Well, we did what Vencarlo suggested, and
took Trinia out to a ranch run by one of his old friends. Wasn’t much of a memorable ride, though
Mandraiv was giving the girl funny looks, almost like he was interested in her.
When we got back to the city, they’d locked
up the gates. The plague had spread, and
they were trying to control it. Didn’t
figure it’d accomplish much, but at least they was trying.
We
went and saw Kroft. She was introducing
some new guards to the city. The Grey
Maidens, they were called. Couldn’t make
out their faces cause of the helms they were wearing. Kroft was reading out some decree, saying
they had the power to cut people down if they was disobeyed while some healers
were trying to fix up the plague.
Something about the whole thing stunk.
Justin said he’d detected those Grey Maidens were evil too. Well, if they was taking their commands
direct from the queen, and they were using the plague as an excuse for doing
wrong, we’d find out soon enough.
After the display, Kroft gave us a new
job. Apparently, some workers were
supposed to be clearing up dead bodies.
Thing is, the bodies weren’t showing up where they were supposed
to. Well, we agreed to investigate. Went down to the Shingles and found one of
the workers drinking in a pub. Can’t say
I liked his attitude, and I let him know sure enough. He told us he’d been dumping the bodies in an
alley. We checked it out, and found not
only plague bodies, but some bodies with marks on their neck like they’d been
bit. Well, I don’t know whether you
believe in vampires or not – but I do now.
There was real ugly looking things living next to this alley, and they
had a hole in their building so they could get out. Well, they came out of their building when we
started poking around. It was a pretty
tough fight. Weird thing happened too –
Sparrowhawk got all kind of misty eyed, like she’d found a soul mate. Just walked in to give one of the things a
kiss. Well, at least she’d found someone
as good looking as her. Later on the
priest and the other magic users said she’d had some kind of spell cast on her –
but I don’t know whether that was just an excuse. We managed to kill them though, and had a
look round the place, then reported back to Kroft.
She didn’t have any more work for us, but
they down at the Bank of Abadar. When we
turned up there, there was a huge crowd milling out the front. They were mobbing priests, and when I told
them to get the hell out of the way, some backed off, but then they noticed
Sol. It was getting real ugly, but
Justin had the presence of mind to blow on some magic pipes we’d found. Real eerie noise, creepy and spooky. Well, the crowd turned yeller and ran off,
and we got into the place.
They gave us a job – investigate someone by
the name of Vendra who was selling cures for the plague for a pittance. Didn’t sound right, so we said we’d do
it. We went along, and Justin told her
we were investigating her cures. Well, I
can’t say we got a warm reception.
Something wasn’t right about the whole thing, so we decided to go back
and do it a bit more subtle. At night we went back, and found out they was just
using river water and perfume, mixing it up in a vat and selling it to the
locals who didn’t figure any better.
Watson sneaked in to find all this out, but the woman found him
out. Well, we left, and they cleared
out, so the job was done. I wondered at
the time if we’d come across her again.
Watson seems to have a habit of pissing people off and then letting them
go off, stew, then come back to haunt him.
--------------------------------------------
Well, weird thing is, I don’t rightly remember
too much about the next few days. They
just seem like real sketchy and foggy in my memory. Reckin I might’ve come down with some variant
of the plague. Poor Sparrowhawk came down
with Blood Veil though. Everyone’d
thought she was ugly before. Well, it was
even worse with pus and sores all over her face. Put me
off my breakfast when I saw her first thing in the morning.
Well, some woman asked us to investigate her
brothers disappearance from a Masquerade ball.
We went and investigated, and it was filled with zombies and some crazy
woman. Everyone in there was dead – not
of Blood Veil, but of Vorel’s phage.
As usual, there was plenty of bickering over
what to do with the prisoner.
After the crazy woman was given to Kroft to
deal with, we found another weird woman.
She had yellow eyes, and turned out she was a were rat. Asked us to deal with another were rat who
was planning on taking over the city when it was weakened by the plague. Didn’t sound right, so we agreed to put a
stop to that as well.
--------------------------------------------
Well, things became a bit clearer to me after that. We didn’t waste time. I We bought some equipment first. I bought a silver sword , as we knew these
rats couldn’t really be hurt by normal weapons.
