Well, this was too much for Dogboy (no surprise; he seems to have alternating periods of insane bravery followed by extreme cowardice), so he took off running, not bothering to remind me of the puppet sitting on my back who was about to stab me!

Fortunately, I remembered myself (I think the little bastard warned me first, just to be funny), and threw it away to go play with it's friends or something. And then the battle was joined!

Now battle with puppets may not seem too intimidating, and you wouldn't think it is, except for one little problem: they threw these annoying little silver needles which must have been poisoned or something, because they'd make your limbs go numb if you were hit! All too soon, Leighla had lost the use of an arm, Prihelm of one arm and both legs, and Haley the use of everything except for her head (poor Haley!). Leighla discovered that by pulling the needles out, she could eventually regain the use of her arm, and thus Alamon and Liss went around helping the others while I tried to protect us as best I could. It was then that the little bastards hit me, and I immediately felt my entire right arm go numb and watched my long sword drop to the ground.

It would have been nice to think that since I was taking all this risk to help my friends that they would help me, but no. Alamon and Liss just stood around being useless while I tried to save their sorry hides despite being partially incapacitated. I don't really know why I even bother sometimes. I think only Haley and Leighla appreciate me; see if I risk my life to save any of the others any time soon!

We eventually triumphed shortly before Dogboy came back, and we started wandering around town, looking for the puppeteer. We hadn't gotten very far before we heard a noise; it was only a child, playing in the deserted and dark streets. We relaxed, and all of a sudden there was a loud rumbling and a carriage came rumbling down the streets towards us. Most of us elected to get out of its way, but for some unknown reason, Haley and Dogboy decided to let it run over them. I really don't understand humans sometimes!

Well, Dogboy is pretty tough, I have to give him that. He was pretty beat up, but at least he was still alive. Poor Haley was in terrible shape, though! Alamon was forced to use the last of his healing spells to stabilize her and keep her alive. It was at this point that I suggested we hole up at the inn, rest for the night and get some food, and deal with the mystery in the morning. So we went to the inn, boarded it up, and gorged ourselves silly. Unfortunately, some of the gang decided to explore the town, and I decided they'd need my help if they were going to survive this. So Alamon, Prihelm, Leighla, and I all went out to see what we could find.

Without going into too much detail, suffice it to say that in between fending off an attack by more of those annoying little puppets who had decided to attack us all with a trident (and in which, incidentally, poor Prihelm broke his polearm), we found a fletcher (Leighla was like a kid in a candy store, and I hear that I wasn't too much better; what can I say? It reminds me of home! And I really really want to go home! I miss Aunt Leandra!!!) and an apothecary (and it was Alamon's turn to wander around happily).

We decided to return to the inn, since we'd found a healing potion in the apothecary, and spent the entire time running from more of those damnable puppets! We made our way into the inn only to notice a pile of bloody silver needles like what the puppets used; I'm worried about my friends, but they seem to be okay. Still, Leighla and I will have to keep an eye on them for a while.

We fed the potion to Haley and Dogboy while Prihelm was outside looking in fascination at the statue in front of the inn. This statue, it seems, had been of a woman holding a baby when we first got here, but now the woman was holding a smirking marionette! Very very strange, and it made me think that our answers may lie at the temple. So we were considering going to the temple in the morning when Leighla suddenly heard a sound! And she was just able to give warning when we were attacked by a swarm of giant rats! I hate rats!

Of course we successfully fought the filthy things off, although not before Haley helpfully threw her quarterstaff through the inn's front window, breaking it. (Also, Leighla hit Liss with her bow, which is something I've been wanting to do for weeks now!) Since Haley had thoughtfully made it impossible to fortify the inn adequately at this point, we decided to go to the temple immediately.

On the way to the inn, we were attacked by yet more of those annoying little puppets, but we fended them off quite capably (although my collection of silver needles is growing quite rapidly; sooner or later, I'll have enough of these things that they'll be worth real money!), and now here we are at the temple. I hope we can get some rest, because all the attacks we've suffered are starting to wear us down! But we'll see soon enough, I suppose. And now, I'm about ready to collapse in exhaustion, so I think I'll draw this entry to a close. Oh except for this: way back at the beginning, the Vistani fortune-teller left us with a scroll that said, among other things:

I wonder how that ties into our current situation?