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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sayburr" data-source="post: 1174" data-attributes="member: 92">A Short Time in ZoaAfter selling the ships, I talk to some clerics at the Watcher’s and Risk’s churches to find out about getting my finger back and gaining this power over undead that Amber has, for myself. They tell me that for the price of the spell and some time in the service of Watcher and Risk they will restore my finger and that the time in service is what will give me that power. I won’t need Pandora’s scroll after all. Good, I say, because even though she is acting more like a party member than some one who is trying to rob us I don’t think I want to be indebted to her. Speaking of debt, I can kill two birds with one stone. I can stick her with the book she has been slobbering to get her hands on and get my debt to the other party members taken care of and have some spending money to go shopping with, if the three of them will agree to it. They do! I’m off to sell the other book. I ask Laura and Rakis to go with me to get their money.They seem happy with cash in hand and go off to do their own shopping I presume. I go to the church and pay them for the spell and tell them to go ahead but they say I am not ready yet. They tell me that Watcher and Risk will know when I am ready for service and call me to them. This sounds reasonable to me since they have spoken to me in dreams before. Back to shopping. I spend the rest of our first day tracking down a potion of alter self and I see a silversmith and ask him make a talisman like Amber’s and one for me of my own design out of silver. My design incorporates the domains of Risk and Watcher, of course. Risk’s side has a twisted parody of the comedy mask with one side black and the other white. The black side has a white playing card, the ace of spades, and a white coin on it while the white side has black dice with white pips, eleven showing, and a black coin on it. Watcher’s side has a traveler with the arcane symbol for knowledge on his backpack walking a road that stretches into the horizon toward a setting eye in the place of the sun. I will check back to get them when they are finished.I spend the day picking up 4 cure light potions and a riding horse and a pack horse. On my third day I pick up another alter self potion and a 5th cure light and a set of thieves tools better than I have ever seen and return to the silversmith to get the talisman’s I had ordered made. This is wonderous! With my knack for garnering extra coins and my skills for entertaining, I have never had to go without much: usually even having enuf for what most consider luxury items and services. But to be able to walk into a bazaar such as this and to feel that hardly anything, even magic, is beyond my purse, is truly wonderous! When we are eating dinner and recounting our adventures on the third evening, some feel it would be wise to go to see Geolain in the morning, in case he has to prepare something or something along those lines. I tell them to go ahead without me, in the morning. I still have quite a few coins to spend and have heard of a few more items that I would like to aquire in my search for the original ones. “You can bring me up to speed over dinner tomorrow,” I tell them. They go their way and I go mine the next morning. I spend all day tracking down a potion of fire breathing that I heard about in one of the shops at the market and still don’t find it but have a good lead for tomorrow morning. I did manage to find 3 doses of antitoxin tho and a steel dagger. I head back to the inn a little depressed at failure but a little excited at still being in the hunt.We settle in for another dinner together and I ask how it went with Geolain. They remembered to ask about Halaan and Geolain told them to return in the morning for whatever information he could dig up. They are talking about their return trip in the morning but Rakis and I both decline this time. He has been fascinated with that lighthouse since he first saw it from the sea and I told him what it was. His curiosity is childlike but of the refreshing variety rather than the annoying kind. Listen to me, describing something as childlike when I have yet to see my 18th birthing celebration. Perhaps I never will see it since the only celebration I had on my 17th was drinking and loving with Magnus on the road with the gypsies. That celebration, while very fun was very different from the ones my fami… the Tessins used to have for me. I don’t think they would have approved.The 5th morning comes and we go off on our little errands. I follow the trail of that potion all day and still don’t find it but do have the address of the person in whose hands it is supposed to be. I will find them in the morning and with a little luck from Risk and more than a few coins from my purse it will be mine. I can smell dinner already. This shopping can really work up a young woman’s appetite! I hurry back to the inn.Strangely, even tho I am a little later than usual no one is here. I go ahead and have my dinner brought in and ask the help if they have seen any of my companions return today. No one has. Well, perhaps they are running late as I was. About half way thru dinner, Amber comes in saying that Geolain knew where to find Halaan but would only tell us if we did something for him, save some books or some nonsense. She seems in a hurry and tells me it must be done tonight and that Pandora has already gone to the lighthouse to get Rakis. We are to meet them on the way back. We pick up Rakis and Pandora and head back toward the slums to a bar that they left Ars to watch. The bar is supposed to have a tender who is somehow connected to the destruction of the books. We get to the bar but don’t see Ars and decide to go on in.Pandora and Amber take a seat at a table and Rakis sits at a different table, good thinking big man, I think to myself. I keep walking up to the bar and ask for a beer. I look around and it jumps out at me how out of place Amber and especially Pandora look in here. I am glad I didn’t sit with them. The big northman could have on wedding finery and still look rough enuf to belong here, and I don’t think anyone would ask too many questions about his clothes then either. I ask the ‘keep if he knows directions to the place of Scorn worship around here. He keeps wiping the bar and says he doesn’t, he is sure there is one but that