11 Bull, 526

So the other day milord Darshiva says, "Haran, come to a meeting, I want you to meet a few people," and I think, "Are these the kind of people that will measure me for a long wooden box?" So I say to the boss, "Hey, what kind of people you got me meeting there, because I do not want to--" that is when the back side of his hand connects with the front side of my face and he tells me to shut my mouth and he does not want to hear what I do not want. He wants to hear that I will be at the meeting, so I say, "Yea, alright, I will be at the meeting."

I get there, and he is got everybody all lined up at this big old table about as long as the run of the Gateway. He has got me sitting a few spaces down, with little signs in front of our places and one or two of his "helpers" making sure we get to our seats alright. So I turn to the chap next to me, and I say to him, I say, "So, what's your line of work?" He looks me over for a minute, rolls his cigar to one side of his mouth and gives me a weird kind of smirk, holds out his hand and says, "Joshua Kallendar."

I say to him, I say, "I have heard that is a very dangerous business." Then he squeezes my hand so hard, I think it is going to break. "Watch the merchandise," I say, "Watch the freakin' merchandise here! Do you know what that hand is worth?" He says nay, so I pull out The Box and I say, "Flip the switch, baby! Flip the freakin' switch." He laughs and slaps me on the back and says, "You are alright, lad. You are not too bad. You must be the trap maker?" Now, I am still looking for my tongue after he hit me on the back so hard, so I am thinking, but I am not saying, "No, I am not the trap maker. I am the belly dancer. That's why I got this box with a switch on it and a bag full of wires and high explosives, baby!"

So I think, hey, wake up! Look at the size of this chap's muscles and the attitude to match it, pal. This chap's Hired Muscle, alright, yea, definitely, definitely. So I decide to talk to the other chap next to me. I look over at him, and I get about as far as, "Hey" when he whips his head around and I see his face peeking out of that weird hood he is got on and he is got some kinda crystal ball or something in his hands and he lets out this weird old man kinda giggle and I am thinking, "Very well," and I turn back to Joshua Muscle-Boy over here.

I am feeling awful weird as the chap across the table starts talking to this one with the crystal ball and then I see Fetid come in and sit down at the other end of the table and I am thinking, "Oh, Fetid, you sweet visage, you! I never seen anyone with a mug so beautiful before!" He just kinda waves that hook at me and sits down next to some chap who is got some alchemy set up burbling at the other end of the table. So, I see him working on his stuff, I pull out The Box and I start making some adjustments. Fetid told me later that chap's none other than the Larker vanTinebras, the Alchemist of Downtrodden, and I am thinking, "Whoo ho ho, Darshiva spares no expense."

It was a awful weird, but real exciting meeting. Milord Darshiva came in and made some introductions. Looks like that crystal ball chap's got the name for the job, name of Fritz the Mad. Yea, I needed you to tell me that. He is some kinda sage or something. Figures the brightest candles are always the ones that drip wax all over the table, ya know what I mean? Then there was his apprentice that he introduced called Larood, and yea, his bodyguard, his alchemist, me, Fetid, Makern was there, too, and Lildren and a couple others I seen. He got all us there to tell us he is building some big citadel in the western mountains. It is awful aggravating working for him sometimes, but you can't beat the pay, no way, no day. Milord Darshiva can be awful secretive, he does not tell us nothing but what we need to know. The meeting was about more information than I ever got out of him and I bet more than I ever will again, either.

So he turns to me and he says, "Can you trap it?" and I say, "Hey! Does a clam swim in the sea?"

"No, it does not," he says. He got me there. I was a little nervous, but I just keep laughing and I said, "Yea, hey I was just testing ya. I mean, not you, but, uh, Fetid over there." Everybody looks at Fetid just as he is using that big claw of his to pick his nose and I know I am saved. It is just like that time when I was little and I stole the kabob from that chap in the market and I ran away, ya see, and I am running through the bazaar and then I hear the chap shout, "Hey, somebody stop that lad in black!" and I knew, I knew I was home free. I felt so good, I stole some dice on the way home and went and found Old One Eyed Lad and gypped him good. So he wants me to trap this place. "Spare no expense," he says. This place will be my masterwork! Soon everyone will know the name of Haran Roeh! Baby, I am going to spell it in exploding letters fifty feet high that pop when you breathe on them! I got plans for this like you would not believe, plans so ingenious that even milord Drax will be afraid to step into his bunny slippers in the morning. There is not going to be an inch of this place that is not rigged to blow.

I got this great plan. You see, you got this tile floor, right, and it is got words written on there. So everybody looks at it and they think, "Oh yea, hey! Wake up! That one says, 'This way out' so that is the way we go, right?" WRONG, baby, wrong! I will tell you why. Because you are a sucker! Always going for the easy way out. I am Haran Roeh, milord, capital H little a little r little a little n Roeh and that is not fish eggs, baby! You think I am going to build a citadel for the greatest not to mention the richest and best paying Sorcerer King in the freaking world and I am going to spell it out for you on your forehead!?! In your dreams, baby! Go ahead, take the plunge, step on that T, little darling, I will tell you what will happen! ZOK! A crossbow bolt is going to come screaming out of the null faster than you think the words, "Uh-oh," and It is going to lodge itself smart into your calf, baby. With a little help from Larker over there and my ole pal Fetid, you can bet that baby is not done after it cuts you, neither.

15 Bull, 526

It came to me in a dream. Ooh, I just get a tingle when I think of that crossbow trap. Baby, it is the best. The best! No way out, no way, yea, yea! Well, there is got to be a way, so I was thinking of asking the Big D if we could employ a little magic here. Magical traps, I love it! I heard of them rituals that will do things when you say or do the right thing or the wrong thing or whatever. So I am thinking, I am thinking in my dream of walking in this room, see, and it is got all these little tiles with words on them, but if you step on any of them the crossbows fire from the walls and you are done, you are done, baby! High explosive tips, baby, and BOOM! Dead robbers all over the pretty tile floor! Yea, definitely. So, what you do if you happen to live there is you say the magic word and this thing casts like some magic on the walls so the crossbows cannot escape, yea. But then it needs a second trigger because what if some smart ass adventurer comes in and casts that himself, yea, what if that happens? Definitely need a second trigger. So I was thinking that as long as I have this tile floor with the words, it seems like a shame to waste it, but I do not want to have them spelling out words because that is tedious! Yea, you will never ever see one of them floors here, baby! "Well, maybe one or two," he says, so I say, "Very well."

13 Gryphon, 533

Yea, I got it. I got the best trap idea yet here, baby. The Big D loves this one, he loves it! He says, "If you are going to hire a traps man, you hire the best, you hire Haran Roeh," and I say, "Do I not know it. You should not be a traps man unless you cannot see yourself ever doing anything else, and I can't, baby, I cannot, so I am a traps man, and BOOM! You better watch out because I am backed by milord Drax! Yea, King Drax forever, baby!"

Very well, very well, so you take The Thing, whatever it is that you do not want nobody to get. You put The Thing on another thing, a big flat plate and put that in a box or build this into the floor, so they can't see the bottom. This is best if it is a small thing that looks like a big thing. You put The Thing on that other thing and that other thing balances on a spring, baby, a weight-sensitive spring, like a scale. Then you put the trap trigger between the plate of the scale and the springing mechanism, and put high explosives in there. They come over, they lift up The Thing, and BOOM! It is gone. Now, depending on what The Thing is and how vengeful you are, you can make this a double fire trap. If they got a Fire Shield, even this will get 'em, or you can make it an explosive trap and they are done, put a fork in 'em. The only problem with the explosive trap is that you lose The Thing in the explosion, whatever it was anyhow.

So I have this vision, you set this in a room where it is difficult to get through, not just because of the traps, but you have to bend and twist a lot. If this is a big Thing on the pedestal, then they are done. Even if they get past my weight trap, then whatever the bendy twisty thing - ooh! Ooh! Yea, blades, baby, rotating blades of death! That'll get 'em. I love rotating blades of death. I sleep easier at night just knowing they exist.

26 Salamander, 533

The adventure of a lifetime, baby, that is all I can say. I am awful tired and I can barely keep my eyes open but I just had to get this all down on paper before I went to sleep. I just had the cream of the crop of a time and if I ever have grandlads, baby, you can bet they'll still be talking about this one.

I went out to Talkalotta, Tokimuda or Tortureyoualotta or whatever that place is called where the citadel is to see how things was going. Milord Darshiva called us all out for another one of his progress meetings and a little get together - not that he was doing any getting together, he never does. He just stays in the lab. Hey! The service can't be beat, though. I got to hand it to milord Darshiva, those golems are great! What a great invention! He looks like he really loves making them, too. Every time I go to see him, he is got a few more I never saw before. Sometimes I wonder what he is up to with them, so I says to myself, I say, I say, "Hey, maybe you should ask him," then I realize what I am saying. Wake up!

