We left Phoenix again after having some suits of Wyvern armor sewn for us. I managed to sell a few wyvern eggs, keeping one for myself to see if they would hatch. I bought myself a donkey and a small cage, and carefully packed the remaining egg into the cage atop the donkey's back and draped a cloth covering over it. Our group assembled outside the inn, and we made our way out of town.

After making it a short distance outside of Phoenix, Mort exploded in a crazy rage claiming that Bullfief had laid claim to 3 Wyvern eggs. I explained that I was not concerned, since Wyverns seemed to be in decent number in the nearby area, and Bullfief could certainly get some at any time he wanted. The strange girl that had gone off with us on our first travels together had already proven that wyvern eggs were easy to come by, if you knew where to look. My response only seemed to anger him more, though... he went on about how soon Phoenix would be crawling with wyverns and wyvern riders, and they would attack fair Tristan. Honestly, if he thinks it is as easy as that, he ought to cool down and think it through... Phoenix is bordered by Silothreni, and they even have a griffin roost in Phoenix. Certainly if they were able to train wyvern mounts, they would already have them -- and perhaps they would, if it wouldn't pull the attention of the Silothreni legions towards their city.

Still, I kept my egg in order to try to hatch it and see how viable training it might be. So far it still hasn't hatched, and it's starting to put off a foul smell -- if it doesn't do something within the next week, I'll toss it.

We continued on, Mort giving me dirty looks the entire way. One night, I awoke to an extreme deep pain in my chest. I looked up to see Mort standing above me, sword in hand. A moment of panic passed through me as I thought that Mort was executing me in my sleep. I then passed out, helpless as a babe.

When I came to, I felt myself being dragged along the ground. I opened my eyes and looked towards whoever was dragging me, and I saw Kess. I looked around to try to get my bearings, and saw Mort slashing his sword towards Crespin, narrowly missing, and Crespin striking back, again barely missing. At first, I thought that perhaps there was a fight between my companions,
outraged at Mort's attempt on my life while he was on watch. I then noticed that there was something hovering in the air between them, some sort of purplish haze. A couple more seconds saw the end of the fight, and Mort came over to me and tossed a bloody arrow my way with a note attached. "There's a message for you," was all he said. Still wounded, I found that I was completely unable to heal myself, nor any of the others. Odd, that.

I opened the message and read something along the lines of "Bring us the book. We have the bull." The book? What book? The only book I had that was of any value is the book I found in the Ancient's castle near Redcliff. And they have the bull?! It is very funny that they think that was the thing of value down there. And I certainly don't have any attachment to the thing. Bah.. they should have recognized a guardian when they saw one. These guys aren't great thinkers, having almost killed me with an arrow shot intended to deliver a message that only I would be able to deliver on... perhaps I might be able to trick them, and get another few months of time. I can feel a lot of power returning to me daily.

The next morning we continued on our way. At one point, we saw a black-robed man up the road from us. I told the party to stay back, and I went ahead. When I got close, the figure told me to give him the book. I dithered, complaining I didn't know which book he meant. He stressed THE book, and told me that if he didn't get it, he would kill all of my companions. So, I went back to my donkey and grabbed the book from Redcliff, and gave it to him, mentioning that it was coded, but he was welcome to it.

After he disappeared, I cast Scryguard on myself. I'll have to remember to do that every day from now on. After that, I gathered my companions together, and we continued down the road. I was determined to get past Mort's self-righteousness, as well as use his bull-headedness to the world's advantage. After Scryguarding him, too, I explained to him the whole story, everything I have been able to uncover, about what they wanted. I explained that the fate of more than Tristan lay in me keeping that secret safe, and that there must have been a good reason that I hadn't destroyed the gate stones in the first place. I explained that it seems that I had wiped my memory intentionally, to wipe the knowledge of the gating spell necessary to open the gate for the Fallen. I explained that I suspect that the spell had misfired... instead of wiping the only the spell from my mind and leaving behind clues for myself to regain that knowledge should it ever become necessary, the only thing that was left were the planted memories. I told Mort that if I am killed, he needs to take my staff and my unicorn statuette, and go to my laboratory in Pangoria, and that it is probably more trapped than the red bull watchtower was.

