This is where everything begins and we find ourselves on an island whose name can only be uttered in captial letters. Here we chase a fabled gem whose existence is based only on the most tenuous of rumours and end up being chased by dinosaurs and cannibals. Openings don't get much more dramatic than this.

The circumstances surrounding the meeting of my future adventuring companions certainly appear unusual in hindsight. Some might suggest that it was the inscrutable workings of fate that brought us all together. I prefer to think that it was beer that was responsible.

Our reasons for travelling together were not ideal: a drunken evening in a dockside Parma tavern during which we agreed to pool our gold so that we could raise the payment for a ship. By the sober light of morning we found ourselves with a ship, several raging hangovers, a crew (I use the term advisedly), and owing a small fortune to the most powerful shipping company in Parma. Yet even our collective need to pay off the money we owed on the ship does not fully explain the bond we were to form in our travels. I suppose we were all fleeing something, but even I am surprised that such a disparate collection of individuals were able to grow into a unit where we could safely entrust our lives in the hands of the others.

And we certainly were disparate. It took some time for us to work out our differences, but once we had I think we were all surprised as to how well we worked together. "Fate makes strange bedfellows"? Possibly, but beer makes friends out of idiots. And who else but an intoxicated idiot would agree to pool all their gold with complete strangers to buy a ship? Perhaps this should be the point in my story where I introduce my fellow idiots.

First there was Raven - ah, no, my memory is getting ahead of itself. Raven's story doesn't begin until the next chapter.

Instead, let us start with Gwydion, a Human monk who was travelling on some kind of pilgrimage. I was never able to find out the true reasons for his leaving the mainland. He was quiet and only spoke after much consideration, although I was surprised how this changed after he had been drinking for several hours. The grog certainly loosened his tongue and relaxed his manner with us, and by the end of the evening he was cavorting with the best of them. To the end of my days I wager I will never meet another man who could belch the entire anthem of Parma. Someone remarked that he had the clear makings of a drunken master but I was never able to work out if this was meant as an insult or a compliment.

Pernicus was a Human fighter and I was extremely wary of him at first. Here was a man so swathed in testosterone that it was a wonder that he only got into three brawls that night. And one of those was with himself. Fortunately he was so drunk that he was incapable of unsheathing any of his staggering arsenal of weapons otherwise I am convinced that we all would have awoken in the morning chained to the oars of a slave galley. Within minutes of meeting him it was perfectly clear that he was the ideal man to have on your side in a tight spot, although it was equally obvious that many of the tight spots would be of his own creation.

Lastly, we have Dweazel, a Human barbarian druid. His compassion for nature was boundless and while this might have left him a little cold towards his fellow living creatures his incredible knowledge of nature helped us survive the hostile environment that awaited us on our first journey. Alas, none of us really had the opportunity to get to know Dweazel very well as fate was to take him from us very early in our travels. I always look back fondly on this first meeting of the ill-fated Dweazel. I remember thinking it odd that he was not drinking as much as the rest of us yet he still appeared intoxicated with the same form of drunken exuberance. It transpired that his numerous trips to the lavatory were a pretext to smoke some of the vast collection of plants that he always carried with him. I only began to suspect what he was really doing after he proposed to a jar of pork scratchings.

And me? Let us just say that I am a liar and a braggart. That's why I'm so good at what I do.

It needs work.

We also had the debt the size of a small kingdom and we had no idea how to use the ship to raise funds. We knew nothing about trading and we knew even less about the sea. We hardly knew each other.

So it was that someone - I was never able to work out if it was one of my companions, one of the crew, or possibly the machinations of fate (I can't really attribute this particular miracle to beer) - produced the map. The Isle Of Dread. It has to be said in capital letters. It was nothing more than a sketchy coastal map with an uncharted interior that might well have been labelled "Here be dragons". There was even a little sea monster drawn off one of the shores. All that was missing was the puffing face of the north wind. Of course what the cartographer should have drawn was the giant face of a dinosaur trying to tear your head off and swallow the remains whole while ferocious bands of cannibals wait around to scavenge any of your remains for a casserole. But I think I am getting ahead of myself.

None of us can really complain about the trials or hardships we endured on the Isle Of Dread because the name speaks volumes. These kinds of places don't acquire their sobriquets without a good reason. We had no idea what we were going to do and we needed to find some cash, and find it quickly. Along with the map came the vague suggestion that there were rewards to be found on the Isle Of Dread for those brave enough to explore its interior. There was talk of a great black pearl. I'll forgive you for laughing here. Looking back I like to think that we were not foolish, just desperate. Just don't ask me where the distinction lies.

Next time anyone gives me a strange map I am going to make sure it for the Isle Of Riches or the Valley Of Beer.

With that said, I think it is the right time to tell the story of Raven.

Upon reaching an island, which we expected to make us rich beyond our wildest dreams of avarice (and mine were pretty wild; I can't even imagine what Pernicus' would be like), the first thing we found was certainly the strangest Elf any of us had ever seen, and some kind of Human mystic who was so intent on meditating that he didn't even realise his life was a risk. But more on that later.

So much for mysterious maps.

