Woodcutter

Chapter One – The last shop

Decided to start a journal, got all the books the wizard isn't using anymore and I may as well record my thoughts so one day the truth can be told.

Adventurers are a pain in the ass, there, I said it.

My name is Ronald, I am a woodcutter, I live sort of near the village of Dunstead with my wife Lily and children Gretchen and Sammael. Well, I did anyway, Lily ran off with a bard, Sammael was taken away by a paladin three months ago for “Education in the ways of the light” after he stole a silver piece the paladin dropped on the floor, and poor Gretchen lives in the madhouse in town now, she won't say what she saw in the wizard's orb, but she don't say much now and won't even look at fish anymore. I visit her when I can.

My home had the misfortune of being the last point of civilization on the way to the Underlair, a network of tunnels and catacombs said to hold great treasure as well as any number of world shaking threats, so of course adventurers go there on the regular, I made a healthy living selling handmade torches and a few supplies like rope, iron rations, and ten foot poles to city folk who forgot all that in town, and I pointed them in the right direction for the dungeon, although eventually the path was so worn in it may as well have been a road, carts could go down it without much trouble.

Personally I never cared much for the Underlair, we all know about it of course, we know not to go in their due to all manner of deadly traps, and every three and a half years we all know to lay salt across our thresholds and board up the downstairs windows due the annual specter migration, it's quite a sight really, there's a picture of it in stained glass in the church of the Lightbringer in town, visit it if you get the chance.

My house is two floors, made of logs and attached at the rear to a fairly large cave which we use for storage, it is dry and comfortable year around, and a small spring at the back provides water, although it is unwise to linger too long at the banks.

It's slippery, my knee still twinges on cold days.

After Gretchen went funny was the last straw, the damned wizard didn't even apologize, just said something about “knowledge not meant for the uninitiated” and flipped me some gold, I didn't care about gold! I wanted my daughter back, so I hatched a plan, usually the adventurers would spend a couple nights in the Underlair and then come back, if they returned at all, this party had good odds I thought, they had a cleric, shady looking feller who muttered about the end of times, a barbarian type, you know, one of those who apparently thinks pants are for sissies and swings an axe bigger than he is, in this case the axe is actually smarter too, named Bloodslicer, though I don't think it picked the name, talkative thing, the wizard of course, foolish overeducated ass that he is, and a woman who gave her profession as “trapfinder” she was a thief, I know this because she stole the silver urn my grandfathers ashes are in. I found it in her pack after she came back.

And oh yes they came back, carrying the body of their cleric and looking somewhat worse for the wear, I fed them of course, and even gave them ale, ale mixed with a few useful berries and mushrooms you can find around here.

And that is why the wizard doesn't need his books anymore, what am I going to do with all this crap?