Fortunately for all involved, Alamon was not caught unaware, and he turned them, sending them fleeing, much to my satisfaction. This little problem having been easily dealth with, I suddenly turned and tackled Haley, and after a good bit of a struggle, we'd managed to force a potion down her throat. Alas, while we were doing this, Sirius collapsed and did the glowing thing, just like Haley had done, and before we could do anything about it, he was up and attacking us!

Well, I won't pretend it was easy, especially with Haley being a pest and bashing Liss with her staff, but we were eventually able to subdue him, not without substantial bloodshed. Since we were running low on potions, I insisted that everyone drink theirs, then I tied our newest lunatic up, disarmed him, and ran back to town with Sam to get a few more doses, just in case.

Paton is rapidly becoming my least favorite person! He tried to extort us, claiming that the price had just gone up again! Greedy little weasel! I had little patience for this, so picked the lock to his little store and went in to confront him. I should have slit him from gullet to zorch and back, because of course he'd put a poisoned needle in the lock, and it somehow escaped my notice until I was stabbed with it! We were eventually able to talk him back down to a more reasonable price, and then I had to buy an antidote from him. He hasn't seen the last of me by a long shot; I think I shall be forced to castrate him soon. And don't think I won't enjoy it, either!

But at the moment, I had more important things to worry about, so back we went to rejoin the others. Sirius was still out, so we fed him a few more potions, as well, as forcing another into Haley, and onward we went. After a brief detour, in which the only thing of note was that we ran into some skeletons, which fled before the wrath of Alamon, we got to the Gatehouse. A thoroughly unpleasant place, and as it turns out, more or less a waste of time.

Bleaker was sitting out in front acting all sorry for himself; he talks funny, so I'm not sure what he was trying to say, but I think it was that he had discovered something about the world and that we were all illusions anyway, so there's no point to life. The usual stupid philosophy of the insane, you know? I found him exceptionally frustrating. He found us the same, but then again, he is mad, after all. About the only useful thing he told us was that Sirius was a goner. This, apparently, was obvious by the manifestation that the virus had taken. Since we were getting tired of carrying the body around with us, and Bleaker seemed to be able to care for him just as well as we could, we left him there at the Gatehouse and started the long trek back to town.

Of course, we didn't make it. We'd been walking a lot during the day, so we paused to camp by the lake for the night. And here we are! If it weren't for the undead, the virus, the poverty, and so on, I could almost get to like it here!