Raven was an Elven fighter who had lived on the island for some time. Finding out that people actually lived in this so-called Dread place certainly made it appear less dreadful. This also meant an unfortunate scaling down of our dreams of avarice. I had always found Elves to be less brash, more graceful, and generally more fragrant. I had heard stories of their elegant personalities and meticulous manners, but within minutes of meeting Raven it was clear that he would be more at home with a barbarian clan farting sea shanties than with the Elves that I had ever met. But he was a Wood Elf and very much a product of his environment. His keen eyesight and skill with a bow where to prove vital to our little band, although he had to endure much scorn from Pernicus as his melee weapon of choice was a handaxe, something Pernicus claimed he had only ever used for cropping his toenails or extracting nasal fluff. I thought Raven smelt funny. And I still do.

We met Raven while he was hunting dinosaurs as part of some kind of tribal initiation ceremony. He had managed to sneak up on four of the beasts because they in turn where sneaking up on their prey - the mystic I mentioned earlier. He was some kind of religious weirdo who spoke in the same gibberish as Dweazel did most of the time. They bonded well on that first meeting, but the weirdo's story doesn't begin properly here so I will return to Raven's story. Although he would never admit it, and I would only suggest this in hushed tones whilst he is out the room, but I think he'd bitten off more than he could chew with four beasts and our intervention certainly saved his life. He was characteristically ungrateful but did invite us back to his village by the Great Wall with promises of food.

It is with this talk of food that I feel I should end this section of my tale. The introductions are not yet complete but I think you need to know all about our woeful ineptitude before they can be completed. Food was to play a significant part in the various trials we forced each other to endure.

It is truly hard to look back fondly on our first weeks together. At some point I know that each of us came to question the wisdom of our decision. Our preparations for the exploration of the island were laughable. None of us had any provisions or water; we had no rope or blankets for our mounts; Pernicus did not even own a backpack or bedroll. All we found ourselves with were our clothes, our weapons and our wits, and we all ably demonstrated on the beach that our wits were not worth a grain of sand. Witless is the harsher truth.

Fortunately we had Dweazel with us who was able to forage for food and ably provided a hearty meal for us. By the time we made camp at the end of our first day on the island we were all ravenous and the food he foraged tasted delicious. He had even provided enough for a solid breakfast in the morning. Without Dweazel we would have been forced to abandon our quest on the island on the first day, and he was able to sustain our little band throughout those early days on the island.

It was a tragedy that we were to lose Dweazel, and although I am ruining my narrative I feel the need to express the depth of the loss we felt when he died. I want my readers to appreciate the pivotal role he played in our first days together on the island in order to convey an inkling of the loss we had to endure.

That first night truly was a shambles. The boys started arguing over who was to take watch and I foolishly retired for the night while they were still arguing. When I awoke in the morning not only was all our food gone but Pernicus and Gwydion had somehow befriended the hulking man/ape brute that ate it all. The poor fellow had obviously been captured by someone and cruelly treated before he had escaped, but none of us were particularly well inclined to him as he had eaten everything we had. Either he or Pernicus (it was hard to tell as I believe their thought processes worked the same way) appeared to be under the illusion that he might accompany us. We soon put paid to that theory. Pernicus' parting with his kindred soul was a touching affair and if I hadn't been so hungry I would have composed a little satire to mark the occasion. As it was we spurned our mounts to make all haste to Raven's village and the sustenance that awaited us.

You don't need me to tell you that this first sorry tale was not a good omen for our group.

The mystical Elk that Raven and Dweazel claimed to have seen one night several days later was, however, a good omen - or so I was reliably informed. Given the nature of the two claimants, in particular Dweazel's penchant for the more hallucinogenic elements of mother nature's bounty, you'll understand my scepticism. Raven was from the Elk Tribe so this had some kind of significance for him and Dweazel was so whacked out of his face most of the time that everything was symbolic. I remain unconvinced.

Perhaps I should clarify. The Elk arrived at the end of the night during which Pernicus and Gwydion had been terribly mauled and almost killed by a marauding triceratops. It was only the heroic defence mounted by Dweazel that finally slayed the creature and saved the lives of our two felled companions. How, after a night of tragedy, a passing deer could be construed as a good omen will always remain a mystery to me. We were all grateful that the wounds received by Pernicus and Gwydion were not fatal, but it required several days rest before they were able to travel again. Fortunately Raven's tribe had provided us with plenty of food and water so the debacle of our first night in the open was not repeated. I think the boys had finally resolved their squabbling over the watch system as well.

I used to the time to compose a short tale to honour the heroic fight between Dweazel and the triceratops. It was a little crude, but this only reflects the surroundings in which it was composed. Alas, my audience was limited to my companions, most of whose concept of art was based on looting and pillaging. The Elven tribes on the island had no concept of, or use for, taverns and my heart ached for one of the smoke filled bars in the docks of Parma. It was certainly not the most receptive of audiences, particularly as neither Pernicus nor Gwydion emerged in a flattering light. As the events of that night became clearer it was established that Pernicus elected to face down the rampaging dinosaur's charge with his halberd and Gwydion had attempted to stop it with his bare hands. I have to be honest and admit that in my naivety of that time I had not appreciated how lethal a monk can be with his bare hands. To my creative mind it seemed that trying to stop a charging beast of muscle and bone weighing well over a ton with bare hands was foolish. Creative mind or not, few will deny that Pernicus' choice bordered on the suicidal. Some willowy maiden with big hair who believes moonlight is magical (you can guarantee that she had never cursed a full moon while being stalked by a dinosaur looking for a midnight snack) might consider Pernicus' actions as brave. I, however, am sticking with suicidal.