So, I go out there and there is Fetid and Lildren and Kallendar and Jarood and even old Fritzy the Exceptionally Weird there. We go into the citadel and we are looking around. You would not believe how quickly they're getting that thing built. Of course, golems work day and night, do not need food, do not need to rest. They are better than undead, stronger, too and they do not smell. Good thing about golems, too, is that you can take them on ships. Undead are hard to transport that way. One goes over the side and BOOM! Wake up! Undead do not swim! So we are there and walking around and then all of a sudden Fritz starts drooling and getting awful weird and he runs forward like I never saw him before and he pushes Lildren out of the way and on her bum onto the floor. I was just about to say, "Hey, what do you think you are doing?" when out of the null, BOOM! This big block of granite comes down from the sky and crushes poor Fritz, just like high explosives, baby. So we get one of the Iron Golems to come down and move the block off of Fritz and luckily the golem is not too slow and Lildren whips Angelica's Death Bane out of her bag of tricks like anybody knew she could cast it, and Fritz is alright again. So now she is all over Fritz and asking if he is alright and how she can repay him and I catch a glimmer in that old fart's eye and I know that he is not drooling on the inside, baby, he is not drooling on the inside. He knows exactly what he is doing and he is happy about it. Well, more power to him, that is what I say. Go for it, baby!

So, it moves the block, and we get Fritz, but then there's this big hole in the ground, and it is leading into someplace that is not just dirt. So Fetid over there says, "Hey, I wonder what is down there," so he goes and makes like he is going to stick his head down in the hole. I say to him, "Hey! Wake up, pal! Are you a traps man? Nay! Then if you think could be a trap, like there might be in a hole like that, let the traps man handle it!" So then I turn to Joshua and I say, "Hey, Joshua, stick your head down there." So he pokes his head in and looks around and he thinks he sees something, but he is unsure so we do this and that and eventually end up tying a rope around Fetid and lowering him in because he is smallest being a Hobling and all and that hook of his can come in awful handy and we lower him down with a torch. He comes back up and tells us, get this, "It is big, " he says. It is big, and it is a mess, whatever it is. Looks like we started building the citadel over somebody else's maybe. "Hey!" I said, "I hope nobody's home because we just invited ourselves for dinner!"

What we fell into was what might be the greatest library of all time. I can't believe the amount of crap we found down there. You name it, there was a book on it. You name it, there was probably a hundred books on it in languages I could not read. I found a whole lot of it in Quentari. I have not seen it since I was real little. I sort of remember my sweet grandma Aliornithsana reading it to me, but I could only make out a few words here and there. Would you not know, of course, that Lildren's Quentari, so she is reading and reading, but even she said it was in a dialect awful old. We are talking things like before the First Dimensional Wars, she said. So, no sooner does she say that, but then Fritz over there starts staring into his crystal ball and he starts having some kind of spasm or something. He starts spouting about fire and magic and emeralds and unicorns and great battles and doom and destruction. Jarood is about the only one who really talks to Fritz, but hey, I woke up, even I know to listen to Drool Boy when he starts off like that. You do not mess with what is inside that crystal ball of his. He knows things. So, he and Jarood and Lildren go off whispering and Kallendar gets bored and he goes over starts whispering to Jarood, but it looks like whatever it was, it is not going to happen soon, so Fetid and me were like, we said, "Op! That is IT, baby! No more of that stuff!"

So, we decide that while they are whispering, we are going to go on walkabout and have a little look-see. We are not down there for ten minutes before I hear this awful low hissing sound and I get awful nervous because that only means two things. Either it is a gas trap and we will all know in a minute or so, or it is snakes. "Whoa! Big surprise," I said, "It is a snake." It is not a snake, it is THE snake. This is the great universal snake, with one fang on Tyrra and one fang on the moon, it was so big. I mean, you may think you have seen big snakes before, but they were boot laces compared to this chap. This snake was BIG. I would have looked at Fetid to see what he was doing, but I was trying awful hard not to pee myself. That is when I heard Fetid start in. I cannot believe it. He taunts the snake. "Hey! You want a piece of this? You come down here and get it, unless you are too fat! Yea, hey, I saw your mother last night, milord Drax was having a pair of boots made out of her! Yea, she was so--" he gets about that far, and the snake wheels its weird head and starts slithering down toward us. This thing's head is about as big as like ten of us back to back, all tied up in a stew pot, not that I am not trying to think positive. "You have sssssssseen my mother?" The snake says, yea, I am not kidding. The snake says this. It is bobbing its head back and forth and me and Fetid are kind of bobbing our heads back and forth with it, just watching to see what it does. I never saw Fetid so surprised before. He was speechless, well, for Fetid. That is the first time I ever saw anything interrupt the taunt like that. "Uh, yea, I seen your mother," The snake, I swear this, the thing smiled. Do not ask me how no snake can smile, but I knew it did. "How delightful," it says. That is when Fetid starts walking toward it like he is not thinking right or something, and I feel a little dizzy myself. It was the freaking snake! Staring at those eyes was like some kind of powerful snake charm or something. I got out of it, I remember grandma Aliornithsana teaching me how, but not Fetid, he is done. So, I do about the only thing I can do with some big snake is about to eat my best friend, I run.

Well, it is about that time that Kallendar and everybody else decides to come waltzing around the corner, all casual like, everybody still whispering and saying that stuff like, "I must consult the stars!" and all that Astrology crap. I say to them, "It is about time here," and that is when all chaos breaks lose. They see this snake, and they go wild. Kallendar goes charging at it, raising his spear up and screaming some weird war cry, Lildren starts throwing every dark spell from the abyss of chaos she has in memory, Jarood starts emitting some of kind of magical screaming singing thing, I do not even know what it was. Even Fritz runs forward. I am standing there, like, "What are you nuts?" But then I think to myself, "Well, if you got to go, go out with a boom, baby!" So I dig out my backpack and start getting set up to take this snake out, if only I had fifty feet of string. So Fritz, he is not too fast, gets there a few shots after everybody, and by that time, the snake is got Kallendar's arm hanging out of his mouth, and Kallendar is just lying on the floor spurting blood and twitching, kind of and Lildren does not even notice cause she is so busy beating up the snake and then Fritz takes his crystal ball in one hand, "Whoo, that is useful," I think, and his staff in the other and he starts babbling some garbage in some language I never heard, but I know it is not magic and doing this weird little Fritzey dance. The snake's head stops thrashing around and he starts following Fritz's dance doing a little one of his own and Jarood says, "Of course!" and turns on his heel and runs back out the way we came. I started to go with him, but by that time, I am up to my elbows in high explosives and I am thinking, "Not blowing up's alright by me, baby," so I just stay put. Lildren gets over to Kallendar and gets him a new arm put on and Fetid's nowhere to be seen, so I do not know what is going on. The sage over there is just dancing himself into a frenzy and clattering and clacking as he goes and I do not what is making that sound or which way is up. That is about the time Jarood comes back in with a freaking flute and he starts playing, and the snake goes wild again. Great. "Alright," I say," I have had enough of this freaking snake." So they keep fighting and dancing and doing their weird tricks and I go around another shelf over there and find a staircase. I get up to the balcony, and I do not what overtakes me, but it is something I remember my friend Hanover saying one time. He had this story that he never ever finished about how he got this scar. It went on forever. I traveled with Hanover for years and I still never heard the end. It started out in a tavern, I remember, but then he would always get hung up on this part where they were going to surprise the guards and they would bust in the doors screaming, "Banzai!" I would say to him, "Yea, Hanover," I would say, "Yea, after Banzai, what happens after Banzai?" But he'd never get to it. So, I take my daggers in my hands, scream "Banzai, baby!" jump off the balcony and onto the snake. I drive my daggers in between the thick scales as the snake has got 'em flexed, and I hang on for dear life, screaming, "I got you now, baby! Banzai!"

Grandma used to always say, "If you want to be write, do not write." Of course, I never listened to that anymore after I found her collection of dirty limericks. Who knew she used to be a tavern singer when she was younger? Stupid Quentari, they are so superior, like oh sure, they do not sing dirty limericks! I think that is the only reason they have their own language, so people do not know what the songs are saying. So the snake freaks out. It starts wailing around, trying like the beedraxes to get me off of what should be its neck, but I guess you could call most of the snake its "neck." I am there and I am hanging on, and the snake is wailing and moaning, and Fritz there he starts his dance again. The snake is awful mad, but Fritz adds in a bit of color with some sparkly Drae Death Dust he got off the Elfheim Lad and he is got the snake going. So it calms down, I loop my backpack straps onto the dagger cause it has got a awful long hilt, and I am just hanging there like that. I set up the trap, put a little Paste of Stickiness on the back, and WHAMMO! It is stuck fast to the snake and nothing is getting that baby loose. I cut the straps on my pack, drop the ground, and start screaming my head off for everyone to get back. Fritz stays there 'til we are all clear and then he backs up, too. As soon as Fritz stops his serenade there, the snake loses it again. He moves his head just a little, though, and BLAM! High explosives, baby! We got snake cakes all over the library. It is a beautiful sight! In the midst of that all, who comes burrowing his way out from under a huge chunk o' snake but Fetid. Looks like the snake ate him. He found some awful good stuff in that beast's belly, though, including a map of some of the "underground" areas of the library (yea, as if the whole freaking place were not underground). Looks like the place has dozens of levels. You could exhaust a lifetime looking through that one.

