Chronicles from Eberron--The Tale of Harrigan the Horrible (Chapter 3)

After their initial success in finding the Professor, Harrigan and his companions make their way towards Adar via airship, but not without some rather fortunate delays....

Aye, so we finally set out on the thrice-damned airship towards Adar. I hate airships. Can't stand the bloody things. Make me sicker than damned elven wine. I was bent over the side of the ship, pullin' from me flask just to stay alive.

That's when Jackie pointed out somethin' a bit alarmin'. Giant rocks, falling from the sky, straight towards the ship. I whipped out a two spells of Shatter and broke up some, sending shards of rock across the deck. However, I couldn't stop the other three, and one struck the ship. We started makin' for the life-rings, and I grabbed a rope and leapt off, hanging on--just in case.

Turns out that the ship only took cosmetic damage, and we were able to sit down without much trouble. Thing was that the shattered shards on the ship were dragonshards. Honest to damned gods Siberys dragonshards! We got hit right in the middle of a damned storm of 'em!!

We set down right on top of where we thought one landed, and I sight beheld me that I'd never seen before. A dragonshard--a single, bloody dragonshard--the size of a damned wheelbarrow. One. Just one. I damned near pissed myself. As Khin said, "It just falls into your lap...literally!"

Immediately, we set about decidin' what to do. We had to do a bit of re-negotiatin' with the Prof, mainly because of the wealth of this thing. We figured out an arrangement, and started to diggin'. Jackie, Sparkles and I broke out the prospectin' tools, while Lil gave us some moral support. Lazy shifter. Khin and Johnny headed out, though....apparently, Khin saw another shard drop not too far away.

After doin' some figurin', we managed on a way to move the shard itself. Turns out that the little gnome, ADHD and all, could push it, if we managed to get it up on some rollers. Some trees from the local copse fit the bill, and Lil got around to choppin' 'em up.

Only one problem emerged. Well, actually three of 'em. Dinos. Big nasty lizards with bigger nasty teeth. Immediately, we leapt into action. I cut in with an Earthbolt, and Jackie whipped out his sword and dagger. Lil started casting some helpful spells and Johnny drew his mace, ready to charge on out.

I tell ye what--say what ye want about the damned gnome, but the bastard can fight. He took out one of those lizards by himself--no help whatsoever. Another one, which I caught with a second Earthbolt, Johnny finished off with a half mace-slam, half body-tackle.

The problem, though, was not so much the lizards, but rather what they meant. Apparently, the dinos were the mounts of some halflings in the area. Damned cannibal halflings. I hate the buggers. The Prof and his bodyguard, the Kalashtar, held them off from wreckin' the ship, but we knew we needed to get out of there. I started pokin' the gnome till he got nice and pissed off, then Enlarged him, so he could push the rock. Just as we figured, he had no problem rollin' it right into the ship's cargo hold.

We also managed to pull some smaller shards from the second shard-fall, including one the size of a dinner-plate. I pulled out my scrapin' pan and grabbed up some dragonshard dust, as well.

With that, we needed to figure on where to go next. Sharn was quite a ways away, and we didn't want to head to Adar with such a risky thing as this giant shard. So, we decided to head a bit south...to the Mror Holds and House Kundarak.

Now, I'd never been to Mror and the Ironroot Mountains. However, I knew it as my home, because all good dwarves know it as home. We docked, and immediately set out about gettin' an appointment.

The secretary at the Kundarak house was quite the eyeful, and she was more than helpful in settin' up a meetin'. I wouldn't mind meetin' up with her again, if ya know what I mean!
We were set up for 1pm the next day, with a Kundarak official.

Well, in the meanwhile, we grabbed some grub and drink and brought it back to party with the shard. Turns out that Jackie used to be quite the drinker--go figure. It's not surprising that he's as nuts as he is. A man goin' without drink for as long as he had before last night would be that nuts!

Well, once the Kundarak fella arrived the next day, his jaw dropped further'n mine did when I first laid eyes on it. He immediately went to go grab his superior, who had eyes wider'n a deep cave owl.

He tried to offer us an awful deal for the shard--35% of the wealth. We tried bargainin' with him, but he wouldn't have it. So, instead, I offered him somethin' better: the dinner-plate sized shard. He took that, and we split the big one's worth 7 ways---naturally, the Prof got his equal share.

We spent about a week or so in Mror, livin' the high life and waitin' for our profits to roll in. And that they did. We managed a total of 250,000 gil, selling between universities, The Twelve, and some other private buyers. Split 7 ways, that was over 35k a piece! And the fame....oh, the fame. Definitely, our names were probably on someone's list by now....

We made quite a few purchases around Mror before we left. Lil grabbed up a new enchanted lute, Jackie had his rapier enchanted, and the gnome got a pair of boots. I, meself, ended up with some new enchantments on me bracers, as well as a few other trinkets. I even had an ever-wand of Kelgore's Fire Bolt created, so I'd never run out.

With our last night in Mror, we lived it up. I's surprised that none o' the pipsqueaks were hungover the next day, as we traveled over the ocean towards Sarlona.

Well, we arrived pretty easily and only had one major problem as we arrived at the Prof's "sanctuary". Apparently, some Giant-age warforged were still bein' used by the Inspired, to try to hunt down ol' Proffy's friends. Needless to say, this was a bit weird, since the giants were on Xen'drik, not on Sarlona. Go figure.

When we arrived, we already had our task laid out before us. Head to Xen'drik and figure out what the hell was goin' on with the damned ancient warforged. And, as always, do our prospectin' thing. Turns out that the prof needs all three types of shards--Siberys, Eberron, and Khyber--to complete his device.

Y'know, as I mentioned to Johnny, I'm startin' to worry about this here device that Proffy is buildin'. He's talkin' now about transportation by moving places closer to the world and such...that has me just a touch worried. I can't imagine what it'd be like to have the Nine Hells right next door to me. Just seems like some o' that fire and brimstone that Johnny talks about might have some merit to it sometimes--especially if this thing falls into the wrong hands.