It actually all started late last night, when anyone can see we should have been sleeping. But no, Prihelm woke us all up so we could stare at a pretty ball of light. For whatever reason, probably because it seemed to be responding to us, we paid it attention, and swiftly reached the conclusion that it wanted us to follow it somewhere. So up we got and walked for half the night behind the supid little puffball.

Well, it led us straight to the barrier. Any normal person would have been worried, but since it seemed harmless enough, we somehow decided (perhaps because we were all very sleepy) to try to get out past the barrier. Alas, this was not to be. Nothing could get us through! Thinking that maybe the ball of light could tell us something, I touched it, and it went berserk! The little sucker went flying around, blasting things at random, and it was quite the battle before I, of course, put it out of our misery at last. Of course, it managed to make one last retaliatory blast, which struck me and knocked me for a loop. But at least we got rid of it!

I woke up a few minutes later, momentarily disoriented. I must have said something funny, because the others were acting strange, but then I cam too fully, and away we went, back on the long trip to Chimera. We had all sorts of things on our agenda; we wanted to talk to Zeger (Bleaker hinted in his mad ramblings that the Zegester might know something more), I wanted to skin Paton alive and drop him in boiling oil, and we wanted to discuss recent events with Lord Skol as well.

Naturally, we never really accomplished any of these. We went in to talk to Zeger first, for no good reason, and all he would tell us is that if we paid him enough, he would tell us something. Talk about extortion! No way was I going to pay that little slimy man! I mean, I already bought his food and wine, nasty though they are! What more does he want!

He did tell us one thing of use; Lord Skol has it in for us, and if we're wise, we'll run as far from Chimera as possible. I wonder how we're supposed to do that, given this stupid barrier? But no one ever said Zege was very bright. Well, no, that's not true. Zeger himself claimed to be the smartest man in town, but I mean, really... What a great accomplishment! I mean, just look at this place!

Off I went to "talk" to Paton, leaving Sam behind to continue the interview with Zeger, since he seemed to have more money to thow around than I did. Paton, showing rare wisdom, was refusing to let us in, and I was just contemplating bashing the door down and wringing his scrawny little neck when Sam got back, full of news.

It seems that there's an old witch who lives a ways off in the woods. He suggested that we go talk to her, and reluctantly I agreed. After all, Paton wasn't likely to be going anywhere... So off we went to see the witch Bruja, hoping for her help.

I have never been entirely fond of witches, personally. If you ever have the misfortune to meet Bruja, you'll understand why. She was ugly, nasty, smelly, probably cannibalistic, and very full of herself. She said all sorts of crazy things about us, then said she'd answer three questions. Liss, being oh-so-helpful, promptly asked "what should we ask?" I think he was talking to us, but Bruja took that as question number one. I really don't like that woman!

Alamon was asking some pretty dumb questions himself, but I was able to silence him before he was able to say enough to qualify as a question for Bruja. Alas, we didn't get anything much useful from her; she told us that some guy in a place called Vision could tell us how to get past the barrier and how to cure the virus, and that we owed her a quest now.

I didn't remember this as being in the contract, but... never argue with a witch, right? So away we went, to recover something called the "Book of the Dead" from the "Lord of the Grave." In retrospect, we should have been a bit more careful...

Things turned a little weird at this point. Well, to be more accurate, they got very weird. We were on our way to visit the Lord of the Grave in the cemetary when we came across some ghostly form who told us that were in a dream and that if we ever woke up we should go to the Asylum for the Insane or some such place like that, then vanished in a puff of mist.

All this, while very interesting, didn't have much to do with finishing our little quest. So we went to the back of the graveyard and into the tomb in which this noted personage seemed to be making his home. Down we went, betraying our eagerness to finish the stupid quest by being foolishly failing to run in terror when we saw the number of undead waiting forus at the bottom. I was assuming that Alamon and Prihelm and Haley would turn most of them, and I was right, but... they failed to get the ghouls. This was quite the problem, since before I knew it, Dogboy, Haley, and Liss had all been paralyzed by ghouls, and there was even a really smelly mutant ghoul (a ghast, Alamon called it) that paralyzed me! The ghouls started devouring Haley, the party fled in shame, and now... Now, I'm trying to get the nerve to go back there and take my revenge, but I'm afraid to, and I miss my friend! The only thing keeping me going is the slim chance that maybe the witch can do something. And if she can, you can be very sure she will; I'll see to that, I swear it!