Well, there is some other good bits to the story, but nothing that unusual. No more big snakes, and you better believe I am thanking my lucky stars for that one. We got a bunch of loot in the snake's belly, too. My guess is either it ate somebody that had all that, or it was awful hungry and it just ate whatever happened to be lying around, which included a whole lot of jewels and stuff. We saw some traps, but nothing marvelous and so many books I thought I would wretch if I saw another one. We decided to leave the other levels for another time, though.

12 Bear, 536

So I tell Cal, I say, "I got this great job," I says, "I am working for none other than milord Drax Darshiva, the King of Sorcery and Erudition and Magic and all that crap," I says. Cal says, "You are sauced," and I say, "As that may be, baby, I got a good job to pay for it all." Cal says he is working as a road builder until another contract comes in. They got him blowing up rocks that is in their way. I said to him, "Yea, baby, remember the good old days?" and he says, Cal says to me, "Hey! Wake up, I am still living them."

So I go home to this great job of mine, yea right, and he says, Drax tells me, yea, "Go build a hide-out," he says. I try to argue, but he will not listen to nothing I say. "I cannot. I got a new experiment I am working on. You'll like it," I say, "It is kind of a exploding doorway, wardsey sort of guard dog without the dog kinda thing," I says, so he smacks me around a little and says, "What do you think I want you to build a hide-out for, for your carpentry?" he says. Sheesh. Now I am stuck in this swamp until the workers finish building the "snack shack" out here.

The other night I was in the kitchen talking to Myrtle and I says, "So how 'bout you and me?" and she says to me, she says, "What a creep like you?" so I says, "Hey, I got it all, baby. Traps are the thing of the future." She gives me a macaroon and says, "Coconuts are the thing of the present around here, get lost, pal." Milady, I love them macaroons.

So while I was thinking about this, I says to myself, "Self," I always calls myself that when I am talking, "You be a baker, too," I says, "and bake your way right into milady's heart." So that is when I go and talk to Fetid and see if he can brew me up some of that brew. Now, he wants to talk shoppe, so I say, "Yea," I says, "I can do that. You name the box, I can make it. You show me a lock and I can break it." That's when it occurs to me that rhyming sounds good when you talk. So I says to him, "I will make you that box and some of them locks, and you give me the brew that'll win her heart true." It is about then that Fetid tells me that all this rhyming is stupid. I agree with him, so that is enough of that.

So I stay there for awhile and me and Fetid get to be pretty good friends. He is been wanting to learn how to trap for awhile so I tell him, "You got to love it, if you don't love it, don't do it." I remember when I was young I heard Reffo the Amazing speak when he came to town and said that you should not become a Traps Man unless you cannot picture yourself doing anything else at all. Baby, that is when I said, "I am a traps man," so I trapped the stage the next day when he got up to speak. It was beautiful, I tell you. When I saw him step on that rug I got there, I knew. I said to myself, I says, "I cannot do anything else." So I tell all this to Fetid, you see, and now he says, "I can do other things," so I says, "Do not be a traps man, then." Fetid lifts up his hand, or what should be his hand and he shows me a hook instead and I said, "Ooh! High explosive trap?" and he says, "Baking accident."

After that, I do not feel too good about these new explosive macaroons, but I keep thinking to myself and saying, "Hey! Wake up! You want to keep working for milord Drax, you got to be on the ball, lad. You got to stay one step ahead of the rest of the pack. You got to be reaching for the stars, grabbing them by their little throats and wrapping some trip wire around them until they pop, baby!" So Fetid says, "Make the macaroons." One thing bothers me in all this. I keep wondering to myself how it is that Fetid can actually dismantle a box or two with that damn claw, but I say to myself, "Self" I say, "Hey! Wake up! To each his own, we all got to do our own thing, ya know what I mean?"

Wednesday, sometime in Phoenix, 538

We are just about at the end of building my Snack Shack out here in the freaking swamp near stupid Wilderwood, right, and then Emot and the boys, Makern, Furlogue, Gordo, Fetid and the Elfheim Lad come by and they say, "How about a game of cards?" So I say, "Well, if you want to play cards, you got to know how to play Blackstone. Do you know how to play Blackstone?" They say nay, so we sit down to play a hand or two except for Fetid who plays one hand and one hook. To play Blackstone, you take The Box and you put one card on either side. You bet a little on the one you think will come out, and you put the money on top of the card. Then the boys can bet against you and they put their money on top of the other card. You flip the switch. Whichever card survives is the one you get. From there, it is straight Rotarian Backstab.

So while we are playing cards, Furlogue says, "Hey, do you think necromancy is really evil?" Now the cards go down and everybody takes a long smoke and a drink and fixes an eye on Furlogue. Makern, who is a family man, he got a wife named Kate and three or four little Makerns just by her and one or two from some others who is not worth mentioning and he says, "What, are you on Hallucoids? Who cares if it is evil?" Gordo then he says, "Hey, yea, yea, I think it is." So I said to him, "Hey, why?" and Gordo says, "Well, it is got to be. Something has to be evil. If you do not have evil, you do not have anything to believe in. I think it all boils down to evil. Everybody likes to fight and everybody loves to fight about it. They either want to fight for it or against it." So that is when Furlogue comes back and he says, "Well, what if you do something good with it, like save somebody's life?" So that is about the time that Makern really loses it and he slams down his pipe and gives Furlogue one real hard cold look that lasts a couple weeks and I laugh a little and I say, "Hey, by the time he is done, this freaking shack will be done, get it?" But nobody gets it. So I start thinking, and I am thinking to myself that maybe Gordo's got a point. Maybe there is got to be something evil just so everybody can have something to talk about when they are on the booze, ya know? So I says, "Hey, what about high explosive traps, baby? Where do they fit in? What if you blow somebody up?" That's where Fetid jumps in and he is like, "Yea, and what about poison? What if you kill somebody with some poison?" So everybody takes a long slow whiff of their drinks and gets awful nervous, but I look at Fetid and I know he is not got that little twitch in his lower lip like he does when somebody's going to die. So I raise my glass and pour ale over Makern's head and I say, "Hey! Bad is good in my book. Necromancy's alright by me, baby!" and then Emot beats the snot out of me at cards.

Thursday afternoon, maybe 18, 19 or 20 Bull, 541

So I am asleep. I am having this awful weird dream about Mystic Wood Elves, only they are blue, ya know what I mean? They are all giggling and they want me to go to the swamp with them, only I have to ride this big grasshopper if I am going to go with them. So I say, "Hey! You want Haran Roeh, you got to pay, baby, you got to pay," and then this awful cute one steps up and I am thinking, "Alright! Now this is worth sitting on a bug for," and then all of a sudden she opens her mouth awful wide and she is got all these teeth. The next thing I know, she turns into Darshiva and he says, "You want to wake up again, you got to pay me, you got to pay it all, baby, because I am Drax of ancient wisdom and modern greed, baby, and I am going to have that big fat grasshopper over there come eat your head if you do not!" I haven't looked at a bug the same way since.

I am so bored. I am bored beyond belief. I am bored to death. I am bored back to life again and then some. I have listened to these morons sing mining songs and stuff about ghu-Hiq more than I care to stomach. The songs are better than drinking that rot, though.

I discovered a wonderful use for it the other day, I was so bored. Think fire traps, baby! It was so easy. All you got to do is take some of that Dwarven Wort stuff Gordo brought over and mix it with just a little ghu-Hiq and it gels up. Then you got you something awful fine for spreading over the target surface. I dipped a couple candles in it suitable for any birthday! You light 'em up and they are going to glow, they are on fire, baby!

Hey, but wake up, the point is I got me another idea at the end of my dream about the grasshoppers. I got an angle for the back room. Now milord Drax says to me, he says, "I want to get into it," he says, "and I do not even care if somebody else gets into it, but I want it tough. Mayhap they enter, but do not get out, that kind of thing." So I look at him, and I give him one of them precious Haran smiles he cannot resist and I work a little magic of my own, and I say, "Boss, I got just the thing." That is it, though. I do not got it. I do not got it at all. By no means do I got it. Last night, though, after the Stampede of the Grasshoppers goes on patrol in somebody else's head, that is when it comes to me. I dream about a necklace, all laced with gold and stuff. It sparkles. It even sings when you hold it. It does it all. All the money and the glory and the power my boss can shed going into one little necklace, baby, think of it! Can you? Because I can. I am on the way up. I am on it. I am in control. I am the man with a vision. I am on to bigger and better things and I am going to shake the dust of that crummy little jail off my boots and I am going to show Annis who was right. So, I says to Okilhe today, I says, "Hey, take The Box. What do you do?" No surprise, he flips the switch, "I flip the switch," he says. So I say, "You do not even know what it can do, but you flip the switch?" and he says, "Yea." So I say, "Why?" And Okilhe, he says, "I cannot help it, " he says. So then I posed this little brain teaser to my apprentice, I say to him, "So if I give you a glass of water, what do you do with it?" He says he does not drink it and I say "Why not?" and he says, "Because of I am not thirsty." HE IS NOT THIRSTY! "That's it!" I yell at him. "You flip the switch because you got nothing better to do, but you do not drink the water because you are not thirsty!" So Okilhe, who means well, yea, he does, definitely, but is not too bright, does not catch on and he says, "Yea, so what?" So I hold up the amulet, I mean not THE amulet, but just some random trinket and I say, "It means, you dolt, that you want to put this on, do you not? DO YOU NOT!?!" Then when I yell at him awful loud like that, he caves in, and he is like, "Yea, Haran, yea, I want to wear it. Who would not?" So I mess up the lad's hair and I say, "Yea, works every time."

