Adventurer bold
Adventurer bright!
Now he lies dead cold
My wager was right

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) June 24, 2019

The bards they sang as the adventurers rode
Full of swagger, setting hearts beating ever faster
For to bards, adventurers are the richest lode
Of colorful tales of death and dark disaster

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) June 25, 2019

Harken, for the party’s cleric mellifluously preaches
His face lined and grim with wisdom, care and pain
For he knows every shining moral that he teaches
Falls on heedless ears as his fellow adventurers play stupidheads again

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) June 26, 2019

1)
“What if the King gets restless?”
“Chant, if you can’t keep him busy and in one spot by the use of your charms by now…”
“Keep him here, then.”
“Yes. Unless, of course, you need to take cover from a foe. We shouldn’t be long.”#epicfantasy

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) July 5, 2019

2)
“In my experience, most men never are.”
“Indeed. You shouldn’t be disappointed, then. Until next.”
[Wolf and Palonder vanish down the hole. Which is in a hollow in the grass, hidden even from someone standing a few paces away]#epicfantasy 3)
[The King looks at the hole, then at Chantratha]
“So, should we fill it in?”#epicfantasy

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) July 5, 2019

She wants to be an adventurer, if you please
Though she’s slow and new to weapons, and old
But she stabbed a bullying baron between sneer and wheeze
And left him decidedly dead and cold

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) July 2, 2019

High in the dark and haunted tower
Screaming horribly at the midnight hour
Lurks the ghost of the third Lord Brent
who fell in love—and was impaled on a battlement

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) July 3, 2019

His shroud was my third-best sheet
I buried him as deep as I could dig in a weary hour
And for fear of his fell and magical power
I wrapped him tight in a set of quicksilver chains, complete

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) July 4, 2019

1)
“Wolf, someone’s COMING.”
{whispers} “Chant, HUSH. I heard.”
[warband of five frowning soldiers, with swords drawn, happens on the scene]
“Whut appened here, then?”
“Dunno. What’s all this stuff?”
“WEBS! GIANT SPIDER! RUNNNNN!”#epic fantasy

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) June 22, 2019

2)
[soldiers flee hastily, looking back fearfully]
[Wolf works a spell, and they shout with fear and flee pell-mell into the forest, crashing through underbrush]#epic fantasy 3)
“What’d you do?”
“WHISPER, Chant. I worked an illusion of a giant spider, dropping down from above and grinning at them with two dozen eyes.”
“You don’t grin with your eyes.”#epic fantasy

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) June 22, 2019

4)
“My, but everyone’s a critic. Now kick the King; let’s be done with his snoring. Kick Palonder, too, and see if he can writhe in pain yet, and groan—or gasp, shriek, or what have you—his discomfort.”
“My, aren’t YOU kind.”#epic fantasy 5)
“For a courtier? Yes.”#epic fantasy

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) June 22, 2019

1)
[crashing and thrashing erupts, in that part of the Farlblades Forest Palonder headed into, followed by a pain-wracked, “UNNH!” …And then Palonder reappears, staggering, with a crossbow quarrel sticking out of his shoulder]#epic fantasy

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) June 15, 2019

3)
“Wolf, I always think of you and ‘infection’ together.”
2)
“Only one? We’re going to need more than that.”
“It’s all I could manage, Lord. Perhaps if a more experienced courtier lord had gone in my stead…”
“Gods, he’s starting to sound like you, Wolf!”
“Greatness IS infectious.”#epic fantasy “Thank you, Lady. Your observations are always welcome, no matter how catty. How are you at shoulder surgery?”
“I know not. Perhaps if I…#epic fantasy

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) June 15, 2019

4)
…practised jaw surgery on a handy courtier lord first…”
“Your King finds this suggestion WORTHY. And if at the same time you could make his hands thrice the size, so they’d not slide into the royal purse so easily…”#epic fantasy

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) June 15, 2019

1)
“Chantratha! Palonder! Rush FASTER! The knights aren’t providing the dragon with much sport. It’s apt to finish before we’re ready, if you don’t get a move on.”
“Well, YOU could help, Wolf!”
“I AM helping. I’m SUPERVISING.”#epic fantasy

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) June 29, 2019

2)
“And you labour under the delusion that supervising is WORK?”
“It’s no delusion. Supervision gets work done faster and better, with no duplications and a minimum of disputes.”
“Or so the supervisors believe.”#epic fantasy 3)
“Chantratha, am I hearing insubordination?”
“No, you’re hearing a calm and measured response to tyranny. And being as I’ve just found a dagger—see?—I believe the moral high ground has swung to me.”
“Oh? How so?”#epic fantasy

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) June 29, 2019

4)
“Wolf, the argument that cuts the deepest carries the day.”
“A mere saying.”
“If my hand should slip and cut your tongue out, how many more ‘mere sayings’ will you manage, I wonder?”#epic fantasy

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) June 29, 2019

1)
“Wolf, he’s not waking up! And I can’t carry him; it’ll take all three of us, and it’ll be noisy and slow going.”#epic fantasy

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) June 21, 2019

2)
“Which is why we’re going to lie down here and keep very quiet and wait for the venom that’s paralyzed him—he’s not asleep, he’s muscle-locked, except for his mouth and lungs, hence the drooling—to wear off.”
“Lie down? Why?”#epic fantasy 3)
“So we won’t stand out as targets right away if any soldiers or anyone or any THING else comes along and spots all of these lootable, edible bundles. That should give me time to hurl a spell.”
“And then?”#epic fantasy

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) June 21, 2019

4)
“And then we run like gale winds, before whichever army noticed the spell being hurled shows up.”
“But what about Palonder?”
“He’s paralyzed, Chant, he’s not brainless. And no more stupid than usual.”#epic fantasy 5)
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, being a courtier-in-training, against your average army he has a fighting chance.”#epic fantasy

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) June 21, 2019

1)
“Well, here we are. No sign of Palonder except all this blood…and I don’t see a trail. Wolf, can you track folk and beasts through a forest?”#epic fantasy

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) June 19, 2019

2)
“Only by the obvious means: loudly offering food or gold and seeing where people come running from, or starting forest fires and seeing where they flee to. Neither ideal for us right now.”#epic fantasy 3)
“What if we loudly offered YOU, Wolf? How many might come running then?”
“That’s very rude, Chantratha, and there’s a flaw in it too. Tell her, Elvar.”
“Lady, some may come, but far more may flee.”#epic fantasy

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) June 19, 2019

4)
“And without a crossbow and a good supply of quarrels to pick off our choices of either sort, that helps us not at all.”
“Could we not use your spells instead of quarrels?”
“Conservation means nothing at all to you, does it?”#epic fantasy

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) June 19, 2019