12th of Mirtul, 1376, Year of the Bent Blade

 We go to the address we found yesterday. There are cultists here, which we take out quickly, though Vorest gets pretty badly hurt. We search upstairs and find a letter addressed to us. We bring it to Captain Darren's to open it up. Maybe it'll have evidence - it's for sure from Hondal.

Vandederp opens it and it says:

Then the letter explodes.

Captain Darren is annoyed. We are annoyed. Barnaby runs in and announces that his troops are being attacked by zombies, where they are burying Crymson Starr.

Vorest summons war horses so we can keep up to Barnaby. We get to the grave yard and see 14 zombies overtaking the guards that stayed. We beat the zombies and the guards say that some zombies took Crymson's corpse off with them.

We follow the zombies and catch up to them, as well as some cultists. We beat them and then burnt Crymson and the zombies. After this we start tracking the cultist that ran off during the fight. We follow the trail back to the city, where we lose it. 

We go to Captain Darren, where everything has gone crazy. Apparently Lord Thadeus was attacked by zombies at the temple of Ilmater, where he was saved by Hondal.

While talking about how weird the zombies behaved, we walked to the temple. We wonder around and then walk through the market and find Gwyneth. She mentions that she has gotten on with "Master Kensingley," and that he has shown her the "way" and insists on bringing us to meet him.

She brings us to a nice house. She acts like this is her house. She runs off to another room and shuts the door behind her. She comes back and beckons us on. The room is big, and there are balconies and doors.

And we see Gwyneth casting a spell and Hondal shouting down.

Well. Damn.

We manage to beat them, but Hondal has escaped. Again. Vondal is going mad trying to find secret passages. Vorest says that he could have possibly gone in the stone floor with a spell.

We wait, and Hondal eventually comes out of the ground. We beat him up, and Vondal mentions that Vorest should try Moonbeam on him. She does, her last spell, and he bubbles and burns to a crisp. We worriedly told Captain Darren. He searched Hondal's house and found dead people and an altar to Loviatar, and, eventually, thanked us.

7th of Mirtul, 1376, Year of the Bent Blade

We let Captain Darren know his problem has been dealt with. He says we'll join Barnaby's team in their raid on a warehouse, coordinating at 2 in the afternoon. 

We arrive at the warehouse. Barnaby sends the other 4 to the back, and we enter the front.

The people inside try to destroy something by fire, which I stop. We beat everyone up and save the papers, which look like they are detailing their slave trade operations. 

We go back to Captain Darren's and he marks up the map a bit more. There are locations they were told to look for Crymson. The dots look like a star, as Vondal pointed out. Captain Darren asks if we can check out the middle buildings tomorrow.

We head back to the inn, when we are attacked by 6 thugs. While fighting them, Crymson brings an air elemental to the party. I go to chase her, and she jumps to different roofs. The others destroy her elemental and she runs through a magical door. 

AAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!

We return to the inn to rest.

3rd of Mirtul, 1376, Year of the Bent Blade

Go and talk to Captain Darren about the orcs and if there are any plans in regards to the 5th of Mirtul. Barnaby is manning the front desk and trying to deal with an upset farm hand.  Barnaby shoos us into the back to the Captain. We let him know that the orcs were dead. He is concerned with the amount of orcs around.

Then he pulls out the letter and says that he has no ideas. And asks if we can help him. We say sure. 

We go back to the inn and argue the best way to scout it out. We decide that Vorest should change into a mouse and check it out. Vorest heads out and we sit and wait.

After a while, she heads back and tells us: There's and apothecary on one side and an animal feed store on the other. Across Weasel there are two story tenements. There is a guard on the roof, he is a high elf. Behind the warehouse there is a crate hiding the symbol from the note. There are doors on the front and back and a hatch on the roof. The warehouse is VERY empty. 

We spend the rest of the day planning.

 

24th of Ches, 1376, Year of the Bent Blade

We walk back and make it a long day, because we know it's "just over there." We meet Barnaby at the gate again, and he brings us to the Captain's house. He sees the heads and asks that they get brought to his office so that his wizard can maybe tell us all what we've been fighting. He then recommends an inn, "The Jumping Giant." After giving Barnaby the vials, we head to the inn for some food and sleep. This is a nice inn - I feel it is above my station to be staying here, but you stay with your group. 

 

21st of Ches, 1376, Year of the Bent Blade

We continued walking and run into that salesman we saved before. Vanderderp bought a bedroll and Vondal nearly blew his top - but instead bopped Vandederp on the head. I will never understand them. We also bought a bag of holding. I suspect that will be rather handy if we continue on our trips!

We got to the gates and the guards don't believe our stories or that the other guards said we should go in and speak of the bug monsters, but they do bring us to the guard captain. It feels typical to be marched through town like guards - I wish people weren't scared of me, I don't want to hurt them.

This place is so BIG! There are so many people and alleys and even garbage! And then we get to a square and there are more roads and they are huge, and crowded. And I am already lost - if there wasn't so much new stuff I would believe that we had walked in circles. We arrive at a stone building with a statue of Tyr in front. We enter, and go to the back  and enter an office with the Captain and a clerk (Gilbert). The guards leave, and we speak to Captain Darren about the giant ground bugs, as Orrig, Sylvia and Jereth have asked us to. The captain says that Jereth is actually distant family, so he hears us out - and asks if we would be willing to hunt them down. Of course Vondal and Vandederp jumped at the opportunity. So after we stock up our rations, we head back out of town. Barnaby, the guard we met when we entered, mentioned that if these bugs were real, his cousin would like to study the stomach juices, and handed us some vials. We head out to night and set up camp.