Now that I’m here, looking up the old cliff road into Highpass, I’m not sure I feel like it. It’s not the gnolls really, or the orcs, or any of that. I just don’t want to get lost in the damn pass. Plus all that climbing.. maybe I’ll take the Gorge route.
It’s not a real welcoming place, that’s for sure. On a later trip, we killed Muddites here, and Minotaurs. Today I am only looking for passage.
Fortunately, keeping my head low is a skill of mine.
Clan Runnyeye is still around. I wonder if they still make that crazy hallucination powder.. Uncle B told me to breathe some in because it would make me invisible.. it didn’t, but he had a good laugh anyway. I guess that’s not the sort of thing that makes it into the official history you tell later when all is said and done.
I crept through all quiet-like, but it didn’t really seem necessary. The goblins weren’t paying a whole lot of attention, just running back and forth doing not much at all. Maybe they do still snort that stuff.
Have I really been gone so long? Misty Thicket seems totally different. Still goblins, wasps, beetles and all that, but the ground, the trees, and especially the damn Wall? Looks like the Halflings got serious. Not serious enough to take off those silly masks, though.
At this point, Uncle B disappeared and told me I’d need to make it through Rivervale on my own. Qeynos may have accepted him, but the midgets wouldn’t. I got a free pass, being Human. Curious, that, seeing as I emptied a few pockets on my way through.
Kithicor Forest, at night. Not really the place to be. Unfortunately, I have places to go. A zombie commander chased me halfway to the Commonlands, shouting after me to ‘join him.’ Sorry Ace, no time for tea tonight.
I wonder what’s going on? Does it get worse as I go further East? The Commonlands look nothing like I remember, and it’s too much to call senility. Still, anchoring my sense of reality are some of the usual unsavory types, like Kizdean Gix. It’s good(for me) that I never had some paladin-style chip on my shoulder to piss guys like this off.
Whatever’s happening sure built up the entrance to Befallen. Maybe that means the bad guys are winning?
Well, I poke my head in anyway and fight a few skeletons. One has a parrying dagger.. well, maybe I can use that to get some of my strength back in my off-hand. Plague rats remind me that this isn’t a place I want to get deep into right now, so back to the Commonlands.
I found a city where Freeport was. This makes me paranoid as hell, but there are people in it, and I guess they’re not trying to kill me. Whatever did happen, they’ve really stepped up patrols in the city, big swarms of guards everywhere. The Knights of Truth and Freeport Militia still seem to be holding on, despite the whole goddamned city being transmogrified underneath them.
Well here’s something. The slums still look and feel like slums. Small comforts. Time to brush off some old contacts and replenish my supply of Short Beers before heading south.
-Denc Wormington, ex-rogue
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