In fact, suicidal would be a good word to describe Pernicus in general, who seemed always ready to fight, regardless of the odds, or indeed the desire of the opposition to fight him. He exhibited the same disregard for his steed's life as he did of his own and poor Gwydion spent as much of his time in those early days tending to the injuries of Pernicus' horse as he did of Pernicus himself. We all agreed that we needed to buy Pernicus a warhorse at the earliest possible opportunity before fright killed his long suffering riding horse.

So I used some artistic license. I have no need of the truth - I'm a storyteller. If you want to talk about truths then go and see a judge because I have no business with truths. It almost goes without saying that Dweazel enjoyed my recital.

With the wisdom of hindsight, through which it should be obvious that I am retelling our exploits, composing a tale that was less than flattering to any member of our frayed group was not going to improve our relationships. It only further frayed our delicate seams. Thus it was that we made our way, bickering and squabbling, towards the plateau at the northern end of the island where we all hoped to find the great black pearl. How we would react if we found this fabled gem was unclear, and I do not think one of us had given it any thought. But given that we couldn't even organise a watch system without arguing it would be safe to assume that it would involve lots of shouting and possibly some violence.

Sadly this part of the story has to be about the loss of Dweazel. Personally I would rather not retell it, as it still upsets me to this day. Some things are best left in the past. You can remember them fondly in a vague sort of way but should you need to recall the details they become acutely painful. So it is with the closing chapter of Dweazel's tragically short story. My nostalgic interjections into this account have already ruined my narrative but even I am aware that not to close Dweazel's story would leave a gaping hole. And you would have no knowledge of how Ainsley came to join our band. So tell it, I must.

It does not start particularly well because it starts with a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Or rather it starts with the loud crashing of trees falling in the forest at night as something obviously very big made its way towards our camp. Even those of us that were asleep were awoken by this terrible noise. I immediately knew that something was amiss as the potentially suicidal Pernicus was hastily preparing his mount in order to flee. I might mock Pernicus' lack of personal safety in my tales but this should not mask the fact that I acknowledge that he was an exceptionally powerful fighter. Everyone was similarly preparing to flee our camp, but it was seeing Pernicus that broke the last vestiges of sleep and made me realise that we were all in extreme danger.

It's all a little hazy, even now, but I somehow ended up with Raven's horse as well as my own. This was the first of several times that I cursed him for sleeping in trees. The crashing was getting louder and louder and I could actually feel the ground shaking. My every nerve was screaming at me to leave, to say nothing of trying to control two horses that were wide-eyed with fear. Somehow I had to fight all of this while Raven made his way, as slowly as he possibly could it seemed to my terrified senses of the time, down the tree. I could see the tops of the trees near our clearing shaking and collapsing, and the crash of heavy footfall resonated throughout me as I was screaming at Raven to move faster.

He made the final jump out of the tree and on to his mount just as the terrifying beast crashed into a clearing. It let out a roar that shot through me and carried me all the way to my grave. My mortality was laid out before me in that roar. If Raven had not been on his horse at this point I have to admit that I would have been powerless but to flea and leave him to his fate. Fortunately my cowardice was hidden by Raven's speedy exit from the tree and we whipped our horses as hard as we could to put distance between us and the Tyrannosaurus Rex.

We rallied about half a mile away. There were the remains of a dinosaur we had killed the previous night in the camp and we were confident that with us gone, once the monster had finished eating the remains it would move off in search of further prey. After about half an hour we started to circle back around the camp to see what we could salvage. Gwydion pointed out that we could not approach the camp from the same direction the wind was blowing in case the beast might pick up our scent. In doing so he probably saved all of our lives and this is another woeful example of our sheer ineptitude of that time. The rest of us had not even stopped to consider this.

We stopped about a quarter of a mile from our camp and Dweazel and Raven went ahead on foot to see if the monster had gone. I'm afraid that is as far as any coherent narrative can go. It was so dark that night and we did not dare light any torches. Our senses were still reeling from our terrifying flight, and as Dweazel and Raven disappeared into the darkness the rest of us were forced to wait and became lost in ourselves. We were isolated and terrified and I am reluctant to believe anyone's version of events, even my own.

As soon as we heard the dreadful roar of the beast we knew that something was wrong. The crash of its footfalls, even a quarter of a mile away, sounded as if they were directly in front of us. We all wanted to turn our horses and flee again, to be safe in the sensation of speed putting distance between us and our doom. But we could not leave Dweazel and Raven, so we waited, straining our senses to try and discern something through the blanket of night. The roar, the slow crash of feet, the crashing getting more frequent - the beast has a scent - the monstrous feet pounding faster, the crashing speeding up - the beast is pursuing - faster crashing, louder crashing - run Dweazel, run Raven! - faster, louder, the ground is starting to shake now, my heart beats wildly, I fight the sensation to flee, I fight my horse who wants to flee, I can sense the others fighting their desire to flee as well, crashing, and then....

