Tales from Innervale

I ache.

Between the rock-hard ground and the unceasing flatulence of the Companionship’s pack pony, not to mention the explosive snoring coming from Grimble’s bunged up nasal passages, I think I got no more than an hour’s sleep last night.

Oh how I long for my soft feather bed, just a few short miles away. I seriously considered sneaking off this morning—I could have been home in time for supper–but I knew it would have been pointless. My father would have sent me right back out again, this time in the company of an armed escort. Once his mind is made up…

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My name is Percival Reginald Fotheringham-Hey, Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Spout, nestled deep in the fair lands of Innervale, and this is my journal.

I can hardly believe it myself but, as I write, I am sitting on a damp patch of ground between a dwarf and the backside of a pony, and it’s a close call as to which smells worse. We’re camped just outside the hamlet of Middleton, only a few miles from the palace, and I can’t for the life of me understand why we aren’t staying at the inn just up the road. But when I suggested we stay at The Duck’s Foot for the night, all Stringfold the Wizard would say was that “the Companionship eschews all earthly comforts.” Ugh! There is nothing I hate more than eschewing comfort of any kind.

And I’m not the only one in a foul mood. Dowdi the halfling is standing over a pot of rabbit stew muttering darkly about having an extra mouth to feed, while Torinfel the elf, and Grimble the dwarf are busy arguing about whose battle cries are more terrifying to the enemy and—it seems, given the horrendous noise—whose are more headache-inducing. Bron the hero appears to be in a sulk, just staring vacantly into the distance, and Stringfold keeps grumbling to himself about the quality of the baccoroot in his pipe.

But you may be wondering what the heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Spout is doing slumming it with Innervale’s most storied troupe of adventurers. You’re not the only one. Only six hours ago I was sitting in my chambers preparing for a seminar on the migration patterns of the giant flitterbug when my father, King Percival XXVII (may Hortense and all her handmaidens protect his soul) swept in and announced that he had a wonderful surprise waiting for me.

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