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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ao the Overkitty" data-source="post: 1524728" data-attributes="member: 9758">Journal Entry of Seth Lochmar - July 11thJuly 11th, 1002Resting for a few days after our journey, the thank you gift we received from the Bluestones made us feel a little better about helping them, but we decided that we seriously needed to improve our fighting power.  Arvin took this time to draft up an edict with regards to credit to the Lochmar clan.  That piece of paper was so full of illegalities and shady sections that he decided to forgo the thought entirely.  It was also at this time that I heard my calling from the lord, bringing me into a greater servitude of Saint Michael as one of his Paladins.  Padraic returned from where he had been, also having had a religious experience.  He only told me to begin with, but we soon told the rest of the family that, while he had been meditating in the little monastery, the freaking ball of light had heard his prayers for a healer and, while taking some of Padraic’s experiences, manifested the powers of a priest of our lord.  He shared with us that, by donating experiences and memories to the lantern archon, we could help it become a better priest.  Padraic also came into the lord’s service at this time, as one of Saint Michael’s priestly monks.It seemed like a flood of divine power when a Fletcher McLar and his bodyguard brother from the Basilica of Arleans showed up looking to help.  We decided that this day would be a good day to go check out the winery and its state.  Of course, as with all things on our lands, it was overrun with Kobolds.  Disgusting little creatures, but apparently loyal to the former laird, Andreas.  It seems he thought it would be a good idea to uproot a village of Kobolds, bring them back to the family lands, and force them to work as grounds security.  So now we have hundreds of kobolds living on our property, considering it their home, and loyal to the former laird, who has supposedly locked himself in the tower.  It’d be nice if we could just get them all to leave and set up camp elsewhere, but I am at a loss as to how to do so.  So, we are stuck with negotiating with them.  The McLars were very surprised that we knocked on the Winery doors when we arrived there.  Hearing stories of those that took part in the last attempt, it seems they expected us to kick down the doors, swords drawn and spells ready.  I think I should point out that this Winery is fairly new; certainly constructed a few years after those of the last attempt arrived.  After some discussion with the door guards and Padraic sitting on a windowsill and waving at the kobolds inside, we were told that if we left our armor and weapons outside, we could speak with the subchiefs.  We felt we still had enough firepower to make a break for it if things grew ugly, so we went in.  The subchiefs were wary of us, but used magic, with my consent, of course, to see that I am an honorable man.  We discussed a change in hierarchy.  They seemed to hate Father Troy as much as anyone else, so it just shows that these creatures aren’t all bad.  Negotiations degraded though, since most of them were in favor of just killing us all now and saving themselves the trouble.  It also didn’t help that we were less then happy when we found out they had drunk a lot of the wine stored there and replaced it with water (thus giving us several gallons of severely watered down wine). We made a hasty exit that day, but apparently we made some allies, since a small band of them broke off from the Winery lot and came to us, looking for food, shelter and orders.  We put them in the cottages down by the pond (formerly known as the Duck Pond).While we were dealing with finding housing for the kobolds, we received a visit from Father Clancy Dunkirk.  He is a member of a slightly rogue sect of the church who are devoted to Saint Stephen of the Moors.  His sect has elevated Saint Stephen above all the other Saints, possibly over even the lord himself.  Since his arrival, it was obvious he was sent to spy on us.  Well… perhaps spy is too harsh a word, but he was certainly doing a little reconnaissance.  Nice enough guy, but talks about Saint Stephen too much.  He agreed to venture into the Manor house with us, to kill Devils.  Wearing the splint mail I had picked up a while back was still an odd feeling.  It certainly hampered my mobility and movement.  Wielding the Githyanki Greatsword, however, just felt right.While venturing through the house, we came upon a very evil looking hall with fiendish crows, bloody hands sticking out of the walls holding torches, and an eerie silence.  While putting the crows to sleep, a frighteningly large creature with pale, bloody skin and barbed beard, a glaive in one hand and a bottle of Lochmar Gold in the other burst out of one of the rooms (which turned out to be the bar), yelling for the crows to shut up, and then shutting the door again.  We were about to beat a hasty retreat when the door opened again.  Apparently he had noticed us after all.  Reacting quickly, Father Clancy cast an aid upon myself and Padraic made my Greatsword magic.  I charged into the room, right up to him just as he was summoning a bunch of Lemures to come and join his party.  He just laughed at my actions, not even considering me a threat.  He did, however, when I scored a really good hit on him with my sword.  Thankfully, he had filled the room with Lemures, so he could not back up and attack me with his wicked looking glaive.  He seemed too shocked as my next blow dropped him to the ground, killing him.  At this point, however, I was not doing very well.  While the creature was unable to hit me, the Lemures surrounding me had given me several wounds.   I was about to call for a retreat when I noticed that Padraic had tumbled his way to the back of the room and was now trapped there by the Lemures.  I cut myself a path back out and Arvin held the door while Father Clancy healed me.  We started rotating who was in the doorway and who would get healed until we had a workable number of Lemures.  Though we were seriously hurt by the end of it, we were sure we had just dispatched the leader of these Lemures.Father Clancy seemed to consider taking part in that fight to be a great honor.  He stayed for services on Saturday, and then left on Sunday.  He took his memories of the events with him, along with a rocking chair Arvin had repaired and gifted to him.Now that we had struck such a blow to the denizens of our house, we were more determined then ever to finally clean it out.  There were several Lemures left, plus the nest of giant bees that had inhabited one of the wings.  There was also the Ice Mephit that had taken up residence in the Cold room.  During our first encounter, he was nice until he found out all we had had was Silver daggers.  That is when he demanded our stuff, claiming we couldn’t hurt him.  That fight had not gone well, but the little bastard was absent now that we had a magic weapon and spells.Having seen the library and met the librarian (who disturbs me greatly), we ventured down one of the halls we had not been down before.  We found a room full of the crows which, upon seeing us, started summoning something.  Though we tried to, we were unable to stop them from summoning a HUGE, fiendish octopus.  Seeing this thing, we knew we couldn’t defeat it and fled out of the house.  Still a much more honorable retreat then it would have been running from those kittens.We returned a few hours later to find it gone.  We ventured further down the corridor, past a set of doors.  In our infinite wisdom, we decided to close the doors behind us, so that we couldn’t be attacked from behind.  When we got to the Entrance room of the Manor (we had started our quest from the kitchen) we found it full of Lemures.  Quickly falling back to the hallway, we set up a front line and bottlenecked them.  They were still able to do some serious damage to us.  It was then that we heard giggling behind us and the locking of the door.  That damned Ice Mephit had struck again.  We were trapped now; seriously wounded and almost out of spells.  Only luck saved us that day.    It was during the cleaning of the bees that I first noticed the change in Arvin.  He affected me somehow, boosting my abilities.  I thought that was just something Padraic did at first, but then he did some amazing feats; almost superhuman.  I also later found out that Fiona and Padraic were similarly affected, though it was not their doing.  I worry that if he can affect us in such ways, what is truly stopping him from killing us with a thought or shriveling our minds and making us mindless drones.  He has been loyal to us so far, but how long will he go with simply arguing with me, when he knows he has the power to change my mind for me?</blockquote>

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