The crashing stops and that primal roar reverberates through the tenebrous night. Our hearts sink and our heads fall. The hunt is over. They prey is caught.

Raven, who had found sanctuary in the boughs of his beloved trees later claimed to have seen the remains of an arm hanging from beast's mouth as it sniffed around the tree he was hiding in. When we found him later he was wild-eyed and only just coherent. His wits were gone and it was not until well into the following day that we were able to calm him down. All of our senses were strained to breaking point that night and in some way I think we all actually wanted to believe that he had seen the remains of Dweazel hanging from that awful jaw. Each of us wanted some kind of proof that Dweazel was actually gone, something tangible and solid, like that torn remains of an arm, so that we had something grieve over.

Was Dweazel's death avoidable? Should we have been camping so openly in the forest with a fire to warm us? Should we have returned to the camp so soon? Should we have let Dweazel and Raven go alone? These are questions I have asked myself many times over the years, and I can't answer them definitely enough to remove the feeling of guilt that has remained with me ever since that night. I think I will have to leave you form your own opinions because it hurts too much to say anymore.

The day after meeting Ainsley we thought we had lost him as we had lost Dweazel when he was carried off by a pterodactyl.

Perhaps I should embellish the setting a little more? At this point of the story we were crossing a precarious three hundred foot long rope bridge which spanned the ravine that separated us from our goal of the central plateau. The wind came howling down the ravine and made the rope bridge swing with nauseating alarm. We were all a little tense and a little frightened. It was certainly not the most ideal place to defend ourselves and I suspect these flying dinosaurs had had plenty of rich pickings from the numerous fools with avarice in their hearts who, just like us, had inched their way over the three thousand foot drop one at a time.

Ainsley and Pernicus had already crossed the bridge, and Raven was in the process of crossing, when we first spotted the flying beast. Raven was easily able to make it back to the safety of the island side of the bridge where Gwydion and I were still waiting to cross. Raven and myself were able to sustain enough of a withering bow fire to deter the creature from heading to our side of the rope bridge, but as it turned its attention to Pernicus and Ainsley it flew beyond the range of our bows.

There was very little cover on the central plateau and I could only watch it horror as the pterodactyl grabbed poor Ainsley. This was the first time that I witnessed one of Pernicus' remarkable physical feats. I was over three hundred feet away so my vision was not perfect and I will understand if you have some doubts about the veracity my story. Even at such distance I still do not have any doubts, and I believe what I saw with my eyes. As the creature flew off with Ainsley, Pernicus performed a mighty leap, jumping at least ten feet off the ground, to deliver a colossal blow to the beast. Sadly this did not slay the monster but as it flew away it was obvious that it was badly injured. If I had not seen it with my own eyes I would never have believed that such heroic feats were possible. I was staggered.

We had met Ainsley shortly after losing Dweazel. By this point we were in the mountains near the plateau and had taken to camping in the numerous caves to be found there. We reasoned that the T-Rex couldn't get into a cave and were reasonably confident that it would get hungry before we did if it was determined to mount a siege. Ainsley, who was human druid, stumbled into our cave one night, the sole survivor of another party of reckless and brave fools who had been seeking their fortunes in this dreadful place. I have come to suspect that druids have their own tongue, very much like rogue's are rumoured to, and he spoke the same style of strange, heavy slang that Dweazel had used. It frequently required a lot of my attention to understand what he was saying, particularly as he was often seen smoking many of the same plants and weeds that Dweazel enjoyed. He seemed rather disappointed that we had not been able to recover Dweazel's "stash". None of us would admit that we had no idea what he was talking about.

Fortunately this tale has a happy, if anti-climatic conclusion. We had little choice but to follow the general direction that the pterodactyl had taken, being further towards the centre of the plateau. We quickly discovered that the plateau was a giant circle of rock surrounding a vast volcanic crater with a lake in the centre. This was the only feature on the vast plateau and we headed for that, hoping that if Ainsley were still alive he would draw the same conclusions.

Fortunately he had, and fortunately he had had the presence of mind to resist his overwhelming urge to attack the pterodactyl as it bore him aloft. To further harm the creature would be to risk it dropping its burden in an effort to stay in the air so Ainsley let it carry him to its nest. The foolish creature left this indignant and angry "food" for its young to take care off. Ainsley had little trouble dispatching the young and making his way to the lake.

Here we had an emotional reunion amongst the village of a primitive human tribe that lived on the shores of the lake. Gwydion, who had been scouting when we found the village, did an excellent job of befriending them and they made us very welcome. It was from these friendly people that we learnt that the great black pearl did actually exist. It lay on an island at the heart of the island where the mortal enemies of our friendly tribe lived. They were referred to only as the "green and blue skins" and it became clear that the pearl was the totem of their tribe.

I have to admit I was a little surprised that the pearl did actually exist. My faith in our mysterious map was tenuous as best. I was still a little sceptical after they announced its existence, after all here was a very primitive tribe - they did not even have bows, for goodness sake! - and for all I knew their definition of a great black pearl could be a lump of coal. But I cannot deny that my heart skipped a little beat when they first mentioned it. I wanted to believe that it really did exist. I wanted to believe that the island was going to reward us for our suffering. And as hard as I tried to fight it, I wanted to believe that Dweazel had died for something.

