Quiet Leaf & Her Adventures

Week 1

Life finally free and away from my clan has been amazing so far. I've met new friends, Mars, an elven rogue, Kalimay, a somewhat humanoid owl warlock, and Chris, a kinda intimidating fire genasi and I even tamed a black panther and named him Bagheera. We kinda' all ran into each other and discovered we were all looking for some sort of adventure, so we decided to group together and explore the world together. I seem to also be the only one out of us that doesn't really know anything for sure about the recent War. I also didn't even think it ever happened until I finally got away from my clan and into the world. They really were telling the truth. However, it doesn't change how I feel about them.

Today, as we were roaming, we came across these giant ruins. We could hear something moving within the ruins so I took it upon myself to scale the wall and duck into a hole in the wall to view. As I peered through the gap, I noticed some sort of wild cat. It seemed to look like a saber tooth tiger, but not like the ones I read about back in my clan. I read books about creatures, beasts, and areas all the time so I could imagine the world without seeing it. This beast didn't look like how that book had said it would look. Nonetheless, I alerted my friends about what I saw. We debated for a bit before coming to the conclusion to fight it.

After looking for a while, they were able to find a different way in from the ground, while I took the opportunity to surprise attack the beast. I jumped down onto it with one of my shortswords. Once I landed, I used my other one to slash it. I seemed to do a pretty good amount of damage, but not nearly enough to kill it. I backed up a bit and stayed on guard as Mars seemed to have thrown one of her daggers at the beast from a distance. Unfortunately, I was caught off-guard when the tiger slashed me with its claws as I was looking away from it at Mars to cheer her on. It didn't do much damage, but it still stung a bit. While it was distracted with me, Kalimay and Chris took turns shooting arrows at it from a distance. As they caught the beast off guard, I went at it again with both my shortswords, seeming to do more damage than last time, but still not enough. After my attack, I turned to see Bagheera and gave him a signal to stay out of this fight. I didn't want him getting hurt. As I looked back, I noticed Mars ended up running up and putting a huge gash in its neck right before it attacked her. Kalimay ended up shooting the beast again, followed by Christ who had delivered the final hit. We cheered in the joy of defeating it and began skinning it for its hide. We had also taken its claws and fangs to sell at a village once we came across one.

Now that we were done with the beast, we decided to head into the building part of the ruins that seemed to be more stable than the rest. Looking around we saw a staircase to a second story, a giant doorway with locked doors, and two other smaller doorways. One seemed to have more corridors while the other seemed to have extra rooms. I headed towards the smaller doorway with rooms first. Kalimay was interested in the study down there and we both looked around for anything of value. We ended up only finding basic books and some alcohol. I kept the liquor for safekeeping, then moved on to the other room. It seemed to be a bedroom of some sort with lots and lots of jewelry. While I was looting the place, I noticed something odd with one of the drawers. It was as if there was wood blocking off another compartment in it. I ended up pulling it off and finding some sort of golden whistle. I wonder what this does?

Once we were satisfied with the rooms, I walked out to see Mars attempting to pick the lock of the big door while Christ watched. Kalimay ended up flying up the stairway to get upstairs while I walked up the stairs. Once we got up there I noticed Kalimay already helped herself to the bigger study up here and even found a book in some foreign language. We then ended up being drawn to the big, heavy doors with no lock. We found out it was a pushable door, so we called the others up and we all were able to push open the door. Once we got in, we saw lots of empty cages. Not normal cages though. They seemed to be big enough to fit even that saber tooth tiger we defeated. My thoughts were interrupted by the sense of a dragon nearby and the shine of metallic, red scales flying past a cracked open door. I walked over to it and peaked in to see a gorgeous, red shadow dragon. It seemed to be fairly young since it was just about nine, maybe ten feet tall. I shared this information with the others, then instructed them to say behind me as I opened the door more. Once it was open a fair distance, I could tell it sensed me. I took a couple of steps before using my animal handling and friendship skills to be able to calm it and eventually tame it. I had always dreamed of meeting a dragon, and this one was gorgeous.

"I'm gonna' name you... Garnet."

"It does match its shiny, red scales," is what Mars added.

I smiled at the dragon that I could now call mine as I stated, "Gar Gar for short. It's cute!"

We all bonded with the dragon a bit so it would be introduced to all of us and be friendly with us. I didn't think it'd get along with Bagheera, but to my surprise, they seemed at least mutual with each other.

We decided to head back downstairs to investigate the last doorway we haven't tried yet. I went all-in on my own first, but as I continued walking, I started getting an uneasy feeling about where I was. I stopped for a minute and realized I was alone with Bagheera and Gar Gar. I shouted a couple of times before I finally heard Kalimay shout back, and I waited. I wasn't sure what was going to happen, but I waited for a bit.

After what seemed like hours, I got the idea to start throwing gold pieces to see if I could lead them to me. I might have lost like ten gold pieces from this, but it doesn't matter. Eventually, I could hear Kalimay somewhat closeby, like she was about to find me and I would find her until I heard the footsteps getting distant again and farther. They left me.

I sat down there and thought about it all. They wouldn't leave me, right? Surely they had some other master plan to get me out. So I waited... and waited for what felt like forever. I started giving up hope until Bagheera got off of my lap and seemed to be following some sort of scent. I got up and followed him as Gar Gar also followed along. After many turns and long walking, we finally seemed to have made it out, and as I walked out, I saw the meat from the tiger we had previously defeated lying there. They laid out meat to lead Bagheera out. I was so thankful to finally be out of that maze.