Parts 1-7 - If you really want to know

She meets several new people in town, some upon the sudden disturbance by Miss Hill, the town widow. There was Isaac, a red skinned man with horns growing out of his head, Arjah, an angel, Rekka, a girl about as old as Cortanna and seemed to have a knack for getting into trouble, and a Bar Wench from the local tavern who didn't care to tell anyone her name. These all but average (some more or less then others) occupants rally together to find Miss Hill's son, Billy, who had been missing for several days. Their quest leads them to an old, abandoned silver mine toward the mountains from which Cortanna came. They adventure through the cave hearing strange voices along the way and following tracks to the best of their ability. But for poor Billy Hill, his rescue party has come too late. A rock slide had pinned him to the floor, but as they pull the rocks from his stone cold body, Billy rises again. He is clearly dead, yet somehow animate. Isaac's face somehow changes to a more skeletal figure and Cortanna can't help but shiver. He seems to control Billy's actions, but occasionally overrides Isaac's command in order to speak. Arjah finds some obscure symbol that only she understands. Some how the Bar Wench pipes in with some knowledge of the subject herself. Further in the cave the party finds an innumerable number of undead chanting the same words they've been hearing over and over. The group decides to leave and Cortanna intends to have the cave sealed before any one else can become victim to its mysteries. The party elects to meet back at Isaac's house while Cortanna breaks the news to Miss Hill. The widow then gives Cortanna some family heirlooms, which she takes back to Isaac's. The party tries out the new equipment and are warned by a letter from their previous user to use them responsibly.

The next day another angel appears at Isaac's door. His name is Gideon and was sent by the town cleric for help. The town's water supply had been poisoned and there were many dead and dying. The party goes to the cleric for more information about the situation and learn an aqueduct connects the town's water supply to a near by river. In order to get to the river they would have to travel through the forest, known to be infested with pixi like creatures called grigs and giant spiders. The party arms themselves before leaving and Cortanna takes the lead. Along the way she and her comrades are dazzled by several grigs and confronted by giant spiders, some of which they ended up fighting. Finally Isaac is able to resist the grig's command to dance. He asks the grigs where the river is and if they might know where the aqueduct is. The grigs happily point them in the right direction and then take the party, more or less willingly, to the river, but only to the forests edge. There are mere folk that live in the waters and they do not get along with the grigs. The mere people don't great the party warmly at first until they find out they seek to solve the mysterious poisoning of the water. The mere folk tell them they saw someone go inside the aqueduct and when they came out, the water problem started. With a helpful hint from the mere people, the party make their way deep into the aqueduct and are warned not to fall into the water. Rekka falls in the water after a bit of the path collapses and the acidic water starts to burn her skin. Fortunately Isaac loaded Billy's pack with clean water and helped cleanse the contaminated water from her body. Suddenly the party is confronted by a savage wyrmling. They engage the creature in battle, Billy crushing it with in human strength. They interrogate the now weakened wyrmling and learn it was placed there by none other then Duke Lupik, the man that was currently in control of their town. Billy absorbs the wyrmling's energy and the creature turns to ash. He has some strange new found abilities after the encounter, much to Cortanna's alarm. The mere folk thank the party for their service before leaving and when offered, Cortanna asks for payment in pearls.

When they get back to town, the party gives the town cleric a sample of the poison and he's able to heal the remaining sickened towns people. It's awfully quiet though. The town guard has gone missing and none are anywhere to be seen. Even the Bar Wench reports that their not in the tavern. A new problem arises when Cortanna overhears some towns people complaining to the mayor that grigs are coming out of the forest and complaining of goblins eating their kind. The party decides to investigate and after a challenging discussion with the grigs, the party decides to help them...so long as they make no one do anything against their will. The party arms themselves again and march out into the forest. Its not long before they come upon a goblin settlement that is enjoying a meal of roasted grigs. Arjah marches forward to stop them, but Cortanna knows these goblins are peaceful. They try to reason with the goblins and find out they were pushed from their home by a marauding band of wear wolves. Cortanna's stomach twists into knots unbeknownst to her comrades. The goblins were planning on moving into a nearby mine...the same mine the party just recently explored. Cortanna tries to talk them out of it, saying its unsafe and accidentally points toward Billy as proof. The goblins seeing the undead and Isaac are angered and become hostile. Their leader suddenly attacks Arjah after muttering a curse. Gideon, too drunk for reason assists Arjah in killing the goblin leader. The others try to flea. Fearing the escapee's would assemble their remaining 199 members, Cortanna makes the difficult decision to kill some of the lesser goblins. Before long, all the goblins are dead. While trying to decide what to do with the bodies, the party is discovered by a scout, but he too is killed, by Rekka's silent hand. Then something happened...there was a white light and a voice spoke to the party....and then they were back to where they were in the tree's, just as they had been before the whole encounter. The goblin leader notices them and invites them over. After a ginger conversation, not wanting to repeat previous mistakes, the goblins take the party to meet the rest of their clan. The party decides they will help the goblins get rid of the wear wolves so long as they stop eating the grigs and they would see about providing them temporary lodging. The  party returns to the town and speak with the mayor and the goblins are allowed to stay in some of the farm lands as long as they provide temporary protection and help with the farming. They also find out that Duke Lupik might be the one responsible for the wear wolf attack.

