Mandraiv's Diary 7

It occurs to me that when researchers are examining this diary in a few hundred years and trying to find out about my days before entering office, they may be confused by my lack of clarity regarding my companions.  To this end, I will try to standardise my references.  All five of my adventuring friends have names, although I struggle to care enough to remember them.  Still, I’ll mention them here, as I am sure that some of my success, riches and fame may have rubbed off on them.  There is Grit, the big, gay warrior.  Might start just calling him “the warrior”, as he is a little more distinguishable as this now.  Then there’s Justin, the “gun nut”.  Wanders around with one of these alchemical weapon contraptions which makes a lot of noise when used, but does manage to be impressively effective on the odd, rare occasion.  There is also Sparrowhawk, “the ugly chick”.  I will refer to her either as the chick, the ugly chick, or anything similar.  Regardless, as the only female member of the troupe, she should be easy to identify.  We also have Watson, whom I have usually called the big dumb warrior, but will now refer to as “four-arms”, as he has recently developed a quite noticeable “birth defect”.  Maybe call him “special needs” or equivalent as well, or maybe “big ugly”.  Finally, there is Sol, “the cleric”, “the priest”, etc.  of Abadar.  He tends to be pretty quiet, but is proving to be an effective healer, even if he is as bad as all the others in his desire to help strangers for no apparent reason.

Anyway, these introductions have hopefully clarified the matter of exactly who rode my immaculate coat-tails to fame and fortune, and it’s time to return to the tale of my adventures.

After buying some horses, we escorted Trinia to the countryside, to a place just outside of Harse with a couple of old adventuring buddies of Vencarlo.  On the trip I chatted to the girl, and although I felt like she was open to my advances, like every woman I’ve ever been interested in – it’s great to be really, really good looking sometimes, I resisted making a real effort to sleep with her – I’m not sure my companions would be able to continue with their ugly little lives if they saw how easy it is for someone as handsome as me to get laid with decent looking women such as this one.  At the very least, I’m sure that this knowledge would affect their attitude towards me, and I’d hate, for example, for the cleric to choose to heal someone else when I needed it just because he was jealous of me and my really good looks.   The trip was fundamentally uneventful, and against my advice as a group we decided to return to Korvosa pretty much immediately, and despite my not putting the moves on, Trinia had to get a piece of me and kissed me as we said our farewells.  Maybe I will see her later, when the others aren’t around. 

Upon returning to Korvosa, after another uneventful trip, we discovered that the plague was in full swing.  Despite this, unfortunately, we were allowed back into the city and dis some investigating.  It appeared that the churches were all inundated with plague victims, and that with the number of infections constantly on the rise, they were unable to do much about it.  With the plague seeming to be most prolific in High Point and Old Korvosa, it seems that it is, unsurprisingly, affecting the poor first and foremost, and presumably spreading to those in High Point who employ them as servants.  Clearly, I’ll need to provide residences for my servants when I employ them to ensure that they are safe from the kind of filth in their hovels in the poor areas, and thus unable to spread such filth to their betters.  Given the situation with the plague, and the apparent inability of the churches to stop it, we decided to visit the city watch captain and see what we could do to help out.  Although I abhor the risk we are taking by spending time in a city infected by a plague, it may give us a great opportunity to increase my reputation and fame, if we are able to find the cause of the disease and put a stop to it.  Maybe this time, after we save the city, we’ll be properly acknowledged and rewarded.  Preferably not in that order.

Upon arriving at the Citadel, we saw the captain of the watch addressing her charges and discovered that the queen was responding to the plague.  Her Highness had, apparently, empowered the Queen’s Physicians in law, ordering the watch to obey them, as well as the new royal guard, the Grey Maidens, an organisation entirely made up of women, presumably. Can’t see any reason a man would join an organisation named the Grey Maidens.  Anyway, I’m sure that a bunch of women will make a massively effective unit.  As well as this, some new laws were mentioned regarding the penalties for hindering efforts to stop the plague or deliberately spreading it.  After the captain’s speech, she introduced us to the queen’s personal physician, apparently summoned from Chelliax, who was discussing measures to curtail the plague with the captain.  We left after the captain asked us to investigate some missing corpses, as apparently some of the dead-wagons had stopped dropping off bodies.  Presumably those disposing of the plague victims had caught it and were no longer able to work.  Or breathe.

We managed to track down a corpse-bearer getting drunk while apparently on duty, and discovered that he’d given up on his nearly hopeless task and started just dumping the bodies he was carting away in a nearby alley.  We investigated the alley, discovering a significant pile of corpses and a group of vampires nesting in a nearby shop.   We killed the vampires and discovered the corpse of the shop owner, as well as the key to a safety deposit box at the Bank of Abadar.  Sensing the possibility of some much needed funds, we headed to the Bank immediately, where we saw a large mob outside, and looking like they may be working themselves up into sufficient frenzy to storm the church.  I tried talking them down, but the filthy peasants wouldn’t listen to me, so we had to resort to intimidation.  The warrior stepped up to the mark, gave them a cold stare and told them to depart, which seemed to achieve the desired result until we started pushing through the dispersing crowd and they recognised our priest as such and swarmed us, begging for healing.  A magical item we had found recently helped here, and we were able to use it to scare the crowd away, with no-one being hurt too badly.  Even the mob seemed to melt away pretty much unscathed, and far worse unpunished for their unruly behaviour.

We restored Artox in the Bank, as he’d been badly drained in the fight with the vampires, and were employed to write a report regarding the activities of a certain perfumer who was selling cures for the plague.  We headed for the shop in question, where gun nut told the proprietor what we were there for.  She provided us with a potion of remove disease that she claimed to be selling to people for 2gp a pop, an unlikely situation, but our warning her obviously gave her time to try to weasel out of her illegal activity.   We decided to stake out the place, and sure enough soon found that her bodyguards were heading to the river and fetching the primary ingredient of the cure by the barrelful.  She was then adding a little perfume and selling the river water as a cure.  Not a bad scheme, and apparently this woman had prepared for the discovery of her fakery, as our sneaking into her apartment and acquiring evidence of the ineffectiveness of her cure, our reporting to the church and returning immediately to arrest her was enough time for her to flee the scene, taking everything of value with her.  Of course, it wasn’t quite as simple as that since four-arms botched sneaking in to find the evidence and woke up the woman and her henchmen, alerting her to the impending fall of the law upon her head.  Sadly this meant little or no loot from the crooks, but at least the Bank of Abadar paid us our fee for the report, and after making sure that our work was recognised in the church we headed back to the inn to rest and recover from a couple of hectic days.