Moonday, Desnus 30 (early morning)

We’ve kept a low profile in town over the past few days. Given how dangerous the pursuit of these worms and those responsible for them have become, we used that time to better both ourselves and our equipment. We can’t do those things if we are constantly looking over our shoulders.

We’ve also kept an eye and ear out, discreetly, for signs of Smenk taking the initiative. Like, revisiting our families and friends to kick things into gear. So far, all has been quiet on that front, too, though my visits to see mom and dad are not doing their anxieties any favors.

We all know this can’t last, especially with us departing for Korvosa tomorrow. That means dealing with it now or never, and no one is keen on leaving family behind to fend for themselves. Which leaves “now”.

(afternoon)

I spent the rest of the morning arranging for repairs at the house. The first step there is to fix the roof, since there’s no point in doing the rest of it if we can’t keep the rain out. The hardest part of that was explaining how to get out there since there aren’t roads and the landmarks all look the same (“go to this grove of trees, and turn right towards this other grove of trees,” and so on). I just had to trust that they could follow a cadastral map.

When I got back, everyone was ready to put the gears in motion. So we brazenly walked into town as a group at close to noon to have lunch at Kullen’s. We picked up a tail on the way there, but Dasi used some spell to spook him and he took off towards the observatory. Pretty much what we expected if Kullen’s info was good.

None of his henchmen were in the bar. It seems he wasn’t so anxious to cause trouble that way, either because it was too public or he didn’t want to tangle with Kullen at the same time.

After lunch, we decided to poke at the hornet’s nest by checking out the abandoned mine and that got a quick response. One of Smenk’s thugs was there and he moved to block the road that led to the ruined building, lead pipe in hand. The message he was sending was obviously “keep moving”.

Viore approached him and called out in a decidedly friendly tone. “Good day, sir! How are you doing?”

The guy just glowered at us. “You ain’t got no business here.”

“You don’t even know who I am,” Viore answered. “Maybe I do.”

“You aren’t too bright, are you, boy?” He swatted his pipe into his open hand and said, “It’s not your business. You get on to wherever you’re goin’ but stay outta here if you value your skull.”

And that was my cue. I stepped up. “Are you saying we can’t walk on a public street?”

He looked at me, then said, “T’aint no public down this road.”

“I believe that’s ‘obstruction of the public right-of-way’. And that,” I said, pointing at his lead pipe, “is ‘menacing’.”

There are rules to this, you see.

For a moment he looked like he was going to have a go at us, but Zhog spoke up. “If you swing with your pipe, we’ll kill you. If you hit with your fists, you get to live. Be smart.”

He looked at Zhog, taking him in for the first time. “Aren’t you Kullen’s kid?”

Zhog smiled wide. “Yup.”

Smenk’s man seemed to get the feeling he was in trouble here, so he made a shrill whistle. Zhog swung into action, hitting him hard with his fists. Then the thug tried to swing his pipe at me. His problem, though, was that we were faster. Much faster. I punched him in the jaw, then Viore knocked him down and out.

From the ruined building, we heard a crashing sound and looked over to see two enormous apes on long chains rush towards us. That’s right: apes. Where did Smenk get apes?

“And that,” I said to no one, “is a public safety hazard.”

Varin hit them with a spell to blind them, and the rest of us took them down mostly with saps and the flat of our blades to knock them out. We just didn’t have an appetite for killing animals.

We found another of Smenk’s goons back there, likely the one that set the apes on us, and he surrendered so fast we barely had time to threaten him.

“So. Where is he? You know who I mean,” Zhog asked.

“Mr. Smenk?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh. I know you. You’re Kullen’s kid.”

I was very annoyed at this exchange. “You know what? I’m getting really offended by how no one recognizes us. But, Zhog? Him, they know!”

The goon ignored me. “I don’t know what kind of business you all have with Mr. Smenk, but now is not the time,” he said to Zhog. “Maybe you don’t know but your dad, uncle, whatever he is, he’s no longer in good favor.”

