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After breaking our fast, we broke up the theological debate and collected everyone. Our party of twenty trooped over to the temple, keeping the thieves in front with a great deal of effort. We arrived, and Jack made Wiseguy knock. He did let him use his other hand, I noticed. An acolyte answered the door, took one look at the crowd, and attempted to slam the door. Wiseguy blocked the door with his foot, pulled his knife (with his off hand), and slashed at the acolyte. The acolyte went down with a grunt, an arterial spurt of blood at his neck, and dropped dead at Wiseguy's feet. We were all surprised, but Wiseguy looked shocked. Whipple, Boss and Wiseguy all started yammering. Wiseguy was pleased with himself, but Boss denigrated his accomplishment, saying Wiseguy wasn't that good. Something must be wrong with the god. Whipple argued with him, asking what could be wrong with the god that he'd pay so little attention to an acolyte guarding the entrance of the god's temple. Boss didn't know, but he stuck to his point, saying only a god asleep on the job would let anyone like them attack an acolyte and kill him with a single blow. Leroy cleared his throat and pointed out that while it was a mortal wound, the acolyte wasn't dead, but was bleeding to death on the ground. The thieves were heartened by their success, whatever the reason for it, and proceeded into the temple. They sloshed through the large and increasing puddle of fresh blood pumping from the acolyte. With greater concern for effects on their footwear, Jack and Leroy leaned around and over the prone acolyte and peered through the door. Straightening up again, they posted Joe, Marion and Irvish as outside watch. They extracted a stained cloth from a pack Jack had brought with him. The acolyte was now dead. Blood still seeped from the cut, but it no longer pulsed. The unfolded the cloth and dropped it over the shallowest part of the area in front of the door and stepped gingerly through into the temple. The rest of us followed. It's one thing to be splattered with blood; it's entirely another thing to slosh through it ankle deep when you don't have to. Flies love the stuff, even after it's mostly dry.
The temple was rectangular, with an altar at the far end, and rows of seats in the middle. We were entering through a door at the rear. The thieves were exploring the decorations along the walls, picking up anything obviously silver, gold, inlaid or encrusted with jewels. Some were already having trouble carrying everything they'd picked up, and a few had stopped to extract carrying bags and were rearranging their booty. Jack and Leroy gestured at some of the benches at the back of the temple, and most of us sat down to watch for what would happen next. We'd discussed this earlier, and concluded that letting the thieves attract all the initial attention couldn't hurt, and might help a lot. A minor argument broke out between Rushi, Mervish and Dervish. Astrea was attempting to remain above the fray, but couldn't resist the temptation to periodically insert a snide remark. It sounded like a continuation of their earlier debate about Squiddie's place in the larger community of gods, and the implications of the ease with which the acolyte had been killed. Rushi was certain my presence had something to do with it, and that there was no evidence the god was asleep, unconscious or even particularly weakened. The rest were divided between believing other gods were monopolizing Squiddie's attention and resources, or Squiddie being out of action still from his previous attack on us in Artana. No one made any effort to shush them, so I didn't either. Jack and Leroy moved further forward in an effort to watch for anyone entering from one of the doors on the sides of the raised platform on which the altar stood. They were trying to avoid stepping on or in the blood and gore the thieves had tracked in. Ivan and Mauser followed them, and after a moment, I followed also.
One of the points the theology club had debated the other night and tonight was whether or not Squiddie's temple was consecrated in a way that benefited the god or his followers. From what little I understood of the ongoing debate, what had not yet been addressed by either of the orcs, Astrea or Rushi, was whether tracking an acolyte's blood all over the temple would defile the temple, assuming it was consecrated in the first place. It struck me as a useful point to have an answer to, but the debaters were at it so hard and fast I couldn't get a word in, never mind an entire question.
