Letters - Sicarius' Travel Letter

To the Prelate,
B'Lan Temple,
Aspendale half-Elven enclave.

Your honor, I write this to you, having spent most of the night in a tavern.

Now that you have gotten back up again, allow me to explain. Our travels have lead us to the predominantly Human village between here and the city. We are approximately half way through the forest. The forest is every bit as impressive as you described it. The village is most unusual, I described to you the system of government here seems to be a balance of the most powerful local banditry cartels here. The theological aspect of this town is also similarly arranged. Being somewhat given to the idea of balance, a complex temple has been erected to good, 8 shrines dwelling there within. As well, the opposition have a similar temple on the other side of town. Both are allowed to exist so long as one side does not overpower the other. An unusual comprimise but I suppose we should applaud the town leader's egalitarianism.

The townsfolk are pretty much occupied with the festival, I told you about most of this in my last letter, so I shan't bore you with repetitious details. The teachers admonition spell was drawn into use a little earlier, and to good effect for once. We came upon one of the festival guards being beaten and kicked by a bunch of ruffians. The ruffians were swiftly dealt with and the guard admonished by his cohorts for trying to persue a group of criminals into a concealed area. The rescued guard gave us his festival drink token as a thanks for his life. The Halfling was ...joyous to say the least. I could hardly blame her, she has had good luck so far. To illustrate her fortune, while I was treating the wounds of the fallen guard, Phaedra discovered a sizeable pouch of silver near one of the ruffians we had dealt with. Incredible luck really. Between the drink token and the silver discovery, Phaedra's enthusiasm for the festival became more than we could handle and we headed off for the aforementioned tavern. Thank you for warning me about the passion Halflings have for the delights of the senses, it probably saved me my hands should I have decided to hold her back.

Ilya, the dwarven Klanghdd'n priest you met before I left, decided to join us later in the afternoon. She did well to track us down through the festival I thought. She and Phaedra discussed a plate Phaedra has sold to a merchant earlier in the day. Mara has had her first (I believe) taste of dwarven ale. Fortunately, she had a few of us around to make sure she remained upright. She seems to have a most tolerant stamina for the stuff. I, in accordance with my vows, kept to drinking water.


Ilya seems to be showing signs of a sense of humor, more than I can say for Ethne. She attempted to embarrass Phaedra (who by this stage was rather intoxicated) by drawing a gnomish man from the brothel next door to tease her with. Thank you again for your education on Halfling culture, I was quite prepared for Phaedra's reaction, which was to latch onto the boy and have him drag her back to the brothel. I freed her of money she didn't need, left the gnome with enough to make sure she spent the night safely there and headed out of the tavern with the remainder of the party. It was getting towards dusk and the meeting with the village's chief Klanghdd'n priest drew near.

There was a brief interlude on the way out, a large group of people were watching some sort of fight going on. We made our way in to see what was going on, discovering a well-muscled Dwarf strangling a large Human in a headlock. The poor man passed out and was carried off to be revived by some healers off to one side of the tent we were under. The Dwarf then loudly asked for another contender. Apparently the game was to last 5 minutes against him in hand-to-hand combat, without any augmentation of any sort. Ilya's sense of humor popped up again, loudly suggesting that I should try my hand against the Dwarf. A little fazed by the idea, I reminded Ilya that we were on the way to speak with one of her priests. This provided me with an ample opportunity to get out of there. Apart from a visit to an apothecary for Ilya and Ethne, the rest of the exit was uneventful.

That of course was until we got to the edge of the festival limits and were accosted by another guard. Word, apparently, had reached the ears of the guard's boss and he had a proposition for us. This, of course, clashed with my and Ilya's meeting with the priest. I suggested Ethne and Mara approach the town boss while we continued on our way towards the meeting with the high priest.

The amalgamated temple in this village is really quite a piece of work. Ilya and I went back and forth from service to service, watching how they are all performed differently. Unfortunately, I had forgotten that the B'Lan faith outside our culture tend to perform their services in the tongue of the Enlightened as distinct from what Elvish we know. Fortunately, Ilya translated for me, though I knew enough of the reading that I could have probably translated myself, just from memory. The Klanghdd'n ceremony was everything you said it was, earnest and a little staid, all law and order and honour thy claim. In the middle of the service however, the high priest had some news delivered to him, he did well to keep his composure by the look of things, but his delivery was just a little of for the rest of the time. A few minutes in, he seemed a little more relieved to see us appear at the front of the congregation.

We were ushered into the high priests chambers, there were more than a few priests discussing some drama in hushed tones as we entered. It seems that it was no small matter however. Two priests were found murdered by the road that leads out of the hills to the east. The method of murder suggests they were killed ritualistically by bandits. The high priest informed us that the town currently works well under the banner of balance, for each power in town, there is an equal and opposite power. However one of the infernal churches has taken it upon itself to sieze power by allying with someone or something off in the eastern foothills. The high priest informed us that the two priests found dead were his scouts and were ferrying back more information about the alliance. He asked us to intervene on the meeting, which was a day or two away and do our best to make sure it, at the very least, went awry. While Ilya and I felt oursElves capable of such a feat, our mission is most pressing, and we need to get this information to the Klanghdd'n High Assembly. At the same time, if we do nothing, the way home would lead us straight back through this village and if we do nothing, that could be a deadly concern for us. Needless to say, we will be disrupting the alliance sometime soon before heading on our way. For his part, the high priest will be sending word to the B'Lan cathedral concerning our party's need for secondary shelter in the city should it arise.

I'll finish this missive with the thought that the hunt begins in the morning, but not without an interesting side note. Ethne and Mara were lead to a seculded area of town, and met with 10 masked men, who claimed to be part of the cartel that runs the town. It seems that a bandit lord named Lord Lucien resides in the foothills to the east. He has a desire to own the town for himself and to this end will be making a pact with some demonic group in the next day or two. The town overlords wish to pay us to make sure that the alliance never happens. Whatever means we consider fair will be implemented, but they do intend to pay us handsomely for the work. Double if 'Lucien's harrassment is put to a permanent end'. Understanding our haste, Ethne declined, persuant to checking with the rest of the party. I took the liberty of assuming Phaedra's acceptance of our decision, word was given to the town leaders that we would take the assignment.

I must finish here, it is late and I think I will need tonight's meditation. We spent this evening discussing tactics (you can appreciate my joy in the matter) and I have no small amount of preparation to do. May we light the way to B'Lan.

Sicarius D'rex