Judgement Day

Sornafein shared more about his backstory today. He wanted to share with us. I believe the trust is growing in this group. Maybe my lack of past is binding the present. Sornafein constantly reminds me the future is what counts. I appreciate his support. In fact, I appreciate every ones support. Even baby dragon is growing on me. I am understanding he is naive, not ignorant. And frankly, when one is captive for so long, the first thing to suffer is loss of social graces. During Sornafein sharing his background, I couldn't help feeling once again, our lack of pasts are what brought us here. Whether by chance or a higher authority, we are meant to be something.... something more as a group then we could ever be as individuals. *Renaldine looks up as if to examine Gold, Maxira, Rory and Sornafeins future contemplatively*. Yes, I think this group is where I am meant to be.
 
The day started off poorly. We meandered through the halls of the Dwarves only to be ambushed by the skaven at a bridge. I just don't get it. We are accompanied by people who are supposed to be skilled, seasoned adventurers, yet their stupidity, or maybe just enormous ego, gets them killed.
 
We are underground, with little light provided by a torch. We detect enemies able to traverse vertical surfaces, and our "seasoned" guide is standing at the edge picking his nose, only to get sniped and pulled over the side. Once again, I feel I am the only one prepared. Did not anyone else of these so called veterans have a mirror? Seems pretty basic to me.
 
I have absolutely zero confidence in our veterans at this point. Gold is leading admirably. He is taking care of us, and being the perfect diplomat. I am not sure I could be so diplomatic with Felix and Gotrek.
 
After losing our guide who, as Aldred put it, was very capable (rolling her eyes as she is writing this), we came along a large hallway. Large in the dwarven construction, meaning MASSIVE. For short people, they build underground like they are titans. Fires burn throughout the hallway. Although not real fires. Some ventured a guess of illusion, I wonder if they are more shared between our world, and the spirit world.
 
At camp, at the first watch with Gotrek and Gold, a dwarven spirit visited us. She was dressed in spiritual finery. She seemed to be a leader of those lost here. She made several quest like requests, promising a reward. Some in the party though the reward was tangible, but I get the feeling it was more of a spiritual reward.
 
On second watch, Aldred decided to share his wizdumb with me about who I am. The only thing he did was insult me. He attempted to share his suffering of loss over the years to the Undead cleansing. I found it hard to be compassionate as he insinuated that I was like them, but then not like them. My dislike for him is growing into hatred of what he stands for. He has shown little to no remorse for those lost on this journey. I find it hard to believe he is experiencing real feelings of loss when all he could say was "He was a capable guide". Not much of an epitaph for dying in the line of serving your needs.
 
We found a hall with a pile of treasure at a dais, a sword hilt sticking up through the pile. Aldred, in his lust, greed, zealotry ran to the sword, grabbing it and pointing it to the Gods. He just forgot about one thing. Treasure piles of that sort have a guardian, and this one was no different. A bulbous troll infected by Chaos magic, larger then most trolls anyone would ever see, stepped out and using a huge pincer like claw, snapped Aldred in half. *Renaldine chuckles to herself*. Prophecy fulfilled! No, not the swords prophecy, the one that says, "Do stupid things, get stupid rewards".
 
The world is better without him. The creature stomped into the center of the room. Confident it was superior to all of us, and not employing any battle strategy. This benefited us. The battle did not last long. Gotrek, Gold, Mazira, Rory surround it. It had some sort of boost to its personal regeneration process. The stone necklace around its neck seemed to increase the amount of health regenerated. It also seemed to regenerate additional body parts and mutate them.
 
Sornafein was casting fire magics from a distance and noticed it did not heal from those attacks. The party changed strategy and started stoking fuel for a fire. The beast adjusted its front and charged Johann, scooping him up in his giant pincer like claw. In a bid for his freedom, he cast a spell that shot flames out of his hands, igniting the oil and burning the beast. It responded by halving Johann.
 
This death touched me. I had absolutely no chance to help him. He was literally chopped in half. Another hard lesson for me to learn. There are those I will never be able to help. Ironic really. Maybe Aldreds not caring about others is the way to go when your job is to save people. That way, when you lose them, you don't lose yourself....
 
There was no time to mourn yet, the battle raged on. Mazira had taken some damage. I got a cure spell off and healed her fully. In the end, I only planned on healing our party. A lesson hard learned, but learned none the less. With the fire and sheer damage, we were able to down the troll. Beheading and burning the remains made sure it was dead.
 
I searched the treasure trove for anything that wasn't a part of dwarven history that might help us. And under all the coinage, there it was. A book, but not like the book around the dwarven priestess' neck. It was written in Abyssal.
 
Why Abyssal? Do the skaven speak this as their native tongue? Something told me they were not the originators of this idea. I attempted to return the dwarven gold back to its original state when the apparition appeared again. She was highly appreciative and asked us to cleanse the Chaos magic from the room. I asked her about the book and she shared that it held clues for us and that it was not a part of the dwarven treasure. As we worked to cleanse the chaos magic, she showed us to a room with a magic circle on the floor. She granted us one use of the circle for an item we carried, enchanting it with a low magical boon. As the party discussed their needs amongst themselves, I looked at a ring I had since the day of my rebirth. It was a golden band. I did not know where it came from, but it was buried with me so I guess it might have been important to me one day long ago, or it was just costume jewelry of a fool. Either way, I choose the ring to protect me. I guess we got both rewards, tangible and intangible. I wish I knew her name, something to write in a book of remembrance.
 
There were empty coffins in the room. I placed Johann in one and prayed for his peace. I placed Aldred in the other. I looked to the Gods and asked that he be cursed like I was. A fitting punishment to be made Undead but not Undead as he said for all the suffering he caused. I looked at his miserable corpse and wondered........ Was I like him?
 
Who knows if they listen........