Rizzle's Journal

[Chief Waha]

*written in neat precise handwriting*

FIRST ENTRY

"My life may have been different had my mother survived my birth.  But she didn't, and I sit here, trapped, waiting for the darkness to come and remembering my life.  Chances are no one will ever read this journal, but hope is certainly an illogical emotion at times."

"I was born Rizzle Roughruby in the Svirfneblin city of Gemhome, and as I said my mother died in childbirth.  It’s said she was a beautiful and kind woman.  I wonder why I turned out so ugly?  Anyway, my father is... was... Crylnar Roughruby.  He was a traveling merchant a bit on the adventurous side with an unsavory reputation among our fellow Svirfneblin.  Through my childhood he perpetually left me with distant relatives or friends while he went traveling for months or years at a time looking for new markets.  It was a difficult time, being unwanted.  I was ridiculed and harassed by my peers both for my looks, and because of my father.  I learned early that the best way to avoid problems was to either run away or stay hidden.  I got quite good at the second option.  I started staying out of sight as much as possible.  Not only did I stay out of the paths of bullies, but I started learning the little secrets everyone tried keeping.  If I got caught out in the open by someone intent on harassing me, I'd just casually bring up some embarrassing little secret and they'd leave me alone.  That progressed into my asking for favors.  Eventually I had a nice little existence going for a couple of years.  Then when I was 25 my father decided I was old enough to come with him on one of his trips."

"I was excited.  Not only was I going to be able to get away from the bullies, but I was going to be with my father.  We started traveling up toward the surface, even traveling a few hours by foot sometimes on the surface.  He made rounds, first a dwarven mining colony for ironworks, then an elven encampment for artwork, a Halfling village for alcohol, back home for more gems; basically wherever my father thought the next big score was.  He’d make his money, then lose most of it gambling and we’d be back where we started.  We went round for several years.  It was the best time of my life, even if we did sleep on the ground and hide most of the time.  Then it all went bad.”

“One evening near the end of our rounds I awoke to the sounds of talking in a strange language.  I looked over to see my father speaking to a drow party.  I quickly rolled over and pretended to be asleep and hoped that they would simply take us prisoner rather then kill us outright.  I waited and waited, and eventually fell asleep again.  I awoke in the morning to find no trace of any drow.  I thought I’d dreamed it, but I was wrong.”

“We returned home, only to be taken captive by the Homeguard.  Apparently my father had been selling information about the various places we’d been to the drow.  The trial was swift and at the end of it, the Elders took our Heartgems, the gems given to children of Gemhome at birth, crushed them before our eyes and exiled us from the city.  I didn’t like Gemhome so leaving didn’t upset me in the least.  The problem was, the Elders passed along my father’s misdeeds to the rest of the settlements he’d visited, leaving us running one step ahead of an angry mob most of the time.  Then today, our luck finally ran out…  We somehow crossed into a duergar mining shaft.  Needless to say, they weren’t too happy to have outsiders in their precious mines, so we fled.  In our haste we ran straight into a dead end.  Panicked my father turned and tried to run back, and as he rounded the corner there was a loud explosion and the tunnel in front of me collapsed in on itself.”  

“So I sit here, wondering what will get me first, starvation, thirst, or the unstable tunnel.  I hope for a miracle, but I know the world has forsaken me.”

[Chief Waha]

SECOND ENTRY

“Odd things have happened since last I wrote.”

“I had a very odd dream; a giant lizard told me I’m going to save the world… kind of ironic.  I woke and opened my eyes, only to shut them immediately.  All I could see was bright light.  I cautiously squinted, it took me several painful minutes to finally adjust to the light, but eventually I could make out shapes and objects.  Somehow I was alive and on the surface.”  

“This Hlint is a very strange place.  There are so many people that seem to tolerate everyone except me.  Drow and dwarves standing side by side, yet few people wish to talk to me still.  Several people were nice enough to introduce themselves, but not all.  Some were just rude, most just seemed to ignore me.  I found a few people willing to offer me gold to do odd jobs for them, so I accepted their offers.  I need to survive somehow now that I have no home.”

[Chief Waha]

THIRD ENTRY

"This place is either hell, or I'm the walking dead."

"In the past several weeks I've been getting adjusted to my new home on the surface.  I've gotten used to the light, so I don't have to squint all the time to see when I'm outside during the day.  Hlint is an interesting place, very diversified.  I have seen many Drow (Maybe some sort of mass exodus?), but few Svirfneblin, probably a good thing, as I don't think I could handle a confrontation with my kin just yet."

"It seems many people have the dream with the big lizard.  Seems that's a dragon and he's called many of us here to help save the world from someone called Blood.  Like I care?  The world's done little enough for me.  Anyway, seems dragons have started coming back to the world.  Some people took it into their heads that it would be a good idea to find one of these dragons to ask it for help or something.  Well I don't particularly care about that one way or another, but I figured it'd be a good way to learn the lay of the land and increase my number of contacts here on the surface, so I tagged along when invited.  Let's just say it was a VERY painful experience.  First off, we kept getting jumped.  I nearly died a couple of times.  I'd wait until the monster was occupied then attack it, but it turned on me nearly immediately every time.  We got into a little groove then and managed to make our way into some mountains...  Well things immediately went from bad to worse.  We crawled through an opening and everything was extremely dark, even darker than the underdark.  We cautiously ventured forth and was jumped by something...  Before I knew it, half the party was done and bleeding...  Well I surely am not a healer so I figured it'd be best to hightail it out of there.  I was the only one able to make it back out of the mountains, but I, being unused to the undergrowth of the forest, made a bit too much noise in the forest and some 'satyrs' (They look a bit like a man with the legs of an animal) heard me and apparently killed me."

"Everything was dark.  Then I woke up in Hlint again (I wonder what it is about this place?), and everyone from the party was there again.  Being gluttons for punishment we collected some more meat for the grinder and headed up again.  I found my grave on the way up, man that's weird.  Well we crawled through again, and there was a disorganized rush to the exit almost as soon as we encountered the enemy...  It was at that point where everything went dark again for some reason...  I think it was my body rebelling against the unnatural state of undeath I'm in.  Anyway when I could see again there was a swath of death to the crawlway and that same creature that killed everyone before was near it...  I tried to sneak past but it saw me and I died again..."

"I just woke up in Hlint again, so I decided to write in my journal and find some less dangerous pursuit."