(stale readings)
Sky: Clear
Air: Cold (one inch)
Conditions: Cleared snow
My first night's sleep as a free man passed uneventfully, thank goodness, for although I knew it not when I awoke, the day would be filled with strife.
We made for the common room of the inn to have some breakfast and perhaps plan our next move against this Rettoraxil, the villain my new companions seek to thwart. While were lingered, Puck took up with some gentlemen of dubious manner; the others called them members of the Society of the Handshake, but unless things have changed more than I reckon in the past two years, they were from a Thieves Guild or similar dark league. They seemed to set themselves against - or at least not in favor of - the local slave trade, through which halflings are bought and sold like cattle. I know not for what reason, but they gave Puck information on the slave auction that day and some allies we might find there - abolitionists of some sort, I gathered, but savvy enough to be useful in our struggles. We determined to attend the market.
There was a great wide arena prepared next to the keep itself, with a stage adjacent for displaying the poor small souls on sale; the rest of the enclosure was fulled with a teeming mass of people, all angling and arguing and deal-making in the way of mercantile crowds anywhere. Archers in two tall towers watched the crowd intently. We tried to park the cart along one wall, out of the way, and were immediately pestered by urchins who sought to make off with any goods not tied down or guarded.
Puck found the contacts described by the rogues at the inn: a sacred knight in gleaming armor that seemed to glow with its own light, so highly had its owner polished it, and some small, dark fellow, who always seemed to be in the shadows and was hard to get a good look at.
Puck made parley with the woman, who seemed righteous and strong and (ironically) not terribly bright, but who eventually understood that we meant to make mischief for Kharsis and Devohn and agreed to aid our cause, at least so long as it matched her own crusade against the slave traders. She appeared to speak for her umbral companion, and so it seemed the compact was made.
The parley took all morning, while a slave was being sold it seemed it each minute; at the luncheon break, the guards herded everyone out of the arena for a staged entertainment: several halflings were set to running across the arena, perhaps promised freedom if they could make an exit. All of them were cut down in a hail of arrows from the guards. The crowd roared its approval as each bolt struck home. It was horrific.
The next bit is somewhat of a muddle. As the crowds re-entered and the afternoon auction began, Puck seemed to be trying to make entrance to one of the towers, with the aid of Aldwin; Mel and I drove forward in the cart, but found ourselves swept under in a tide of thieving children, who all but dismantled the cart from under us; the shining paladin, whose name was Lux, and her dark companion, who I heard her call Braegel, joined in the general melee as guards fired into the crowd, people ran and fled, and chaos reigned. Suddenly, we were called into the keep by none other than Devohn himself - who was the selfsame whip-wielding dwarf from the Shaegrove battle and the chief slaver-lord. He seemed to guarantee safe passage and wanted to truck with us. We six entered the gate of the keep, escorted by a phalanx of guards, and the portcullis lowered wearily behind us.
In an eerily pastoral scene - a formal garden and fountain - we formed a tableaux: Devohn afoot and Kharsis on a warhorse faced us and demanded the Stones from my companions. Puck taunted them in return, and for a moment, the tension hung in the air like a nigh-severed sheet holding on by its last fibres. But, of course, the line broke, and the battle was joined.
We were beset from all sides: Kharsis and Devohn faced us, guards harassed our rear, and archers took aim at us from the high towers. Fighting madly, we vanquished the guards and killed Kharsis; that would seem like the start of victory, but Devohn's accursed giant eagle once more swooped down to drag his master from danger and Kharsis's warhorse, acting on instinct or training or who knows what, retreated from the field of battle with his master still in the saddle. I managed to delay him some with a spell of distraction, but only for a moment.
We wound up fighting our way through two barred doors, more guards, and a clutch of desperate halflings before we could once again face our nemeses. After entering a closed room of the keep, the horse must have vanished; we found only Kharsis, in aspect like a zombie and protected by a shimmering curtain of magic force, and a foe new to me, who my companions later identified as Bedwyr. This last foe - cleric or necromancer or wizard, I know not - seemed to turn into a puddle of goo and disappear into the floor, only to re-appear elsewhere to wreak damage. We fought him gamely and must have been too much for him, for all at once he fled the field and we were alone with Kharsis.
Some end-of-life conversion must have come over the prince, for he seemed amenable and beneficial. He confessed to having murdered Erochoel, and told us that the Stone he held was false - that while it was enough to consolidate his control over the city, Erochoel had held possesion of the Stone e'en beyond death: it was buried in chambers below the keep and so fiercely guarded that he and Devohn had never dared seek it. With the sound of and angry mob outside, he urged us to undertake that very task for ourselves, turning a mechanism that opened a door into an underground passage. With the choice of being discovered with a dead regent by his loyal and angry subjects or facing the unknown and getting closer to a Stone, the path was clear: down we went.
We fought our way past traps and over a rope-bridge; Braegel caught the worst of trap his eye missed and began losing strength quickly. That deadly door let us to a collection of chambers - two libraries and an well-appointed alchemy lab - that seemed hospitable but haunted.Torches blew out, my companions and I began hearing vices murmuring imprecations such as as "sleep" and seemingly answering questions muttered under the breath. We tarried for a while, then moved on through the next door.
That was a mistake.
Several powerful undead creatures awaited us in a fairly close room, immediately responsive to our presence with extreme aggression and hostility. They were horrible, filthy figures, lashing with sword and claw, and draining vitality and potency with each blow. Brave Aldwin, foolish Aldwin, raced into the middle of a pool in the center of the room, and was almost immediately brought down. If not for the incredible bravery of Lux, who at no small peril to herself raced in and dragged him out, he would have perished for sure. In the end,we made a fighting retreat and resealed the door.
Licking our wounds, we explored to rooms more thoroughly. I found a brew already steeping in the lab, and tended it along; Puck examined the tomes in the library, and apparently in some sort of trance, found a helpful text and two spell scrolls that I think will help restore some of those of us who have been diminished by the undead fiends. As awful as this place in, we have no choice but to rest here for the night, regain some strength, and make a plan of attack for the room. It is unpleasant, but wise. Tomorrow will come soon enough.
It feels odd and sad to so soon have the stars removed from my view; even as a bondsman, I at least had the heavens wheeling over me each night and window though which to watch them. Down here in this cave, this dungeon, this tomb, I must strain to feel the space wind and hear the song of the skies. But I can, faintly, and that will be enough.