So I left off with Sister Mara telling us that we needed to get this Oil of Disenchantment from Dylhana the eremite. Since it was very late, and we'd not gotten much sleep at all in the last few days, we decided to go find her in the morning, and after waiting around for Tolec to argue with Mara about what to do with the book that we'd found at the warlock's circle (Tolec wanted to keep it, for some reason), that's exactly what we did. A long, boring walk it was, too!

You see, what happened is this. We got back to Page's place (all of us but Tolec, who was off trying to become a warlock, the silly man) and he promptly tried to enlist us in this Brotherhood of the Moon or some such thing like that. It seems that the ring I found on Fran's island and which I let Haley wear is an insignia of this order, and since we already had such an insignia and we'd "proven our worth in fighting back the Children of the Night" by beating off the hags, he wanted us to join! Apparently, this consists of being, basically, ready to wander around the least pleasant parts of the countyside, looking for undead and werewolves and other various nasty things so that we can slay them or, failing that, expose them and save innocent lives.

I'm all for saving innocent lives, but there is a great difference between being a bard and being an on call kicker of butt. And I plan on remaining a bard, thank you very much. The others, much to my disgust, thought that joining this obscure secret order would be great fun (not to mention, in my humble opinion, a rather prolonged form of suicide), and they'll probably drag me off on their quests because they'd be lost without me. I need to remember to make a contract or something: "Jen will not be forced to do all the most dangerous parts of y'all's quests since she's not part of the secret order in the first place and isn't even getting paid for this."

Anyhow, all that was arranged, and then came the next thing; our reward from Sir Page. He'd promised us a few choice items to help us in our quests against evil, and as a reward for saving the town and so on. Prihelm finally got a magical blade (which will no doubt help him immensely, and actually has already) to replace the less than aptly named Cloudsplitter, while Dar managed to secure a magical bow for himself. Alamon took a ring of some sort, Haley took some bracers, I got a magic longsword (which, fortunately, replaces the one that the stupid hags broke yesterday), and Sam's gift was... well, Sam's gift was disconcerting.

You might perhaps remember this jeweled dagger that Sam found in the Cracked Keep while we were in the dream? Well, he got a dagger that looks just like that! The others are all really freaked out about it, but I say that since we can't do anything about it, it's still not worth worrying about. Besides, whoever took control of our dreams must be pretty powerful, so maybe he could see the future a little or something. My companions are, as usual, way too uptight. I wish they could learn to relax and have a little fun! Also that they were less inclined to get involved in everything under the sun, whether it's our business or not, and that they were a bit nicer to me (I'm still pretty mad that they just decided to throw what they thought was me into that Barrier a while back; they are obviously just pretending to be my friends, even Haley, who's been pretty bitchy for an entire week now).

And speaking of Haley, would you believe that she tried to give away my bracers? I'd bought them way back at the very beginning and I've been generously letting her use them ever since, and she'd decided that this meant they were hers! The woman has absolutely no concept of ownership, no simple decency, or anything like that! And they call me a thief?!? Puh! But I was eventually able to remind her that they really were mine, and she gave them back to me, though not without being pretty rude about it. I'm going to shave her eyebrows off tomorrow, because she just deserves it. I keep on loaning her things, because I thought we were friends, and she keeps on trying to claim that they are hers, and then she gets all mean and makes unnecessary comments about me, and I haven't done anything to her! Well, we'll see how she feels when she wakes up... I anticipate being very amused!

All this aside, though, we were given another job by our host. I thought I'd explained that we were on vacation, but no... There are, apparently, what he calls "Night People" in the area, and as far as I can tell, they're mostly just a nuisance. And he's calling us in to try to stop them from being obnoxious. As if these people would know anything about that!

Off we went to patrol the fields to the south of the village that night, and we'd been out there for several hours when all of a sudden we heard the noise of alarmed livestock coming from inside one of the barns. I led us over to it, but strangely, it was locked! We were forced to waste several minutes getting into the barn, and when we did, we were greeted by a really bizarre sight; there were a pair of cows, when stiff and unmoving but alive, and another that seems to have been partially eaten already. On the ground near the cows were several sticks coated with a gummy substance. Al helpfully told us that it must have been some kind of mild paralytic poison, but I could have told you that! That cleric thinks far too much of himself sometimes!

We looked around the barn to try to find tracks, and we did see several that led right up to a wall; it would have been nice for Page to mention that the little creeps could walk through solid walls, dammit! But he didn't, and we were just getting ready to pick up the trail on the other side of the barn when we saw a pair of them! They kind of like short and ugly albino goblins, really. One of them flashed me a rude gesture, and then they took off into the bushes!

Sam, Haley, Pri, Dar, and I all pursued them, while Al stood guard over the barn just in case, and consequently, he wasn't with us when the net that the little varmints had strung up managed to trap Haley and Pri and I. At the same time, a good score of them or so came popping out of the woodwork and started throwing more of those stupid poisoned sticks at us! I was able to cut my way free of the net, landing unscathed by virtue of my elven grace and acrobatic abilities, but Haley wasn't as lucky, since she landed pretty hard and then Prihelm came falling down on top of her. It was quite amusing, really, and I was very pleased; she's been asking for that for weeks now!

After a brief but relatively fierce battle, the little creeps ran away, leaving perhaps half their number behind, and eventually, the paralysis wore off and Haley could move again (which was unfortunate, because it also meant she could talk, and I was enjoying the silence). Al tried to tell us that the Night People weren't doing anything wrong: "they were just stealing livestock, and Jen steals everything that's not nailed down! And they just looked like they were hungry, to me. Besides, it's only a cow!" That man irritates me! I don't steal stuff! And trying to kill me counts as "doing something wrong" in my book! And even if they are hungry, they could have the decency to just pay for their food like civilized beings! And what's with this "it's only a cow" stuff, anyways?!? I thought our beloved cleric thought life was sacred! But no, he's just like all the other humans, pillaging our environment and destroying life just because he feels like it! He's just as bad as a dwarf! Ooo, he's going to wake up missing more than just his eyebrows!