I left off just before I tried to get some sleep in preparation for last night's adventure. Haley tried to dose me with some really foul smelling and even fouler tasting concoction of hers (I wonder if she has a sadistic streak?), but sadly, it didn't work, and I woke up screaming (again) - I'm really turning into a wreck! Fortunately, Mitsy was able to do something about it - she cast a spell on me, and I actually got some real sleep! This was enough to raise my opinion of her a lot, because I really missed being able to rest!

Well, while I was in dreamland, some of the others went around questioning some of the locals. Turns out that the local baker (who makes excellent cinnamon roles, by the way) sells red licorice... And her chief customers are Jean Tarascon (Luc's older brother) and some other guy whose name I don't remember... But since the man has seven children (oh, his poor wife!), his conspicuous consumption doesn't seem at all suspicious to me. Besides, Marcel Tarascon (Jean's twin, to whom he was very close) died (no one knows how yet), unhinging Jean somewhat (he hasn't been seen for weeks), and interestingly, all the town's troubles started at the same time as Marcel died. It's pretty obvious to me that these things must be connected, and I don't think the other family is likely to be involved.

Haley was just being inconsiderate enough to wake me from my much needed nap after only a few hours when we heard a tremendous shriek, coming from the south. Charging out of the inn, Leighla and I both headed in that direction, while the rest of the group went off to the west (I think maybe it's because they don't have the sharp hearing that we of elven blood have). We were just in time to see a dark cloaked figure (alas, I didn't recognize him) standing over Lillin, the innkeeper's daughter! She was bleeding and looked pretty bad... Leighla and I both shot at him, but alas, he was too fast and got away.

Leighla immediately gave chase, while I tended to the girl until Haley and Prihelm showed up, then followed after. When I caught up with her, Leighla had just lost the assassin, but fortunately, my sharp ears came to the rescue, and I located him on the rooftops. We chased after him from the ground (by now, Liss had also caught up with us), but eventually, we lost him (pretty much at the edge of town).

Boosting Liss up to the roof, he made a few strange noises (Leighla and I have agreed that we'll need to keep an eye on him for a while, not that this is a great trial...) before he and I managed to get Leighla onto the roof as well. Naturally, after I went to all the work to get the other two up there, they didn't bother to extend a hand down to help me up. Some people are so inconsiderate! But since all they found was some licorice, I guess they didn't really need me anyway.

Meanwhile, Gremin showed up and carried poor Lillin to Brucian; apparently, Prihelm and Maerlyan had managed to stabilize her enough that Brucian was able to save her. I feel much better about our group than I have in a while - we've actually done something truly noble for a change!

Since it was dark, we decided to go to the cemetery. And it's a good thing that we got there when we did! Standing in front of the recently deceased Jeremiah d'Gris' crypt were a pair of nasty smelly undead, trying to let him out! Frightened momentarily out of our wits, I'm afraid we all watched in horror as Jeremiah rose to walk the earth again... Perhaps I should say that he rose to shamble, instead of walk, since he is, after all, quite dead.

Leighla was the first to recover; she shot one of the foul creatures (a ghoul, as we subsequently discovered), ending it's unlife. The rest of us were still rather stunned and didn't do much to help the fight, so Leighla shot the other ghoul, wounding it badly. I recovered enough to at least hit it with one of my knives before Haley managed to turn it (and Jeremiah's zombie), and off they went into the night. We were just about to follow them (can't have those things wandering around here), when we heard a truncated scream from behind us.

Whirling around, we saw three more ghouls; already, they'd savaged Mitsy. She was paralyzed by their fell touch and looked to be pretty badly wounded. Before we could do anything, they managed to also paralyze Prihelm and Haley, while the one who was attacking Mitsy started eating her! By Corellon, it was so disgusting!!! The few of us who were still capable of fighting (Leighla, Liss, Maerlyan, and me) struck back as best we could; Leighla killed the one menacing Haley (thank the gods!), while the rest of us were still too shaken to do much. I tried to save Mitsy (I owed her one), but all I succeeded in doing was irritating the ghoul that was trying to eat her. It raked me with its claws (gods, that hurt!!), but fortunately, elves are able to resist the paralyzing touch (yet another reason that being an elf is such a great thing!), so at least I wasn't in immediate danger of being eaten. Killed, yes, but at least not eaten.

The ghoul that had been licking it's chops and trying to figure out how to eat Prihelm through his armor similarly took exception to Liss' attempts to distract it, but fortunately, while Liss was wounded, he wasn't killed and he somehow found the strength of will to resist the paralysis. Leighla and Liss and Maerlyan ganged up on it and managed to kill it, while I was forced to defend myself against the last one. I was meleeing with it when I heard a sharp "twang" followed by some rather rude words in elven and accompanied by the passage of an arrow just over my left shoulder; Leighla had just broken her bow string in trying to shoot the ghoul (at least, I assume she was trying to shoot the ghoul, even though she came closer to shooting me...). Ignoring the urge to turn to Leighla and warn her to watch what she was doing (I still can't believe she almost shot me!), I dispatched my opponent with a deft maneuver my brother Aerik taught me, separating its head from its shoulders with one blow; Aerik would be so proud of me!

We were in pretty sad shape; most of us were wounded, and Mitsy was dead. Actually, that's an understatement; Mitsy was not only dead but missing several body parts. I did my best to make her look better for her funeral (it's what she would have wanted), and (can you BELIEVE this?) my erstwhile friends accused me of robbing from the dead! I've never been so offended in my entire life!

Prihelm found a piece of cloth that one of the ghouls had been wearing; evidently this was the item that CB had wanted us to find. Haley reminded us that we needed to burn Mitsy's corpse before she came back as a (half-digested) ghoul; building a big funeral pyre for the poor girl, we did so. I still can't believe that she's dead!

We decided to pass the rest of the night at the cemetery after an abortive attempt to track down the other two undead; I'm afraid that I wasn't able to sleep at all, between my grief and the fact that I was still having nightmares. Not wanting to keep my friends from their rest, I stayed up all night. I'm not as young as I used to be; I'm very tired!

And now I'm writing this; we've just seen the tailor, Tomas by name, who tells us that the cloth comes from the Tarascon servant uniform (not a great surprise), and we've also finished talking with Deruno, the dwarven shopkeeper, who was able to tell me that my short sword is nothing too fancy, but still magical. He also sold us (for a good price; apparently, we're minor heroes around the town, having saved Lillin) some magic healing potions and a few other things; I gave the bracers to Haley, who looks like she could use some armor. I just wish I hadn't had to trade in my nice bow for an older short bow; I'm not as good with those, and I'll have to buy my bow back from the little guy once I have the money. Actually, I think that should be the party's first priority, since I did pay for all this stuff, except for about 20 gold that the others were able to contribute.

Once I finish writing this, we're going to go investigate the Tarascons. I think all of us are convinced by now that they're deeply involved in this mystery. So apart from recording what I think is the last verse of Luc's hexad, I'm going to wrap this up.

" The over shining sky the of light the dead, shall to all turning fail and gutter red."

Mysterious stuff: I can't make heads or tails of it yet. But since I have a burglary to plan, I'd better get on with it.