Of course, all we now had to do was somehow defeat the entire "green and blue skinned" tribe and steal their sacred totem.

I have a young student who is helping to record my story. My hands are not what they used to be and writing hurts me these days. My pupil is intelligent and headstrong and we have argued many times over this section of the tale. Like all young people he sees everything in black and white. The young think that they know everything; the old know that there isn't a lot worth knowing.

He believes that we made an easy moral decision at the time by convincing ourselves that we were destroying the "green and blue skins" in order to help the primitive tribe we had befriended. He is certain that we did so in order to mask the true fact that we were only interested in the great black pearl. His argument, which I must admit I struggle to contradict, is that if the great black pearl hadn't been rumoured to be held by the "green and blue skins" then we would have never helped the tribe.

Perhaps he is right. Looking back over our lives can any of us say with any certainty how we might have acted if the circumstances were different? Perhaps we might not have spent so much time and effort eliminating the "green and blue skins" - and a lot of effort it took - and moved on in our search for the fabled gem, leaving the tribe to sort out their own problems? Perhaps we might have struggled to justify wiping out the tribe's enemies if we hadn't convinced ourselves that, first and foremost, we were helping the tribe. What angers is me is that he is judging my present self because of actions made by my past self that he has decided were morally dubious. This seems extremely unfair to me and, apart from writing these words, I'm not convinced he has any right to judge me.

The scorn on his face as he wrote those last lines was a sight to see! He is young and he is extremely talented. He will grow to realise that a good storyteller does not judge.

Our progress through the ruined temple where the "green and blue skins" lived was excruciatingly slow. Just as my gifted, if opinionated, pupil is young now, we were young then. We did not know how to sense when danger approached, our reflexes were slow, we did not know how to position ourselves in combat to minimise damage, we did not have the money for decent equipment. The list is almost endless. What all of this meant was that we were getting ourselves easily hurt and having to return to the village to rest and heal our injuries on a daily basis. On one particular day we only managed to traverse one corridor before Gwydion decided to activate the mechanism for a trap we had identified and bypassed the previous day, which then sprayed most of us with a burning dust and prompted our return to the village. On another day I was laid low by a rat of all things, that panicked me and inflicted a vicious wound on my leg. Another time Ainsley was trying to carry his dog down a rope when he lost his grip and they both went crashing painfully to the ground. Pernicus managed to blunder headlong into a pit trap that was filled with cobras. On another occasion I managed to prevent Pernicus walking into a scolding mud pit with my music as he was under mind influence of some mud monster, only to get myself blinded by a geyser. To make matters worse the mud monster then felled Pernicus and I was rooted to the spot with fear, not daring to move for fear of falling into a mud pit, and wanting to run from the unseen menace that had felled our finest fighter. That was a scary moment and not a memory I wish to dwell upon for too long.

To compound all of this ineptitude (I really must try to find another word to describe our early performances as this one is getting over-used) we had to contend with the shaman of the tribe we were "helping". He was using his powers to heal us. Or rather he was until Ainsley mortally offended him. He refused to heal Ainsley's hound one morning as their religion placed men above animals. You don't really need me to tell you that this only antagonised Ainsley, and there ensued a rather intense theological discussion that a less enlightened person might call a shouting match. Seldom have I heard complex theological arguments reduced to such cutting comments as "my god is better than your god". It ended rather badly with the shaman refusing to heal any of our little band, and it took an opus in praise of his god that I spent two days composing before he calmed down and agreed to heal us again. It was really the last thing we needed.

Ultimately, the details are not relevant. Our progress through the ruined temple was slow and painful, tedious and terrifying, amateurish and careless, and, if you happen to believe my dutiful pupil, morally wrong. By the time we had finished exploring the temple, almost a week later, we were all bleeding, battered, tired, a little wiser, and rich.

We found the great black pearl. We were rich.

We suffered for it, but we found what we had been looking for. Dweazel hadn't died in vain (again the scowls from my scribe) and we would be able to pay off some of the money on our ship. All our hardships became worthwhile and tolerable. All of our differences were resolved. We were the mightiest and richest people throughout the lands. We all began dreaming of the wondrous items we would purchase - masterwork bows, warhorses, masterwork weapons, lots and lots of arrows, better armour, a masterwork horn for me, some shuriken for Gwydion. I could go on but I'm sure you get the idea.

All that now lay between us and our plans for these riches was the journey back over the precarious three hundred foot long rope bridge, through the dinosaur infested jungle, and plunging again into the cannibal hunting grounds.

We had all of this to look forward to when I was suddenly struck down by a disease that almost killed me. It must have been that stupid rat bite....

You may recall me wondering whether finding the great black pearl would cause our diverse band to come to blows. In actual fact it was some hydra eggs that caused the first blows. I'm sure you weren't expecting that and, to be honest, neither were we.

We had run into a hydra the night before, and although we were unable to kill it we were able to fend it off. My daylight someone suggested tracking the beast back to its lair to kill it.

I will start a new paragraph in order to give you time to appreciate the sheer stupidity of that plan.

I shall also try to distance myself from it by mentioning that most of the journey home was a little hazy to me because I was still recovering from the infection caused by the rat bite. The fact that you are reading these memoirs makes it plainly clear that the disease did not kill me and I hope you will forgive the hyperbole at the close of the previous chapter. I think a good storyteller should be allowed to exaggerate every once in a while.

