After killing the Charum, I detected magic and discovered that he had quite the valuable armour. A great dire sword, composite long bow, a magical breastplate and belt pouch containing 30 platinum pieces. The beauty of it all is that everything was too big for them to wear, so we'll probably have to sell them in town...for hundreds of gold! Note to self, another goal in life is to be rich :)

I try to reserve judgement, especially in the realm of men, but sometimes they do the craziest things. We ran into a Charum at the gravesite of a Giant that built the Ebonring Keep. While the dude had some obvious issues with Giants, such as a great desire to deface the grave and mock Ro-Terrus, I finally threw my Charm on him, and he seemed to be calm enough to not deface the grave at least. Unfortunately, he also knew how to push the buttons of everyone there. I can understand Ro-Terrus' feelings of needing to defend Giant honor, and how the others felt loyal to him, but I just don't think it was worth killing him for it. Don't get me wrong, I support my friends, which is obvious by the fact that I helped bring him down when the whole battle started. I didn't even notice who started it; there was so much tension. While I think Cathar was on another extreme of inviting him to be a group member before the insults to Ro-Terrus got too bad, I would have preferred just moving on. Perhaps my problem is that I just prefer killing ugly creatures (including Rhodin), not more intelligent races. Perhaps after my adventures I will settle down to study and teach. I think these travels are a part of education, I just don't always like the killing parts.

During Yaval's watch after we made camp, we were attacked by seeming millions of spiders. It turned out to be only a dozen or so, but when you're my size, and then you see hairy monstrous things flying around (it took great self control to not turn invisible and hide under a few leaves), it can be very intimidating. On top of their size and flying abilities, they were poisoneous! They took some of Yaval's strength even, and albeit his smell, he's not one that struck me as the type to be weak(er). I only took out a couple since I woke up in the midst of the fighting. We finally all got back to sleep when Cathar's screaming woke me up with a start. These spiders made the others look like pet ants. I tried a couple swoops, and even a Mind Stab, but was so scared that I couldn't focus enough to make a difference. The group killed them, so I went back to sleep only to be tormented by nightmares. It was a very unpleasant night.

The next morning Ro-Terrus saw a glint in the tree nearby, but nobody wanted to go after it with the recent spider events. I figured I had a chance since I flew, and I was hoping for some treasure. I found 25 gold pieces and a Faen statue. It was so heavy (10lbs) that I couldn't fly with it, so Cathar threw me a rope and I tied it securely so it wouldn't fall and break when I climbed down. It was very adventureous! Yaval thinks it's worth about 600 gold pieces, but we won't know for sure until we try and sell it in town. At least something positive came out that 8 hours of misery.

I suppose honesty is the best policy, although it was extremely difficult to admit that I had the pretty jewels. I had planned on telling them that I found gold, but the jewels? *sigh* I was so depressed that I didn't even notice which of the fellows appraised the prettiest one for 1400 gold pieces. I ended up giving them 972 gold pieces of my own (fortunately I have nothing to spend my money on so I had plenty), including my part of the 740 gold pieces found, to the group to pay for the jewel. Now that the pain of separating from my gold is over, I'm glad that I bought the jewel honestly. Who knows, I may get into town and discover that the appraisal was low :)