28 Bull, 545

So for some reason the Big D says there is going to be a festival for Tall Shadows at the citadel. Now, he does not strike me as the party type, so I even start to question why and he is all over that and he actually starts laughing. I wonder if maybe Larker didn't put some Giggle Juice in his cereal, ya know what I mean? He just says, "I am in a good mood, ya know what I mean, and besides," he says, "I am expecting a very special guest or two." Then he gets laughing like there is no tomorrow. I mean it, lad. That's the kind of laughing somebody gets to when they have a plan for there to be No Tomorrow and the lighting gets a little dim and thunder starts clapping outside. That's the kind of conversation that campfire horror tales are made out of. In fact, I think I am going to go find me some little lad and paste 'em to a log near a fire so I can tell it. Right now.

So I am at this festival and every now and I then, I set off a big light and color trap that is not too dangerous but makes a big noise and looks pretty. Eh, the little lads like it. I take a break for a little while and I am over getting a refill on ale and while I am there I meet this girl whose name is Phoebe and I say, "Ooh, I had like to trap her," and before I know it, she comes over to me and she says to me, she says, "Hey, you are Haran Roeh, aren't you? Trap maker to Drax Darshiva?" and I nearly choke on my drink because I am awful graceful like that. Let's face it, I have about the social graces of one of them rats that is always squeaking around here. In fact, I think I saw a rat attracting more women at that festival than me. Very well, so it was the Rat King, Muldo the 38th. He was there granting wishes and favors again. Any way you slice it, it is good to be a king. So I says to her something awful witty like, "Uh, yea, that is my name. Do not wear it out." That's about the time when the woman I am talking to usually spills the drink she is bringing me and then gives me the bill for it anyhow. Instead, though, she actually laughs and she looks right through me with them shiny little brown eyes of hers which are a little too close together and she laughs. I cannot believe it.

I can believe that a little more easily, though, than I can believe what happens next. This gorgeous, graceful, delicate, beautiful dark-haired dream asks me if I want to be her partner in the next quadrille. Now I never danced, so of course I say, "How 'bout instead we just--" and she laughs again like she is reading my mind and she slaps me on the face, but not so it hurts and she says, "Never before a first dance," and she pulls my hand and before I know it, I am dancing! I was dancing on air, on clouds, on poor Fetid who got drunk and passed out on the dance floor. Phoebe has danced her way into my heart.

Eve of Tall Shadows, 545

I am in love, baby! More cannot be said. How could it be said? She is beautiful. She laughs at my jokes. She loves explosives. She says she can even cook. Phoebe is the biggest explosion into my life ever. I adore her! Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine. Tonight, I took her for a walk, and we lay in the fields and watched the colored explosions I got the Elfheim Lad to run for me, and it was magic, baby, pure magic. I said, "So, tell me, how'd you like to be my wife? I said it right to her. I looked into those beautiful beady brown eyes of hers and I popped the big question. I saw the trip wire, but I headed straight for it, and now I am consumed in the blaze, baby!

I do not know, though, she got all sad on me. She said her daddy would not let her marry me. I said to her, "Hey! Wake up, lovemuffin! I am working for the Big D over there, the man with the plan, the man with the m-o-n-e-y, how could your daddy not agree?" She tried to argue, but I put my fingers to those sweet little lips of hers. Then she bit me. She said she could not help it. She likes to nibble, what can I say? So I said, "Do not worry about it. I got an angle, baby. I got an angle."

Tomorrow, at high noon, milord Drax's party is meeting with King Muldo, the rat king. They say he has magical, psychic powers, granted to him by the Fey or the Unfey or something. I think it is just because he lives in a big mound, they think it is one of them faerie hills, but I do not think folks realize it is just full of crud. That's how rats live. They live in crud, and he is got a whole pile of it. Just his corner of the courtyard around the citadel is a pigsty, or should I say rats' nest. There is all them rats and some humies that serve 'em dancing around and eating and rooting around in the debris. They've got everything over there. A whole pile of shining stuff. Gold, jewels, little bits of tin and even a whole spool of my wire some rat lifted. Do not matter to them. A cheap tin goblet is worth more to them than a whole mess of pearls. They like anything sparkly and bright. I think it has some kind of hallucinatory affect on 'em or something.

So I say to the Elfheim Lad, I say, "I love Phoebe, but she says her daddy will not let her marry me." So the Elfheim Lad says, "So buy him off."

"I cannot," I said. He wants to know why not and I got to say I do not know but Phoebe says I cannot. So that is when he gets this weird look on his face and he gets up and starts darting around the fairgrounds like the Drae do. They live to dart. I do not know what's so interesting about the insides of their cloaks, but that is all they do is keep their faces buried in them and dart. I saw the Lad there hanging out with a bunch of Harkers, Astrologers from up north calling themselves the Society of Earth Rising. Old Fritz and even Jarood has been spending a lot of time with them. They say they got psychic powers or something. There is more mind readers and sooth sayers around here than hairs on Fetid's foot. King Muldo's one of 'em, too. That's what the Lad was trying to tell me. He comes back with some printed thing that is like some kind of form and he tells me to write down what kinda wish I want and go see the Rat King and he'll grant it. It is like some kinda tradition that the Rat King grants any reasonable wish on the Day of Tall Shadows. So the Lad whispers to me, he says, "Do you love this woman of yours?" I say to him, "Of course, I do, yea, yea, yea, nay, I -- yea." The Elfheim Lad wants to know if I think that is reasonable and I say, "Yea," so he tells me to start writing, so I do.

3 Pegasus, 545

I cannot BELIEVE the crap that has happened to me in the last few days. It is the Day of Tall Shadows, right, and I am all set to go ask the Rat King for a favor and get him to work some of that rat magic, baby, and let me marry Phoebe, the woman of my dreams. I am standing in line for this, when milord Drax sends a message that I am late for his little conclave thing which I forgot all about and do not know why I have to freaking be there anyhow. He never lets me know anything that is going on, he keeps all that to Jarood and probably Fritz anyhow, but he says "Jump, baby," so I got to watch out for the mines on the ground, ya know what I mean? So I tell Joshua, I say, "Hey, cut me a break, alright? I got to see King Muldo, here so I can get married and then right after a quickie ceremony, I will be right along most expediently," but Kallendar is not buying it. "Good thing for you," he says, "that King Muldo will also be at the conclave." So I say, "This is a boon."

Wait a minute, I need soup to tell the rest of this. Definitely, definitely soup. Ah, he says, "Time wounds all heals," so I say to him, "Yea, but chicken soup fixes it back up again."

I get into the conclave room in the citadel, he is got a whole freaking room just for this. I find out later he had this in mind when he built the place. You have got your basic Drax Darshiva, Emperor of High Sorcery and Master of Foundation, Wizard on High, the whole bit. You have got this chap, thing, whatever, Pollux, leader of the Harsheads or something. He wasn't at the rest of the festival, he blew it off, so I do not know too much about him. You have got the sorceress Grimal'zjahar from someplace in the Plains. She is a looker, but do not speak a word of the common language around here - not that she needs to, if you know what I mean. She speaks something sounds a little like Quentari, so milord Drax has got Lildren translating for the Rat King who do not speak any elven, or so he says. I do not know, though. Every now and then, I slide a few rude phrases on over to Lildren just to make sure she is paying attention, and I see those beady little rat eyes glitter and he sure looks like he knows what I am saying. Aw, maybe he can read minds, who knows? The stinker.

So they are all lined up and they've got a few other locals, and milord Drax's whole staff and some other guards from here and there. Milord Darshiva says we are going to get started as soon as the rest of Muldo's entourage arrives, so I say to myself, "Self, this looks like a good time for you to go pitch your scheme," so I do.

"Hey King," I say. "Hey, what?" he says to me, "You the trap maker, right?"

"Yea, hey you heard of me?"

"Ah yes," and he pauses then to gnaw on a little bit of the arm of his chair, milord, those rats are disgusting. Get this, then he says to me, "My daughter has told me much about you."

