Dawn: Woke up, ate me a couple tasty fish that I grabbed from outside the door. Realized that my hoard is pretty small for a dragon of my age. I guess that capsizing the occasional barges that go across the lake just isn't really cutting it for me and I need to start stretching myself a little bit. Finished off the fish and had some cheap ale to wake me up.

Morning: Did a quick scouting flight high over Harrowdale. That town's got too much going on, and I think I saw guys with arrows. Screw that. So I flew over Essembra. Sleepy little town... but there's a temple there with a big-ass GOLD STATUE. Oh yes, it will be mine. I head back home for a morning snack: I grab two guys rowing across the lake and snack on 'em.

Lunch Hour: Time to fly! This is going to freaking ROCK. WOO! It's a great day in the forest... hey, it's a falcon! *CHOMP* Mmmm, lunch on the wing oh hey look out it's the town! I'll just swoop down on them oh my Tiamat look at them scatter hey I think I'm going to breathe on that house there WOOOO! Taste acid! Right, where was I? Oh, yeah, getting that BITCHING gold statue! There it is... wow, this thing is on pretty tight... there we go... wow, it's heavy and oh my there's a guy with a BOW I'd better get out of here just go THAT WAY! Wait, that's not the way to my lair... this thing is heavy, I'm going to have to make a wiiiiiide turn... okay almost lost it but we're good SO LONG SUCKERS!!!

Afternoon Tea: Right, so I've gotten the statue underwater and into the lair. It looks SO RADICAL. It's just there in the corner surrounded by the gold I've collected... this has to like DOUBLE my hoard's value, oh yeah. Hmm, I'm a bit peckish I think I'm going to go find something in the forest to eat. Maybe I can find a CENTAUR, those guys are TASTY... well, when I can find one that doesn't shoot my ass with a freaking bow. Alright, back into the air! Oh, hey, there's that spooky tower... right, away from that. Let's just pass over Essembra one more time... man, I rock. Hmm... oh, hey, a Centaur! Oh... there's a BUNCH of centaurs. Okay, maybe we don't want one of them.

Hey, there's a centaur by himself! Well, okay, he's got a pack of humans with him. Well, five humans and something short that I will call "appetizer". Right, moving in for my attack run... I'll just buzz them once to frighten them and OH MY FUCKING GOD I CRASHED??? What the heck is up with that?? I didn't even HIT anything!!! Right... they saw me. How embarrasing. I'd better recover and look scary. Oh, hey, two of them are ELVES. Elves without bows. Awesome... and the centaur even looks pretty scared. Wait, what did that elf say? Something about removing my magic. Suuuuure thing buddy I'm ALL-POWERFUL! Huh... this guy in black... with a skull on his shoulder. He's kind of gothy looking, maybe he hangs out with black dragons (remind me to NEVER let them comment in my journal again they're all "existence is PAIN"... them and those blasted Drow wait where was I oh the guy in black). He says something about "I'm powerful!" so I just shrug it off and breathe on him.

WHAT. THE. HELL? I can't BREATHE ACID ON THEM!! This is realllly bad. I need to look for options here and... oh, crap. It's a REALLY HUGE BRONZE DRAGON. And I didn't realize he OWNED this part of the forest.

I'm screwed.

Huh... they're letting me go, ey? Oh, how patronizing. I will NEVER live this down at the 100 year reunion. Oh, banished, too? That's okay, my hoard sucked anyways, I'll just find some OTHER "lost empire of the Elves" and grab one of their old hidey-holes and make me a NEW hoard. Won't get me down, no, not like those OKAY I'M GOING NOW!!!"

Dinner Time: Oooh, a nice swamp. This place should be nice... oh, bloody 'ell, it's a teenaged black dragon asking me to check out his hoard of "The Cure" scrolls. Why, Tiamat, WHY ME??

Okay I would like to explain one thing about this whole "Demon thing."

Demons are FUCKING EVIL, okay? They're not living, they're not cute, they're definately, definately, DEFINATELY not fit to live on this plane. But noooooooooo... little Miss Do Right (you weren't doin' right when you asked me to scare off the mean man's horsie, now were you?!?) and Ooooooh, I'm a Haughty (Hawtie?) Elf were all like OMFG NO DONT KILL IT, HES SOOOO KYYYYYUTE.