Cortanna wanted to go fight the wear wolves directly, fearing for her family's safety in her home town, which wasn't too far away, but is convinced to seek help from Duke Sardik, the duke that used to control their town. But first, Cortanna elects to return to the mine so they can obtain silver for their weapons before confronting the wear wolves. The Bar Wench decides to stay behind while the rest of the party returns to the mine. They successfully find enough silver to augment their weapons and decide to seal the cave as best they can while they're there. Rekka takes the silver to the town's blacksmith with a list of items to craft. Some how the blacksmith finds out about Billy and he doesn't come out for a looooooong time. When Cortanna pokes her head in to see how things are going she's shocked to find both Billy and the Blacksmith almost had the order complete. Billy comes out a moment later with an arm full of supplies...and then the whole shop disappeared. The new weapons not only were enhanced with silver, but the party found they had many other upgrades as well. They were now fit for confronting wear wolves.

The party begins their long trek to Duke Sardiks city, confronting many creatures along the way. They were tricked by an ogre that drew them in with a friendly guise, until suddenly they were attacked. The party made short work of the ogre, especially with Billy's new found ability. Upon killing the ogre, Billy does something strange. He raises the ogres spirit and the party interrogates him.

Fast forwarding, the adventurers go to investigate the old ogre camp and find a hole filled with treasures and riches along with a cart stocked full with wealth as well. They collect as much as they can and head toward Duke Sardiks city. On the way they encounter the Dreth Stones, and monument of some ancient city. In the center we see a group of imps surrounding a boy on an alter. In an attempt to save the boy, Cortanna accidentally kills him, which nearly sends the party into another plane of assistance. In an attempt to resurrect the boy, the party takes the body with in hopes a Cleric in town can save him. Once safely in the city, Cotranna and Arjah take the boy's body to the temple district and seek counsel with Cleric Rob of the Temple of Pelor. It is forbidden for anyone to resurrect the dead, but Cleric Robs does so anyway, having known the boy's family, and so long as the adventurers said nothing of it. The boy, I believe his name was Denis or something like that......, was alive again and Cleric Rob showed us from the temple. Now it was time to return Derik to his family before any of the Black Guard, the town's ruthless law keepers, found out about their crime. Just as Cortanna and Arjah are about to leave the city, the Black Guard catch up with them and attempt to seize them. Cortanna makes a run for it with the boy while Arjah sacrifices herself in an attempt to distract the guard. Cortanna makes it safely outside the city with Daryl and reunites him with his family.

Eventually, Cortanna meets back up with the group. Arjah narrowly dodged becoming imprisoned with the help of our old friend Gideon, but at a grave cost. She apparently ratted out the old Cleric Rob and it costed him his soul. The group has since gathered information about an evil man named Pendral, who currently has control over the city, and from the sounds of it, Duck Sardic has locked himself away in his castle! The party kills time by gathering info and shopping for supplies. Cortanna outfits herself with some new gear and weapons.....but where has the group gone? She busy's herself with her original initiative, find out if Duke Sardic can lend some help for their fight against the werewolves.  When Cortanna approaches the guards in front of Sardic's castle she tries to make light conversation, only she's showed away. Not easily detoured, Cortanna tries again.....and again. From their brief conversation, it becomes clear that Pendral seeks to murder Sardic, and so for his protection, Sardic had since locked himself in his castle. The Captain of the Guard then offered private counsel that night if Cortanna wanted to know more. Cortanna returns later and is told that if she can provide evidence of Pendral's misdoing's, his men would have the power to imprison Pendral, and remove him from power. Upon leaving, a member of the Black Guard approaches Cortanna. He tells her about how Lord Pendral is seeking to murder his wife Serendral that night at a dinner ceremony and that he could use someone like her to help. She's instructed to go to the East Gardens and speak with a statue for further instruction. Cortanna accepts and goes to the garden, unsure of what she'll have to do. She speaks a strange phrase to the statue and it suddenly comes to life. It dispenses a vial of poison and She's instructed to pour the poison into Serendral's drink. Cortanna heads back to the guard house to alert the guards of the goings on, when she bumps into her comrades! Apparently they had been in the wizards college and found out some disturbing facts about Pendral. Arjah then tells Cortanna of a recording device they had used to film the incidence between Pendral and his strange lover. Cortanna rushes them back to the guard house knowing they know have Pendral pinned. The Captain of the Guard instructs the party to participate in the ceremony and he would station guards to witness the event.

