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).

Well, this seems as good a place to lie low as any, or so I first thought. Volunteer for the army being sent out to the desert border, and then scarper when things look like getting hot. Not that I can’t look after myself these days, since the deal was done, but no sense making trouble for myself. Trouble is this place is buttoned up like a snake’s arse, and there is no where to go anyway, except downstream. And I saw what they did to some guys who tried to run away that way. So kept my head low, and made sure that I was useless enough not to get picked, but not so useless that I get nailed for anything. And I mean nailed up. It was all OK until a few days ago, and then the main force moved out, and we were left to garrison this dump. Opportunity at last I thought, but this complete stick-up-the-arse aristocrat has put himself in charge of our squad. We seem to be all the awkward bastards and misfits and I think a bunch of them are playing the same card as me and appearing a lot more useless than they are. There is one girl who is nice enough, except she keeps playing with fire the whole time, like literally. I think she is a few loaves short of a bakery shop, if you ask me. And this dwarf who is the grumpiest sod I ever met. And a complete meatheat who is so up himself its not true, and his slimy sidekick. Plus the aforementioned nob. And some kind of hippie chick.

Anyway, night before last we were doing duty on the rampart, and suddenly heard a kerfuffle out in the desert. Black as pitch out there, but of course that doesn’t cause me no problems, not with my witchsight. I could see what was going on – some bloke in desert robes fighting with some kind of creature. Unnatural looking thing. Anyway Stephen, the nob, Stephen de Hautville he insists on being called, he shouts a warcry of somekind, and jumps over the frigging rampart. Must be a twelve foot drop to the bottom. Brains of a tadpole that one. Brave, I’ll grant you, but I’m amazed he has lived thsi long. Anyway, he goes pegging off towards the fight. The flight is getting closer, and I think the others can see what is going on now, including Stephen. The thing is definitely unearthly now, but Stephen doesn’t slow down. I think there really is quite a lot of brain missing there. Anyway, he gets in close and starts slugging it with his mace, which is quite impressive – blasts of light as he hits it. He looks like he is having far too much fun though, so I banish it back to wherever it came from. Works like a charm as well. Kill-steal! The nob looks a bit disconsolate but pulls himself back together and tends to the wounded bloke, then carries him back in. They vanish off with the rest of the boss types, so I go back to staring at the desert.

Next morning, its all go. Seems we now have a top secret mission to go on. Must be related to the bloke we rescued I guess. Anyway, far to top secret for me to know about, except that I am quite good at knowing about stuff that I’m not supposed to know about. Apparently we need to go into the desert, through some sort of great pass, and find the temple of Death. Not sure what we are supposed to do there, but I guess a bit of mindless violence will be called for. Anyway, first step is to travel up the river for a couple of days and through a marsh, then strike out across the desert until we hit the caravan route, and pick up a caravan. They try to but be on raft loading duty, and then realise that its really not what I do, lugging stuff around. So I get to round up the camels instead. Evil bloody creatures, but smart. They rapidly realise who is boss, once you give them a quick mental picture of what true suffering really is. The Stephen nob gives us a speech about how we should be proud to be doing the will of Helim. Utter claptrap. We spend most of the day doing this, and then someone spots something in the sky flying towards us. We take cover and the dragon flies pass with a bloke on it. I send Faustus up to have a look, but he can’t keep up with it and the sunlight hurts his likkle eyes. Couple of hours later, its back again, and this time its heading straight for us. We go to take up a defensive position, but suddenly the bloke on the back gestures and a mote of flame flies over and explodes in the centre of us. We’re not too badly damaged (or at least I’m not), so I blast him back with a fireball of my own – not just him, but the three trolls who have just hopped over the palisade to support him. Stephen goes charging off at him again – the guy seriously only seems to have one tactic. The flight is relatively short – I blast off a few more eldricht blasts, but make sure to keep myself well out of harms way. The hippie-chick summons a pack of wolves, which is quite impressive. They don’t last long against the trolls, but it makes it just too complex to be bothered woring out who I should be blasting. Starts getting pretty boring towards the end – the wizard on the wyvern dies quite quickly and the wyvern buggers off fortunately. It quite funny watching them chop up the trolls, which keep pulling themselves back together. Finally they start hitting them with fire spells – the nutjob with the fire fixation is obviously fairly good at that, and the nob has a neat trick where he gets his mace to burst into flames when it hits, so they all stay down in the end.

The slimeball has had a root through the pockets of the wizard by the time I get there, but my arcane sight shows me that he has a magic ring on, so I get the Brazen Tome out (a sign of especial favour from my infernal lord) and start preparing a spell of identification.