So I says to him, "Your daughter? I do not know any rat ladies," and then who walks in but the rest of his entourage, lead by this rat woman, all dressed in people clothes, all dressed in Phoebe's clothes! She waddles up and kinda sniffs her dad's forehead, and rips off a piece of the chair for herself and then she lays those beady eyes on me, and falls dead over in a feint. So I say, "Well, what'd you expect?" and then I feint.

So Phoebe the Rat Princess and her daddy the Rat King over there and I are having our own little episode in the corner when of course that chap Pollux stands up and out of the null he screams, "This is outrageous! Why wasn't I informed there was to be a wedding?" So Darshiva gets all bent out of shape cause nobody's told him what's going on. Grimal'zjahar does not understand a word anybody's saying, Lildren's trying to translate while fanning Phoebe cause none of the rat healers are there. So then in the midst of this, Makern is there and I have no idea where he heard this one, but he decides it is a good time to let the Rat King know I want to marry his stinking rat daughter, who just woke up and is consoling herself by munching on the freaking drapes!! The Rat King flips out, and gets up and grabs me by the shoulders and sniffs my forehead and calls me "son." So, I am a little disturbed by this, Darshiva and Pollux are screaming at each other or us, or I do not know who, and then the drapes collapse on top of us because my intended has just chewed through the cord that holds them up.

Somehow I get out of there, Phoebe gets out of there, only now she is human again, and I got to admit, mad as I am, my heart just melts when I see those gorgeous brown eyes of hers. Kallendar gets out and he is looking for something to hit. The Big D and his guest over there are still screaming and when the spellfire begins, I dive toward Phoebe, grab her and run up the stairs to the balcony. I do exactly what milord Darshiva told me to do if a fight broke out, and I blow up the south wall. Golems come in. Rats come in the door. Some things come in and guard Pollux as he leaves, I do not know what they were, some kinda birds or undead or elementals or something what smells bad something, maybe. Meanwhile the sorceress Grimal'zjahar is just laughing her head off and she moves over to take advantage of the hors d'ovres table. I say to Phoebe, "Baby, why didn't you tell me you was a rat?" and she says, "Because I wanted you to love me for who I am, not because I am a princess!" That's when I get that maybe she does not realize that I think it is just a little bit strange that my beloved can turn herself into a creature of filth and vermin at the drop of a hat and her daddy saves bits of string like they was going out of style and I say to myself, "What the hell!" and I kiss her.

Before I know it, all the rats are applauding. All the golems are attacking. All the food is disappearing. Fetid runs in and he grabs Phoebe and me and interrupts our romantic moment up there on the balcony and he says, "Hang on to my hook," and he grabs us, pulls the release for the secret door I built, and we go sliding into the courtyard, smack into the pile of crap her daddy's compiled. She smiles and picks up an apple core out of the mud and sniffs it longingly and I say to Phoebe, "Do not even think about it, baby."

12 Serpent, 550

I got nothing but work, nothing but misery these days. That Pollux is one first class pain in the butt. "Mine this," he says, "Mine that." Milord Drax is got me mining the whole eastern part of the vale. A sheep could not step over to the water trough there without blowing himself past the veils of life. High explosives, that is the key. That's the only thing that is going to get us that sweet chicken fricassee -- well, however it is spelled. "Mine THIS," I feel like telling him sometimes. Aw, he is not really so bad.

Looking over this diary, I am glad I kept it. It's reminded me of a lot of good times along the way. I just wish I had bothered to dig it out the day Makern got the big O from Darshiva. That was a day to remember. The sun was shining, the birds was singing, it was beautiful. Me and Phoebe was out there with the little ones and BOOM! There goes his spirit, yea, baby! Up in flames! Well, pal o' mine, that is what you get for giving them plans to old Pollux over there. Yea, he pays a pretty penny, but I guess there is something to be said for loyalty. I do not know what's coming over me, but you work for a chap for twenty-five years and he gives you lots of loot and lets you blow up just about anything that moves and because of him you meet your wife the Rat Princess and stuff, hey that makes for some good stories, baby. Besides, I got to admit it feels pretty good to hob-knob with them guests he used to have now and then and say, "Hey! Wake up, pal! You are talking to Haran Roeh, the greatest trap maker that ever lived. Just ask my boss, that is milord Drax Darshiva over there. Oh yea, we go way back..."

I been thinking, actually, that maybe I am getting a little old for this. Well, actually it is Phoebe. She is getting a little old for this. Milord Darshiva said he'd change her into an elf if she wants, but trouble is, she does not want. I know her daddy would kill me. Aw, the old rat's bound to kick over any day now. I just feel so bad, though. Here I am, I am 176 and I am still a spring chicken. Phoebe's almost eight now, and we already got grandlads. I could not think of losing her.

It is not the age, though, that bothers her. Well, it is the explosions. I say to her, "That's what I do, baby, I am the terror that bombs in the night, I am the hourglass that expires while you blink, I am the goblin that stands on your Ward, baby." She used to think that was cute, but now it worries her. She is an old lady, and she was just a lass five years ago. So, she got old lady fears, so I say to her, "So what'll make you happy?" and she says, "If you cannot do what you want to, which I do not want you to, then do what people do when they cannot do - teach." Rats get weird when they get old. They start talking in circles like that. Phoebe wants me to open like a school for traps men, and I am thinking about it. I thought I could set it up like the Five Bells, with traps and bombs and trip wires and my old crossbow trap and the weight plate and high explosives, baby, all the way to the ceiling. Then I can watch them through a little space in the wall and if they screw up, I will go heal 'em. It is not a bad plan. Best part is, milord Darshiva loves it. He do not love too much no more. He is so busy making more of them golems to fight Pollux, he cannot think straight. All he ever talks about is going to get this or that out of the library to see old square-pants Grimal'zjahar and turning himself into an iron golem somehow. He does that, he says, and he'll stomp Pollux into the swamp.

14 Dolphin, 558

I said to myself the other day, "I got to get that book, I got to get it," and I went looking and looking and eventually had to come back to this place to find it. The times I had here. After I was here a day or two, who comes by after patrol but Gordo, Larker, Seamus and old Myrtle. I haven't seen that old girl in years, years I say, but she still got it. I sure wish she'd get rid of it, too. Maybe if she had, things might have worked out different with us. Aw, but then I never would have gotten to know Phoebe, rest her spirit. She was beautiful - when she was human. Now I got more rats around this place than I ever thought existed. They tunnel like there is no tomorrow, which I admit, is alright with me. Most of these squeakers are my great-great-great-grand somethings, though, I think. I do not know. I learned more about rats than I ever wanted to. Rat greetings, the secret language of rats, the secret magic of rats, rat politics, rat loyalty. Rats, why did it have to be rats? Why could I not fall in love with an orc woman? Now they've got some style. They only have lads once a year. They only have one at a time, and they are green, baby, green like leaves. Well, Phoebe was a bute and she was one of a kind, I will give her that, one of a kind, one in a million - which is about how many rats I think are down there.

After she died, one of her little brothers who was by then King Muldo the 41st came up here to talk and he gave me her share of their father's loot, which was no small sum, let me tell you, no milord! I got the crown, and what must have been every piece of shiny anything they collected for the last hundred years or so. It took me weeks to sort through it all and dig out the valuables. By the time I was done, Muldo the 41st was dead and one of my grandlads became Muldo the 42nd.

27 Bull, 561

Milord, milord, milord, real calm. That is what I am. I am a green field on a summer day in the sun, whoosh whoosh, that's me alright, yea, yea, definitely, definitely calm. I am in the tavern in Wilderwood, and I am calm. I am supposed to meet someone croney friend of Fritz's to give him this letter about the Sorcerer King tea social what I cannot even read because his writing is so bad and the most appetizing lady what ever set any number of feet on Tyrra just walked in. She is talking with Muscle Boy over there, and every line he tries, she bats away like it was a mosquito. She keeps looking over here. I am calm. It would look better if I had something to read, but my palms are sweating so much, it was starting to make the ink on Fritz's letter run. Not that you can tell with his handwriting. I will just have to si - Okay, here she comes. Easy, easy, steady as she g

28 Bull, 561

What a night. They do not make them like anymore. Milord, this is without doubt my favorite time of year. It is just getting too hot to stand being alive, but the nights are sweet, baby, sweet like a pile of gold, and full of the smell of BBQ and flowers. That tavern in Wilderwood - whatever it is got for a name - they have got the meanest BBQ pit outside their place this side of Goldhaven. If it was not so mean they might get a few more repeat customers in that place, I think. Aw well, what can ya do, I ask? I will tell you, you plan another night of drinking Fetid's Fancy's and losing to Emot at cards and then this gorgeous lady walks in out of the null and you spend your night having your Tarot cards read. Milord, never has the cycle of Bull passed that Love was not in the air. What a time to be alive. Baby, I love spring!

