17 Kythorn, 1361 D.R.
It turns out that Sidnar is a largely elven community, of all things, although these poor souls have lost virtually all traces of their culture. Still, it was nice to be among my own kind again, even if they weren’t really what I’m used to, being somewhat humanized. So I went with one of them to ask him a few questions, and almost as importantly, to get away from my somewhat irritating companions, none of whom seem to appreciate how difficult it is to be one of the long-lived among so many of the short-lived. Prihelm, that idiot, completely misinterpreted my intentions, in ways which made it very clear just how low his opinion of me actually is. I can’t say this bothers me, really; it is, after all, Prihelm we’re talking about here!
Anyway, it soon became apparent that this was sort of a mistake on my part, as my new companion couldn’t keep his hands to himself. Jerk! I put up with him just long enough to find that Aliss was new to town and that whatever feud she had with Angus was not public, and then left. While I was gone, Prihelm and Tass seem to have been harrassing some poor innocent shopkeeper, so that about the time I got back, he was sending for the guards. Really, I don’t know what these people did to deserve me; most of them are more often than not too stupid to live!
Well, having been warned by the guards to not make any more disturbances, I thought it best to leave the party to its own devices and went back to the inn to work on my latest song, the Ballad of the Inept. I’m not really sure what the rest of the gang did, and I don’t really care, since it can’t have been all that interesting or important, so I’ll pick back up again with us having just left the silversmith the following day.
Aliss had helpfully given us directions to a cave in the woods where McFee was said to live. It was pretty narrow, and we had to go in single file. I was all the way in the back, being stuck as the rear guard, and rather irked about this, especially since Prihelm, being in front, is completely incapable of taking the long view and wanted nothing more than to sacrifice his life nobly and stupidly in an effort to kill the werewolf. In fact, as we got into the cave, it was apparent that there wasn’t just one werewolf, there were three! Also the three really huge wolves that I think are called wargs. Prihelm was all set to charge to the attack, but fortunately wiser heads (i.e., mine) prevailed, and we settled in for a nice little chat.
The origin of the feud, it turns out, is that Angus tried to have Aliss for dinner. This didn’t make Aliss any too pleased, and the two have been fighting off and on ever since. Fascinating material, I’m sure. More interestingly by far, the Rod is, according to Angus, a fake! He’s not entirely sure what it’s supposed to do, mind you, but Angus is sure that the one he stole was fake nevertheless. I, of course, immediately saw the opportunity.
It occurred to me that we could take the fake Rod back to Aliss, explaining that this was what Angus had in his lair and that we’d killed him. Aliss would hopefully be so busy enjoying her new toy that my companions and I could find the real Rod. Angus says he’s willing to help us. I don’t trust him as far I could throw him, of course, but nevertheless, if we find the Rod first, Angus says that we can use it against Aliss or we can use it to restore the Whisperer in Dreams. I take it that said Whisperer is the voice we’ve heard already. Angus can’t tell us much about him, either. Actually, Angus couldn’t tell us much of anything, come to think of it, except that there was a man (or something) called Markollus, who lives in Maykle (which is only a few days walk) who could tell us more. I think it’s probably important that we get there as soon as we can. Maybe then we can settle with Angus, who seems to be a thoroughly evil little man.
We went back to Aliss’ shop as soon as we returned to town, leaving Prihelm and Jess behind to prepare for our leaving, under the assumption that Aliss would find it more believable that we’d fought Angus if we didn’t come back with the entire group. I tossed her the Rod, not really expecting anything other than treachery from her, and of course, I was right. I’m always right about things like that. It’s quite depressing, really.
I was just on my way out the door when something rather like the disembodied hands we’d fought back in Port d’Elhour came leaping out at us. Sure, they were modified a little, looking a bit like two hands sewn together, but still, just puny little disembodied hands. We would have been fine, were this the best she could do, but as the little bitch left, she called out for someone named "Cthon," who turned out to be... (this is really really nasty) a golem made out of maggots! I lost my lunch, rather violently, as did Morgana. Tass, of course, just thought it looked neat. The men in our party (and in Tass’ case, I use the word extraordinarily loosely) or an exceptionally tasteless bunch!
The details of the combat are, of course, not entirely relevant here. I had three of the little playthings to dispose of, and did so effortlessly. For some reason, the others had more problems with them, though. In fact, Baxter got pretty thoroughly beat up, as did Tass. Blaze, fortunately (I think) was left alone entirely. By the time I’d finished disposing of the last hand-thing, in fact, Baxter was about ready to pass out from lack of air (his opponent was strangling him), and Blaze had somehow managed to get himself trapped inside the maggot golem! Also, of course, the golem was looking a little charred, and the walls were starting to catch fire. Blaze is not very discriminate when it comes to starting fires, as I may have mentioned before, and I guess burning the house down seemed like a good idea to him. Maybe we’d have been better off had the golem killed him?
But this was not to be his fate, for Morgana, in a reckless and really rather nasty looking move, jumped into the golem and shoved Blaze out! Tass ran over to help the now comatose Baxter, stabbed the hand, and of course also stabbed Baxter. Careless little rodent! I mean, he’d earlier thrown the party’s oil of fiery burning at the golem, burning both it and Blaze (who was inside at the time). Someone really needs to dispose of Tass.
Since we didn’t want Baxter to die and it looked to me like Tass’ tender ministrations were an excellent start towards causing exactly that situation, I ran over and fed our healer a potion. He started to stir, was promptly clocked by Tass again, and equally promptly potioned by me again. Tass really really needs to be more careful!
By the time I’d finished rescuing Baxter from the crawling claw and his own companions, Morgana had escaped from the golem, but, unfortunately, it quickly became obvious that neither her sword nor mine was doing a thing to hurt it... The maggots would just slide out of the way of our blades, even when we used the flats! Obviously, what we needed was a warhammer or something like that. I began to regret, possibly for the first time ever, not having Prihelm around. But eventually, between Baxter’s staff, and Blaze’s spells, and Tass’ stolen supply of flammables, the golem was roasted into a cinder.
The building, of course, wasn’t looking to be in much better shape than the golem, so I dove out the rear window and hoofed it back to the inn, followed by my erstwhile companions, and we’re now on our way for Maykle, even though it’s almost dark. Somehow, I don’t really want to be in Sidnar with Aliss on the loose and likely somewhat peeved. Although the thought of leaving Tass, Blaze, and Prihelm behind to keep her amused warms the cockles of my heart, I have to say.
In any event, I hope to have more promising news from Maykle!
As we bards love to say, the plot has thickened. When I left off, we had just run into Alisanda and agreed to recover the Rod from Angus McFee, werewolf at large. Since many of us were not really ready for combat with a werewolf, at least until we picked up our new things from the silversmith, we had a day or so to burn. Our first thought was to pick up as much wolvesbane as possible, of course, so Baxter went out into the forest, accompanied by Jess and I (and also, irritatingly, Tass), and almost immediately came across a large supply of it. This was good news, so back to town we went, where Baxter vanished into his room, muttering about preparing a paste for us. The rest of us, bored, decided to explore the town for a bit, although I also wanted to find out as much as I could about Angus and Aliss.