diary

[cellio]

August 26, addendum

Atthay astynay ittlelay oopsnay! Ilekay ashay eenbay eadingray imay iaryday!

Oh never mind. That is way too much trouble. Maybe what I need is a lock. Or, if he's going to read my diary and violate the trust of our little group, there's probably nothing I can do about it so maybe I shouldn't try. I mean, he's pretty good with locks, or so he says.

I've really only known these people for a few weeks. What was I thinking, leaving home with perfect strangers? Oh well; what's done is done. Liandra seems like a nice person, and as the only other woman in our little gang is worth getting to know better. I mean, there are some things I just could never share with Turok or Colm, much as I like them, let alone the shorties. And *Liandra* has never tried to shoot me or snoop!

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August 27 (Friday)

Last night I tried to figure out what the cloak and potion we got from the kobolds are, but no luck. I'm tempted to just put the cloak on and see what happens, but I'm not sure. No one else seems to be that interested, so I'm hanging onto it.

We're running low on herbs for Liandra's tea. We went back in today, hoping to find the source of the plague once and for all. We did -- it was a nasty orc cleric -- but not before he wore us down with a bunch of zombies, which were really gross. We tried to use range weapons as much as possible, but Turok ended up fighting a bunch with his sword and that didn't stop Prolix from firing a crossbow into the fray. Our first damage was from "friendly" fire, in fact. Though given the way Prolix has been behaving, I'm not sure how friendly he is. After all the screwing around he does, wasting time and announcing our presence all around, *he* actually threatened to shoot *us* if we didn't move through the zombie goo and continue on. Sheesh. He barely gave Kyle time to get his dagger back from one of the corpses.

The cleric was really crazy. Deluded, maybe. He was standing on top of a little hill in the middle of a small stream, and the water in the stream was truly foul. It was coming from a fountain at the top of that hill. (Actually, it was coming from the mouth of a dragon head carved into that hill. We weren't able to figure out what was up with that.) Anyway, this cleric kept saying things like "the fire will cleanse us all" and "we need to cleanse this village" and things like that. Funny, he himself didn't look sick -- it was only everything around him. I never did figure out what god he followed. Certainly not one Brion would approve of.

We exchanged spells and missile fire with him. He did something to Turok to frighten him, so he didn't charge like he usually does. Then Kyle climbed up and the cleric cast a darkness spell so none of us could see what was going on. Kyle got hit pretty badly and Liandra went in to try to grope around for him. None of this stopped Prolix from shooting.

Eventually Turok snapped out of it, at least a little. (He wasn't his usual enthusiastic self, but he was willing to fight.) So he went in and we heard lots of fighting and bumping around. (I think Kyle was back in action, too.) This didn't stop Prolix from shooting, either, and he actually shot Turok in the back and knocked him unconscious. Turok fell down the hill and I retrieved him. I've been watching Liandra, so I tried to make the bleeding stop by doing what she does. I left the crossbow bolt in his back, though, because I've heard that pulling things like that out can make things worse. Besides, Turok said later that he wanted to keep it as a reminder. Anyway, I did manage to stop the bleeding, and then I found the healing potion from Brion and poured it down Turok's throat, and that managed to wake him up. It's a credit to Turok's generosity that he did not smoosh the gnome before going in after the cleric again.

Eventually the noises from the dark died down and Turok announced that the cleric was dead. Immediately, the water began to clear. (I *really* wonder what the cleric was doing to cause the poison.) We looted the cleric's body (found some armor and weapons, a couple potions, scrolls that I can't read, and loot) and then staggered back to camp. Some of us went to town to report the good news and then headed back to camp to tend the wounded some more. It sounded like some of the townsfolk were beginning to plan a party. I could go for that.

I hope we're going to stick around here for a few days. Maybe we can find a jeweler to appraise the gems we got from the kobolds and the cleric.