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Message: <blockquote data-quote="drnuncheon" data-source="post: 627739" data-attributes="member: 96">Session Seventeen, Part One: "Call it a gut feeling."Di'Fier's Journal, Day 16I'm so hungry.  I haven't eaten anything all day.  Yesterday I snuck a piece of raw deer that the hunters brought back. It satisfied my hunger for a while, but today the hunt was unsuccessful and there are only plants to eat.  I can't keep them down.  I have sequestered my self in one of the many empty huts here and have begun to try to master this spell book. I am close.Perhaps there is something in here that can help me, though I fear to actually master it lest I turn to a 'ghoul lord' myself and cannot help but use it against my friends.  I am going to speak to the Zombie Master here in this village - he seems less of the jealous sort than the one from Tanaroa. Perhaps with his knowlege of the undead he can cure me.  If he can not I will search out the shipwrecked invaders that are attacking these villages and do my best to wipe them out.  I wouldn't feel as bad about eating them. (This sentence is partially crossed out but still readable.)Oh gods I can't believe I have written that but I have chosen to leave it in my journal which I will leave here when I go to die at the hands of the invaders.  Shouts.  Another hunting party is returning.  Perhaps they will have some meat.<img src="http://www.io.com/~jeffj/b2sep.gif" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /> Dark eyes bored into his from beneath the skull tattoo.  "When you slew the eater of the dead, its essence fled to find another host.  You have invited the evil spirits into your body in some way.  Only by finding that way and atoning for it can you halt this progression."Di'Fier crouched, staring into the Zombi Master's fire.  The acrid herbs burning made his eyes water, but he couldn't watch the man's face anymore.  "How did it come to him?""Eating the flesh of man will bring the evil spirits to you.""But I've never-" Di'Fier cut himself off. He'd obviously done something...Dimly, he recalled Mnembe's words about the Zombi Masters: "They are all insane, and deal with evil spirits so that the rest of the village does not have to.  Only they may work magic."  He licked his lips - he had kept his magery as secret as possible on the island after hearing that, but..."Could the working of magic open the door for these spirits?""No.  It must be opened wider.""I see.  I...may have more questions.""See that you do not wait too long before you ask them."Despite the heat, Di'Fier shivered as he stumbled away.<img src="http://www.io.com/~jeffj/b2sep.gif" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /> "When we get off this island...if we get off this island...are you going back to your homeland?" Dru leaned back against the log, nervously glancing behind her to the graveyard.  She couldn't get used to the way these people buried their dead in the center of their rings of houses.  Why can't they cremate them like sensible people? It stops all of this undead nonsense. Still, facing this way let her keep an eye on the road from Panitube."We will get off of this island," replied Shesara fiercely.Dru looked over at her, somewhat startled.  It was perhaps the fiercest emotion the bard had shown since they met - and it was a good sign.  Maybe she was starting to heal. The forced trek through the jungle had weakened her, and the fever from the filthy claws of the creatures had done so even more.  Dru was about to speak when Di'Fier shuffled up, a haunted expression on his face.  "Di'Fier? Are you all right?  You've been behaving strangely the past few days.""The leader of those creatures?"  Di'Fier glanced around the circle. "I think it's trying to possess me.  Call it a..." He managed a weak smile. "Call it a 'gut feeling'.  The Zombi Master says that I must have done something to invite it in, and I can only be cured if we discover what it was I did.  I think my magic is why it chose me, but he says there must be something else..."Benares set his quill down, rubbed his eyes and winced.  "Let me peruse my journal, although I don't remember anything that would have invited evil spirits in.  Did he say how the evil spirit got into the creature in the first place?"Di'Fier nodded. "He said that the man used to be a great hunter, and was lost outside the village.  He must have eaten the meat of a man, and the evil spirits entered his body at that time."  He swallowed.  "I've eaten a lot of strange things, but never a person...""You don't think those birds were intelligent, do you?" Dru mused.  "The fish certainly weren't.  They weren't afraid of me at all.""No, and everything else we ate the villagers gave us," Di'Fier sighed...then stiffened.  "Except...""...yams certainly weren't," Dru muttered, continuing her litany. "What was that, Di'Fier?"Benares raised his head from his journal as realization slowly dawned.  "We only ate one thing that we didn't know where it came from," he said.DI'Fier nodded.  "The meat from the Swamp Hag."Next Time: The funeral of Dru & Di'Fier!  Don't miss it!</blockquote>

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