An acolyte entered from the door to the left of the platform, stopped abruptly, then ducked back to the room he'd come from, just in time to avoid being hit by a dagger one of the thieves threw at him. I think it was Whipple, but I'm not sure. Jack and Leroy backed up, herding Ivan and Mauser with them. When they got to me, they stopped. I asked them my question about all the blood and the effect it might have on consecrated ground. Jack whistled, and Leroy looked thoughtful. Then they both grinned horribly, and sat down on one of the benches. They gestured for Ivan, Mauser and me to join them, Jack saying, "Sit down! The show's about to start."
The acolyte returned, with a man dressed the way Rushi had when she was still a follower of Squiddie, from which I concluded he was a priest. He scanned the room, giving Whipple ample time to pull out a dagger and throw it at him. The priest put his hand out, and the dagger bounced back after getting within about three feet of him. The thieves that noticed this (a lot were involved in continuing to loot and pack the contents of the temple) backed up, and reached for weapons. The priest ranted for a while, calling us defilers of holy ground, infidels deserving of a horrible, painful and slow death, who would, following that death, be tortured forever for our hostility to the only true god. When he named that god, we all flinched, but nothing else happened. The priest followed up his sermon with an invocation, the gist of which was that Squiddie should get that horrible, painful and slow death for us going right now, that latter bit emphasized with a series of complicated gestures, ending with outstretched arms, spread fingers, all pointed in our general direction.
Nothing happened.
We weren't overly surprised, but the thieves were a little confused, and the priest was appalled. He must have thought he'd done something wrong, or didn't believe what had not happened, because he proceeded to do the whole thing over again. I don't mean only the invocation -- I mean the sermon, this time longer, more detailed and more threatening. All our families and friends, wherever they might be, would also die a similar death. Everyone who had ever done business with us, or assisted us in any way, if they had not since converted to the one true faith, would also die a similar death. The earth was going to open up and swallow our mutilated and decapitated bodies, and then spew them forth in many very small pieces. Frogs would rain down on our places of residence. Locusts would eat the crops of our homeland. The rivers of our country of birth would flow with blood, and be covered with flies as far as the eye could see. Plagues would break out around every house we'd ever lived in, producing blisters, pustules and killing everyone who had contact with the victims. The priest was thorough, imaginative, and had training in how to do this. When he'd concluded, but before he'd launched into the invocation, the thieves and our party spontaneously broke out into applause. Even Rushi, Mervish, Dervish and Astrea had stopped arguing long enough to listen attentively. Rushi wolf-whistled and hollered "woo hoo hoo!". The priest turned bright red, and then purple, and roared out the invocation at a volume that caused us all to cover our ears. The walls echoed, and even the thieves took a break from detaching tapestries from the walls to stuff bits of cotton rag into their ears before proceeding.
Again, nothing happened. This time, the priest was physically exhausted from the effort of condemning us all to the worst fate he could think of on the spot. He sat down on the platform. The acolyte, seeing all this happen, or rather not happen, took off running. We didn't see him again, from which I conclude that he didn't stop running until he was well out of town in a direction we did not travel. Whipple, Wiseguy and Boss started debating what to do about the priest. The priest glared at them. After convincing Whipple that killing the priest outright was unnecessary, Boss and Wiseguy asked the priest what was wrong with his god. The priest kept glaring at them, and crossed his arms. Boss went up to the priest, and slapped him across the face a few times. The priest tried to trip Boss up. Boss kicked the priest over onto his side, and kicked him in the groin, the belly and, after the priest curled up, in the lower back. Wiseguy pulled Boss back, and leaned over to uncurl the priest. The priest vomited on Wiseguy's bloodied shoes, which were already coated with assorted filth from traveling. Wiseguy kicked the priest a few more times, and wiped his shoes off on the priest's vestments. Jack hollered to Wiseguy that he might as well do a thorough job cleaning his shoes while he was at it. Wiseguy peered out into the hall. I think he was trying to tell whether Jack was serious. Whatever Wiseguy might have decided, he stopped wiping his shoes on the priest's clothes, and asked the priest what had happened to the god. The priest wheezed out an answer, which Wiseguy repeated to the rest of the thieves: "We haven't heard from him in almost three weeks." Boss asked if other gods had attacked or otherwise occupied his god. The priest said no. Wiseguy asked if the god was dead. The priest said he didn't think so. Boss asked if they knew why the god was unconscious or possibly dead. The priest had no idea.
