Chronicles from Eberron--The Tale of Harrigan the Horrible (Chapter 1)

This tale arrived from one of my fellow magi from the continent of Khorvaire. While it is difficult to tell whether the strange dwarven sorcerer Harrigan and his company truly existed, but at the very least, the story makes for an interesting tale.

From what I can gather, Harrigan Grimgem was a rare dwarven sorcerer that grew up in the city of Rekkenmark in Karrnath. Harrigan served for 15 years in the Karrnathi army at Fort Bones, where he was granted the rank of Bone Sergeant and War Wizard. From there, he traveled west, arriving at Fairhaaven for reasons known only to him.--PW.


Aye, laddies, this may be the beginnin' of somethin' big. I was sittin' around the Fairhaaven library, like I have been the last 6 months, when I get a message from some chickie-poo named Dhalia. I dinna know many of the professors around this bloody place, so I's unfamiliar with her name. She was offerin' 1k of gil and a free round-trip for a service...and I was short on cash and was itchin' to get out of the damned place.

There, I met up with the frightful crew that'd change me life for the rest of me days. The first was another Karrnathi fella named Khin. He served a bit further east of me, guarding trade routes during the Last War. Also with the chick were a gnome and a shifter teenager. What the two of them had to do together, the Forger only knows. I later found their names as Sparkles and Lillis. Two humans were there, too--some dance professor named Jacquin, and some creepy fella named Johnathan Davis. Davis kept ravin' about some Saviour and Lord, but I didna' pay him much heed. I never had much to do wit' the gods and they never had much to do wit' me.

Dhalia was apparently an assistant or such, but her professor, some Marvin Turning, went missing. Apparently some armored fella and an ugly chick busted through the window of his lab, grabbed the professor, and hightailed it out before she got more than a glimpse.

To be frank, I's a little suspicious of chickie-poo at the start. Things just didn't seem to add up. Jackie found a journal of the professor's, implyin' that Dhalia'd been poisoning him with sleeping toxin for at least two months. But, that'd weren't the crime we were really lookin' into, so I filed it in the back of my mind and let it go.

We did some investigatin' there, but didna' find much else, aside from a big print where, apparently, the armored fella hit the ground. Since he survived, I guessed he was probably a warforged or such. No human in armor woulda survived the fall from the professor's lab, so...we had at least somethin' to go on.

We decided to split up at that point, with Jackie, Lillis and John headin' towards the professor's house and meself, Sparkles, and Khin headin' off towards a seedier part o' town. Seems like everytime a mystery raises its head, the best way to solve is to go have a drink.

There weren't exactly a lot o' warforged in Fairhaaven, so when we stepped into the Half-Full Flagon, we immediately had an idea of a suspect. After a few Broken Temples, and a nice tip for the barkeep, we even had a name--Cog. Cog had a partner named Dox, who was supposedly ugly enough to tip a Kundarak scale, and they had a penchant for doin' "freelance" work.

Khin, who's apparently smarter'n I gave him credit for, came up with a plan. The idea'd be for us to pretend to want to kidnap Dhalia to ransom her to the professor. If the two showed their hand about the professor bein' missing, they'd be revealed and we could take care o' business. A meeting was set up for us in an upper room for 4 hours later, which gave us just enough time to catch the others.

We arrived over at Turning's place as Jackie and comp'ny were finishing up having a look-see. Only problem is that no sooner'd we start wrappin' things up over there, but three punks in black cloaks burst in. Immediately, I cast my Fist o' Stone and got ready behind the gnome. Yeah, I said behind the gnome. The bugger's name might be Sparkles and he might have the attention span of a marshfly, but the bugger carries a sword bigger'n that o' most humans and is built like a screamin' ball of rage.

Jackie got injured real quick out o' the bat, but managed to slice into one of the buggers with his saber right quick. Khin was lookin' around upstairs, but charged townstairs with a sword and mace drawn. John Davis screamed somethin' about heathen-smiting and put his club through one of the cloaked-fella's heads. The third got a flaming chunk o' rock through his chest, courtesy of me.

The one fightin' Jackie and Lillis weren't dead yet, so he tried runnin' off. However, I called up an Earthen Grasp and held him still while we got some info out o' him, thanks to Johnny's 'interrogation' techniques. He wasn't sayin' too much, though, and we offed the bugger.

The only real identifyin' feature about the three guys, aside from the cloaks, was the fact that they was wielding real, true-to-life, Riedran Crysteel longswords. But, we didna' have much time to think about that at the time...we were about to be late to our meetin'.

We arrived back at the Half-Filled Flagon just in time to get some info out of Cog and Dox. The two of 'em, yeah, kidnapped the Professor. Only thing was, they were doin' it to keep him from gettin' assassinated. The three guys we offed with the Crysteel swords were agents o' something called the Dreaming Dark or the Inspired, and were planning on givin' old Marvin a long dirt nap.

Cog and Dox set Professor up with a friend o' theirs and put him on the lightnin' rail headin' east. Protection or no, we needed to get the man back, so we set out after....but not before Khin and I sent a message on ahead. In order to get through Karrnath, the lightnin' rail'd go right past Fort Bones......and they need to be inspected.

So, here I am, on my way through my ol' stompin' grounds. Had to take a bath to get on the lightnin' rail, but I'm sure I'll work up a good bit o' dirt once I get back to prospectin'. Hopefully this whole shenanigan will be over soon, so I can get back to what I like...at least the company's not too bad so far.