetland with water that actually formed its namesake in waterflow. We also noted just how many of his people were there, and even if they were vying for favour and eager to keep their captives alive until the dragon was ready to pick a winner, we decided to head back to Hope and tell them what we'd found out. I'm back in the Stuck Pig now, and Brashk is in a cell until we're ready to question him again. I'll have to keep my ear open for when someone plans to rescue those folks, I'm not gonna be left behind!
