Adventure Report of Master Tortuga and Co. -Crawley Heard a Roar
Honestly, when I came to Goldland seeking enlightenment and adventure in my old age, I expected to see things that I would never be able to imagine and face difficult challenges. I could not have expected that my first excursion into the forests of Goldland would be such a catastrophic failure. The adventuring party for this excursion included myself, the aforementioned Crawley, Bjorn, Seamus, Aycee, and Ran-daall.
It was but one night in the woods when our eccentric facilitator lost his life to a creature that mutated from another creature. Indeed, Crawley met an untimely demise at the hands of something I can only describe as a "land shark". And this land shark mutated from the bloodied body of a flaming ichor spitting gremlin. Another one of those gremlins turned into some half-porcupine/half-parrot hybrid, so it seems as though there is no real rhyme or reason as to what each and every monster will mutate into only that they do so when enough bodily harm is done unto it. All the more reason that I say a way of non-violence is the solution to such awful problems. Had we dealt with the gremlins in a non-violent way, they would have never mutated and perhaps Crawley would still be alive!
As for my adventuring companions and I, we considered it a great success that we escaped those treacherous woods with out lives! Crawley was flattened by that land shark's prestigious girth in one giant leap. Most attacks just bounced off of its thick hide. It was only after Bjorn's weapon viciously buried itself into the beast did it drop dead for good. The porcuparrot suffered a similar fate. Seamus would have too if we didn't get to his side quickly enough to revive him. Then the members of my party, morbid opportunists that they are, harvested the parts of the beasts that they could sell off later. Blood money is not something I am interested in at all.
With the reason for our venture now deceased, the group thought it best to vacate the woods and recover in the safety of town. The only issue was finding our way back. Luckily, Aycee seemed to be an expert navigator. Along the route, we saw in the distance a sloth that was as tall as a hill being attacked by several large lizards! Not wanting to get caught up in the carnage, we sought a different route home following a rapidly moving river that was some twenty feet wide. I volunteered to ford it first, under the current, and secure some rope to cross it, but that would have left our party's donkey stranded. Not wanted to leave the pack beast behind, we moved South to find a more suitable crossing.
At a narrower point, we found two ferocious badgers fighting each other. After letting them duke it out, Ran-daall made quick work of the other. Not wanting to get involved, I hid in my shell. The group then collected their bloody pelts, and Seamus made an ice bridge over the narrowest part of the water for all to safely cross.
While the idea of seeing a dragon certainly intrigued me, we quickly realized that literally anything could have made the roar Crawley heard, and that he was probably just blindly assuming it was the roar of a dragon. In any case, it wasn't worth losing our skin over. I, for one, am grateful that I was able to return to town in one piece. With that being said, I should also state that I share a similar thought to Seamus, in that this land the inhabitants call "Goldland," is seeming to be more of a misnomer than anything else. I am wondering if the locals have a different name for this world? Finally, I must say, if this group is to go back out again, we really need to consider who is actually asking us to do so. I also hope that now that we know the danger outside of our city walls first hand, we may make better preparations to steel ourselves in the future for the excursions to come.