he doesn’t know where. Rakis comes up to me shortly and says out loud that he thinks he has figured out where those damn wizards are now and let’s go kill them now and destroy their stuff. I shush him and tell him that not everyone is one of our brethren or needs to know our business and pull him away to a table. We act like we are talking over a plan and soon a man seems to accidently bump our table. We both notice a hand gesture he makes covertly and take it to be a secret sign. We mimic the sign back and all of a sudden we have a new friend. I order a pitcher and we proceed to talk to this guy under the guise of being Sentinels new to the city on a mission. We talk him into taking us to the House of Scorn.We follow this man, Kibik, to what seems an ordinary run down shack of a dump from the outside but is a fairly well kept place of Scorn worship on the inside. We make a little small talk about our fictitious mission and mention that we had heard about another burning and wondered if we might attend it before we went on with ours but no one was very talkative about it. Before long, someone bursts into the house and says that a group of wizards attacked some of their brethren a few blocks away. Everyone is up in arms in moments, shouting about killing the heathen defilers, and we are suddenly en route.Our fears are realized when we see a beggar and Pandora and Amber in the street ahead of us, bloodied and bedraggled, and of course the shout of, “There they are!” Our group of Scorners runs towards the trio ahead and Rakis and I strike. We surprise each of the Scorners to our sides with our blows and all of a sudden the Scorners , who had an 8 to 3 advantage, now find it reduced to 6 to 5 and find themselves flanked as well. The battle seems to be going our way well enuf, until a massive half-orc charges into the fray from one side street and we start taking arrow fire from somewhere. The half-orc is a slashing mad man for a while but seems to run out of steam like Rakis does sometimes after a battle. He is short work for our group after that. The bow man steps from around the corner to hit me but reveals his position in the process. I take his arrow but charge him and strike him with my short sword to scare him off. I don’t feel well enuf to chase him down and so let him run. We hear the sounds of the Blue Coats, Zoa’s militia force, and decide to leave the scene ourselves. We grab Ars, unconscious from the brunt of the half-orc’s assault, from the street and after getting our bearings head toward Geolain’s. His servant lets us in and says we may rest a short while but reminds us that the books will be burned in the morning. He gives us 6 potions of healing to aid us but we all decide to give ours to Ars to bring him back to consciousness. I use some of my healing potions as well and tell the party that I will slip back to the House of Scorn to see what happens and will return in a few hours. I get back to the House to find it deserted looking. I watch it for a short while and decide to get a closer look. Seeing no one, I decide to go in and look for the books. I don’t find anything and slip out to overwatch again. Risk was watching over me again, because as soon as I had made it to my hiding place a large party of Blue Coats came marching down the street and straight to the House. It sounded like they were tearing the place apart but I didn’t try to get any closer. Soon, another party of them came along and I decided it was definitely time to leave. I head back to Geolain’s.I find Rakis leading the party down the street. “I was worried about you,” he says. No wonder I’ve got a soft spot for him. I tell them what happened at the house and tell them I think the barkeeper is probably our best bet now. They say they were thinking the same thing so we head back to the bar. Once there, Ars says he has a place he can watch the back and heads that way. The rest of us are watching the front talking about what to do when we noticed the “patrons” being “encouraged” to leave. I ell the party I am going in and pull out a potion of alter self and drink it. I make myself look like Kibik right there in front of them, much to their amazement and tell them to watch the window for a bright torch like light to indicate trouble and head in. The Sentinels inside are amazed as well to see Kibik. Statements from: “I thought you were dead” to “You don’t even look hurt” will be a reminder to me the next time. I bluff my way thru their questions with excuses and the magic does the rest to convince them. “We” finish closing the bar down and head out the back to regroup. On the way thru the back alley, I notice Ars and mutter a prayer to Watcher that no one else does. We work our way thru the streets to a nondescript house. I hope the others have followed us successfully as I step thru the doorway. We go down to the basement to find some more Sentinels and the books. They ask a few questions and seem really without direction or anybody to provide leadership so I decide to step into that roll. I tell them that we should proceed with the burning to show “them” that “we” won’t be thwarted that easily. The rest seem uneasy and unsure but as with all sheep they can’t seem to help themselves from following. I said I would just go upstairs to make sure we weren’t followed and one of them offered to go with me to help lock down the house --- not as easy to signal the party but one less to kill later. We are locking the house down when I see Rakis “hiding”(he really is out of his element in here) and signal him to the house. I leave that window unlocked and sneak up on my fellow Sentinel. I pull out Flamesinger and send his misguided soul on to the other side. I go back to the window just as the party is getting there and tell them to come on thru that I have secured this floor and that the books and the rest of the sentinels are in the basement. They start to climb thru but then ask me to open the door instead, in order to make less noise.I go in first and act like I am talking to the other sentinel behind me and thus take the first sentinel in the room by surprise sending him to the other side as well. From there on tho desperation takes hold of the others and the fight like demons, knowing they have no way out but over our bodies. One even tries to burn the books in here with all of us and themselves still in here, too! I put and end to that bit of mischief by smothering the flames with my cloak. After their