A Kender's Wanderlust

Beginning

The air was mild for late fall, there hadn't been a cloud in the azure sky for weeks. "A perfect time for me to travel back to Kendermore. All my friends have been killed by ogres anyway." Edmund Barkwood muttered happily to himself as he stuffed his pouches full with what he could find from his late friends' broken down wagon.

He was tall, rich and well dressed (for a kender), with his well groomed topknot, high black boots, pale green pants and silk shirt. His hoopak was even made of silver and rosewood. Numerous pouches were draped over his thin form. And, luckily for him, he was even educated.

At age thirty-nine he has (as most all kenders have) traversed most of all Ansalon. From Palanthas on down to Tarsis and across the continent to the Blood Sea, he had journeyed. His knowledge of Krynnish jails was vast. He had, a few years ago, attempted to join that Conclave of those interesting wizards as a red robe, but when it comes down to it, he's still a kender and, well, they said no. Oh, well, he had thought, I could still be a bard.

He and his friends from the Thieves Guild (they told the kender that they were actually borrowers and didn't really steal, which was why he allowed himself to join up and was travelling with a bunch of thieves at present) were traveling away from a small village they had cleaned out two nights ago. There was in the village, a black robed wizard's residence. The leader of Edmund's group, named Darm, hadn't liked this, and so he had all of them leave the village immediately after. "If he caught us wit' his stuff he'd prob'ly turn us all into lizards and eat us!" he had told them.

For that very reason, they had been riding two nights straight. Two nights, riding down a bumpy dirt road with no one in sight, nothing to worry about. That is, until now. This was the night the ogres came.

It had been foggy and cold, an hour after the darkness covered the sky, and as luck would have it, their wagon had broken off it's back wheels tumbling into a ditch. "Damn! Now what are we gonna do?" Darm had said. No one answered, his men stared around sullenly. This was certainly not turning out to be an easy getaway they had expected.

After a minute or so of silence, the mens' thoughts were abruptly pulled away when the horses started to wildly strain against their harnesses, whinnying and pawing at the ground. All of the thieves were just standing and staring around in confusion, out in the open. Completely unexpecting, as five ogres jumped out of the darkness to surround them.

Luckily Edmund had not been in the wagon (he had dropped one of his pouches out of the back while it was still moving and, while no one was looking he jumped out to look for it, but soon fell in a hole). And so, he was the only survivor. But the kender did get an excellent view of the action safely hidden in the ground.

The next day, after awakening in the same hole, he found the wagon in even worse condition than last night.

Peering around, he began to make an inventory of all the things left in the wagon, "Gee, I don't remember this thing. How'd that get there? What's this?....." Soon he could barely move for his pouches had accidently slipped down around his knees and his arm got stuck in between two drawers that hung halfway out of one of the stolen, massive chests.

After a minute he managed to free himself and fix his pouches in their proper positions. Finding nothing else he could take with him, Edmund decided to find out where he was (he'd forgotten). The kender stuck his little head out the doorway and was disappointed to still find himself on a long, flat empty plain. The ground flowed out endlessly to the east and west. Far ahead, to the north, the flatland gradually gave way to hills. All was quiet and peaceful. And for that very reason, extremely dull. "Oh well, maybe those ogres'll find me again and tear my limbs off. I'll bet that would be interesting!", here he sighed, "Seems those hills are the only things different around here," he said, eyeing his surroundings, "and since any way I go is as good as any other, I guess I'll head there."