We get into town fairly easily, despite standing out like sore thumbs – it’s market day so merchants are expected, and there isn’t even a toll at the gatehouse!
Sir Stickuptheass chooses an inn near the gate, and it looks like quite a fancy establishment, so I don’t dissent from the choice. The food is OK as well, but the clientele is a bit rowdy – a bunch of funny dressed guys having a bit too much fun. The serving boy says they are Yazzaks from the south. Turns out Yazzaks is an ethnic demonym, rather than the long slang. Anyway Sir Killjoy keeps us all on a short leash – something about being undercover – which suits me, and we head to bed fairly early (although not before the Yazzaks I notice – lightweights).
We are all bunking up together because it’s market day and I am woken suddenly by Psychofiregirl shouting out. Assuming that the stunty can’t keep his hands to himself I leap up to watch the fun, and duck out of the way of the fireball, and discover that I can’t. Someone is grappling me as well. This isn’t going to end well for somebody – that’s for sure. I hear Muscles give a roar and suddenly the guy groping me lets go and scarpers. I switch, quick as you like, from incanting Dimension Door, to giving him a full Blight right between the shoulders, and he goes down like a sack of bones. Which he is now. I taste his life-force as I suck his soul into my body.
Muscles seems to have restrained one now, who is a giant rat, and then changes back into a man again. Ah-ha – a were-rat. I have just the thing for that, and get my silver dagger out of my boot as I get dressed. Psychofiregirl and Muscles tie up the were-rat.
Muscles and I go downstairs to see where the rest of them might have got to. The tap-room is empty, but we discover that the back door is still slightly ajar, so they have obviously scarpered like, well, rats. My original thought had been that the inn-keeper might have shopped us to the authorities, and the stories of the antics at that stupid village might have already reached her, but I reckon the authorities aren’t likely to use were-rats. So it seems like we should ask the inn-keeper what the f**k is going on here. We find his room behind the bar, but the door is locked. That stops Muscles for about 5 seconds. The inn-keeper wakes up to find a six and a half-foot barbarian wearing nothing but the remains of a door and wielding a battle-axe in his room. I’m pretty surprised that he doesn’t shit himself.
He turns out to be pretty talkative for some reason. Claims that the were-rats are a syndicate giving him a shake-down, and we were the saps because we were new in town. We escort him upstairs, where Sir Smartypants has cast some sort of scary Zone of Truth spell and is questioning the were-rat, who is keeping schtum. Even spits in his face at some point, which takes some guts, given what I have seen him do to much larger things with that sword of his. But he’s a wuss, so doesn’t respond. I reckon that we’ve caught him burglarizing red-handed, and back where I come from the penalty for that is losing a hand. Enough of us to be the jury as well, so time for the punishment. I get the silver dagger out, and carve off one finger – ain’t nothing that says you can’t have a bit of fun administering justice or that the hand has to come off in one go. You can hear the flesh sizzle as the silver contacts it, and that gets him talking nice and fast.
Still don’t get much out of him though, and the inn-keeper genuinely doesn’t seem to have a clue, but we do get directions to their lair. We set out, with the bound and gagged were-rate guiding us, but Fingers and I out front. My Devil’s Sight means I spot a couple of likely candidates keeping an eye on the road from the inn though long before they can see me, and Fingers and I circle round and take them from the rear. Roughly. My blast ain’t the best, but Fingers kills his and finishes off mine as well. Kill-stealing, but I’m already pumped, and its for the team – better than them making a noise. We get closer to the house where the entrance to their tunnels is, and spot another one – this time I cast Invisibility on the two of us to make sure we ain’t spotted. We think for a second that one of them has smelt us though, but it doesn’t save them. A small tunnel entrance awaits Team Silent-Death (plus the other losers who I guess we will need to bring along as well).