So while the disease may not have killed me it certainly left me slightly detached from events on our journey back across the island. I can remember having problems crossing the rope bridge again, although I believe this time it was from a hipogryph. Fortunately the creature was more interested in our horses and we were able to hurry across the rope bridge with the noble sacrifice of one of our steeds. We were down to three horses between the six of us, which in itself caused problems between Ainsley and Cruath.

You will recall Cruath, the strange Human we encountered when we first met Raven all the way back in Chapter Two. It has taken me five chapters but now is the time to complete his introduction. My young pupil is rolling his eyes. Patience is definitely not a virtue to be found in youth.

Cruath was, by far, the strangest member of our group. A Human who described himself as a shaman, he lived among the primitive tribe we befriended by the lake at the centre of the island. His origins are unclear but I suspect that he was not born of the tribe. I was never able to find out how he came to be with them and I think that our little band were the first opportunity he had to leave the tribe - an opportunity he seized with much enthusiasm. To this day I am still not fully clear on the form of his worship or from where he draws his powers. His experimentation with the unusual species of mushrooms that grew of the island, which either formed some part of his strange shamanistic ceremonies or was a hobby that he pursued with incredible passion, had certainly affected his personality and his lucidity was always tenuous at best. When he told us on that first meeting that "the stig travels on moonpaths buried deep underground" no one had the faintest idea what he was talking about, and his attempts to demonstrate this with some turnips only further confused me. I had thought that Raven smelt unpleasant but he was a fragrant summer's eve breeze compared to the festering sewer of Cruath.

His unique odour was the cause of the ructions with Ainsley who, understandably so I felt, was more than reluctant to share a mount with Cruath. After we presented Cruath with a "walk or bathe" ultimatum he made the obvious choice and we were able to proceed. Sadly this was not to be the first time we had problems with his personal hygiene, which were only exacerbated by his habit of collecting bits of the various creatures we killed for use as charms in his ceremonies. I was dreading bringing him back to Parma as I knew exactly how that city of high culture would react to such a primitive. Obviously I wasn't really worried about him, only myself. I could clearly imagine a fine performance in one of the taverns at the dock ruined by the troglodyte at the back examining his collection of "souvenirs" and smelling like rotten cheese.

It was during this time that I seem to remember that we got caught up in an endless bout of rescuing. Through my daze I was not really able to place the sequence of events together that resulted in us becoming "heroic", and even now my recollection is sketchy. I had thought we were on the island for the cash but somehow we ended up rescuing a woman from some Gnolls. She then had us rescuing her brother from some more Gnolls. He turned out to be a paladin who wanted us to rescue some more prisoners from a Gnoll stockade. So from wanting to get off the island with all possible haste in order to make good our gains, we found ourselves one hot morning having to devise tactical plans for the storming of a rather formidable stockade. I do clearly remember Pernicus was dealing with the various souls we rescued and that our stash of precious gems seemed to be increasing during this time, so I have to assume that we were being rewarded for our efforts. I've used these few clear memories to form the opinion over the years that we weren't really being heroic and we were only in it for the cash. I most certainly hope so. I had no interest in being heroic. Heroic storytellers tend to have very short life-spans and end up having their stories told by others. I wanted to be the only person telling my story.

I will return to the stockade and the hot morning in the next chapter as that is another story. To close this one I need to take you back to the hydra's cave. Fortunately the beast was not at home, otherwise I'm fairly sure my story would have ended there with the most final of full-stops. As it was we found four hydra eggs that Ainsley got into his head were an abomination against nature and needed to be destroyed and Pernicus got into his head that they were worth a lot of money to the right person. Perhaps it wasn't just me who was not really thinking straight at the time? I blame the slightly ethereal tinge that these events have in my memory on the rat bite. Perhaps the stifling heat of the island had finally gotten to all of us and we all started acting a little strangely? I am not convinced that the hydra eggs were an abomination and I'm not convinced that they were actually worth anything. But Pernicus and Ainsley were sure and Ainsley had managed to smash three of them before Pernicus grabbed the last. Much pushing and pulling, shouting and name-calling ensued before Pernicus bashed Ainsley over the head with the back of his sword. It wasn't really designed to hurt and the shock of what had just happened brought everyone to their senses before the scene could have become really ugly. Even Pernicus was a little surprised at what he had done.

Unfortunately this was just too much for Ainsley. He was already at odds with most of us because of the way we treated his beloved "mother nature" and the incident with the eggs only confirmed that his interests were mutually exclusive with ours. We wanted to get rich as quickly as possible, and we were prepared to make many morally and ecologically dubious decisions in the pursuit of wealth. Ainsley wanted something more noble which, as my apprentice is keen to point out, portrays the rest of us in a less than flattering light.

However, this is my story and I have no need to pass judgement on myself. Let us just conclude this section of the tale by saying that none of us were particularly surprised when we woke up the following morning to find Ainsley had gone. I was disappointed to see him go, but also a little relieved. If we had already come to blows after travelling together for a week I dread to think what kind of violence might have ensued later on. I believe it's fair to say that Ainsley's decision to leave our group was best for everybody.