He seemed to soften a bit after all this explanation, and my oath to him that if Phoenix developed riding wyverns and started preparing them to use in war, I would do everything I could to help overcome them.

The rest of the travels found me thinking deeply about the situation. When I finally came out of my wonderings, I found myself in Silothreni. We found an inn, and I took a room sharing with Lydia. That evening proved to be quite odd, something must be in the water here in Silothreni. Everyone excluding myself (I was still sated from my last drink of pure elemental water, which is why it must be the water), began carousing, with lascivious intent. Even innocent little Lydia seemed to get herself into some trouble accidentally, although I managed to shoo the scallywag away. Crespin was putting the moves on some lady that seemed to have eyes on Mort the entire evening, and Mort ended up leaving with her. Not to be outdone, Crespin managed to get himself downright drunk and picked up some trout of a girl with bulging eyes and took her upstairs. Kess was trying to pick up some winged girl, when Griswold amused himself with a deadly spell of air. Griswold has been acting very strangely lately... had that spell hit wrongly, he could have killed Kess by accident, and it spread slowly throughout the tavern. Instead of cleaning up, he just walked outside with everyone else. As it neared the bar where I sat, I finally had to head upstairs.

The next day held the surprise that Mort had managed to seduce (or be seduced) by a local noblewoman, who in turn offered to help us see the local lord. We met with him, and I turned over the wraith ring. He called on his advisor, who was some mage named Sujo that had several of the others gasping in amazement when he arrived. I don't recall hearing of him before, but he did arrive in style, and was quite impressive. He destroyed the ring right in front of us, and then departed.

After leaving and heading back to the inn, it turned out that there was a festival that night. Everyone started fighting over a couple of communication rings that the lord had provided us to aid us in Mort's quest to save Tristan from a war with Phoenix. After that, everyone split up... presumably out to try to find an amenable companion again. I decided to go out and see the festival myself, and ended up having some Ilian girl asking me to dance. I spent a few hours dancing the night away, and well, one thing led to another, and she asked me back to her room, and I agreed. However, when we made it back to her room, with all the craziness that has occured lately, I just wasn't able to prove to her that a wizard's staff has a knob on the end.

After they were a spec in the sky, Sehrena all of a sudden became very flustered and angry that we had just let Sujo take off with Migos. Apparently she wasn't completely sane yet, but I could sense her power and wasn't about to make that claim to her face. Mort became indignant as well, saying that we had just turned over all our proof that our government needed. As if neither of them had been involved in the whole decision to turn Migos over. Good grief. I suggested that we beat them back to the city, sizing up Sehrena's power and knew she knew how to teleport, given that I'd seen her do it already (the woman was actually thinking of riding back to town! She was definitely not thinking clearly.) Anyways, she teleported us all to the capitol and demanded to see Dathan (by his proper name) as was her right as family. We were expedited to him without all that tier nonsense and time wasting these Silothreni are so into, and managed to talk to him before Sujo arrived. Sehrena explained that she wanted to make sure justice was carried out, and that there was no underhandedness going on, and Mort explained this situation as an official ambassador from the Celestine empire. As such, they let Mort and Griswold lead the questioning of Migos. The rest of us were shown to an interesting listening chamber.

The story that unfolded claimed that the Varu had infiltrated the Labyrinth (that's the group of mages around these parts) and that even now there were agents among the mages. He was even able to identify some of them. At any rate, he was despicable, and was guilty of many, many atrocities that he admitted under questioning. Perhaps most surprising was the way he faked pain when 'prompted', and it turned out that he was a partial vampire. He was executed, and we started working on securing passage home.

While we were in the city, though, I decided that it was just too risky to go around as Schmendrick for now (after an attack aimed at me, but luckily I'd had Darby shroud my room with some holy protection warding). So I assumed a new identity as Stitch, and had the mages there modify my appearance (and cure my beard malady) so that I could better hide from the Varu, and now the demon, hunting me. I am still very diligent in guarding myself against scrying day and night since this time. We travelled to Dagonport and then took passage via a boat back up north.

