We discussed what to do at length. Long and painful length. In the end, we decided to go to the city
watch for assistance, as we were in desperate need of rest, and concerned that
the Grey Maidens would re-occupy the hospice during our absence. We also needed someone to take the freed
hostages off our hands. We spoke to the
field marshal, a meeting aided by a guardsman who recognised me and on the
basis of this immediately assisted me in arranging the meeting. Can’t see that the woman would have had any
issue with us dropping in for a meeting, but nice to see my fame
spreading. Being known by the watch
should be a great help when we finally bring down the evil queen and I am
reluctantly forced to take over ruling the city. A pity that the queen has turned out to be
behind this plague – we were doing reasonably well at getting in with her, a
surer path to rapid political advancement than relying on peasants and
policemen, but then again this way might lead to the ultimate advancement
quicker. And the city needs a really
good looking, charismatic leader like me to steer it through these troubled times
and the recovery from the plague.
The field marshal was fairly appalled at the evident
involvement of the queen in the plague, as well as the fact that the queen’s
physicians and Grey Maidens are apparently all involved. She seemed to be desperately clinging to the
hope that there was perhaps an evil faction within both groups, and in the end
we left it at that. Best not to shatter
too many illusions of the leader of the watch – if she loses her marbles, the
city could be in trouble, especially during these troubled times. And there’s not much point in gaining control
of a city where everybody has died, or where the rule of law has failed and
chaos reigns. She was also concerned
about the likelihood of the Grey Maidens causing us further trouble, and
figured that the watch would be of little help here, as they would have to obey
any orders from the Maidens or Physicians.
After we suggested starting riots or destroying buildings to distract
them, or burning down the hospice, probably after evacuating the plague
victims, she proposed that we try to get some help from the churches, figuring
that the Grey Maidens, and Queen’s Physicians, would be unlikely to try to pull
anything with the churches providing the healers necessary to keep the hospice
running.
With this plan agreed upon, the ugly chick went to the
church of inner beauty and got them to agree to help. Amusingly, they seemed to feel that a few
actors would be more help than a few priests, but either way they would serve
our purposes, as any kind of representation would hinder our opponents,
regardless of how useless they may be for the sick. The cleric managed to secure some help from
his church, and the warrior managed to get help from the church of
healers. Meanwhile, I headed off to the church
of Pharasmsa, the Lady of Graves, situated in a familiar
boneyard, in order to get the gun nut buried properly, as he proved
unrecoverable from his wounds. Going
through his pockets, I was able to find enough cash to arrange a truly
impressive monument in his honour, as well as a nice tomb, and what I think is
probably a very fitting inscription.
“Here lies Justin “Gun-Nut”
Credible, hero of Korsova.
He died a member of
Mandraiv’s
Magnificent Seven
in defence of the
people of Korvosa, a hero of the city.”
While arranging this, I ran into someone who apparently
recently arrived in the city looking for the gun nut. Turns out he was another gun nut. This is a good thing, as he agreed to come
along with us to avenge his friend’s death, and due to his somewhat unusual
hobby I should be able to include him in my diary without changing my referencing
– as of this point, the gun nut is no longer the human one, but a dwarven
one. It was also nice to see that there
are people in the world who understand friendship as it should be – the gun nut
wasn’t overly concerned about the death of his friend, but was certainly
interested in exacting a bit of vengeance on the perpetrators. On the way out I remembered that I was also
supposed to get some help for the hospice, and arranged that. We then all met up at the inn for a night of rest
and recovery.
The next morning, despite intending to hit the cult-temple
first thing, when I awoke everyone had left.
Grabbing a couple more hours sleep made me feel much better, and everyone
returned early in the afternoon, just as I was finishing a fine breakfast. Apparently, the cleric had been talking to
some other church about their religion.
Might be he’s looking to change camps.
Can’t see it as a good idea myself – why leave the most powerful church
in town, but then maybe he wants to lead a smaller faith to prominence at the expense
of his former spiritual leader, the High Banker.
We arrived at the hospice soon afterwards and found a couple
of Grey Maidens watching the place, but a guard sent by the field marshal
informed us that he had watched the place all night, and that there were no
Maidens of Physicians inside. We decided
to sneak in through the warehouse, and found that sure enough, the priests most
of us had arranged were tending the sick, and that those arranged by the ugly
chick had cleaned the place up, painted some picture and were dressed somewhat
oddly with white face paint, bulbous red noses and enormous shoes. The ugly chick immediately decided to tell
the priestess of inner beauty everything that was going on, and after trying to
calm her and convince her to keep matters close to her chest (and not a bad
chest at that), we headed down the elevator.
Once back in the temple, we were immediately confronted by
the demon that was released yesterday by the zombies. A long fight ensued, this demon being
remarkably tough, and eventually we triumphed, although we were all suffering
from multiple diseases caused by the hideous creature. After this epic battle, we were forced to
retreat once more where the inner beauty chick insisted that we not leave, and
in order to continue accruing reputation with the churches, we were forced to
rest for the night upstairs in the hospice.
We awoke the next morning to the cheerful cries of the inner
beauty priestess, dressed for adventure and planning to “assist” us. I’m sure this will lead to a long argument,
but I’ll have to stick to my guns. While
it would be nice to have another good looking person in the group, our needing
to protect this idiot could well put my life in danger, and this I will not accept.
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