On to Bellaria
General Summary
At last, Khardra came out to give his speech. He was humanoid, but stood almost 8 ft. tall, with
severe burns on half of his face. He had black eyes with white pupils and carried a 3-pronged iron staff.
He was like most speakers that I have heard before, telling stories of himself, and wanting to impress
others. He seemed to have a following of individuals in the town. He finally unveiled what was under the
tarp with a flourish, it was a juvenile Silver Dragon.
Khardra said that it had died from some disease that
was happening to the dragons. Oriana went up to inspect the dragon after the speech and saw that it
has purple splotches all over it but it also had 3 punctures wounds in its neck. Later when I asked her if
the wounds matched the prongs on Khardra’s iron staff I could almost see a click as she put the two
together.
Bing was also not convinced that Khardra was telling the truth, as he could sense that Khardra had a
severe lack of having an aura of “goodness” about him. When I questioned him about why he thought
the dragons were disappearing he said the time of the dragons was at an end, and it was the age of man
to prosper. When I asked him why he thought that dragons and man couldn’t coexist, he said that the
time of dragons was over. I have a huge problem believing this.
This all leads me to the conclusion that Khardra was deceiving people and leading them in the wrong
direction. When we met Mayor Fromm later in the business meeting tent, he told me that he thought that
something was off with the Bronze Dragon that flew overhead when we were fighting the animated
objects that were attacking people in town. I guess I was not the only person that noticed the dragon
flying overhead at that time. We then said that we were prepared to go on the quest, but lacked what
our next move should be. Where would we go? What would we look for?
He said we should head for Belleria, about 3 days travel to the Northeast. But we should also be on
alert as individuals have been disappearing, magical animals have been seen wandering, and minor
earthquakes have been occurring in the area where we were to travel.
Ti'ock and I then went to see if we could talk to some people and see if we could determine what
direction Khardra and his troops had traveled when he left town. It was to no avail. Nobody saw what
direction they went and we couldn’t find any tracks that they had left.
Oriana tried talking to a bird and
learned that they stuffed the dragon into a bag, obviously a large bag of holding, but could not tell her
which direction they went. Something tells me that this was not the last time we were going to meet
Khardra. It was very probable that the next time we met, it would be as adversaries.
It was time to eat some dinner, call it a night, get some sleep, and head out in the morning. After
dinner, I headed up to the room only to find my bedding and equipment had been moved to the upper
bunk and Bing laying in my spot. He said that at his advanced age, and with his aging body, he couldn’t
get into the top bunk and needed the lower one.
If he needs a lower bunk, I can provide him with one. I pulled the mattress that he was on, and
dropped it on the floor, then shifted the top mattress to the lower bunk for me. When he complained I
said that if he was still out adventuring, he could climb the ladder to the top bunk. If he had problems
doing that, then maybe he shouldn’t be out in the wild. He then complained to Fromm who set him up
with a single room, everyone was happy. And people don’t understand why I don’t like humans.
The next morning, we set out for Belleria. I informed the group, since we had new party members
with us, that my companion was a trained mount and no one was allowed on him besides me, unless I
had instructed Red Dog that it was allowed. On the trail after only a short way, Bing was tired of walking,
looked back directly at me, and called upon Kiri-Jolith and summoned his mount. It was unusually
sympathetic how his mount knelled to allow him to get in the saddle without straining his leg. Along
with his mount IronBlade at least had a lance. That could be quite useful, if he knows how to use it and
is properly trained. So now, Mirra, Bing, and myself are on mounts and Ti’ock, Ra Di Gas and Oriana are
on foot.
Farther along the path we saw what looked like a split in the earth to the east of the trail that we
were on. On the way over to investigate, we were met by a drunken, one-eyed, bum with a bandage on
his head. He told us a story of a woman that had snatched his glass eye out of his head and traveled with
mystical beasts. Bing cured him of his wounds and Ti’ock filled his cup with ale while he told us his
plight. Bing told him to go to Fair Meadows and they would take care of him there. We told him that if
we found his glass eye during our journey that we would return it to him. And with that we parted.
When we made it to the tear in the land, we saw that it was very wide and deep and got bigger and
deeper as it traveled North. We decided that it would be safer if we went back to the road and just keep
an eye on the gorge in case something came out of it.
When we headed back to the trail to Belleria a herd of deer came running out of the woods that were
on the west side of the trail. I could tell they were running in terror of something. After seeing what was
chasing them a single thought popped into my head, “Should I cover Ti’ock in hot sauce?” as I
unsheathed one of my spears and got Red Dog ready to charge.
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