When we arrived back in Tristan, we warned the authorities about the raiding wraiths. I also headed over to Crespin's to let his family know that he was fine, but was travelling more slowly with the party's goods. I swear his mom looks better every time I see her. After spending a few hours there (thankfully Mort showed up shortly after I did, and did claim to know me, so tensions were eased) - and it was awkward because I realized I couldn't hit on Lily without letting her know who I was, so I had to keep it casual. I left and went to check on Durram to see how he was doing, and discovered that he had a package and note from the seamstress for me. He'd been frequently going into town, so I left my items that create food and oil with him, with instructions to keep out of town as much as possible. I then read the note, and it encouraged me to visit very soon (with underlines) because she had a surprise for me, and the package contained a very nice robe to match the hat I had her fix. Well now.. it appears that there may be a little Schmendrick running around, if I read that note right. I couldn't afford to send trouble her way, so I hired Pip to take her a load of gold and let her know that I'd be down when it was safe.

I bought a small apartment so that I could set up a gate to get back and forth between my house and town quickly. I got it all set up nicely, and then we were off again... The city was forming up an army to hunt down the wraiths and skeletons terrorizing the countryside. Our group decided to form a formal company called "Griswold's Irregulars" and have the company hired into the army for a full-scale hunt-and-destroy campaign, and that lasted for a few months. We managed to hunt down all of the companies of wraiths and skeletons, and returned to Tristan. I'd practiced with the staff considerably during this time, and good thing, too... there were times that the skeletons managed to break a line, and I had to beat them off with my staff.

When we returned to Tristan, we were almost immediately hired by a town official to escort his daughter Reena. During this job, she was attacked by some rebels to the country, and we foiled their attempted kidnapping. However, I knew a few of the mages, and they were not a bad sort and had a plausible story that I'd want to look into later, so I kind of let them know that if I were to try to escape, I were to do it as the watch were switched, and wondered aloud about what time that might end up being. I went and woke the next watch and went to bed, and was pleased to find that they had escaped. Kess was notably upset.. I think he wanted to torture them on his watch. He's become more and more hardened the longer I've known him, and he's replaced his former cowardice with a sadistic mean streak. He seems to judge everyone by their martial skill, and is constantly bragging to everyone in the company that no one is as good with a sword as he is. Funny that he doesn't mention the bow, just that he's a better swordsman. He even smirks as he says it, with a strange little squint in his eye, like there's some personal joke to it. I don't think anyone gets the joke, though. And it comes off as very arrogant and conceitful. Sure, he's good, but I'm not good enough to tell if he's better than everyone else. I don't recall the last time I've even seen him in actual combat with a sword, although he shadow spars almost constantly. The shadows he fights seem like they'd be sliced to ribbons, but I just don't know.

When we got back to town, it turned out that there had been strange people asking disturbing questions about Mort and Crespin. In tracking down the questioners, it appeared that our 'friends' back from the Suul fort (the ones with the goblin buddies and that took slaves and forced them to work the mines) were back, and coming after us again.

I decided to help find the guys, since I was creeped out about the way they were stalking Crespin and Mort, and assumed an illusion and sat outside the Tuck'n Tickle, hoping to find out more as a street beggar. I was approached by someone later in the day, and they asked why I was down on hard times. I gave believable answers, about how I was a former soldier that took a wound in the leg that hadn't healed right, and was willing to do anything for work to avoid begging. He introduced me to some 'friends' that were in the Tuck'n Tickle, as they were engaged in some of disturbing behavior that the Tuck'n Tickle is known for, and they asked me to wait outside after they tossed me a coin (thankfully). I offered to buy my new friend a drink with the gold coin they just gave me as a way of thanks, and we headed over to some dive next door.

The two guys came over and asked me a lot of questions, a lot of the same ones that the other 'beggar' had asked me, and more besides. I claimed to know the staff, and that I'd used one since I was a kid. Didn't claim to be a mage, though. They sparred with me a bit, and decided I was 'good enough', and walked me over to a wall and had me walk through. So, a powerful gater and an illusionist was involved, and here I was wearing an illusion right into their base. I crossed my fingers and hoped they didn't try to pierce it, but that'd be hard anyways, what with my scryguard on.