Zhog said, “Uh huh. Remember that group he’s really angry about?”

It took a while for this to register, but register it did. He pointed us to the Observatory, because it was only fitting, I guess, that this both began and ended there.

We knocked on the door because we’re very polite people. It opened and another of Smenk’s henchmen tried to shoo us off. “The observatory is closed. Go away!”

But at the same time, we heard Smenk’s irritating voice echoing from somewhere deeper inside: “…go and grab the girls’ families. You, lure those kids…”

“We’re done here,” I said to no one in particular. And just as the guy was shutting the door, Sera and I shoved it hard, sending him stumbling back behind it. Then we converged on Smenk and his henchman and quite thoroughly kicked their assess. When it was all over, one of his goons was dead and the rest had been tied up.

Not gonna lie here. I found this all extremely satisfying.

I went to get what passes for the authorities in town—none of them were inclined towards Smenk as it was, and given recent history, they weren’t likely to try and turn this back on us—while the rest of the group mopped up.

I don’t know how it happened, exactly, but sometime between when I left and when the Sheriff and his goons arrived, Smenk had developed a fatal case of being stabbed.

(evening)

We met up with Kullen after things had calmed down. And I am really looking forward to the day when I no longer have to write things like “we met up with Kullen”.

Kullen wasn’t exactly thrilled about being summoned. As I wasn’t exactly thrilled about being here, I figured that made us even.

Zhog started us off by dropping a set of keys on the table. “I understand you and Smenk were partners,” he said. I didn’t know what keys those were for, but I could guess that their owner no longer needed them.

Kullen caught on real quick, especially the part about him being a partner. I tuned out most of a conversation that I didn’t want to hear. When they were done with their scheming, he said, “I see you have someone among you that knows about legalities, right? Someone who can draw up papers for claimin’ ownership?”

This is the sort of thing that gives me heartburn. But, when you are hired as an advocate, your job is to give legal advice and answer questions, and what the client does with all that is on them. I explained about partnerships, wills, what sort of paperwork to look for, and what he’d need to do to make a transfer of ownership once that’s found.

And, yeah, I knew what he was planning to do. Here’s the thing. Smenk doesn’t have any heirs, which should surprise no one, and that means that his mine and bar are at risk of falling into probate. Which would put them under the control of the esteemed Governor-Mayor Lanod Neff.

Given that these were my options, I went with the one that didn’t make me physically ill.

Starday, Sarenith 4 (evening)

This is the farthest I’ve been from Diamond Lake. Actually, just about every day since we left has been the farthest I’ve been from Diamond Lake. And, previously, that record was held by Blackwall Keep. This should tell you something about how much traveling I did as a kid.

We passed through Melfesh, Baslwief, and Palin’s Cove before arriving here in Veldraine. I honestly believed the closest I would ever come to these places in my life was seeing them on a map.

Melfesh is the largest of Korvosa’s inland holdings, and it controls access to the Runtash River. There’s a huge drawbridge there (which we didn’t get to cross since we aren’t headed in that direction) and if you want to go up the river, or down into the lake, you have to pay a toll for the privilege. Charging a toll and blocking a river like that requires some military muscle, and that makes Melfesh a pretty heavily garrisoned town for its size.

Rumor is they charge more for ships sailing out of Magnimar’s holdings than they do for ones flagged internationally because people in power basically suck, and tend to abuse it when they have the opportunity.

Baslwief is a mining town. I almost wrote “a mining town, like Diamond Lake”, but on reflection, that’d be a misleading statement. The only thing they have in common as far as I can see is that they are both mining towns. But Baslwief seems to be blessed with such amenities as “drinkable water” and “an atmosphere that doesn’t smother your soul and drain you of hope”.

I got my first sight of the ocean at Palin’s Cove.

The city started life as a military outpost long ago, and then kind of grew into this industrialized complex. With all the forges and smelters and refineries belting out smoke so thick you can taste the air, it kinda feels like what Diamond Lake will become once it grows up. Only with more siege engines. I’d say something trite like, “I’ve never seen so many siege engines in one place”, but until recently I’d never seen any, so that kind of rings hollow.