Mervish, Dervish, Astrea and Rushi picked their way up the aisle past where we were sitting. The thieves were continuing to pick the place clean, occasionally bringing scrolls, books and anything else with writing on it to Jack and Leroy for inspection. Jack and Leroy asked Rushi to stay with them to help read and interpret. Mervish, Dervish and Astrea continued up to the stage. They got answers to some of their questions, but nothing that obviously answered the important question: could we quit worrying about Squiddie, or did we still have to stick together and find a way to permanently eliminate him as a threat. I should write "them", after what Mervish and Dervish learned, but the old man with a beard image of Squiddie is compelling, even though the heads-on-tentacles should have clued us in earlier. Squiddie is actually a collective entity, and it is possible that Squiddie can be broken down into individuals capable of independent action. The priest did not know whether Squiddie was one powerful individual, with slaves attached, or a collection of more or less equal individuals more powerful together.
The thieves delegated Dopey and Bludgeon to find the local stable and rent an additional cart. They returned after about an hour, and the thieves spent the rest of the night packing their booty into the cart. They arranged to hawk some of it locally, under the watchful eyes of Ivan and Leroy, while Mauser and I stood watch and everyone else slept. We maintained a watch for the rest of the day, and traveled east the following night with the thieves. They were docile, agreeing to share the proceeds from the booty that was sold, whether in Twessol, Woodven or Artana. All but Rushi were skeptical, but we were confident we could keep an eye on the thieves. As it happens, they were confident we could keep an eye on them, and made no serious effort to cheat us.
Our return trip to Artana was uneventful, and the contents of the Twessol temple, excepting written materials, were unloaded at a series of pawn shops. The thieves, in my opinion, chose the seediest, which invariably gave the biggest discount to value. I initially believed the thieves would be receiving a kickback from the owners, thereby getting more than their fair share, but when Jack and Leroy insisted on picking the shops to sell the more valuable pieces at, the thieves were incredulous at the amount of money we received. From this I conclude that thieves were not very good thieves, at any part of thieving. This supports Jack's contention, which he states at every possible opportunity, and which Leroy consistently supports him in, that criminals are stupid.
We spent the entire two days of travel, when we weren't stuck in some shop unloading booty from Squiddie's temple, arguing about whether or not Squiddie was dead. Squiddie did not weigh in with an opinion during the two days. Because no one would shut up and leave me alone for more than five minutes in a row during those two days, I did not get around to writing a description of the events until after our return to Artana. Once in Artana, I was continuously pestered during my attempts to write by various members of the party, thief or otherwise, wanting to make sure I didn't forget anything. Even now, Jack is sitting on one side of me, sloshing beer onto my shirt and paper, reminding me that I still haven't said what happened to the priest in Twessol. Leroy is sitting on the other side of me, trying to get me to include the lover's quarrel between Ivan and Mauser, and how Astrea eventually got them to kiss and make up, and how none of the three have been seen all night. Leroy thinks this is funny. I think it is not relevant to the chronicle. It's Ivan's and Mauser's business, and not anyone else's, and Leroy can point out all he likes that I implied early on that he spent the night with Vira, when he most emphatically did not. I report what I see, and at the time, I did not know anyone in the party, except Jack, and him not well. Describing the behavior of the other players in the tale was critical to making sense of a nonsensical journey with no goal or destination, across a featureless countryside, through a series of minor towns and cities.
As long as Ivan and Mauser continue to be able to function in daylight, no one really cares what they might or might not be doing with Astrea's assistance. However, it is nice to not have the two dwarves glaring at each other and sharpening their axes. I found that disconcerting.