For our first job, I was sent out with a raid and we captured a caravan. One of the men captured was Rosie's boyfriend. We were brought back to the 'base'. I had Willy try to calculate where I was from town, and head over to Crespin's house to see if anyone was there that I could inform of the situation. I watched through Willy's 'eyes', bored with what was going on in my barracks (I was supposed to be asleep). When Willy arrived at Crespin's house, I noticed that Flora and Mort were just coming out of the house, and Mort mentioned something about feeling awkward. Floating closer, I caught a little bit of the conversation. It appears that Flora is really taken with Mort, and Mort with Flora (based on that he looks at Flora the way I'm sure I look at Lily), but Mort made some sort of joke and turned away, brushing their moment off. Flora's faced turned down at that, and her complexion flushed with anger, so I had Willy appear at that moment to forestall any fight that might be about to break out. The surprise from that instantly cleared Flora's thoughts of a fight, which is good, because I needed Mort thinking clearly.

I had Willy pass along information about the Suul encampment. It turned out Vance was there, too, helping guard Crespin's place, and everyone went inside to discuss more. I asked Willy to have Vance investigate, but be very careful about how close they got. Vance went and got Darby, and they came with Willy out to an abandoned fort. Willy started telling Vance that I wanted Vance to come investigated, as I raged in my head at Willy that that was exactly opposite of what I wanted. He thought it was a good joke. Vance started forward, and was quickly discovered. I called all sorts of imprecations down on Willy and told him a joke was a joke, but this was going to get Vance killed, and was not funny in any way. Vance attempted to flee, but was quickly overtaken by troops teleporting in all around him. I cursed again, watched from Willy's perspective, and cast a few spells to help get Vance out of harm's way. I levitated him, only to see other troops fly up to get at him. That was it. I blew my cover by changing my illusion to my old Schmendrick self, and teleported myself directly to Willy. When I appeared, I grabbed at Vance as my own levitation spell suddenly gave way, but managed to snag him barely and teleport the both of us back to my house - the only beacon strong enough to give me the edge I needed to get away. Durram was there, and I had him quickly create a mound of dirt in the exact location that I had teleported to (the center of my etched pentagram), and then I activated my pentagram. I was half-hoping someone would attempt to follow, but no one did.

After a bit, we cleaned up the mess we'd made, and Durram was going on about how he was trying to summon an imp. I decided to let him have his fun, and went upstairs with Vance. He was in a wide-eyed "I almost died" state of shock, not believing that he'd survived. I poured him several drinks and told him to relax. Eventually he fell into a bit of a stupor, as Durram yelled from the basement about his success. I rushed down to find not an imp, but a full-size demon of some sort I didn't recognize even subconsciously. (Quite a few I find that I do recognize after someone triggers my memory with the name of the demon, or the appearance.) Durram seemed quite confident that he had this demon under control, and proved it by telling the demon to stop yelling its promises to rip Durram's beating heart from his chest and consume it in everlasting flame. It immediately stopped, and assumed a beaten look. I looked at Durram, and asked if he really had the thing under control. He told me he did. I saw Vance had staggered drunkenly down the stairs a bit, holding his bow unsteadily pointed at the demon. I told him to go back upstairs, that everything was fine.

Durram proceeded to give exact directions to the demon as I fed them to him. I had a choice.. I could either banish this demon, leaving myself completely exhausted, and unable to go face the Suul, nor even get to anyone in time to let them know where the Suul were, or, I could trust Durram that he had this thing under control, knowing that if he didn't, both us and Vance were going to die before we had a chance to say boo. I prepared a banish spell, just in case, and stepped on the pentagram, releasing the demon to do Durram's bidding. Instead of charging me like I expected (he was so fast there is no way I could have gotten the spell off in time, even knowing I was going to break the pentagram), he rushed up the stairs and through the door.. literally. There was a humanoid outline with horns on it through my heavy oak front door. It didn't even come off the hinges. Now *that* was a strong door. I fully expected to be dead, so it appeared that Durram really did have control of that demon. I grabbed the drunken Vance, and teleported back to my apartment (where we had moved Crespin's family) and left him with Lily and company. Some other guy was making moves on Lily trying to 'keep her safe' (the bastard), and I hoped that my charade as Stitch wouldn't have to last much longer. I heard the sounds of fighting and looked out the window to see a fire about where the Tuck'n Tickle was. So, I'd figured right that they were going to start clearing out using the gate at the Tuck'n Tickle. Good. I suggested that Lily and company move again and find somewhere more secure. I thought about going and making sure the demon was banished properly once it was done killing the Suul, but Durram said it would return home automatically as soon as it carried out his instructions.