As for the ocean…I don’t even know how to begin to describe it. It’s majestic. It makes me feel small and inconsequential. It’s also terrifyingly large. There’s just…nothing there but water as far as you can see.

I could watch it for hours.

We’re currently in Veldraine. It’s an old and beautiful city, and the second-largest city in this part of Varisia. It’s a navy town to its core and the military here is responsible for the defense of Conqueror’s Bay, which means they are the naval defense for Korvosa. We stayed here a full day to stock up on supplies and do some research in their libraries, among other activities.

I specifically used the time to connect with my Aunt Esma. It took a while to find her home—you try finding your way in a city this size when it’s your first time in a city this size—and it was a bit awkward at first because I was showing up unannounced (well, that and she’d not seen me since I was a toddler, and I had to give her a letter from dad to get that whole “Who are you?” thing out of the way) but she graciously invited me in and even offered to let me stay with her that night instead of at the inn we had chosen.

Also, she called me “Bel”. I’ve made a mental note to visit her more often.

I got to see the old letters and diaries of my great-great-grandmother Galeriana, which was pretty amazing just on its own. I’m not known for being book-smart, but I can take notes and do research when I’m motivated, and I was motivated. Aunt Esma was surprisingly supportive of the idea of trying to find the dragon Galeriana had, um, been intimate with. Her logic was, if he spent a lot of time among humans, as a human, and spent enough time with my grandmother to, uh, have this romance, then that says something about his temperament. “Just don’t ask him for money when you find him.”

I couldn’t tell if that was a joke or not. I still can’t. So I’m just going to assume it’s not.

Speaking of dragons, we asked about Ilthane at every stop. No one seemed to know her by name, but there were plenty of stories about a black dragon with encounters and sightings going back several years, and ranging all the way from here to the Storval Plateau. Not directly helpful, but interesting.

In Veldraine, we also learned about an upcoming event in Korvosa called the Champion Games. It’s some sort of pseudo-friendly gladitorial thing that attracts competitors from Varisia and beyond. It was all the locals could talk about, really, which I guess isn’t surprising given the military influence here. What was surprising, and this took us a bit to piece together, was that those adventurer types we saw back in Diamond Lake (the ones that mistakenly thought the Stirgenest Cairn held anything of value) have actually been in the Games, themselves.

Odds are good, I suppose, that we’ll be seeing more of them.

Starday, Desnus 21 (night)

After dealing with a knot of aggressive boggards mid-day, we reached the fort this evening. It was not the celebratory welcome of our triumphant return that we were expecting.

From the top of the tower, one of the soldiers called out, “Quarantine! Quarantine! Keep your distance!”

The Captain answered back, “This is your commanding officer, soldier! What is your status?”

The status was, the worm-infested, undead monstrosity that was their previous battlemage had broken out of its makeshift prison. Several soldiers were unaccounted for. They had blocked off the stairwell to the bottom level, and at least two were known to be down there with it.

Zhog turned to us and asked, “So do we just take care of this problem?”

It was clear the soldiers weren’t able to manage it. Zhog suggested that Marzen and Captain Alezar stay outside as a last line of defense in case we fail. The Captain agreed, and so we shut the door behind us, prepared defensive spells and some magical enhancements, and descended into the keep.

There were four soldiers down there with it and all had been turned into similar worm-infested zombies. Two ascended the stairs when we removed the makeshift blockade, and we engaged them on the main level. Each projected a sort of aura of panic-inducing fear (both Varin and Sera fell victim to this and fled upstairs), and if that wasn’t enough, they were literally throwing their worms at us, presumably to infect us, as well. All of these distractions made it difficult to truly gang on up on them. And if that wasn’t enough of a challenge, their wounds were healing as we fought, albeit slowly.