In all my days of travelling I never lost my fear of fighting. I believe this is a healthy thing. Some might call it self-preservation. I, however, believe that the day you lose your fear of lethal combat is the day you lose a significant part of your humanity.

Of course, our "humanity" was debatable, which calls into question the value of our episode at the stockade as a worthwhile story. We were not risking our lives trying to free the prisoners for any greater good, be it theirs or ours. We were after their money. Everyone is prepared to put their lives at risk for some great cause. Our cause was not so great, but it was a cause.

The fight at the stockade was the first time that we collectively stared death in the face.

Forgive the cliché. I consider it necessary because it was such an important event in the story of our band. It may not have been the catharsis that it could have been for others, but it was nevertheless significant. We'd been in a position where Dweazel and Raven were at risk, but this was the first time that we were all at risk.

The odds were certainly against us. Nine Gnolls and their leader against the five of us. Sir Edgar, the tiresome paladin I spoke about in the last chapter, bolstered our numbers, although this proved to be short lived. I think this was the first time that we started to miss Ainsley!

Wisely I believe, we opted not to try and attack the Gnolls in their stockade and instead we lured them out at night. Gwydion and Pernicus came up with a cunning plan to set up a fake camp to lure them to us and Cruath was able to cast a light spell on some stones to negate the advantage of their darkvision. However, they still had the advantage of numbers and it was obvious that they knew how to use this to best effect.

Our first casualty was Sir Edgar's sister who was slain by a stray Gnoll arrow. This incensed the paladin who rushed in to engage the Gnoll leader in melee, closely followed by Gwydion and Pernicus. They were able to kill the brute fairly quickly but then found themselves beset by the remaining Gnolls, either in hand-to-hand, or with bows. Raven and I were only able to draw so much attention with our bow fire, as was Cruath with his spells.

First Sir Edgar was felled, then the mighty Pernicus. Gwydion managed to retreat from melee, although badly injured, and they switched their attentions to Raven, who had been devastating them with his arrow fire. Alas, my meagre talents with a bow were no match for Raven's mastery of the weapon. Raven stood firm. He managed to drop another as they charged him and even after they had surrounded him and were assaulting him with their weapons he fought on. To my amazement he pulled an arrow from his quiver and proceeded to stab one to the ground. Here was an Elf who knew how to fight and was clearly as fearless as the mighty Pernicus. Alas, Raven was eventually felled, as was Cruath who had bravely tried to come to his aid. Much to my surprise only Gwydion and I remained against the four Gnolls that were left standing, and we were both injured.

It was only because of Gwydion that we were able to win the fight and that we managed to escape with our lives. His speed, motivated as it was by our dire situation, was phenomenal as he weaved his way around the remaining Gnolls. I had never seen anybody move so quickly and so gracefully in my entire life, and the Gnolls found it almost impossible to strike him. As he dodged his way through them, a shadow that their weapons were unable to strike, his fists and my bow were slowly taking their toll, and it is thanks to his preternatural speed that our adventures on the island didn't end in the ultimate of tragedies.

Alas, Sir Edgar joined his sister in whatever the followers of Pellor choose to call heaven, but we were able to save our comrades. Their wounds were horrific but with the healing power I had learnt from Ainsley and Dweazel, Cruath's divine abilities, and Gwydion's healing skills we were able to continue our journey after a few days rest. The strange thing was that none of us wanted to talk about the battle. We briefly concluded the story for those who had been felled, but that was all any of us wanted to say or hear about it. We were all so relieved to still be alive but this was tempered by the knowledge that we had come so close to death. They made for a rather unsettling combination and I think that each of us needed to come to terms with this privately. Those days of rest were the most muted we had had on the island. Even I sensed that the time for a song to commemorate our victory was not appropriate and it was some time before I felt ready to retell the story. By then I knew that I had come to terms with the aftershock of our fight so I assumed that the others also had. I was careful not to invoke any emotions in the story and went for a straight forward narrative.

Thus, if I have appeared hurried in this chapter please understand it was because none of us were able to verbalise what we felt at the time. By the time we all felt comfortable with what had happened it was too late and all that was left was a simple and, if I am being perfectly honest, slightly dull tale. Once you strip it of emotion all that is left is description: Pernicus struck the Gnoll; the Gnoll struck back - and so on.

Rather than recounting the story perhaps I should have tried to describe to you my feelings of coming so close to death for the first time? Perhaps by doing so I might be able to give you some insight into the troubled emotions which we all had to deal with in the aftermath of battle, and which, after all, is the main significance of this event on our group?

Possibly, but even with my skills that wouldn't have made for much of a story. The nostalgic philosophising of an elderly woman might make for entertaining reading if you happen to be that self same elderly woman but I would question their interest to anyone else.

So it is the story that I have recounted, somewhat devoid of emotion, but recounted nevertheless. After all, it's stories that you want, isn't it?

I wonder, dear reader, whether you believe in signs? I don't and neither does my level-headed pupil with his practical philosophies that leave no room for wonder. It's one of the few things that we do agree on. However, many people who have heard my tale over the years seem to think that the trauma and near tragedy we suffered when fighting the Gnolls was a clear sign that we should have left the island. In doing so we would have been spared the further disasters that the tower on the beach inflicted on our band. Personally I believe that people who believe in signs are fools who can't see that they are using the advantage of hindsight to exaggerate the importance of an event that would never appear portentous at the time to those involved.