So instead, I popped out to Willy, because the force that was moving to the Suul encampment had almost arrived. When we arrived, we found the fort abandoned, but there was still an illusion in place over the top of it, so we investigated. We moved deeper and deeper into the tunnels. We came across a collapsed gate that I had come through previously, and we finally
came across a largish chamber containing a bunch of people chained to a column with a brightly glowing ball above them. I realized it was a trap, and said so, and everyone started clearing out immediately. I called down the battle mages, and appealed to their honor. They should know how to handle this situation, and I don't know a single energy based combat spell. Surely they'd have a better idea of how to defuse this than me.. no.. they didn't. I decided to try to drain the area of magic using the orb. I thought of the biggest protection spell I could think of, and began casting it in massive size, drawing on the orb. I told Willy to get as far as he could, and he'd have about a minute to do it. He zipped away as fast as he could, and I stopped watching once he broke into the night sky and flew high up into the air. It was about that time that I finished. Or almost finished. A blast of energy smacked into me precisely at the moment that I got my spell off. The spell managed to protect the two guys next to me just as magic winked out of the entire area. And then, the cave collapsed on us. All I could think of was that I was only a second too late. One second sooner, and I could have saved everyone there. And then the oblivion of unconsciousness hit me as I realized that I was being crushed under tons of rock and dirt.

When I came to, I felt nothing. It was dark, and there was no sound. I tried to move, but I was immobilized. From the pains I had, I don't know if I was pinned completely or if I was crippled completely. Miraculously, I could still breathe. As I sat in despair, not being able to touch magic, nor even feel Willy, giving up as the last bits of stale air seemed to be giving out, I heard a sound. The dirt around me shifted slightly, and a small sliver of light appeared. Squinting into the painful light, I croaked in thanks as Darby focused in my vision. He pulled me from my near-tomb and pulled me over to a tree. I couldn't move, and was in such utter and complete pain that I could barely stay conscious. After pulling me out, he went back in. Griswold was there, making jokes about how bad I looked. Darby pulled out several more bodies. Only a couple of the mages had survived - the ones that I had managed to get that shield around before the magic had vanished completely. The rest were barely recognizable - and not just because of being crushed. They were severely scorched from the blast of that magical ball. The prisoners that had been chained were completely obliterated with nothing remaining. I had missed it by only one slight fraction of a moment! I felt total despair, and still could not feel Willy, which only added to it. Darby came and healed me, and my arm resocketed, my legs righted themselves and my foot was no longer something squishy in my boot. I was still too traumatized to ride, so they took me back to town, and explained about what had happened after the blast. They had noticed that there was something going on back at the city and had ridden quickly to get back to the city. There was a large demon that had demolished most of the poor quarter before they had arrived, and it had flung its victims haphazardly around the city. It took most of the night to destroy the thing. I pointed out that it was my fault, that I could have banished the thing, but hadn't. I also told them that I was only a moment too late to save the prisoners. They told me that it wasn't my fault, that I couldn't do anything about it. I went back to my apartment, and saw that it had a large hole in the wall, and some blood all over the inside. I looked through the hole and saw the devastation in the city a few blocks away. I prayed to Omni, that he could help me make it all right, and I felt cold, and the despair I had already felt was increased to much that I wanted to leap from the hole in my wall to the pavement below. I barely stopped myself. I teleported to my house and told Durram about what had happened in the city, and then left. I did notice my door was fixed, and he told me that the thing had slowly pulled itself back together. Normally, I'd be amazed, but at this point I was feeling too much despair. I teleported back to town and met up with everyone at the tavern, and again claimed responsibility for what had happened, and they proceeded to tell me to get over it and to get me very drunk. I continued to try to explain that I could have done something, but I chose to go to help against the Suul instead. They got me really drunk, and I have no idea how many drinks I had.