Her name was Sireeriahn. She said it is some Dar Khabadi name what means, "Dark sunshine" or something. I have to wonder if maybe she is half Dark Elf or something even though she looked human enough. She wore this long black silky thing with just this one bright pink scarf tied around the hips - and what hips, baby, swing to the left, swing to the right. BABOOM! Whoo hoo! - and she sure slinked and darted like she was a skulker at heart, Astrology crap or no. Hey, baby, he says, he says to me, "It demandeth one to recognize another, doth it not, Master Haran?" and I said to him, "Yea, milord, yea, and you are not just whistling 'Sercie'." If it was not that the Elfheim Lad was with the Missus last night, I think maybe we might have found the answer to that question about Siree. Nah, he would never...well, then again, he might. Then again, he just might.

I had to come into Wilderwood to meet some gypsy chum of Fritz's, Grimal'zjahar's new Astrologer just out, like they is buddies or in the same Secret Astrologer's Club like the Earth Rising or something, only without so many Dark Elves (or maybe not). That is where all of this started. Fritz over there, oh Fritz, my favorite person in all of Tyrra, yea, yea - nay. He is all letter-writing this epistle to the lad what I have to bring by. Hello? I said. I said, "Hey! What am I? The delivery boy? Do you know who you are talking to here? I am Haran Roeh, baby! I am the timer that expires while your egg boils! I am the goblin that stands on your Ward! I make the things that go bump in the night, and you better believe that they are all high explosives forever, baby, so you had better check your bunny slippers at bedtime, pal!" But Fritz, what does he do? What does Fritz ever do? I mean aside from drool. He reaches into one of those pockets what you cannot see until he pulls a camel out of it or something and he pulls out this little note. He gives it to me and for all I know, this is written in the language of the Snake Women From Island X because I lost all my coupons for Secret Fritz Decoder Rings and I cannot read a word of it, pretty what like his writing is. Get a clue, pal. Here is a few silver nuggets, I will buy you two, for they are cheap. He seems all good with himself, though, like he is done something what makes him proud. I have had just about enough of that and it just happens I am on my way to meet my new apprentice, so I got The Box in my hands. I just set it down on that velvet tablecloth he is got there and I say to Fritz, I say to him, "Flip the switch."

Then, what does he say to me but this, he says, Fritz says to me, "You do not wish to know about your next wife?" That about kills me. Next wife? Hey! What is he talking about? I miss Phoebe, I do. She was about one in a million bazillion. Not too many days go by that I do not think about my little furry gem and what I got left now without her in what seems like an instant. We got great-great-grandlads everywhere, but rats is so strange, it is hard to say that any of them remind me of her what more than the rest. Maybe even add a few greats in there. I got the Muldovians always around, poking into my stuff and asking me for advice and getting blown up and giving me stuff because they feel bad they ruined my traps. They gave me this new sword because the Lad keeps going to bust out the Dark Elves from Lalanthik and he keeps blaming it on me. I mean, not that I mind, because I have got some nice loot out of all of it, and her nana keeps baking me cookies, yea, Gellenik is a nice old gal, but I am ratted out, pal, too many rats. Too many freakin' rats. Well, you know what they say, too many rats spoil the broth - or at least clog up the sink. I got the Lalanthiki on my back since they cannot seem to get it through their head that I am not a rat and I do not give two hoots or a flying rat's ass for that matter about their little rat politics, rat magic, rat dances and other social events. "What wife?" I say to Fritz and he fires up that crystal ball of his. I cannot see a thing, not even any mist or anything like with Madam Charlene out at the pass. "Dark hair," he says, "dark eyes," he says. Oh, big news. I said to Fritz, I said, "Are you sure you are not just seeing Phoebe there?" He shakes the head and says, "No, but the Lady of Deathgate is not far behind the shoulder of this one." Great. Just what I freaking need.

So Fritz suckers me into delivering this letter. He sends me to meet this guy at the tavern in Wilderwood on Friday night. I am supposed to find a gypsy there and I will know him when I see him. Oh yea. That is rich. A gypsy in Wilderwood on a Friday night when Saturday is Market Day. Alright, Fritzy old boy. Who knew she would fi

1 Pegasus, 561

I got interrupted there the other night. Little Taren took his mama's sword and actually managed to make it through the swamp. Not that he needed that freaking wild thing, mind you. He is got his daddy's feet and flare for darting what like no other Dark Elf I ever saw. Imagine my surprise, though, when I start hearing this whispery voice saying "Hajimimaste, baby" I guess it is time to begin work on the security for the place. That is partly while we are here after all. Trouble is freaking Joshua. Cannot have any locks or traps what just because he never bothered to learn them. Oh well, boo hoo, poor underprivileged ignoramus. Probably cannot even read, either, I bet. Maybe I will get Taren to do a little of the work. It is about time we start his training anyhow, and I will sprout wings and fly into the null before I see his mama make some Mama's Boy Knight out of him, honor or no. I know it will make the Lad feel better if we get him out of that cave for awhile, though. He is all tied up in knots about this Belladonna thing. I mean, not like Dark Elves are ever not tied up in knots about something. I got to remember to write my grandmama a note and thank her that honor got bred out of our family before I ever came along. What a lucky break. Score one for the good guys.

Alright, so I never finished writing about Sireeriahn and how I met her. So we go into the tavern and we take a seat in the corner, with our backs to wall, of course. Then just as I am about to turn to the fellow next to me and say, "Hey! Wake up! Evil's alright in my book, what about yours? Are you dark and evil, too?" and I get about as far as yelling, "Hey!" at this dwarf who just chokes up some ale (vile) and scoots the chair over a bit, but I never finish because Kallendar plants the mega-elbow into my ribs. (Note: Find means to trap armor so it only explodes outward.) There is a bunch of people walking into the tavern, a few fuzzy guys and a bunch of unwashed peasants and some gypsies with gypsy voices and some gypsies with bad accents and your token Scavenger what was part clam or something I do not know, and I see the Lad's wife come in with one of the other ladies from the ladies auxiliary and so I think that is why Joshua has just broken three of my ribs. I wave to Lyria and she gives me one of them cautious Dark Elfey kind of nods, not like anybody ever really does that except Dark Elves. My grandma used to tell me that about stories she heard and would tell, that people were always nodding to each and "giving the signal" but nobody ever has any signals or ever nods. So I thought about this awhile, and me and Fetid, we started coming up with some signals of our own, but they was not too successful. I mean, you know, they all eventually ended up looking like antlers or then somebody swats a mosquito and somebody else gets hit over the head or set on fire by mistake and then the whole thing just goes downhill from there. Put a fork in it that solid plan, because it is done.

So Joshua goes over to this gypsy dressed all in black, right, with this one pink that is just calling out to me, I mean, I can really hear it, no really, and he opens up with his usual line, so Joshua says to her, he says, "Was your father a thief?" and she is supposed to be all shocked, and then he says, "He must have been to steal the stars and put them in your eyes" or some load of rubbish like that. Only Joshua does not consider that maybe it is not everyday you meet a gorgeous gypsy dressed all in black in Wilderwood and she does not even look at him when she answers, I mean, she picks him up like a piece of lint on that black silk and tosses him away and she just says, "Jes," and keeps walking toward me. Oh yea, you had better believe I am rooted to the chair, wondering why I did not wear the striped hat that night instead of the fake eye patch.

She says to me in this husky gypsy voice, "Jou are Haran Roeh, de trap man, jes?" I say to her, "Hey! That ain't fish eggs, baby!" and she just smiles. She says she will have what I am drinking, and I would have spit the stuff out through my nose, but I know that if I do, that sucker is gone for good. So I spill it on my hand instead in the most graceful way I possibly can, definitely, and I pour the glass of Fetid's Fancy which she downs it in one gulp. Alright.

It did not take me long to realize this was the "he" I was supposed to be watching for for Fritz the Mad. That is the trouble with Fritz. Everybody in the world is "Greenleaf" when he talks about them. Hey! Wake up, pal! The only one who is not "he," to him is Lildren, which is good because she is about the only one who can read that handwriting of his. I got to make a decoder ring someday.

That gives me an idea for a trap. What if you got a dial that spins, what with letters and maybe numbers and different colors? Well, it does not matter what is on it, really, just you got to have all different slots, like a roulette wheel. Maybe you have a combination, or you get it to spell something. Nay, nay, nay. . . yea, I got it! I build one of them floors milord Drax is always asking me to put in, what where it says, "Walk here" or something and if you do not walk on the right letters, then you fall to your unending doom or into the moat or the swamp or something. Since about all I happen to have for inspiration around me this summer is swamp, I find that particularly suitable. Only instead of it just saying, "Walk here," it asks you a riddle. It could either be a regular riddle, or it could be something that maybe only me and the minions would know or something. Then you got to twist the dial to put in the answer, right? WRONG! That is exactly wrong! That is what I want you to think! The real key is that you need the secret decoder ring to figure out what the real question was on the floor and what the real answer is. Yea, yea, I definitely need to discuss this with Lildren, definitely. I will get her to write me some kind of code what I can ask one question and have it seem like it makes sense only it is really another question in disguise. If you do not have the secret decoder ring, them BOOM, baby, high explosives right up the wazoo!

