The Adventures of Waltor Windbeak

This is a tale of one noble hero, though I doubt many would be quick to call him such. But actions speak louder than words, so read on and determine if he truly is a hero or not. These are the adventures of Waltor Windbeak and the adventuring group R&D.

Our story begins in the city of Alier, capital of the Alierian empire. The city is bustling with people of all different races who have all congregated within the area of the plaza where a gnomish magician takes the stage showing the crowd wondrous tricks of all sorts. In this crowd commoners and city folk alike stand and watch.

In the front stands a massive goliath, shirtless and a giant hammer strapped to his back in a leather holder wrapped around his massive frame. This gave testament to his immense strength as the war hammer was giant in size but the wielder only had one arm. Embedded where his left arm should be is the fang of what must have been a creature of gigantic size. The surrounding people were either in awe of the hulking man before them or annoyed since he blocked the view of half the row behind him.

Off more to the side of the crowd a halfling leans up against a building, bow strapped to his back, studying the crowd and the people in it. His suspicious eyeballing was hid by his large leather sunhat that drooped from the heat and its own weight. He wore leathers with metal armor affixed in certain areas, which was another reason why he stayed by the buildings so that he could use them for their shade.

Like any plaza that was built with the intention of aesthetic appeal, there is a fountain at the center that shoots water up into the sky and cascades down into a wide basin filled with but a few copper coins as this is routinely a place where the less fortunate gather to acquire what coinage they could. This is also where our next two characters are. On one side sits a man in dark robes affixed with a detailed dragon whose wings extend down the sleeves. He is careful in his movements as to not show any skin but on occasion you can catch a glimpse of tattoos that run down his hands.

Finally, on the other side of this fountain a humanoid crow stands holding out bottles to passerbys.

"Get your Windbeak Mead! Finest in all the land! Only 1 silver per bottle." He says with a surprisingly noble accent. This is Waltor Windbeak, he wears a blue dress shirt and blue pants that poof out similar to parachute pants. Over his dress shirt he wears a brown quilt vest that looks singed and so does his leather satchel that is draped over his shoulder and seems to be holding all of these bottles. While he peddles his wares, a small child sneaks up behind Waltor with thievish intent in his eyes. As he reaches for the satchel, a loud squeak is heard from within as a weasel pops his head out of the bag, nipping at the child's fingers.

"You're going to have to do better than that kid!" Waltor yells at the child who is now fleeing off into the crowd holding his hand. Waltor gives the weasel a nuzzle on his head "Good job Gilgamore," and then he returns to selling his mead.

"For my last and final trick I bring you something from beyond our lands!" A silent hush befalls the crowd as they all lean in intrigued by what his next trick could possibly be. His assistant wheels in a large vase and presents it to the crowd.

"Now don't say Vextromo doesn't deliver!" He begins muttering a few words under his breath and the vase begins to crack and frost seeps through them. "I was deep inside a cave on an icy plane beyond the sea. I was already half an hour in when the cave began to rumble and the ceiling began to fall." The vase begins to crack even more and parts are beginning to fall off revealing something blue inside. "It was then I saw it, revealed by the crumbling of the cave, this vase trapped inside the ice for who knows how long, and the whats inside trapped for undoubtably longer!" Another piece falls off revealing a reptilian eye, the crowd gasps. "I give you, The Ice Serpent!" The vase explodes sending shrapnel everywhere as this large blue snake roars into the sky and the crowd cheers and applauds for this spectacular beast.

"Show them what you can do," Vextromo whispers to his beast and its eyes narrow as he scans the crowd then lunges at them. His mouth agape and aimed towards a small family. Inches before impact an arrow flies over sticking into the neck of the beast and drawing its attention.

"Everyone get out of here!" yells the man in the dragon robes and he begins directing people out of the plaza as the one armed goliath slams his hammer down on the head of this snake before him.

Angered, the snake lets out a loud roar as he sprays a line of frosty ice before him. The goliath dodges out of the way in time but the ice continues on toward the child with the thievish intentions. He stumbles and falls trying to get away and watches as the snakes breath flies towards him.

Suddenly a bottle smashed in front of him and wall of flowing golden mead forms in front of the child, giving off an reddish orange aura and absorbing the ice. The child looks behind him to see Waltor standing there with his hand outstretched. "Go!" he yells and the snake leans back preparing another volley of ice. Waltor fumbles through his bag and pulls out a bottle that's nicer than all the others and removes its crystal stopper and spins it in his hand, energy from all around pouring into the crystal. The crystal stopper glows with a blinding purple light and Waltor flings his hand forward to send this energy rocketing toward the snake. However, the light just flickers and falls apart. "Aw crap," he mutters under his breath.

"No worries buddy," The man in the dragon robes says as he swirls his arms around then points at the serpent, dark lightning travels through his body and toward the snake. The halfling climbs up the building he was leaning on, running and jumping from building to building taking a shot at the serpent. The arrow flies and impales itself in the snake's torso. The halfling then jumps off the building firing off another arrow into its roaring mouth, striking it in the uvula, then lands and rolls next to an old man who is standing directly in front of the icy beast.