I think I stayed drunk for a couple of days, but it felt like years. I'd never felt such despair. I didn't want to even move from my seat at the tavern. I'm pretty sure I soiled myself, but I didn't care. Kess at least used his cleaning wand on me, like he does with himself. Finally, Crespin's sisters forced soberness on me, and they were none too kind about it. Told me to stop feeling sorry about stuff that was out of my control, and would hear nothing about how it hadn't been out of my control. Told me to stuff my foolish pride down and accept that I couldn't have done anything about it. That sunk in. It was true. Stitch makes big mistakes - the kind that Schmendrick doesn't make. Stitch couldn't do anything about it, but Schmendrick could have, and would have. I can't wait until I can be Schmendrick again. Stitch isn't as nice a fellow as Schmendrick, either. Mort came around to collect me and literally pushed me into a saddle. I fell off, because I haven't ridden in quite a while, and I was still feeling very unsteady and despairing. He threw me on again, and then tied me down to the saddle for good measure. Darby came and took a look at me, and realized that I was under the influence of a curse. I still didn't care. I cared for nothing, except to sit in my despair. He blessed me, and all of a sudden I felt the despair leave me. I felt okay again, although I did feel empty - missing Willy.

We rode out on a trail that Mort had managed to find. It appeared that the Suul were heading back to the mines and fort we originally found them at. Mort claimed that he'd found the trail all by himself, and seemed pretty pleased with himself. I looked at him unbelieving, and looked around to Vance in his normal position, and noticed that Vance wasn't with us. Everyone said he'd left, and the only thing he'd said was that he wanted to investigate the Snow Witch with a company forming up with the same intentions. Odd timing, but okay.

As we started to ride out, with my newly cleared mind, I realized that Willy might still be 'alive'. I pulled Darby aside and told him about it, and that I needed his help again. After spending the better part of a day searching, Darby finally found Willy. He looked like a sort of marble, and when we got him clear of the dead magic area, profanities flooded into my mind. He even shocked me for good measure. I scolded him back, telling him that if he hadn't played that cruel trick on Vance, it would have played out very differently. Then we both apologized to each other. I tried to hug him, but got shocked. I told him that I wanted to keep him safe and was very sorry that he got caught in that backlash, and that I wouldn't risk him again. I've been very cautious with him every since. He's actually been a bit peevish about how clingy I've been with him (probably because I've been keeping him so close he hasn't been able to go spy on bathing women and the like - odd, that, he shouldn't really be into that, but he hums to himself (and me) when he's watching that kind of thing). I did hug Darby, though, and thanked him for his and Carthas' continued help and interest in my well-being.

I teleported us to a pre-arranged meeting spot, and when the others caught up, we went and investigated the mines. There, we found a goblin vampire thing, and killed it. We caught up with Hugo (!) and killed him, again (alas). He turned to ash this time, just like last. Crespin was infected with some strange undead state, and thank goodness that Darby has such an unreal amount of patience as we asked him to attend to Crespin. Darby was able to heal Crespin, although it took a few days for him back in town to recover.

After 'killing' Hugo again, we really didn't know what to do. We then remembered the Brotherhood's outpost, and hurried over to it. Expecting it to be abandoned, I was surprised to see it lit (we arrived at night). Griswold and I approached, figuring that if it were the Brotherhood, then we would ask nicely to see the orb, and if not, then we would call in the reinforcements. We approached and knocked, and someone answered the door. Griswold told them who I was, and the man seemed pretty surprised, and claimed that I was being hunted by the Brotherhood. Certainly preposterous, but I hadn't reported in ever since I switched my identity. I also hadn't had any Varu problems. As I write this, I realize that it's interesting that I started having Varu problems again after reporting into the Brotherhood - although not that much, considering that they had infiltrated the Labyrinth itself. I'm going to have to figure out who the Varu is - the Labyrinth had a ranking official replaced, but not the highest official. I have a great plan to figure out who, too. But that will have to wait until I'm back in Tristan. For now I'll have to send a letter back to let them know they have an imposter, and that the imposter is likely highly placed - probably a trusted advisor. Most likely, someone in connection with placing people or collecting reports from that outpost.

At length, we managed to beat the snot out of them, and we used the orb to find all sorts of things of interest to us. After we were done, I had Darby tap the power of Carthas and help remove the orb from its mountings. I swear I could *feel* Carthas, much different from any other time I've felt Darby channel his power. It made me want to weep with joy. I have been inquiring as much as I can from Darby ever since as we have been traveling.