So where was I? Oh yea, so I spent the other evening trying to help Sireeriahn trying to work through Fritz's mad script. It was actually pretty educational, the parts what I listened to. I learned a lot about the Sorcerer Kings and that secret tennis club of theirs, The Convocation, things what I never thought to ask about. I mean, I knew that milord Drax loves the golems, but hey, so what? I love traps. Reffo used to say, "You should not become a Traps Man unless you cannot see yourself doing anything else," so I always thought it was somewhat the same for Sorcerer Kings. Hey, maybe I will call myself the Trap King? Nah, I do not think the Big D would appreciate that. Anyway, I guess his golems and old Square Pants' Spirit Bottles are more than just coincidence. I guess to get into the Secret Sorcery Society and get your own decoder ring for that, you got to have some kind of specialty or "passion" Siree called it. They each got a different one. That is why milord Drax is so null-bent on making golems. Hey, who even knew that thing the Belladonna got was one of them? (Not a golem, a Sorcerer King, I mean.) I always thought it was a big undead bear, or a Shadowraith or something. Why they got to keep a Sorcerer King locked up is beyond me, but hey, some people have pets, so why not? Everybody is got to have a hobby, I say, definitely, definitely.

That is really the point of all this. Fritz, he tells Sireeriahn all this stuff about the Convocation and everything like he is supposed to. Then he tells her a little more, maybe, and he mentioned that that one Sorcerer King is kept locked up in the cave with the ladies auxiliary tea society. I was up way too late, I drank a little too much (alright, kid, you got me, more than a little) and when someone called for a Life spell outside, Sireeriahn ran outside to get it. She made a grab for Fritz's letter on the way out, but the first few pages go flying. I think she will be back, so I wait. And I wait. I wait until I fall asleep there in the Dark & Evil corner. Eventually I got up and came back to this palace we got built out here in the swamp. I never saw her after that, though. Well, I have not seen her yet anyhow.

Speaking of going to sleep, that is enough for tonight. I want to make sure I get to sleep before Larker gets back so I can try to drift off before his freaking snoring begins.

17 Pegasus, 561

We had a meeting at the tower today. Milord Drax, he calls everyone in. We have not been together for a meeting in years and years. Not since Makern got aced, I think. Milord, was the Big D ever irate! I guess that lovely Sireeriahn went back to her mistress and said, she said to her boss, "Blah blah blah, that mean old Drax Darshiva is holding some poor moron in a cave and he is being fed spoonfuls of cold dirt and being strained through chain mail links on a regular basis." Oh boo hoo. Well, whoopdeedoo, girly. Hey! Life is not all frothing pink drinks and perfumed Tarot Cards, you know. Well, not all of my life anyway, but I am willing to learn.

Milord Darshiva, he says to us, he says he is going on a long journey. Now I look around and everybody has the same looks on their faces, like we all do not know whether to be happy or worried because you never know who he will want to take with him on these little journeys. After he got back from that Sorcerer King clambake in 545, he had all these new spells and things. Now that I think about it, it was the one from "The Great Lady," as Sireeriahn called her, that lets him travel by spirit and make the scrying pools work. I guess this Great Lady is real big - you know, I was going to write that she was real big into these spells that make it easier to send messages, but I was just struck by a realization. Every lady Sorcerer King I have seen or heard of (why they are not called Sorcerer Queens is beyond me) is a heifer. I mean, when they sit around the citadel, they really sit around the citadel! Hey, what do they talk about at these Convocations of theirs anyway? "And this year, we need to create new spells to make flapjacks quicker! Let's get them big!" Maybe they are planning to take over the world by threatening to get all the lady Sorcerer Kings together in one place. They might sink the kingdom into the ocean. Or better yet, they will create this big vale and all the loot from all around he world will just roll in, baby, like ants on the march.

Back to what I was writing, though, he never makes a big production about going nowhere anymore unless there is a reason, now that he has all these spells and things from Fatty-Fatty-Two-By-Four #2 over there. So we are all sitting there like the Sarr what ate the canary, wondering what to expect from the boss next.

We can never just have a meeting anymore. That is what I hate. It is not like the good old days when we could just sit in the meeting chamber at our places with the little signs and milord would arrange for little sandwiches for us and Larker would sit quietly and kill the plants decorating the chamber, Fetid would help him and they would inevitably blow something up. Joshua would slap my back one too many times or someone would put me next to Fritz and then I would whip out The Box. What with Pollux and the market in Wilderwood and the Lalanthiki and the Whosie Knights and the Other Whatsie Knights and all these freaking Orders of knighthood opening up branch offices locally, not to mention every freakin' creature of the freakin' wood being all bent out of shape what they we have been living in their vale for the past gazillion years now. Hello? Get the null over it, baby, because we are here to stay! Put on some freaking clothes if you want me to listen to you and for the love of Guxx, why don't you stop setting up them dumb toll bridges! If I encounter one more freaking band of whatevers out on that bridge in Wilderwood, I am going to completely lose it, get all Mage's Guild on them and just open up. They will be finding pieces of that bridge floating in Daven Sound.

So anyway, what with all this, we can hardly see straight anymore, much less navigate our way to the same place at the same time and actually have a good sit-down like we used to. I got to admit, though, part of it is my fault what when I decided to put the experimental high explosives lab underneath the meeting chambers in the citadel. I mean, I thought that seven levels down, it would be safe. How was I to know Jarood just happened to be in the midst of casting at the time? It is not my fault he turned into a Chaos Elemental! Sheesh, blame a guy for everything. So he says, milord Drax says, he says, "You got legs, Haran," so I take that to mean I got to either use them to run for my life or maybe just walking is okay or either way, I should start saying good-bye to those gams, because we are not going to be One Whole for none too much longer. I am feeling lucky, though, so I figure with milord, it is always better to ask than do. Think without acting, that is my motto. "Just move the laboratory," he says to me, he says, "Oh, and find a cure for my apprentice." Yea, yea, I will do that. Yea, as if I do not have to deal with the freaking Fey over it. Oh no problem, not for me. I love the Fey, really. I think not.

So we get to the meeting and instead of him just saying the peace and moving on, oh nay, we cannot have that, nay, nay, nay. We all got to do the Dance of Seven Freaking Scarves or something and balance the Sacred Freaking Acorn on our heads and hold hands and all this. Now, I have been involved in some formal magic in my time what with building them specialty Runes doorway traps milord loves so much, and I have to say that some of this stuff, like that Scrying Pool deal, looks a whole lot like rat magic to me, but who am I to question the ways of erudition and high sorcery?

We fire up the old Dark Elven tempura BBQ Pit and Scrying Pool so we can all see and hear the Great Lady when just one of the forearms is in the picture and then milord he scolds me for saying "llama llama llama" instead of whatever chant we are supposed to, so we fix it, and I kid you not, he makes me write the freakin' right word out 100 times and give it to Jarood. For the love of Guxx! So we hear from the Great Lady and have to sit through some disgusting scene of her sucking down one chocolate after another. I mean, they just do not stop. One hand is feeding a chocolate into that flabby, painted mouth of hers while the other one is busy digging the next morsel out of the basket. I am done. This sight before me is vile beyond all description. Next time, I think I would rather watch the Lalanthiki dine than that lady again - for that matter, I would rather see them dine on that lady next time. She is like the Great Tyrra Cow, with one hoof on each continent, and she says to us, she says, "Blahity blah blah I want our brother Paradime out of that cave right now, da da da da da, this and that." Hey! What has this got to do with us? I mean, I am completely not involved in this Sorcerer King stuff. Whoa. I am not even there. I am all impressed that milord Darshiva is one of them, but that has nothing to do with me, thank you. I blow things up. I get paid. I lose the gold gambling. I am happy.

Famous last words, I should have known. Sorcerer Kings seem to be slipperier than the Chaos Fish in the lake near Wilderwood sometimes. Whatshername the Grand Mistress of Chocolate over there insists that milord do something to bust out the guy the Belladonna got locked up back there. And milord, of course, insists that we do something about it. So now I am stuck here for the summer with Joshua, Larker and the Elfheim Lad, trying to find a way to bust the guy out while milord is probably off consulting cobblers, seamstresses, and chocolatiers, helping the Great Lady and Grimal'zjahar select their Fall fashions. Wonder-freaking-ful is all I have to say.

21 Pegasus, 561

Milord, we are in deep now. Let me tell you, all the mud does not make it at all easy to write, either. I have no idea why I let the Lad convince me that this mud bath would be relaxing. I am not relaxed, I am just covered with freaking mud. This is not a bath. This is a cry for help.