The battle was not a sign; the elk was not an omen. They were chance events that some people placed too much significance on, either because they are nestled in the comfy chair of hindsight or because they were looking for symbols were there were none.

Having vanquished the Gnolls, freed the remaining paladins and their companion, returned to Raven's village for more provisions, (significantly horses), we found ourselves on a beach one afternoon exploring the top of a small tower, the remainder of which was buried under the sand. I had heard some stories of a tower in this area that once belonged to a powerful necromancer called Kyuss. That was enough information to dissuade Festus and myself from entering but it didn't deter the others.

Festus, I should clarify, was travelling with the paladins we had rescued (although how he came to end up travelling with some Pellor zealots was a story I never got to the bottom of) and, understandably, was keen to part company with them and join us. He certainly fitted in perfectly and his gloriously mercenary attitude blended well with our "get rich at all costs" approach to life. I would argue that he was even more mercenary than the rest of us: we wanted collective wealth and it was quickly apparent that Festus wanted personal wealth. After we established this fact we took great pains to ensure that he was never left alone with anything valuable. He quickly grew tired of being surrounded by five leering figures every time he opened a sack or chest, but it was a form of working partnership, although not necessarily one with much trust implied. We could live with this. Besides, we keenly missed Ainsley during our fight with the Gnolls and another sword was eagerly accepted into the band.

Festus and I grew to be very good friends, mainly because we shared a love of grog. The others, it quickly transpired, were reluctent to drink whilst we were travelling. I suspect that this was born of a caution of not wanting to be caught unable to defend themselves. This was fine by Festus and myself as it meant we could get roaringly drunk safe in the knowledge there was always someone to protect us! I have many fond memories of evenings spent with Festuts and the crew of our ship singing drunken sea shanties.

Anyway, back to the tower. Pernicus, Gywdion, Raven and Cruath managed to seal themselves inside the tower which rapidly started filling with gas and undead. Festus and I were oblivious to this and spent a nice afternoon warming ourselves in the sun before Festus found a button that he hoped would unseal the tower. It did, but at great cost to Festus who, after pushing the button, looked as if something had sucked the very life out of him. Fortunately his part in my story is longer than this brief introduction and he was able to get himself restored at Raven's village later that night.

When the other four emerged from the tower Pernicus was even closer to death than he had been during the battle with the Gnolls. It transpired that they had to fight their way through four levels, each filled with skeletons and each filled with more and more gas, to the very bottom in order to destroy the source of the gas. Once they were able to do that the undead were also destroyed, which just as well as they were all in a bad state.

Once Festus and I saw the haul from this perilous tower we were feeling pretty smug that we had listened to our instincts and not ventured into the tower. They recovered a ring and a set of bracers from the skeleton leader. Looking at the ring it was clearly cursed - a small creature was easily discernable writhing within the ring - and we reached the obvious conclusion that the bracers would also be cursed. Or rather we all reached that obvious conclusion apart from Raven who put the bracers on.

This was the point at which we decided to leave the island. Or rather it was decided for us when Raven put the bracers on. The battle was not a sign that we should leave; the battle was nothing more than that. It is unfortunate, but nevertheless, entirely coincidental that we had two bad experiences in a row.

The Zombie Master (do not be alarmed that I might be missing a story about evil undead necromancers - "zombie master" is just a title the Elves used for what was essentially a witch docter) at Raven's village was able to remove the terrible death magic that afflicted Festus but he could do nothing for helping Raven remove the bracers. In true mercenary fashion we bargained with the paladins, explaining that in return for passage from the island we would like their deity’s help in removing the bracers. We had saved their lives after all.

The paladins explained that their temple was located on an island a few weeks travel and this, rather coincidentally, was not only the place where they wished to be taken but was also the only place we might find a worshipper of Pellor to help us. If they hadn't been paladins I would have been extremely dubious about the sheer convenience of this arrangement. But if you can't trust a paladin then who can you trust?

So that was how we finally came to leave the island. After all we had been through we had hardly emerged rich, although we thankfully had enough money to pay the crew and some of the ship loan. Whether this was worth all our sacrifices is not really for me to say. We were adventurers and we'd certainly found adventure, so perhaps that made our trip successful? To be honest I don't really like to think of things in terms of success. We had all chosen to walk this particular path through life and we were just doing what we had chosen to do. We accepted the risks. Dweazel had accepted the risks. And we accepted that, just like so many things in life, it seldom works out that everything clear cut enough to start measuring success. Ultimately we had found what we were looking for, namely the great black pearl, although it didn't made us as rich as we hoped. That's the way life works sometimes and I can't really hide that in a story. So while my tale of the Isle Of Dread may not have the ending I was hoping for, the stories that formed our adventures on the island were worth their weight in gold to me.

As a suitable closing I feeling inclined to mention Pernicus again briefly. For some reason he decided that he wanted to get hold of a bird of prey in order to train it to fight with him whilst we travelled to Angler Island, where the temple of Pellor was located. I can't think of a better way to close our adventures on the Isle of Dread with a song, and here it is....