We dragged the orb back to Tristan, and I had Griswold take it to the Brotherhood. They demanded to see me, so I reported in, in secret, and brought them up to speed with everything that had happened. Sadly, I hadn't yet determined they had Varu among them. Griswold had some weird bag made so that he can carry three staffs on his back. It's kind of like a quiver, except that it hangs down his entire backside, and it separates the staves so that he can pull one out without spilling the entire bag. Reminds me of a bag I've seen somewhere in a forgotten memory... all I can remember about it is sticks in a bag that are used to hit a ball. Why someone would need multiple sticks to hit a ball, I don't know. But that's the memory his new bag conjures up.

We decided that it was finally time to head to Pangoria. We travelled north and passed through a small city. Griswold picked up a whore named Saffron, and has been banging her incessantly. She's a skanky whore and he's welcome to all her diseases, and I'm not going to cure them. We continued north and came to a city called Glimmering. Here, we encountered an old colleague of mine by the name of Aaron. He has been very illuminating regarding the Varu, and reminding me of all sorts of things that I couldn't remember. A lot of things have been coming back since seeing him again. He's still an irascible fellow with the most horrible beard I've ever seen. I told him about how the mages of the Labyrinth that were able to fix my beard problem. He told us about how he has a couple of projects in town and doesn't want to leave them to the Varu that apparently came to town the same time we showed up, and had unleashed ghosts all over. The whole group seemed set on going north, so I wasn't going to let Aaron loop us into one of his schemes. I did agree to check into a ghost with him to try one of his devices, but I didn't agree to anything long-term. We went to the library and convinced a ghost there to work with the current librarian. My Stitch persona has been getting a bit of a mean streak lately, and was more than a little unkind to the ghost. The ever-increasing threat of the Varu has been bothering me.

In the morning, Aaron tried to hit me up for helping him against the Varu. He found a place where they were torturing people, but they were asking about a tower, and casually about me. He found out we are mercenaries, and then hired the company. I didn't want to get the party any more looped into this, but they decided to throw themselves in. I warned Griswold that with Aaron, you can't take him at face-value, and that he'd keep important information back unless you pried it out. Griswold grilled him and even called him out, and Aaron shuffled his feet and gave some information. We found ourselves heading out to a mine to hunt a couple of Varu.

We went into the mine, ready for a fight, and inched our way down the shaft. Mort and Willy noticed a foot stick out of a wall, a Varu foot -- they were earth-stepping. And then one ambushed us from the side, stabbing Darby in the chest. Crespin lashed out and sliced the Varu's hand off, and I unleashed a Banish at the same moment. The Varu immediately winked out, just as I had hoped. I immediately turned and healed Darby, when we heard a bellowing challenge from down the shaft. Mort, Crespin and Vance ran down the shaft toward the wraith issuing challenge. I called Kess back, appealing to what honor he had to hold here and help cover me so that THIS time I could Banish the Varu and be done with it. He appeared angered, but I think I finally got through to him, because he stopped. I started readying another Banish when I heard a roaring growl behind me, following by a horrible ripping sound. I turned and saw the demon that killed Darby's friends right behind us, and I knew I had only moments. I was Schmendrick again. Schmendrick doesn't fail. I saw that Alex, our new recruit, had been gutted, stem to stern, and we were all next unless I took care of this demon. Thankfully, Griswold had pressed a fresh powerstone into my hand, and I drew on it completely, and gave it everything I had. And it took everything. After the demon vanished with a satisfying pop, I realized that I had nothing left. I was on the brink of collapse! And there was one Varu left. I was teetering. Darby healed Alex, which is good, because I was going to do it despite my condition. I breathed out that Alex did exactly what was needed, and saved every man in that mine because he had put himself in position so that I could do what was needed. I almost laughed out loud as Kess came to me now and asked where I wanted him to stand. I knew it was too late to catch the other Varu. It was going to flee. It ran up and looked like it was going to harass Crespin and Mort, but then thought better of it. It fled to its quarters, and teleported away. I traced it, but I was sure that it would have left traps. And just as I was getting ready to modify a teleport to not take us directly to the same spot, Griswold reported that he lost his trace.

But that is okay. I no longer need to assume the name Stitch. I am Schmendrick, and the Varu will know themselves the fear that they have foisted upon me. I will prevail against these dark Varu, and I will figure out a way to close the gate. I already have some ideas of how I will survive closing the gate despite Aaron telling me that I was going to have to close it from the other side, but it doesn't matter. I will not let these vile creatures have any more hold upon this world.