Hello. My name is Joha. You're not going to believe this but I met someone today; a beautiful half-elf woman name Dia. How it happened? I was in the local tavern of Botici, having a pint of some of that delicious ginger mead with honey. It's not much of a fancy drink but it's a favorite of mine, otherwise I'm not myself as a half-Dwarf. Anyways, so Dia came into the tavern, scouting the place, when some shady sod-offs decided to make some googly eyes and bother her. Now my human half, on my mother's side mind you, would let the lovely lady handle herself, as she came with a spear and looked to be quite handy. But my Dwarven half, from my pa's side, wouldn't allow it. Funny, this is how my mother and pa met from what I'm about to tell you.

I finished my mead and stepped out to call out the men and told them to leave her be. They just scoffed at me. "Aw, go back to drinking that filth, you bearded swine!" they said to me as they laughed. Now I don't have much of a big beard like my pa, partly because my mother made me trim it down to "be more presentable", much to my pa's annoyance. Anyways, I threw the mug at one of them and knocked them upside their head, knocking them a bit loopy. Seeing what happened to their friend, they turned to face me. Eager for the fight, I balled up my hands, ready to knock their blocks off, then before I knew it, a blinding flash of light burst in the room, blinding myself and everyone for a brief moment. As soon as I got my eyesight back, the men were all lying on the floor.

Now this was different than what happened when my parents met; the same situation with my pa standing up for my mother, only there was no blinding flash of light nor a ruffian lying on the ground after getting blinded, but instead my pa got into a scuffle with the ruffians at the time and they learned two things the hard way; 1) Dwarves fight dirty and 2) Dwarves have hard heads. My pa always told me this story, as it was his personal favorite and he always added "and dat's the last time I was ever in a scruff, thanks to yer ma" and laughed, before he would leave for the mines.

If only I could tell him of this instead of writing in a diary. He'd have a good laugh before telling me not to let a woman of any kind do a Dwarf's job. No, he's not dead. At the moment, he's on a journey with his friends to the city of Lish to deliver some more of that Mithril steel they mined recently.

Anyways, I'm getting off-topic. Dia stood in the midst of the room, her spear glowing red like it was left in the fire for too long. She brushed back her red hair. "Thanks for the effort," she said to me, "but I got this." I offered to buy her a drink and she accepted. She hailed from the village of Toi deep in the Vanu Forest. She came to Botici because she and her comrades were gathering for a quest to deal with some dark wizard name Zatharos the Destroyer. From what I was told, Zatharos was preparing to summon an ancient demon called Kaldor and destroy all life, but he doesn't have all the materials needed to take on such a performance.

After some more talk, Dia thanked me for the drink and left. Now, I'm not too crazy about adventures but I haven't been out there since I was a wee babe so I went after Dia and offered to join them on their quest. She gave a warm smile and told me she will discuss this with her comrades and to meet with her back at the tavern in the morning and she will let me know what they say. So I went home.

I told my mother what happened and all she did was shake her head and say "sometimes you're like your pa; eager to fight." We had a nice meal and we talked a little. I got to learn later that my pa was returning tomorrow in the afternoon and I was advised to talk with him about joining on a journey. It's more of seeing whether he would give me a blessing or send me off with a scolding. The last time he's sent me off with a scolding was when I was a young lad and I was sneaking off to cause a little mischief by stealing some pies from a farmer. "If you get caught, I'll blister yer good-fer-nothin' bottom till it falls off, then maybe you'll use that brain for common sense." Needless to say, I was caught because my pa had warned the farmer early on and the farmer put some of that bitter wolf-root in the pie. I had a hard time sitting in the chair for a while but I never plotted to steal something from the farmer or anyone else for that matter since.

Well, I'm going to go to bed so I can meet Dia in the morning and I will tell you what happened then. Good night.