30 Kythorn, 1361 D.R.
I think that this adventure is almost over! And it's great to know that I was right about that old bastard Burton Wescote. Try to trick me into doing his dirty work for him, will he!
Picking up where I left off, we were all back at Wescote Manor, mourning the deaths of Alamon and I, so we decided to take the rest of the day off. I tried to get accustomed to my new state (although I'm starting to think maybe Lihon lied to me about me having died, the little witch!) and the others slept straight through past dinner before we gathered again to plan our next move.
While we were doing this, Burton came out to ask us why we hadn't done anything about Ann Campbell yet, and in a fit of pique, I explained to him that this was owing to the death of our cleric and besides, we were convinced that he was the same Burton Wescote who chased down Ann Campbell and killed her! Burt wasn't too happy with us and stood, frothing at the mouth, for a moment before kicking us out of his home. Silly old idiot thought he has is fooled, somehow. I have to wonder if he's even sane.
Well, we waited for the ghosts to show up, and while we did so, that really thick fog that we'd grown to know and hate came up, and when it cleared... we were elsewhere! Specifically, we were deep somewhere in the bog, with no sign of Wescote Manor whatsoever. Apparently, Burton had decided to dispose of us!
Since one direction was as good as another, I pointed us eastward and we started walking. A few hundred feet later, Prihelm all but fell into a large and really nasty pond in the path (I'm not quite sure how he managed this; the paladin is quite clumsy, but this was ridiculous!). Somehow, I just knew that something awful was going to happen here, largely because the area around the pond was really really cold, just like the ballroom in Wescote Manor. As we looked around for a way past the pond and a place to hole up for the night (the Bog Hounds were coming, judging by the howls), Tolec saw a rotting head rise from the stagnant waters and utter Ann's curse before sinking back beneath the surface! I would have panicked, I think, but Tolec is made of sturdier stuff, and he decided to try to pull the body out from the lake.
I was just warning him to get his arm out of there (the gods only know what was in the briny depths!) when something grabbed at him and tried to pull him under! He yanked back, and a long, thick, rotting vine was revealed, lashed around his arm and trying to pull him under! Lihon went to help him and had to dive out of the way when a second vine came shooting forth to grab at her, too! And then, for some reason, 'Dar tried to lasso one of the vines, and he got yanked, headfirst, into some quicksand, Tolec right beside him! I was moving forward to help cut the vines even as 'Dar got yanked even further in and Prihelm and Lihon tried to rescue the poor bard.
Fortunately, my sharp blade separated the vine holding Tolec and he came flying out of the quicksand, landing with an audible "thump" on his butt (I would have laughed in other circumstances, but this was not the time for amusement!). With one desperate lunge, I was able to sever the vine holding 'Dar as well, and he came free, a vine wrapped around his neck and his face an exceedingly unbecoming shade of blue! While the others helped 'Dar recover his breath, I moved away from the pond to get into a more defensible position, since the Bog Hounds were quite close by this point. I was not liking this night one bit!
Our poor friend 'Dar had just recovered from almost being strangled when the Bog Hounds finally arrived! A brief but fierce combat ensued, with four Bog Hounds arrayed against us, and before all was said and done, they'd torn 'Dar up really badly! If not for my quick thinking in feeding him our last potion, he would have died, just like Sam and Al and me! I really really hate this place!
As we paused, breathing hard from our recent exertions, we heard more Bog Hounds coming, and I decided enough was enough! So I went to the nearest tree and was just starting to climb it when it looked at me! Somehow, I'd managed to mistake an ordinary tree for an evil treant or something! I backed away quickly, but the next thing I knew, I'd been bashed twice by it's branches and been sent flying, and I knew no more. The others later explained that they'd seen me killed (which only makes me even more suspicious that Lihon was lying to me), and Prihelm apparently stood there trying to talk to the tree ("Old Tree, why did you do that?"), but it was all revealed as an illusion in due time, and I woke up with a fierce headache and a deep desire to be elsewhere. Obviously, spending time around this pond was a bad idea!
I was busily trying to convince that idiotic monk that we should be leaving when we heard this odd slurping noise coming our way, like mud sucking at the feet of people walking through the bog, and seven of the townsfolk appeared, quite dead. I tried to warn the others that it was only another illusion, but they didn't believe me, and Lihon wound up clocking Prihelm with her cudgel before I was able to convince them that they were being fooled. Lihon is quite the idiot.
Greatly irritated at this point, I stomped off to the south, cutting through the brush with one blade while using my lightstone to illuminate the path in front of me. A minute or two after I'd set out (the others eventually followed me, of course), the clinging undergrowth finally parted to reveal a dry blossom covered knoll! At last, a place to rest!
Unfortunately, it was already inhabited, by a rather attractive red-haried human woman, gathering flowers in the midst of the swamp. I was immediately suspicious; I can think of many things I'd rather do than pick flowers in the middle of a swamp at midnight, but Prihelm, being about the most lecherous paladin in all of history immediately started talking to her, shyly flirting with her while she tried very hard to ignore him.
She introduced herself as one who was there to tell the truth. I didn't find this to be a particularly helpful name, but I'd already formed my suspicions as to who she was, so I asked her to tell the truth about Ann Campbell and the brothers Wescote, and she immediately agreed, telling us yet another version of the Wescote myth, although doing so reduced her to tears (I think Prihelm found this particularly endearing, the randy old goat!).
"Burton Wescote is a scoundrel and a rogue, a man of such bad character that Ann Campbell could not bear the thought of marrying him. When she attempted to flee, Burton's brother, Michael, saw her and chased her through the halls. Cornered in the kitchen, she seized a knife to defend herself. In the midst of the struggle that followed Michael inadvertantly thrust himself upon the blade and died. Ann fled into the night. Enraged both by the flight and by the death of his brother, the evil Burton set loose his hounds. They hunted and finally caught Ann in the bog, driving her into the quicksand. Burton stood by and watched her drown, laughing when she pronounced her dying curse. To hide his evil deed, he scratched himself with thorns, ripped his clothing and smeared it with mud, and then crawled home to tell his lies."
My suspicions having been confirmed by her histrionics, I asked her "how can we bring you justice, Ann?"
So she told us that all she wanted was to be laid to rest, to look at the face of the man who caused her death. We had to bring Burton to a clearing in the northeast of the bog, at evening and morning's light, where she could manifest fully, gaze upon his face (hopefully killing the old weasel), and calm the spirits of the swamp.
We immediately agreed, found out that Burton goes into the bog to drink its waters (which I wouldn't do for a thousand pieces of gold!) because they keep him alive and young, and started planning as Ann faded away. And here we are now, plotting the final downfall of the Tyrant of Wescote Manor!