"What are you doing old man, get out of here!"

"Don't worry 'bout me kid," the old man says as he draws a great sword and charges at the snake slashing at his underbelly. At the same time the the dark lightning impacts the snake causing it to let out a hideous roar. The snake then rears back once more and lunges out at the old man striking him but the goliath comes in swinging his hammer around in the style of a helicopter and the hammers' gleaming metal surface collides with the blue scaly face of the serpent making a loud thud. Dust around the area is blown back by the wave made by the impact. The plaza echos with the sickening crunch of breaking bone as the serpent recoils one last time and falls to the ground dead and bleeding over the cobblestone. A hush befalls the area as not even a bird dares to break the silence.

"Well, time for me to take my leave then I guess," Vextromo mutters some arcane words under his breath and an arcane door appears on the stage. The halfling knocks and fires an arrow at Vextromo but it was too late as he had already jumped through.

Everyone converges around the now dead ice serpent and the one armed goliath sheathes his war hammer and grabs the snakes fang and rips it out. "Souvenir" he says in a gruff and gravely tone. The sound of clanking armor and marching begin to fill the square as the city guards enter in. Riding in with them on a horse another armored soldier but with more decorations on him than his fellow soldiers, he was obviously the man in charge.

"You there, what happened here and where did that beast come from?"

"It was brought in by Vextromo, I don't believe he had the best intentions."

"And just who are you?"

"I'm Alton, you?"

"I am Watchmaster Howerth..." He and Alton continue to converse for awhile as the other members either listen or investigate the serpent. Waltor walks to the opposite side of everyone else and looks over the snake. He finds a large gash from the old mans sword and sticks his finger inside of it. Much to his surprise the blood is cold, very cold, and it actually begins to burn him a bit. "Curious," he says to himself and pulls out a vial to collect some.

"Hey! You can't do that! This corpse is now in the custody of the city and we will deal with it accordingly." Howerth says pointing towards Waltor who looks up with his orange eyes open wide. The man in the dragon robes steps up and holds out a stone with the royal seal on it. "My name is Torrid and I am an emissary from Lord Briargate. I believe his authority surpasses that of the town, am I correct?"

Confused and frankly flustered, Howerth just bends his head in concurrence, he doesn't know of a Lord Briargate but he figures its probably safe to not oppose in case he was wrong.

Howerth raises his head and looks at the odd lot who stands before him, "I'm going to at least need your names for my report, I know you are Alton," he points to the halfling in leather armor with the drooping leather sunhat. "And you are Torrid," pointing now to the man in robes decorated with a singular dragon. "But what of you lot?"

"I'm..." the one armed goliath begins to speak but is spoken over by the humonoid crow in the quilt vest and weasel on his shoulder who is screwing the cap on a vial of the serpents blood, which is beginning to frost on the outside.

"I am Waltor Windbeak of the Windbeak Meadery, but you knew that of course, how could you not?" says Waltor waving his hand in a regal way, or what he imagines to be one, and Gilgamore the weasel does the same. Howerth gives an odd look toward this wingless crow man taken aback that Waltor did in fact just talk to him for his species is known to be incapable of speech.

"Yes, as I was about to say I am Emberfang, your welcome for slaying this mighty beast. I claim it as mine now."

Howerth just nods, not wishing to oppose the goliath with the giant hammer.

"I am Tim but you can call me Old Man Tim, it's what everyone calls me."

"Well, gentlemen thank you for defending the city but I think we should be off. Clean up this carcass since you've taken such an interest in it." And just as loudly and slowly as they appeared Howerth and his men march off back out of the plaza.

"Well, good fight guys but I'm going to head off." Alton begins to walk away when Old Man Tim holds up a hand, "Wait!" He stops and turns around, Waltor looks up from the other side of the snake and away from his investigation to find more of the creatures blood.

"You are some fine fighters, I'm in need of some since I'm in the midst of a job of my own. What would you say to joining on as protection?" he offers extending his hand toward a cart off to the side.

"What need do you have of protection? You handled yourself well in the fight." Emberfang says while swinging his hammer around and using it to lean on.

"The road im taking is dangerous and I am still just a singular old man, plus you'll all get paid for doing this. So can I count on you?"

There are moments in life where a single sentence can change the fate of potentially hundreds of people. Where it feels as though you know that history is about to begin in this one spot in time. Here in the plaza of Aliers such an event was happening. As a one armed goliath, halfling archer, sorcerer, and a wizard mead salesman with a weasel sat looking at each other pondering this offer.

"I'm in," they all said standing together in front of the slain Ice Serpent in the plaza of Aliers.

This is where our tale begins, this is the story of Waltor Windbeak and R&D.

This is a narratively wrote recounting of the adventures of my D&D group and will be writing often to catch up to our current part in the story. Thank you for reading.