Maric the Miner

UP: Great Lakes

    I was out working the mines on Monday, minding my own business, chatting with a few of my fellow miners, when all hell broke loose. If you�ve never heard the sound of a gargoyle, trust me, you don�t want to. The sound just makes all the hairs on your body just stand right up at attention. Running out of the small cave we were in, my companions and I saw what must have been millions of gargoyles coming across the east bridge and heading right for our mining spot.

I must admit, my packhorse, Bob, bolted and ran when one of the gargoyles tore the back leg off Simion�s horse. Don�t blame him. �Course, he didn�t make it very far before two more gargoyles set up him. Poor fellow. Expensive to replace too!

Simion, after having seen what happened to his packhorse, bolted for town himself. Me, I hid in a tree so I could find out more about what these monsters wanted. I�m pretty sure Simion got the town all stirred up because it wasn�t long before a bunch of warrior types came riding out towards the bridge and began to lay into the horrid creatures.

>From my vantage point I could see most of the battle. Gargoyle bodies littered the ground, but so did a few bodies of the fighters. One lady went riding by, her armor smeared with blood. I caught her name, Calligula, and wondered for a moment whose side she was on.

Two other fighters came running by shouting about stone gargoyles coming over the bridge. I thought gargoyles were bad, but these stone ones seemed like they were made from the rock of Mount Kendall itself. One man kept calling out �Doug! Doug! There�s another one up here!� I couldn�t see what the shouting was about, but I could see a flash of red in the distance. Whether that was blood or something worse, I didn�t want to know.

Almost as fast as they descended upon the area, the gargoyles all seemed to be dead. I checked the sun and realized that the fighting had been going on for hours, that the fury of fighting had dimmed my awareness of the passage of time. Cautiously, I slipped from the tree and ran to the town to find Simion. I told him all about the fight and he was skeptical, but when we went back out to the mines, the area was clear. Only a few traces of the fight remained.

I for one have considered heading south to mine, but then again, the folk in town came to our rescue rather quickly, so maybe staying here in Minoc will be my choice.

From the Town Cryer - The Journal of Ultima Online, Wednesday, June 7th 2000