Jack has now gotten Leroy to help convince me to write about what happened to the priest. I, personally, find what happened to the priest distasteful. Here was a poor unsuspecting worshiper of an admittedly nasty, hostile, up to no good god, trying to help out a little, sending a few criminals off to steal back the property of his co-religionists. What happens, but the people who have the property subvert the criminals, and send them back to cause a little trouble. Worse yet, god is off napping, in a coma or dead, so when the present owners of the property in question arrive, all attempts to dispose of them fail. The priest, named Abiram, gets kicked by the above mentioned criminals, with feet coated in the blood of his recently deceased acolyte. Hoping they will go away and leave him alone, Abiram answers all their questions. It's looking good. The thieves wander off to further desecrate the temple by stealing all of its contents, which Abiram had spent years collecting. But then, two orcs and a vampire replace the thieves, continuing to question Abiram in detail about his god. Furthermore, the vampire, feeling a little peckish, has a snack. To add insult to multiple injury (and probably internal bleeding), Astrea then complains that he tastes bad. Once the three have sucked him dry, figuratively speaking only, because Astrea did not care for the flavor at all, they too leave Abiram lying on the platform in front of the altar. Abiram, at this point, must have been feeling hopeful. He might have been thinking he'd live to sacrifice on Squiddie's altar again.
Unfortunately, at about this point, Jack and Leroy had come up with a question for Abiram. "So, Abiram. You've got a lot of nice stuff in this here temple," Jack said, and then paused. "That is, you had a lot of nice stuff in this here temple." Abiram nodded, apprehensive once again. "Where'd'ya get it, Abiram?" The priest barely hesitated. The pounding he'd taken from the thieves, the vampire snacking on him, had all convinced him that quick, truthful answers, however distasteful, were best. "I laid in wait on the roads to Twessol and attacked unsuspecting visitors to town who were dressed well. I killed them. I stole their goods. And to make sure no one ever found out, I sacrificed them on this altar."
Me, if I were Abiram, I would have made something up. Just to fend off later comments by those of my companions who tend to think of themselves as collaborators in this journal, I'll add that my answer to nearly any problem or even small discomfort is to make something up. I would maybe have claimed to have received stolen goods from the bandits up north who also worshipped Squiddie. Jack and Leroy might even have believed that story. Jack says no. Leroy says no. But I would have believed it, and looking back, it's easy to believe one would not be taken in by a plausible lie. But Abiram was no Andy. Abiram told the truth. Jack and Leroy asked for details about how the sacrifice was performed, and Abiram gave them. Then Jack and Leroy took Abiram, and did what Abiram had described to Abiram. They let me not watch, but they wouldn't let me leave the hall, in case Squiddie decided to finally take an interest in what was going on in his, I mean their, temple.
I refuse to include the details of that sacrifice. Jack insists that I mention that I refused to believe that the heart could be extracted by hand from between the two columns of ribs, before it stopped bleeding. I've mentioned it. I'm done now. This religion is horrible. It should be stopped. Its focus should die. I think we've covered the motivation for this adequately. Not everyone needs to know the gory details of making it stop.
A careful reader might wonder what the local forces for law and order in Twessol or surrounding towns might think of twenty people of assorted races and genders descending on three clergy members in their own temple, killing one outright, chasing a second away, and slowly sacrificing the third on their own altar. I know I wondered. I got to thinking that while I had some sort of protection against Squiddie, I didn't have comparable protection against the local constabulary, unless you count Jack and Leroy. Jack says that they should be counted, as should the other seventeen members of the group. He says, "We are twenty armed people wandering the countryside. Few are the forces for law and order that care to tangle with us. While this might sound like a might makes right argument, remember that Artana banned this religion in the city, and for two day's travel surrounding it. This temple is, or was, in Twessol largely because Twessol wasn't able to make it go away, and Artana didn't care to enforce anything more than two days away. Remember that when we left Twessol, representatives of every family in town, and from many of the surrounding farms, came to see us and give us food and traveling gifts, and remind us that we were always welcome in their town." Leroy says I should also mention that Twessol will be placing a permanent monument in memory of our historic victory over the evil temple of Squiddie. I'm not sure which is worse: taking dictation from my traveling companions or putting up with their terrible handwriting after the fact, not to mention the patronizing remarks and slurs on my personal integrity.