We destroyed those, but had to descend to the lower level of the keep to deal with the remaining three, as they didn’t want to cooperate by coming to us. This was more of the same, just in much tighter quarters.

Once all of them were destroyed, I headed outside to give them the update on the immediate crisis. Zhog called out after me, “Tell Marzena I’m okay! I don’t want her to worry about me.” Um. What?

I headed outside and spoke to the captain and Marzena. “All five of them are dead…again.”

The conversation turned to their long-term prospects, which were honestly not good. Down more than half their numbers, they were worried about another lizardfolk attack.

To say they were skeptical of this cease-fire we had negotiated would be an understatement. There was even less faith in the proposal for a long-term treaty. “And what if they break their agreement and attack?” someone asked. I wanted to say, “They were thinking the same thing about us,” but wisely didn’t. Instead, I took a different approach to help them understand the machinations at work here.

“This is the basic problem. These worms are popping up everywhere, and everyone is blaming anyone they can find. The lizardfolk saw them and blamed us, and then we got attacked and blamed them, but what we’ve learned is that neither side is responsible. There seems to be a black dragon named Ilthane that started all of it.”

Captain Alezar didn’t know Ilthane by name, but he’d heard rumors of a black dragon terrorizing this region for quite some time. Which sounded too much like a coincidence to be a coincidence.

“We’re still cleaning up down there,” I said. “We’ll let you know when it’s safe to come back in.” We agreed we should scan the tower, one level at a time, to make sure there were no more surprises.

I headed back downstairs. When I saw Zhog I said, “She didn’t ask about you.”

Um. I am not sure why I did that. I mean, I feel kind of bad about it now? But, Marzena is, uh, quite a bit older than him—again, old enough to be my mom, and I’m four or five years older than Zhog—and I don’t want to see him get hurt, I guess. I don’t know. Maybe I’m reading this all wrong.

It’s late, so we’re spending the night here before heading back to Diamond Lake. Marzena is coming with us to speak with Allustan, and she’s agreed to accompany us to Korvosa as well so she can advocate for a long-term peace treaty with the lizardfolk.

I’m keeping my eye on you, lady.

Moonday, Desnus 23 (morning)

We spent the night at the farmhouse again, which to our surprise was holding a group of soldiers that had fled from the keep when the worm-infested zombie broke free. Marzena scolded them gently last night, and convinced them to return to the Keep. “I am sure the Captain will understand given the unusual circumstances.”

Hopefully, she’s not sleeping with all of them, too.

When I saw Zhog I could tell that something was very wrong. He looked off and was having trouble concentrating. I used a spell and determined that, yes, there was some illness running through him that was fogging his mind and draining his stamina. It didn’t feel like worms, so it was probably something he picked up in the marsh. Given our timing, it might have come from the boggards or the giant toad they had with them. Viore use a spell to end the illness and keep it from getting worse, but it would still take time for him to recover.

(evening)

Our return to Diamond Lake was not the triumphant return we were expecting, either.

We headed straight for Allustan’s, and after he and Marzena geeked out in the lab for an hour or so, he sat down with us.

“Balabar got released pending trial. It pays to have money and power in a town like this.” He looked at Zhog and said, “I don’t know how welcome your uncle would be to see you again. Word on the street is that he declared himself the owner of that bar he managed for Smenk.

“I think Balabar’s days in this town are numbered, but I don’t know what he might be capable of. All of you should keep a low profile.”

Damn it! This problem just will not go away.

Zhog was, very reasonably, concerned about his relationship with Kullen. “Why would my uncle be mad at me?”

“I don’t know how he feels about this after this shake-up,” Allustan said. “I think he’s broken with Smenk. And I know Smenk blames all of you. I don’t know how feels about it. Maybe he’s fine with you, maybe he’s not. I’m just warning you is all.”

Basically it came down to this: we didn’t know where we stood with Kullen, and Smenk’s people (and those loyal to him) might not be above jumping us if we made it convenient for them to do so. Allustan offered for us to spend the night at his home while we work out what to do.

