IGMS Issue 22 Read Free Page B

Especially since you didn't raise me to let my friends go splat the first time they do something dumb -- or the second time, or the seventeenth.
    But we actually had a plan; I swear we did. Maybe the dwarves liked the idea of pitting three hundred of themselves against two thousand crazed demon-worshippers, but I'd prefer not to go out in a blaze of glory when I'm nineteen -- or, more likely, wake up in the temple back home with you two sighing and forking over vast amounts of gold to Father Feordin. It's embarrassing, not to mention painful. Plus my brothers would laugh themselves sick. So we decided to strike a deal with
    MOM DAD AMULET RETRIEVED SEND LOCKPICKS OR DIMENSIONAL PORTAL ASAP ALSO HOW DO YOU UNPETRIFY A DWARF
    Dear Mom and Dad,
    You're lifesavers -- almost as much as if you had resurrected us. From Bjartald's point of view, being turned to stone is as good as being dead, even if it's cheaper to fix. Also, we got out of the dungeon just in time to snatch Shariel away from the queen of Ahuatepec, so you get credit for the assist on that one. We're still not entirely sure if the plan was to sacrifice Shariel or to turn her into a man and then marry her to the queen -- Urgoth thinks they were going to kill her so she could be a vessel for the dead guy the queen wanted to marry, and
then
turn her body male, but Shariel starts gibbering any time we ask, and really, it doesn't matter, because we're fleeing Ahuatepec just as fast as we can go. But Six Flower, the sorceress helping us flee, promises she'll get this letter to you. Apparently she also sent along my earlier attempt, the one that petered out mid-sentence when the drugs they'd slipped into my corn beer kicked in. I don't know if that got to you before or after me yowling for help -- which Maggie gets the credit for, although where exactly she kept that wind-whisper charm I don't want to know, since the guards stripped us all before throwing us in the dungeon. Either way, the lockpicks and de-petrification ointment were exactly what we needed, so THANK YOU.
    That whole "fleeing" thing means I don't have much time to write -- I'm scribbling this while huddled inside a hollow tree, hiding from the seriously giant eagles they have in this part of the world -- so I'll just get to the point. I'm leaving Ahuatepec, and headed to worse places, because of that damned business back in the Cwrelyn Isles. The rest of what happened between there and Wayyir would take too long to tell, so I'm just going to hit the key points:
    1) It wasn't Bjartald's fault, it was Helga's, for telling her favorite story so damned often -- the one where she killed the wyvern by hammering out a pillar so the ceiling fell in on it.
    2) It's doubly Helga's fault for not giving Bjartald enough architecture lessons for him to know which pillar to hit to kill Saskarezoen, instead of everybody else.
    3) You guys, however, get hugs and kisses for telling me to make friends with any wandering monk of Osmaitlik I came across. Having buddies in the order helps a lot when it comes time to resurrect four-fifths of your adventuring party.
    4) Get one of your crazy gnome friends to invent a convenient way of hauling around four corpses while trying to contact the Osmaitliks. Also a way to keep them from stinking.
    5) I'm trying to invent more key points because I don't want to tell you the last one. Ever since I started writing that first letter I've been looking forward to yelling at you, but now that I finally get my chance I don't want to put the words down on the page. You have to promise me you won't teleport after us, and you won't let Helga do it either, or Liraiel, or Martin, or anybody else, because if you do I won't just be dead, I'll be the kind of dead you don't come back from even if your parents have saved a lock of your hair and enough gold to pay Father Feordin, the kind of dead that doesn't lead to fun stories over beers when you're retired and hanging out with your pals down at the