I still think that we could have killed the priest cleanly and quickly and called it good. That hour and a half on the altar made a mess of everyone's clothes, and forced us to stay another day and night, just to get everything cleaned up.
The next three days in Artana were spent visiting a variety of sages, gurus and professors who might know something about Tzika, or know someone else who did. We pieced together more of her activities after traveling south, and identified three towns and two cities further south where we should be able to learn more. Jack wants me to spend more time with Joe, trying to figure out what kind of enchantments, spells and sorcery I can hear. Leroy was using a charm to convince the thieves to travel west to Twessol, and that made my ears itch. However, until Joe returns to human form, communication is difficult. In the interim, Leroy is teaching me sign language, so we'll be able to work together even while Joe is a bear. Joe's powers are also much stronger while he's a bear, and waiting until he's a human hampers his abilities to detect what I'm able to detect. Ivan and Mauser did not become vampires. The thieves continued east. We think they did not depart with any of our belongings. I returned Wiseguy's journal to him.
The next night, I woke up after a series of terrifying dreams of Squiddie. I should say, I was awakened. I was drenched with sweat, and my room was lit. Jack, Leroy and Astrea were surrounding my bed, and the rest of the room was crowded with our other traveling companions and Elizabeth. Many hugs, and a great deal of reassurances were administered to me before I was capable of answering any questions.
Elizabeth brought me some of Donald's chicken rice soup, and a cup of hot tea with honey in it. I thanked her, hoarsely, after I finished drinking them. I asked how she knew I would need them, and Astrea explained to me that everyone had been awakened by intermittent screaming over the last hour, and for the past ten minutes, I'd been screaming continuously. I expressed disbelief that I would not have awakened under the circumstances. Leroy explained that I was impossible to awaken until Joe had cast a series of spells that left him exhausted, so tired he could no longer sit up, much less stand. I asked if Elizabeth had given him soup as well, and she said yes, also a pint of jam, some bread and two whole fish. Leroy said he did not understand what exactly Joe had done, and Joe had not succeeded in communicating it to him. The group as a whole was interested in what I remembered of my dreams. I signed to Leroy that I'd rather write the dream down, and have it read out loud to the group, as we would want a record anyway, and I was having a lot of trouble talking. He agreed, and told everyone else.
My dreams had initially been calm. I was underwater, diving deeper and deeper. I had no trouble breathing underwater in the dream, but as I dove down further and further, a feeling of unbearable pressure developed. I tried to return to the surface, not out of a panicky need for air, but because of the pressure. I was unable to swim up. In water, I am buoyant. I can't easily remain submerged, but in the dream, it was as if I was weighted down by bricks. With effort, I could remain at a given level, but I could not return to the surface.
I realized in the dream, that it was a dream. I usually know that I am dreaming, and can control the contents of my dreams when they take a turn for the worse. This time was different. Finding that I could not return to the surface, I attempted to wake up. I could not. As I struggled, to return to the surface within the dream, or return to the waking world, my dream changed.
Now, I was on a scoured plain. Winds whistled across the ground, whipping the few loose particles of dust through the air with a force that made them cut when they crossed my skin. The winds were not in one direction, but rather circular, with me at the center, tightening around me, until I was pressed on all sides by the wind, scratched by dust, and hoarse from trying to breathe through it. I struggled to escape the bizarre storm, and also to waken. Again, my dream changed.
