Hello again. Today happened.

Now that I have shaken off the funk I was in and prepared myself a long term goal I had thought I could just have a day to relax.

Nope.

For some reason the others don't seem to think my plan of wandering aimlessly is a good one. I say that eventually I will naturally find a place where people recognize me. From there it will be a simple mater to find out who I was, where I was from, and what happened to my men. Then I will find whoever was responsible and melt their face off. Simple, easy, and effective I thought.

The others disagree. So that is how we found ourselves in the nearest town. A collection of blocky squat stone buildings hunched in the shadow of a mountain and surrounded on all sides either by cliffs or a curving river. The locals are mostly dwarves and they make their living mining the gold from the cliffs.

There was a impressive pyramid in the middle of the city. It was surrounded by tall obelisks with intricate runes cut into them. Both the pyramid and obelisks looked to be made of gold. A friendly local told us that it was the local shrine of Goldoi. A dwarven god of wealth and mining.

The name seemed familiar.

The place towered over everthing in the town, casting a pall over everything around it.

We barely managed to stop Julius from attacking the place and claiming it for his own. I had a feeling that would make getting info from the locals much harder than it already was. That one friendly local clammed up when we asked for maps or info on the local geography. Two hours of being looked at suspiciously and having door slammed in our face and even Lena and Fen were starting to get grumpy.

So when the local guard surrounded us in an alley we were happy for a chance to work out some frustrations.

We had been surrrounded in a simple square plaza. Four roads led into it and it was surrounded on all sides by tall buildings. Thinking back, that was a really convenient construction for ambushes, and we had walked through three or four of them before this one. That whole city had been designed defensively hadn't it?

The four roads were blocked by dense pike phalanxes. The 15 foot long spears were almost comically taller than the stout dwarves who held them. Any amusement we might had felt was squashed by the stern brows and steely eyes of their bearers. This was further reinforced when they lowered their pikes into a bristling forest of sharpened steel. The whole pike was made of steel. The sheer weight and strength needed to level them so steadily was a sobering notion. I doubt I could have held one straight and steady for more than a brief instant. The dwarves themselves were heavily armored. Shining plate under tabards showing a golden scale on a mine cart. Thick shields lay across thier broad backs and shortswords, maces, and hammers hung from their belts.

All in all, the formation was truly intimidating.

Then dozens of stout figures in glimmering chainmail appeared on the roofs around us. They cradled steel armed crossbows in their arms, and had pairs of quivers slung across their hips. A few had sticks with leather cups at the top of them and sacks of small round pellets. These dwarves were awarded respectful distance from the others.

As the odds continued to stack against us the desire for a fight started to dwindle. It was shortly after I started wondering if I could form a tinglewood wall before we became pincushions that he arrived.

"You spies have two choices!" He bellowed from a shining chariot behind the pike-dwarves. "Surrender and be imprisoned and interrogated, or resist and die!" He was clad in gleaming golden plate armour. With a ruby studded mace in one hand and an intricately runed golden shield in the other. His helmet hid his face behind a plate of golden metal designed to look like a dragons roaring visage.

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But his voice gave him away. It was that pompous dwarf Julius had shaved a few days ago!

Immediately after realizing that the leader of these fearsome warriors was the idiot prophet Bob all the tension leaked out of the standoff. Lena and Onica started laughing and I joined them shortly after.

Poor Bob didn't seem to appreciate that. Before he could order his unfortunate subordinates to do anything two things happened. First, a wall of ice blocked the crossbow-dwarves line of fire. Second, a lightning bolt hit the phalanx between us and Bob. The clash of steel on ice rang out over head alongside some muffled booms and cracks from the ball-throwers. These were accompanied by the clatter and crash of a full hundred heavily armoured dwarves dropping to the floor in a twitching pile of steel and electricity.

Julius knocked Bob off his chariot as we ran past and had him stripped and his fancy armor in my satchel faster than you could say nude dwarf.

We ran away, still fighting laughter at how seriously we had taken them. Once we were well away from the town some dirty and smelly dwarves tumbled out of a small ravine, and onto the road we were following. This was in spite of my calm and reasoned protests that roads only led away from anywhere, and were unlucky too boot.

A short beatdown later and the bruised would-be-bandits told us why the locals had reacted so oddly and violently to our questions.

Turns out that there had been a longstanding feud between two local city-states. Oroio, which we had just seen was a theocratic city-state. Ruled over by religious leaders in the church of Goldoi. They used their considerable wealth and connections of fund and arm their crusaders. Who we had just seen.

To the north lies Splitting. Less of a city-state and more of a place of rest for local nomadic herders and caravaners. They would winter there and tell tales of the last year to each other. The population of Splitting is diverse in race and religions so they allow all kinds of worship. They had pretty much nothing of a standing army, but if needs be they could muster a fearsome host of light cavalry. 

A long time ago the lands Oroio was on had been the summer herding grounds for a group of nomads from Splitting.

Then some enterprising priests of Goldoi discovered a vast source of gold inside the protective cliffs. Without delay the church of Goldoi sent out a crusader army to claim the newly found 'holy land' for themselves. The herders refused to give up their ancestral lands and a bloody conflict erupted.

The Nomads had the upper hand for many years. Raiding any supply trains coming to the new city of Oroio and disrupting the construction of the city as best they could. They harrassed the crusaders, sweeping down on them without warning and cutting them down before riding away as fast and silently as they had come. These raiders were the young men and women of the various nomad clans of Splitting that could be spared from the herders and traders. Brash and brave charges were about all the tactics they knew.

Sadly, they lacked the sheer force required to break the phalanxes and crossbow barrages of the crusaders. Many died and they eventually withdrew to lick their wounds. This gave the enterprising dwarves a chance, and they did not miss it.

By the time the raiders returned to harrass the crusaders they had put up sturdy defenses. The already ineffective attacks became suicidal. Since then, the people of Splitting have been raiding the caravans of Oroio and using the gold to arm a force to smash the dwarves deadly phalanx. This unstable peace was futher destabilized very recently when the holy son of Goldoi, Bob Flintspine, was found injured and shaven, a very shameful thing for a dwarf of high standing.

The pious dwarves of Oroio have begun questioning their leaders, and-

Holy crap is this longwinded and BORING!!!

I don't care!

At all!

About any of this!!!

Blah, why does that effect us? Because the stupid priests and prophet of Goldoi had been telling their followers to watch out for spies and traitors to squash any unrest and resistance among their flock. That makes them too busy watching their friends and neighbors for signs of betrayal to think of rising up themselves, and then we showed up. An eclectic bunch of clear strangers asking possibly suspicious questions. 

So they labelled us as spies and tried to smash us in a clear show of force to put fear and trust back into the hearts of their followers. Well, we know how that worked out, don't we. 

Anyway, we got unlucky with our choice of place to ask questions in. I told them, following roads is unlucky.

So now we are heading towards Splitting. Hopefully the people are more helpful around there.

Tonight we ate some huge crabs that came out of a river we crossed. They need some seasoning, but they aren't too bad by themselves.

I am locking my Journal up in a tinglewood box. Nobody will write in my Journal but me! Its my very first companion besides my satchel and pen and all three are very important to me. I know the others mean well but I am not at all okay with letting others write in you. 

Maybe sometime later, I will calm down a bit.

Goodnight.