Dragon's Hoard and Other Tales

Nabintou got back to being a woman! Hooray! All thanks to River the Witch. and to the great disappointment of Jib'ammajig.
 
We got to exploring the catacombs, at long last I was in my element. Turns out the tombs had been pillaged by small creatures that had chipped through the stone. While looking around, we found that a portion of the wall had been destroyed and was just large enough to let us through, bu not a Storm Giant. Behind were ancient dwarven ruins, forgotten for who knows how long. A lot of traps were in our way as we advanced carefully. Were we in a vault?
 
Eventually we reached a grand room with a deep pool in the middle. Kobold corpses littered the floor and had nasty burns on their bodies. We found out that the water was acid, and treasure was at the bottom of the pool, just out of reach. A nymph was living there and Hiro talked to her for a bit. She had been there for a long time, feeding on kobolds and other creatures, longing for the outside world. The dwarves that lived here had kidnapped her and put her there to protect their precious artefacts. One day, she heard sounds of fighting and then she was alone until we came along. She asked us to free her, to bring her back to a river or a lake. Hiro promised that we would do so if she gave us the treasure she was guarding in exchange. She agreed and we went on our way, trying to find what could have been poisoning her pool for it had been pure water while the dwarves had been there.
 
While exploring, we came upon a massive room filled with gold and gems. So this was a vault after all! Everyone got to filling their bags, but we kept on our toes. This felt wrong and the Kobold corpses that filled a corner of the room weren't helping us feel at home. It didn't take long for the master of the place to show itself. A great Black Dragon plunged from the top of the hoard, ready to feast on our flesh. The Kobolds had probably been giving offerings to it, stealing from the Giant's tombs in the hope that the dragon would spare them. A sad fate, really.
 
It was spitting acid and got to R'Egrul who was starting to pale, looking almost like a corpse. Everyone got to work, trying to chip away at the dragon's armour. We all got quite the beating, for it was no easy feat to bring it down in its den. At long last Asher gave the final blow and the dragon fell. He wasn't like usual though, he was breathing hard and there was a mad twitch behind his eyes.
 
In an instant, he turned and ran his sword through me. He just wasn't the same, the Asher I know wouldn't have turned on an ally.
 
The only thing I could taste was blood and I could barely feel the cold coins under my fingers as I fell down. I heard the commotion around me, everyone was yelling, but I couldn't make what they were talking about. It was getting difficult to keep my eyes open, my vision going spotty. Anyway, I wouldn't have wanted to see my own state at that moment. Too many bad memories would have come to the front if I had done so.
 
It didn't take long for me to just go under.
 
When I woke up, my wounds were healed, as if nothing had ever happened. For a very long while, i couldn't stop the tremors from my hands, I couldn't steady them at all. Asher came to see me and apologized profusely, saying he lost control and that he couldn't even begin to atone for what he did. I could see that this was eating him up, that whatever had happened had deeply scarred him. He was so young, so new to all of this, I couldn't let him be consumed by guilt, I knew too well what it did to someone's psyche. I tried to stop my hands from shaking and smiled, I assured him that it was okay. That I was alright and that I accepted his apologies. I had to prevent myself from relapsing, from becoming more afraid of the tall folks because of this accident. I had to stop thinking about it. Asher was a good kid, he didn't mean to hurt me.
 
And then came Jib...
 
Kept praising Asher, that he was glad to see there was a big ol' shard of chaos in him. That he should let it consume him more often, that he was relieved to see he could let go.
 
I had almost died and this bastard was glad for it, but what pissed me off the most was that he didn't care about Asher at all. You could taste in the air that this conversation was making his mood worse, that he was losing faith in himself or something. I lashed out at Jib, simply yelled at him that what we had seen wasn't the kind and well-mannered Asher that we know. Letting go from time to time was one thing, but this wasn't letting go, this was something else. This needed to be addressed, of course, but openly praised? Give me a break! Jib kept laughing it out, saying he was right and we were all wrong. That little bastard, I unsheathed my dagger and asked him to take back his words. In an instant, I got stopped by Asher and R'Egrul who told me to let it go.
 
I got away from the situation, this just wasn't like me. It wasn't me to defend a cleric or paladin, but then again I felt like Asher was different from most of them. I wasn't as afraid of him as I was others. It just irked me so much to hear Jib rub in his face that- that... The more I though about it, the more I wondered why I had lashed out in the end. This was none of my business after all. Perhaps Asher would feel better if he let go of the discipline he wore like a second skin. I knew close to nothing of him, and I had simply assumed that­...
 
There was the guilt again. There were the memories again. I knew that all of this meant nothing, that people could hide their true colours. After all, I had seen so with Sir Christofre.
 
I shivered just by thinking about him.
 
I had to keep telling myself that Asher was different, that this was just a messed up situation and that he had apologized, at least. Sir Christofre had never done so himself...
 
The mood in the camp was grim and it remained so as we got to the surface and released the Nymph to the river near Elderfalls with River (ha!) and Hiro's help. We got back to the guild and bumped into Sir Christofre (of fucking course) and his new teammate, a Thiefling girl named Isadora. I didn't pay much attention to the conversation, I was honestly just hoping for it to end as quick as possible so that I could go back home and go to sleep. The cleric proposed that we team up to resolve the situation with the kidnappings in Elderfalls. Well... that was new. Never expected him to want to team up with the group I was in. Jib was adamant about working by ourselves, and so it was set in stone that he wasn't welcomed.
 
After that we simply went our own way and I want back to my bed at long last. I felt dizzy and my scars were itching again.
 
I hope tomorrow is gonna be better, I don't want to feel like this again.