This time, I was in a cave, not shallow like the ones we stayed in when crossing the northern mountains, but deep. My eyes had adjusted to the dark, and I had a small candle with me. The passage I was in was narrow, and low-ceilinged. As I walked through it, towards what I thought was a light, and with luck, an outlet, it narrowed further and further. I stopped, recognizing the pattern again, and tried to turn around and wake up. The cave collapsed around me. It did not collapse as rocks, but rather as loose dirt and sandy dust, pressing in on me. I kept trying to dig through it, and to wake up. Finally, I awoke in my room at the inn.
Rather, I thought I awoke in my room at the inn, but the dream had changed once again. I smelled smoke, and got up to investigate, to tell the others and get outside. The door to my room would not open. It wasn't locked, but it wouldn't open. I went to the window, but it, too, was stuck shut. I tried to break through the shutters, but could not, as the smoke increased, and I was forced to the floor in an effort to breathe. The smoke took on a physical quality, pressing on my skin as well as filling my lungs, and again, I struggled to wake up. Instead, I passed out.
What does it mean to become unconscious in a dream? It felt like my body was being poked at, as if a healer were trying to find the source of the wound which caused me to fall into coma. Then I was wrapped in blankets, tightly, pressing into me. I tried to struggle against them, but even then I knew that my efforts were purely in my head, not in my body. I tried to call out, but no sound came from my mouth. I tried to scream, and, in the dream, that too was useless.
The next recollection, was of wakening, with an agonizingly sore throat, concerned friends, and the fragrant smell of chicken soup.
The entire room was silent, except for Leroy's stilted reading of what I wrote, as I wrote it. When I finished, everyone remained silent for a moment, to see if more was forthcoming. When they realized the description of the dream was complete, everyone started talking at once. Mostly, they wanted to ask Joe what exactly he had done. For that matter, I wanted to ask Joe. I tugged on Leroy's sleeve, and asked him in a whisper where Joe was. Leroy told me, and I crawled out of bed. I immediately fell to the floor. Astrea caught me, and with some assistance from Leroy and Joe, put me back into bed. More tea was brought to me. Leroy went to get Joe.
Joe came in, supported by Leroy, Jack, Ivan and Mauser. I scooted over on my bed, and Joe laid down beside me. I've never snuggled up with a bear before. I recommend it, especially after a series of horrible nightmares. There's something about hugging a warm, furry bear to make one feel that all is right with the world, and that what isn't right will be clawed to death before it reaches one. In reality, Leroy, Jack and Astrea are more effective against Evil Incarnate, but Joe is more comforting. Also, in this particular instance, Joe had saved me once tonight already. Joe signed to me that he had placed wards around the inn, once he had realized that I was under attack. The wards had been washed away immediately in a freak rainstorm that dropped buckets of water on the inn, but no other building. We were, after all, up against a weather god. He had next drawn sigils of protection in the air around the building. He'd seen the faint tracery of the sigils knit together, then wind devils circled the building, disrupting all of his work. Joe does not give up easily. He next dug a trench around the building, running an enchanted string through the trench. I gather it would have put up a circle of protection of some kind. An earthquake disrupted the trench, snapping the string in two places.
Joe had started all this before I started screaming, when Rushi was awakened by a claustrophobic feeling of fear, and the noise of me thrashing around in bed. She'd watched me briefly, attempted to rouse me, and then gone for help. By the time of the earthquake, everyone else was awake, I'd been slapped several times, shaken, and splashed with cold water. I wasn't drenched with sweat, after all. Shortly after the quake, I started screaming, at first calling out warnings to everyone else to wake up, then begging for help to escape from my room. Jack had picked me up and taken me out into the hall, but I kept begging for help to escape my room, so he brought me back.
Joe, meanwhile, had gathered up a number of candles, and placed them inside the windows on the ground floor of the inn, and placed the wards on the candles themselves. Freak drafts burst through cracks around the windows and extinguished them all.
Joe was now out of ideas. He'd tried every kind of protective spell he knew, and he was dangerously low on energy. At Jack's request, he'd expended the last of his power on a word, more like a bark, of command at me, to wake up. And I did. Or rather, I quit begging to escape, opened my eyes, stopped screaming, and gave absolutely no sign of being able to see, hear or feel anything. For a moment, they thought I was dead, but when they checked, I was still breathing. About twenty minutes after that, I started screaming again, and ten minutes later, I stopped, and came back to consciousness.
