theworldofdreams.com

**WYSPR**

Greetings all! This is Wyspr, Bayn's younger and better brother. Bayn was complaining about how badly his mace was wearing and was really having an almost panic attack about it when someone suggested he join the Adventurer's Guild and earn enough tickets to buy a repair kit to completely restore the weapon. Bayn sighed and moaned one evening about this so I just joined myself. I don't get out all that much since I am still working on my druidic thesis and this gave me a chance to go out and get some more valuable real life experience. I did a few quests but it was going to take a long time to get enough tickets for a repair kit! I mean, his mace is just a dead piece of iron, it has no intrinsic value, what is he all bent out of shape about? Far be it from me to understand the minds of warriors.

This morning, I woke up and after a quick cup of herbal tea, I was ready to head to the stables to retrieve Plum, my purple dragon. I named him many things from Grape to Jam to Plum but he doesn't mind. Bayn yelled at me for leaving my cup sitting on the fireplace mantle and told me to eat something before going adventuring and I just told him to mind his own business. I mean, he eats these enormous breakfasts of sausage and eggs and always has to have several cups of bitter black coffee before he is even presentable in the morning. If he treated his body with respect and gave it substances more suitably aligned to it's proper functioning he would be better off. But, I digress, this is not an discussion of Bayn's reprehensible eating habits.

I got Plum out of hock and tossed him a big chunk of raw beef ribs. Initially, I thought Plum could benefit from a carefully balanced diet of blueberries, horseradish tops, soybean mash and carrots but he made it quite plain that I'd better give him raw ribs or else! I don't argue with my dragon. Plum and I went to the Adventurer's guild and I received another quest. Hmmm, RatLords and Rat Marksmen sounded better than Ophidian Avengers and Mages so I headed to the dungeon Shame. It was a bit spooky navigating the twisted stone tunnels but with Plum at my side, I feared nothing. He really enjoyed chomping rats of all kinds except he'd complain when he'd step on em and squish 'em. It's tough to clean rat guts out from between dragon goes, believe me! Plum and I waltzed through the first level of the dungeon and took a teleporter portal that I dimly remembered from another life and emerged in level 2. This was slightly tougher with magical elementals and djinn's casting offensive magic but Plum was up to it. We even disturbed a nest of lesser wyrms and Plum thrashed them even though he got a bit sickly looking from all the poison they pumped into his system. When we had finished this level, we had enough Rat Marksmen and RatLord heads to complete a couple of quests. But, there were still areas we hadn't explored here.

We found a set of magical runes on the floor and stepped into them. Suddenly, we both were buried in a mound of shrieking Mongbat Warriors. Warriors? Mongbats? I thought I must be dreaming but even worse, Several Ophidian mages glided across a bridge and started casting really nasty looking magics at us. Plum and I dashed back through the portal. We tried it a couple more times but Plum doesn't like snakes too well so we gave it up as a bad scene.

We finally found the portal to the 3rd level of Shame. Guess what we found, trolls! Plum loves trolls. He likes 'em stewed, roasted, parboiled but best of all, he likes 'em raw. There were troll types I had never seen before, warlords and chieftens who packed a mighty wallop but they were no match for Plum, especially with me backing him up. We went through the tunnels, munching on trolls and came to a large open area with a building on an island. Plum looked at me, I looked back at him and we strolled in. We finally cleared the place of trolls and discovered a set of runes led us to an immense room that seemed filled with black wisps, pirates and other meanies. We didn't stay around to even really look at the place, just popped back through and breathed a sigh of relief. I'm not nearly as foolhardy as Bayn, I wasn't going to explore that particular place without a lot of friends at my side.

We exited the building and walked around the subterranean lake. Plum spied a whole bunch of tasty looking trolls and flew off in a epicurean rush of delight! I went up to keep an eye on him, sometimes he gets troll bones stuck in his throat and I have to smack him on the back to dislodge them. My oh my, there were certainly a lot of trolls here. Lots of Chieftens, Warlords, Shaman's, Warrior's and the garden variety trolls, the ones that make such good mulch for your garden, you understand. There were so many trolls that Plum was in a bit of a predicament! I was healing him as fast as possible but his health was dropping quickly. He looked over at me with one of those dumb, sheepish dragon expressions I so love and mouthed, "How'm I doing, huh?".

I was helping him as much as possible. The only thing to do was get him out of there. Plum doesn't like to stop fighting once he is started, even if he is being overwhelmed. I have to go in the yell at him to stop and follow me away to sometimes save his life. I darted in through the rank, sweating trollish forms all focused on Plum and yelled "Plum! Hey good buddy, cut it out! Stop and Follow me or else you're gonna be troll brunch!" The battle rage cleared from Plum's eyes and he leapt up and over the first rank of trolls. Then two explosions went off at the same time and with a heartrending moan that chilled me to the bone, he sank lifeless to the dank stone floor of the cavern. I stared at him with horror in my eyes and the trolls licked their lips. Then, every troll head swiveled and a couple dozen pairs of flat trollish eyes focused on me. Oh my, I was being regarded a a light hors d'oeuvre before dragon steaks. I kicked Nightmare in the flanks and we threaded the confused ranks of trolls to safety. We sat there, Nightmare shivering under me as I made plan after plan. We crept back close enough to see Plum's body and there were still a couple of dozen trolls around him. The last time Plum did this, we were at Shabooli fort and I rushed in to res him but we both were overwhelmed. I was deep in a dungeon, my pack was chock full of loot and I was low on reagents. Making up my mind in a logical, emotionless manner, I spurred Nightmare into the horde of trolls to resurrect my beloved dragon!

Before the dim witted trolls could do more than grunt, "What the hey?", I was at Plum's side, my wand of life in my hand and he was ALIVE again! I chortled internally as I yelled at him to JUST FOLLOW ME and I cast Recall to take us from this dark dungeon of despair...err, or Shame actually. Nothing happened and I realized I was totally and completely out of mandrake root. Dumb, dumb, dumb! I dashed through the rapidly closing ranks of trolls with Plum at my heels but a Warlord punched him in his scaled belly and that was enough to send Plum to utter darkness once again. Nightmare and I barely made it out. Only with a full refresh were we able to penetrate the angry mass of trolls. I saluted Plum and we trotted away.