Follow me here, I mean, really picture this if you can, because I am having extreme amounts of trouble believing that this is really happening. There are times when you look around at your own lives and you can only shake your head in disbelief and say that if you told anybody else the story, they would never believe you. I am sitting in mud up to my chest. Next to me is the rattiest Hobling what I ever saw, Fetid my old friend, and a Dark Elf what is entirely covered in mud. That one is my apprentice and one of my best friends and has been for the past 25-30 years or so. I have no idea what his name is, so we all call him the Elfheim Lad. I mean, no kidding, I really do not know. I have no freaking idea. I can tell you every other thing about him, though except for any question which has the word "Why?" in it, him being a Dark Elf and all. All he ever told me was that he gave up his name when he left the motherland. It is one of them Dark Elf honor things again. Anyway, the Lad's lifemate is one of the Belladonna sisters. She and their son live in the cave. Now, stop right there. Let us review the facts here: I am in a pool of naturally-heated mud, describing the relationship between a mud-covered Dark Elf and his lifemate what lives in a local cave with the sisterhood she belongs to that is apparently holding a Sorcerer King hostage. Now, me and the Lad, we work for milord Drax Darshiva, High Wizard of Matter and Motion, the man with the plan, the big cheese, the head honcho, the man himself. I been with him since I was still apprenticed to Reffo the Amazing and he came to work for milord Drax in what, 518? The Lad came 'round later, but he been there almost as long. We got a relatively cushy lifestyle if you will forget for the time being that I am sitting almost completely immersed in freaking mud as stated earlier. We got this simple assignment from milord Drax, break into the cave what the Belladonna live in and bust out this guy Paradime what has been turned into a Chaos elemental or Shadowraith or something. Not problem, right? Yea, I love them Shadowraiths. Cannot get enough of them. Buy me a ticket!

Hey, we fought the Great Snake of the Western Citadel together, it even ate Fetid! We have been in more scrapes with Pollux and the Harbingers or whatever they call themselves than I could tell you. Now, though, after a bazillion years of service, the Lad is all in a stew (albeit a muddy one) about having to attack the cave what is Home Sweet Home to the wife. It is some big Dark Elf honor thing. He says, "Love understands," he says, "Honor does not."

Aw forget it. The mud is hot. I am trying to convince myself right about now that my lives are not a complete joke, and here I am reminiscing about the time me and the "Elfheim Lad," my buddy Fetid - another winner of a name, where do I find these people? - and me beat up the mother of all snakes, this while I convalesce in mud and talk about the Lad's wife what lives in a cave and guards a Shadowraith of all things. Then I have not even gotten to the part where I owe the Lad one for helping me and my late wife Phoebe escape from her father the goodly King of the Rats, Muldo, on the Day of Tall Shadows when the Rat King grants wishes to people with his psychic powers of rat magic. Or their evil rat cousins, the Lalanthiki what are at war with them what steal Dark Elves in the middle of the night, or any time of day for that matter, and suck them dry of Life Essence and turn them into slaves to build this big city to make more Lalanthiki to steal more Dark Elves. Well, like I said, everybody what has got to have a hobby. Nice. I just want to blow stuff up. That is all I ever wanted. Is that so wrong?

Milord, I need sleep.

28 Pegasus, 561

The Lad's latest and greatest plan is - get this - he is going to try to find some way to get Lyria and Taren out of the cave while we lay siege and bust out Paradime. Then, this is the good part, when it is done, he is going to kill himself for the dishonor he does to the wife. Alright. I see now. It is all clear. Take me now! Elements of Explosives, bring me into the null! For the love of Guxx, my eye! What was that? I have no freakin' idea. I have Therendry in my eye. I have to go.

3 Serpent or maybe Salamander, 561

Forty years I been trying to figure out which comes first, Serpent or Salamander. I give up. I got better things to worry about.

The Lad has completely lost it. I mean, he is way out on this Dark Elf thing. He is really in knots about it. Every time I see him, he is in meditation and chanting, burning incense or something weird. This whole place is starting to feel like all them stories I heard of Pollux's snack shack out there somewhere. Yea, buy me a totem. Yea, I will be The Snake, yea, that is it! I will change my name. I will be Jimmy the Snake and I will give up high explosives forever, baby, I am off the stuff. Yea, I will just become a professional drink and maybe enter a card tournament every now and them. I mean, follow me here, who ever had a name what like "Jimmy the Snake" and did not have some amazing stories? It is all in the name, baby, all in the name.

Yea, maybe I will switch sides and go see old birdbeak about going on a Visionquest and finding my totem. Yea, oh, sign me up, write my name right under Makern's. Now there was a sad story. I sometimes wonder if maybe what he said was true, if maybe Kate and Jarood did set him up? Ah well, nobody twisted your arm there to bring that information to Pollux - except maybe Pollux, but that is another story. It sure is sad what happened to his little girl, though. The Lad heard from one of his sources that Makern's other daughters had sworn blood oaths against milord Drax and Pollux both and they were being trained as assassins or something. Well, good luck to ya, kids. You are going to need it!

I know the Lad has been speaking to that lady Shadowraith. He has been sneaking out at night, what is not too exceptional for a Dark Elf, but I just happened to be going out for a walk shortly after he left one night and well, if I ended up going the same direction as him, even if it was across the worst part of the swamp and down into the Stink Bog and into some underground caverns, well that was not my fault. Anyway, he headed straight for the 'wraith caves. I did not dare follow him any further. I do not know if I believe the stories that the Dark Elves do not bother the Shadowraiths as much as regular people, but I would not want to chance it. I saw a pack of Orcs slaughtered by one them things one time, and it was not even one of the really big ones. Milord Drax, he is no fool. He has created a little oasis or two out of the tower at Wilderwood and the Citadel itself in the mountains. ("Castle Drax," I call it since he has yet to pick a good name for the thing and I am in kind of a vampirey sort of mood lately.) You walk around either one at night and it is like noon outside what with all them high-intensity Light spells he is got cast. He is about the only one what has the cahones to guard the caravans going back and forth everywhere. The 'Wraiths just tear everyone else to pieces. They scare the wits out of me, that is for sure. I had Jarood inscribe my name in glowing letters on one of my swords and while it will not keep one of them screechers at bay for too long, it does make them hesitate a bit, at least slow down. Not like if I am caught with one of them I am going to have any cha

19 Raven, 561

Pollux is going to eat a mountain of high explosives if it is the last thing I ever do.

11 Turtle, 562

The school's been going well and I got a whole slew of traps men at my command and all of them chanting, "Go, baby, go! Burn to the ground, you lousy chickenface!" We got 'em. I can smell victory. We got Pollux on the run. I got every square foot of the east end of the vale rigged to blow. He sets one talloned foot in there or whatever he is got inside that boot and it is BBQ for the next three nights cause it is high explosives up the wazoo there. I do not need the money milord Darshiva gives me anymore, but he just keeps sending it. Baby, I will take it and melt it down for contact on the trap wires, cause I got 'em!

The students are hungry to learn and I can see the flames and shards of broken stuff flying in their eyes. They are traps men, alright, best crowd of 'em I ever saw. I got this great operation. I got the Elfheim Lad scanning Goldhaven for new recruits. They are coming from everywhere, even some as far as Sercia. Bring 'em in here, give 'em the test, find out if they are traps men or not, and then put 'em to work. I got a whole level of that library under the citadel rigged up and ready to go at any time. I even tried my hand at a little tinkering with armor and the like here and there and I built a mechanical version of that old snake down there. It never worked, though, so I got somebody out of the Royal Academy by name of Sholidahn to come in and build it for me. Aw, this baby is gorgeous. It is gleaming silver, and its belly is hard as steel - well, it is steel. Milord Drax loves it because it is just another thing preventing people from getting to the lower levels. I do not what he is got that is so precious down there - he will not tell anyone, nary me. I think Jarood knows, though. Wake up! Of course he knows, fool!

I almost got half a mind to send Pollux an invitation to try it out. That crazy loon's arrogant enough that I bet he'd show up.

2 Gryphon, 563

Well, scratch that plan. Yea, Pollux showed up alright, but it was not exactly what either of us expected. Who knew that snake had developed intelligence? Milord Darshiva claims he had nothing to do with it, but I wonder if maybe some midnight casting didn't go awry while he was trying to turn himself into one of those things. Crossbows being reflected everywhere, swords breaking off on the edges of the freaking thing, it spitting acid vials and snorting out clouds of poison. Stupid tongue. I never should have put the tongue in there. . . it was the best scrap I have seen since we fought its "daddy" 37 years ago. It was beautiful! BRING ON THE SNAKES, BABY! BRING ON THE SNAKES! Milord Drax's golems, Pollux's whatevers, my students, even the old crew, Kallendar, Lildren, Fetid, even the Elfheim Lad. Some of the rat lads was there. It was a sight. Swords blazing, arrows flying, we got our butts kicked! We only got the thing finally when it slipped below into one of the underlevels where milord Drax had set up this new electric trap we developed together. It is gorgeous, baby! It is a web, like a spider web of fine spun steel cable. He casts some lightning spell into it, does some other ritual, and the whole thing is electrified! Anything that touches it gets zapped, right over the top, baby! That metal beast over goes slithering through it like it has not got a care in the world, then BLAMMO! It made me weep.

people have read this book since 17, June 598.