I thanked Joe for the explanation, which was lucid, and which I could understand despite the babbling going on in the room. We snuggled together for comfort, and I thought. Eventually, I fell asleep again, and did not dream, or waken, for the rest of the night and most of the next day. When I did wake up, my room was empty, except for Marion, who was stretched out next to me, watching me. When she saw I was awake, she padded out. In her absence, I got up, and found fresh clothes. Elizabeth came in with some food on a tray, and I ate. I went to bathe, and then downstairs to find out whether anything had happened during my long sleep.
Basically, nothing had, except a lot of argument about what the events of the previous night meant. Everyone agreed, I was glad to note, that we had indeed been under attack from Squiddie, that Squiddie was a force to worry about, and that we could not afford to split up and assume our troubles would all go away by themselves. I asked if anyone had thought to worry about the thieves, and received blank looks all around. I asked if that meant no one cared what happened to them, or they thought Squiddie wouldn't be interested in them, or they figured no loss either way. Everyone nodded. I gave that up as a useless conversation to pursue.
The party was divided as to what the next reasonable course of action was. Ivan and Mauser thought we should go back north to Juliana, to see if she could protect us better. Joe and Marion thought that Juliana might be able to help some, but not enough, and that going north was going the wrong way to solve the problem. Joe in particular felt that Juliana might well send them packing, as she wouldn't want the god's attention attracted to her. Rushi wanted to hire or buy people or items in Artana that would protect us. We asked her what she had in mind, and she said, "You know. Amulets." Elizabeth hid a smile behind a raised mug. No one else was as polite. Mervish and Dervish wanted to visit a number of temples, and solicit assistance from other gods in dealing with Squiddie. They felt a case could be made that Squiddie was out of control. I said the other gods were not likely to look kindly on a bunch of people who thought nothing of desecrating a temple and sacrificing a priest on his own altar. Mervish said they wouldn't mind as long as it wasn't one of theirs. Irvish, Ivan, Mauser, Jack and Leroy all wanted to travel south in search of Tzika. They believed that while soliciting the assistance of other gods might prove necessary, Artana was not the best town to engage in that kind of activity. Most of the major gods with weather or war powers had no temple in Artana, or only a minor shrine. I backed them up, and we spent the rest of the day packing. Elizabeth was happy to see us move on, at least until the attentions of Squiddie were safely diverted, preferably permanently.
We did not let Andy help pack. We sent her back to bed, with Joe to keep an eye on her, and get more rest himself.
I wish Jack would quit adding to this record. It breaks the flow and consistency of the narration. As he noted, Joe and I were packed off to bed to get more sleep. The rest of the party prepared for traveling the next evening. In addition to packing, Rushi and Leroy bought space on a southbound barge on the river Apha, out of Roneport, the port town a few hours east of Artana.
The barges which ply Apha travel north and south. The current on Apha, at its most energetic, is sluggish. Day in and day out, it is nearly impossible to tell which direction is downstream. Barges towed by mules, donkeys or other pack animals along the bank move produce up and down the river, from Artana, to points south of the Arcanae. We had no immediate plans to travel further south than the Arcanae, and intended to stop along the way to discover more about the recent history and, hopefully, present whereabouts of Tzika. I had known we could travel by barge, but was nevertheless surprised to discover we would, especially since Mauser was by now fully recovered from her grievous wounds. Astrea explained that after Squiddie's attack, no one in the party wanted Joe or me anything but fully rested, all the time. I replied that if we didn't get any exercise, we'd ultimately have less energy. Astrea said that was unlikely to occur in a series of single night trips down the Apha. Also, I could exercise on deck if I felt a need.
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Copyright Rebecca Allen, 1999.
Created: July 8, 2012 Updated: July 8, 2012