Strangely, even Justin splashed some gold around. He’d usually been pretty tight-fisted with
his gold purse – often complaining how much it cost just to shoot off his gun,
Vera.
We headed straight for the vaults under the
city where we’d been told this troublemaker would be lurking. It was a real stinking place. Streams of sewage running under the ground,
with all the filth and offal of the city floating on the surface.
Soon enough we were attacked – by some of the
wererats and some normal rats the size of dogs.
The wererats were weird things – skinny, the size of a man, but lean and
hunched. Still, they were standing
upright, talking and wielding weapons.
They kept chittering on about being the real humans, and how we were inferior
and would die. Turned out they was
wrong. Still, it was a tough fight. Artox couldn’t hurt them, and the silver
really was necessary. There was a weird
mushroom in there. Looked like a normal
mushroom, except bigger, and noisier.
Damned thing was screaming. Still
– it didn’t have any eyes, ears or show any signs of smart, so figured it was just
a noisy mushroom. Watson called it a
shrieker – said it all official like, as if he knew something the rest of us
didn’t. Well, the way I figured – I’d
never heard of a shrieking mushroom, so anything that rare and weird would
probably taste good, so I put it in my sack.
We kept on looking round their little lair,
and a swarm of rats came out of nowhere to attack us. Although it was real creepy having all of the
little varmints climbing over you and nibbling, they scattered pretty soon
after we killed enough of them.
Then we found the boss of the wererats. Well, the curse of poor old Watson struck
again. The wererat just stabbed him
straight through with his rapier and Watson hit the ground like a sack of
mouldy potatoes. I thought he was
dead the way the blood sprayed outta him. That wererat stabbed me too – hurt
a bunch. In the end though, between me,
Justin’s silver bullets and Sparrowhawks silver arrows, with the healing help
of Sol and the occasional burst of magic from Mandraiv’s wand, we managed to
take care of him.
When Watson was back on his feet, he just
couldn’t stop cursing the gods. Found it
hard to believe anything could hit him so hard.
It was kinda funny really. We
could see the wererat was real muscly and strong, and it was obvious it had
been training with that rapier – so none of us could figure what he was so darn
upset about. I wondered whether the rat
had been a student of Vencarlo’s, cause he was real good at stabbing.
Well we headed back to the Three Rings and
took care of some business over the next few days. I ate that screamer or shrieker or whatever
the hell it was. Damn thing didn’t taste
as good as it had looked. I reckin the
cook must have left it in the pan a bit too long. Still, if I see something that unusual, I’m
not going to die wondering whether it was the tastiest thing the gods put on
the planet.
We tried to sort out those who’d been bit by
the rats, to make sure they didn’t turn into wererats too. Bottom line was, they had to go see
Tuttle. I was damn glad I didn’t get
bit, cause it would have stuck in my craw to go crawling to visit that damn
pompous hypocrite, so I went and help out at the temple of Shelyn. Well, although we sorted out the lycanthropy
infection – that’s what’d turn people into a wererat – it was pretty depressing
that our party was still riddled with sickness.
Justin had contracted Blood veil as well as Vorel’s phage (from poking
around in all the bodies in that mansion), and it between the bloody sores and
the black mould spores growing out of his nose and ears, he didn’t look too
healthy. It was all he could do with his
magic to stop hisself dying. Artox and Sparrowhawk
were pretty sick too.
We could all see that if we didn’t come up
with a solution, we were going to run out of money and then succumb to the
sicknesses and die.
Luckily, we had a couple of clues. There was a moneybox in that mansion – had a
symbol on it. Sol recognised it, and said it was the symbol of Urgathoa – the goddess
of disease, gluttony and undead. Well,
we took that box to the little girl – Grau’s niece – and she said it was the
same kind of box that she’d found.
Then that wererat woman came and met us. Said she’d seen a boat sail up the river in
the middle of the night, and just sink.
Then some boxes had floated up where it had gone down – exactly the same
kind of boxes with that Urgathoa symbol and money in.
Looked like we were getting close to figuring
out the source of the plague. She brought us some cheap potions so we could
breathe underwater, and told us were the wreck was. Then we set off, wondering what we’d
find. My theory – I reckind it must have
been sent from Cheliax. The Chelaxian
ambassador had been stirring up trouble, it was a ship from elsewhere, and I
figured the Queen would have enemies in Cheliax if she was the same as any
other noble family.
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