ferocious defense is finally put down, we get the books and return to Geolain’s in the wee hours of the night. We climb the outer wall and sleep under the stars until his servant wakes us near dawn and takes us inside to rest and recover. Geolain gives us Halaan’s location and Amber heals most of our bad wounds and we sleep most of the 6th day away.Rakis says he has to see someone about a weapon on the 8th day and I talk them into an extra day of shopping while they check on boat passage to this guy Halaan. My info on the fire breath potion was still good so I had it by lunch on day 7 and picked up silence, invisibility, and another alter self by the end of day 9. The others tell at dinner on day 9 that the boat won’t leave for a few days. That night, Risk and Watcher speak to me in my dreams. Return to the church, become anointed and be made whole they told me. On the morning of our 10th day in Zoa, the others said they had a few things to take care of for themselves and I told them I had to see a priest. Rakis seemed content to practice with his new weapon.I went to the church and told them about my dreams and they agreed that I was ready. One of their high priests came in and touch where my finger had been and agony racked my body as I felt bone and flesh grow where there had been none. I vomited into the bucket that someone had left here, probably just for that purpose. The re-growth was worse than when I had cut it off but was well worth it. They gave me some instructions and some training on being a priestess and I tried to do the best I could but I could tell by the looks on their faces that I didn’t do to good. But I will serve them as best I can.The others are still busy here in town so Rakis and I decide to get out into the open for a while. I tell him I already have 2 horses so we might as well go for a ride before I have to sell them back before the boat ride. He agrees readily. We ride for several hours enjoying the fresh air and each other’s company when we see some smoke drifting above a small wooded area ahead. At first Rakis doesn’t want to go, saying something about it being bad form to ride up on someone else’s camp but I convince him that this is what we came out here for, after all. We ride that way. When we get there, we see two huge humanoids at the fire with a big bag on the ground beside the fire moving around. I hear him say thru clenched teeth in Fhokki, “Ogres!” Now, I’ve never seen an ogre but they do look like the things Magnus described as ogres and if the big man says they are then they are. They just look dangerous to me no matter what you call them. One of the horses whinnies and gives us away. I mutter my defensive spell as we and they close. I use Watcher’s power words to guide my aim on the first swing and I draw blood from the amazed brute. He swings a club nearly as big as me so hard that Risk’s shield can’t deflect it and I feel my teeth rattle from the blow. I see Rakis suffer a similar blow.I say the power words again and strike home again. Somehow the beast still stands! He swings again but Risk’s shield deflects the blow this time. I mutter my last incantation and bury the big flaming blade in the creature’s heart. Rakis is still fighting his so I try to flank the beast and am rewarded for my efforts by drawing a swing from the long armed humanoid. I dance out harm’s way. We have the beast flanked now and between the two of us finish it off. We go on to fire after relieving the carcasses of their swag. We open the bag to find a dwarf inside. The dwarf thanks us profusely but looks around wildly. We ask him how long he had been in there and he says he is not sure but he thinks at least an hour maybe two. I ask him what he is doing out by himself and he says he wasn’t by himself, “Where are the others?” he nearly screams. The long and short of it is he and his family, 4 others, were traveling by wagon when they were ambushed by these two and 4 more like them and will we please help them? We tell him we will see, that these two were nearly a match for us and now we are both hurt but we will go see what can be done.Rakis tracks the beasties trail back to the ambush site. No sign of family here but I tell the dwarf to take heart, no bodies or fires either. Rakis follows the trail of the other 4 up into some hilly country until we see a cave up ahead. We tie the horses up back here so they won’t give us away again. Rakis says that he smells smoke even tho none is evident by sight. We decide to sneak around behind the cave to see if there is a rear entrance or perhaps a natural chimney. We find neither, so we agree to head in. We let the dwarf lead since he can see in the dark and that way our light won’t give us away. The cave is very deep! We go about 500 feet before we find their lair. The smell of meat cooking has the dwarf terribly upset. We find them lounging in the den, one turning a dwarf on a spit over a fire and three wiggley bags hanging from the wall. We plan our attack. Rakis and I will pump arrows into one while we have them unaware, backing up as we can to keep them from closing on us. Once they do close if the dwarf gets hurt he is to drink a potion of invisibility that I give him and hunker down to let us draw the ogres away while he frees his family. I drink my potion of fire breath and we start sending arrows into one of them and backing up. He turns to see what is shooting him and charges us. The others still seem unaware of us. I shoot him again as he approaches and Rakis hits him to bring him down. The others have found us now and charge us, one to Rakis and one to the dwarf and me. I shoot as they come and when it gets close I breathe fire on it above the dwarf. It hits the dwarf and he takes a swing back at it and then drinks my potion to disappear. I shoot and breathe fire again and it hits me hard. I shoot it again ready to breathe again but it goes down in flames and pin-cushioned, so I drink a potion of healing . Rakis has dispatched his too. The last one charges us and we stand ready. Rakis moves up to meet it and hits it hard. I send an arrow into it and breathe my last fire on it directly into its face setting its head on fire and putting the beast down. We loot the cavern and out of gratitude the dwarf gives us a large gem. Time to head back to the city, I think. We spend this night out in the country and make it to Zoa early the following morning.</blockquote>

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