OMFG.

I am so peeved. I was singing Morrissey in my head. Only he understands my pain. Calm exterior, Mericet. Calm. Calm.

I did take it out on that little whelping of a green dragon. Yeah. Now you know who I roll with, dawg. That's right. I got bronze on my side, that's my bling bling buddy and you ain't got NOTHIN. Punk. Now he knows the fear of Mericet. Oh yeah, it's coming.

Reap the Whirlwind, bitches.


I feel better now.

*Sigh*

Adventurers. Always getting in the way.

So, Bane says "I'm coming back. Xvim, he did okay, but the big boss needs to be back on top, ya'see? So's I need you to do a little job for me." He goes on to tell me all about how these Cyricist priests are going to try and enslave a demon. He reveals this nice, big plan about how he's coming back and that if we time things right we might be able to devour a few of the Usurper's priests' souls in the process. You know, as a bonus. He sets it up so that I'm the one that'll be summoned, and we wait around for the ritual to start.

Bang, zoom, I'm in the mortal realm again.

I've always disliked the material plane. Too much light, even at a midnight summoning.

Anyways, these little simpering fools start going off about how "my god is dead and that I must serve them now".

So I eat one.

We're talking "reach out with my big black claw, open up my mouth to man-size, and just down that sucka". The other priests looked a little... worried.

I think a couple maybe got away... that pool of water underground... well, sucks. I can't swim (all that fire, you know) and the little peons I summoned in to help with the cleaning wouldn't go under either. So I think some got away. Didn't think it would be a problem, and it wasn't.

But oooh no, I think I'm going to get a nice 100-year vacation away from the dark abyss of Bane's mind, and this group of adventurers comes out to the temple, looking "for some artifact of power". I don't know what they're talking about, and this one black-wearing guy does this crap with purple fire and thinks he's so cool. Turns out they were manipulated by the Usurper, too. Such fools. Except, oh, turns out this twitchy-looking elf has got a freaking DEMON-BANE SWORD... oh, yeah, and apparently it was created by CYRIC or something. So, yeah, that thing hurt... and I got shot full of arrows (I knew I shouldn't have left my damage resistance in The Pit)... and this elf chick strikes me down with a moonsword or something (I don't know, it looked normal to me but it flashed when it hit me *shrug*).

So now I'm back in The Pit. Bane is NOT pleased. I can handle the 20 years of torture that's automatic for any failure, and I can handle the pain and deprivation and the punishment from those more powerful than me. It's the snikers of the lesser demons that really gets to me. I swear, if I ever find that little squirt again, I'm gonna eat him.

I near their snickers, their whispers. They are right to fear me, but they need to learn that my way is not evil. Let's recap our adventure with some highlights.

So, yeah, the skull. See, we ransacked this destroyed castle, and here's the wizard, playing grabass with all the loot like it was Angelina Jolie and he's Pepito, Brad Pitt's little sex slave (Brad, I totally know you still have Pepito, don't think I forgot how long you had him in that closet during Warlock school... uh, forget that part.) And all the while, the Paladin's got her x-ray vision locked on his heart. Okay, not evil, just greedy. That's cool, right? So we find one of the badasses behind all this mayhem and skeletons, and it's a necromancer. Well, FUCK THAT. We slice him in jig time, and just when he thinks he's gunna make a repeat appearance to get us and our little Dwarf too, biggityBLAM, Morn clocks him with a double dose of Caster-B-Goode. After Morn makes this fool into a pincushion, the schmuck falls on his dark little stabbity toy, blam.

Dead. Finito. Nice knowin' ya suckahass fool, you messin' with the Pine Hill!!

So, you can see why we were all excited. We run on down, pick through his clothes and I think, ya know... FUCK THIS. "I want his head." Hey, that's a smart thing, without his head, no lich for him! So, we cut off his... wait, ***I*** cut off his head after the ranger apparently used up all his cool points for the day and tries chopping off his own arm.

Heh. Newb.

So, head off, skull made, and the next town we're in, I'm sporting a little 'BACK OFF BITCH' on my shoulder. And that's good. Not evil. Good. How many times has that helped us out? How many times has a green dragon been run off cus I was all like NUT UH.

Yeah.