In the meantime, he has suggested we travel to Korvosa—which we were going to do anyway—to meet with a colleague of his named Eligos. There were two reasons for that. The first is that Eligos was talking about some event happening soon in Korvosa and a need for exotic animals, and it turns out he is very interested in an owlbear chick. So that’s at least one less problem on our hands. The second was that Eligos is also a scholar and wants to look at all the notes we’ve gathered on the Ebon Triad and these worms. Allustan is going to write everything up nice for him and we’d just take the bundle with us. That sounds like a good plan to me.

Marzena had some ideas as well. She says she can make an oil from the crushed worms we have which can be used to coat a weapon and make it particularly harmful to worm-based undead. The potency will fade after an hour. The other option is to make a foul-smelling paste that can protect an individual’s skin from the worms, themselves. This is less interesting to us as a whole because of our collective abilities, but it’s still an entry on the “good to know” list.

Toilday, Desnus 24, 4722 (afternoon)

This business with Smenk has us concerned, so we decided to assess the situation. As discreetly as we could, we slipped out into town to learn what we could. I stopped by mom and dad’s.

“Belessandralena!” mom said when she answered the door. Ugh. Why does she do this? “I am glad you made it back OK.”

She let me in. Dad was at work so it was just the two of us. And I could tell something was wrong right away.

“Mom. Did something happen while I was gone?”

“Someone came to the house trying to find you. They wanted to ask you about some investigation they were pursuing.”

“Was it one of the deputies?”

“No, it wasn’t. And they didn’t say where they were from when I asked. They just repeated that it was important that they talk to you. I told them you don’t live here, and that I didn’t know where to find you. Then they got pretty belligerent, and your father got involved and asked them to leave.

“What’s going on Belessandralena? Does this have to do with this business with Smenk?”

Fuck!

I stopped by my flat—the lease is good until the end of the month—and, sure enough, someone had broken in. Nothing was missing (not that there was a lot to take) but it had been searched.

When we met back up later, it was the same story everywhere. Someone was looking for Sera at her parents’ inn. And while we were out, someone showed up at Allustan’s, trying to find “his old apprentice”. Which is pretty damned gutsy, if you ask me.

Obviously, this could not stand. I couldn’t move against Smenk on my own, but if he took a shot at us? If he tried something? Then I sure as hell was going to hit back. Abadar may forbid vigilantism, but there’s no rule against making yourself into bait.

It was time to meet with Kullen.

(late night)

Viktor, Sera, Zhog and I found Kullen at his home after nightfall. He grunted at Zhog, then let us in.

“You caused a heap of trouble in this town, boy.”

Zhog beamed. “And you’re now a bar owner, unc!”

“Didn’t say I didn’t profit from it.”

“He’s gonna want his bar back.”

“He can try.”

“Or we can take him off the board. Me and my friends don’t take kindly to being threatened. We’re ready to jump, but she,” he said, pointing at me, “has to wait until we get hit. It’s a code. And I respect her code. But when he hits, we’re hitting back. We just need to know what we’re up against.”

“His life in town has changed a bit, but in the long run he may pull through, may even keep control of his mine. But I’m not inclined to be in his employ anymore. I can…maybe divulge where he’s hidin’ out. And what you do with that info is not my business.”

“To those folks you know, that are ‘in the loop’. You tell them, all my friends’ families? If they mess with them, it’s a death sentence.”

Kullen stared at Zhog for a while. This wasn’t the same Zhog that he knew from just a couple of weeks ago.

“Where you stayin’ so I can get word to you?”

“We’re not staying anywhere,” Zhog answered. “I’ll come to you.”

Wealday, Desnus 25 (evening)

We made the trek out to the house and back. Someone had been there while we were gone, though nothing was damaged more than it already was.

Zhog dropped by to see Kullen, and learned that Smenk and the remainder of his crew are hanging out at the abandoned mine near the observatory. Next to the entrance is the ruin of an old building, and that’s where we’ll find them.