So, they think I'm evil. I'm not - I use the powers of evil against evildoers. The Paladin and the Cleric are all like 'OMFG U R SO BLOODTHIRSTY U R TEH EVIL', but I guaren-fuckin-tee that they've entertained some thoughts about smiting me...

Hypocrites.

But it's cool. The Mericet abides.

PS. Demons, this could be your skull.

You might be wondering what exactly it is that we're up to. I realized that neither myself, nor my compatriots, have been entirely clear about our goal and purpose.

Basically, we had been pressed into service defending a small town in Cormyr. An army of orcs was swarming on us and the outcome didn't look too positive. The defensive forces had been decimated. We were told to hold the line (an entirely futile point by then as we were basically the entire line) when we noticed a catapult with an ogre loading large boulders and a few goblins operating it. We managed to take them down rather easily, but had no cause for celebration as a black wave washed over the town and rendered us unconscious.

When we came to, we found the town ruined and no sign of survivors. We managed to acquire a map which showed us where the army was marching and we began on an intercept path.

Because of the robes the casters were wearing, we were able to determine that we were dealing with an army of Cyric. Of course, the mindless orcs didn't care who they were serving. What made it different from past armies was the fact that humans were along this time.

So, that is our quest. We must find a way to defeat this army. As we speak, they are trying to bring down the defenses of Suzail, the capital of Cormyr. We've been assured that the war wizards there can hold them off for some time, giving us an opportunity to enlist some sort of aid. I have been entrusted with an unknown item for safe keeping, something that supposedly is important to our cause. We were given options for how to go about finding assistance. We chose to go north into the forest of Cormanthyr.

Through notes received from a mysterious Harper, we've been given instruction on where to go to find some sort of help. So far, what we've found in this forest has been demons, vile Drow, dragons, and centaurs, but no real aid. We press on, following the directions given in the note, though with a few side treks. My companions have decided to attempt to find the hoard of the young green dragon we encountered who was banished. I agreed to this, with the condition that we somehow return - or if we cannot return it ourselves, allow the townspeople to retrieve - the golden statue of their god which the dragon tore from the top of the temple.

As for my own minor goals, I must travel to the nearest temple of Torm when we have the chance, for I have the holy symbol of a fallen champion to return. I have placed my own on the breastplate of the armor which we found, but I am certain that the champion would understand that his armor still has a use in fighting against Cyric.

I am also determined to perhaps understand a bit more about my sword. When we were fighting the demon and I dealt the killing strike, my sword flashed silver. To my knowledge, my sword has always been nothing more than a common weapon. Later, during my meditation, I heard a voice - I can only guess it was Selune, though that's rather presumptuous of me - asking me how I wished to use my newfound power: to strike against my enemies, or to help others. I chose the latter, and I find now that my healing magic is almost twice as strong as it was previously. Has my sword been touched by Her, granting it magic? I suppose only time will unlock whatever other mysteries it might hold.

But for now, we journey to the east.

Alright fellow adventurers, time to hear the real story. My name is Noube, I am an elf. Yes, I have been banished, but it was not my fault. No one listens, so I will not go into details. Like you I believe there is nothing better than a good adventure. Many times, you get to pick who you are with, but this time was not the case. This time, I ended up with whoever was left alive.

I will describe my party in order of likeability.

SLICK - Alright, out of the whole lot, Slick is the only one who doesn't run his mouth. A quiet respectable rouge who knows his role in the party.

RICA - Ah, the drunken dwarf. This meat shield *ahhem* paladin has been a great front line of defense for me. Although she is short, I can always enlarge her to catch the attention of our foes. She is confident in her abilities and after a few beers, OMG I did not just say that ... ick!

MERICET - A fellow magic user with a fetish for black and purple. I must admit, at first I was unsure about fellow but I am taking lessons in intimidation from him. The skull on his armor is a bit creepy, but then again so is the bearded woman in our party.

ALYSTRA - An elf... I no longer trust elves. However, when I was mysteriously taken down in battle she was there for me. Not until after I became unconsious, but a healer is a healer and it is always nice to have at least one in your party.

MOURN - He shot me TWICE (ACCIDENT MY ASS!) and then later that day attempted to cut off his own arm, yet he tries to act like I am the amateur in the party but he is only trying to distract attention from himself.