Cortanna goes and exchanges her gear and weapons, except for her weapon handle, for servers clothing and follows a line of other servants to the gardens, only when they get there Pendral is absent. Cortanna plays her part and taints Serendral's drink, but instead of taking the drink to Serendral, like she was supposed to, she felt compelled to give it to another server for some reason. The server stops in front of Serendral and seems to hypnotist her with her words......and kisses. It seems as if the life was slowly being drained from her. A battle ensues. The adventurers try to stop the interloper, Pendral's pet succubus, but it was too late. They surround the succubus and make short work of her. But where are the guards, and where was Pendral for that mater?  Finally, Pendral makes an appearance and mourns the death of his pet. At the same time, Sardic's guards appear from thin air and arrest Pendral for his deeds. Strangely enough, the Black Guard dissapears and so has the statue, which happened to be a gargoyle, disappear. The party finds out that Pendral had been summoning creatures from different planes and sending them to different corners of the world to cause havoc. Now they were no more.

Before the night is through, there was much to do. Cortanna gathers her things once more and the party heads back to the temple district to take care of an alyp, a creature of insanity, so our dear friend Gideon could obtain a holy sword. The party lands solid hits on the crazed alyp, but as Cortanna's sword lands an electric blow, the alyp's frantic face was burned into her sight. With alyp defeated and Gideon collecting his new sword, Cortanna wanted to find the old cripple she met in front of the college to see about offering him help. He had a niece and nephew that were supposed to be looking after him, but it had been a while since the cripple last saw them and he was starving. The party - except for Rekka - is lead to a library and after looking down rows of book shelf after book shelf of amorous couples, they finally find the young twins, Mable and Dipper. Isaac in forms the children that their uncle is in need, and so Mable sends her pet pig, which she keeps calling the Dean, to do the job. We try to find out why the cripple isn't allowed into the college and the best we were told was that he did something VERY bad and had his magical powers stripped. Mable was now responsible for keeping her uncles magical powers, stored in a locked, from him. Isaac offers to safe keep the locket so their uncle can come inside to be take care of, and Mable agrees. She gives Isaac the locket, and a moment later her pet pig returns with the cripple. He thanks us profusely and shakes our hands before we leave. On our way out of the library, Isaac suddenly realizes the locket is missing. Arjah casts a spell to hopefully detect the locket. She asks Mable to show her her special magical items. Mable obliges, but Arjah seems to think she has two other items that she refuses to reveal. Arjah pressures the girl to show her the items, which only upsets her. Dipper becomes very protective and demands his little sister be left alone. The cripple on the other hand is slowly creeping away from the scene. Billy and Isaac move to stop him. Suddenly Dipper bursts into flames and nearby book shelves start to burn. Seeing that the cripple was slipping away, Cortanna moved to confront him. Dipper yells at her to stop, but she ignores him. Suddenly a fire ball flies by Cortanna's head and she stops. From her location, she see's that Isaac was rationally trying to stop the cripple by hacking him to pieces with his enchanted sword. Meanwhile Arjah was trying to rationalize with Mable and ended up hacking off her arm. Then Dipper went on a rampage, setting the whole library on fire. Arjah suddenly ran away, leaving Gideon with Mable. Cortanna tried to sneak over to Gideon and Mable and ends up getting his by some of Dippers fire balls. When she finally makes it she tries to convince Mable to get her brother Dipper to stop his rampage. Dipper is consoled for a short period as the Deen dances for him on his little pig legs. Cortanna hears a commotion coming from the library enerance, and upon warning Mable, the girl says she'd deal with them. Screams of undead are heard along with the sounds of battle. Cortanna tells Mable to stop with the undead, but the girl seems to be in a deep trance. Cortanna grapples the little girl, but just as she tries to pin her a black hole opens beneath her and she starts to fall down a never ending hole. When she hits the bottom, she's back in the library. Seeing that there's nothing she can do to stop the girl, Cortanna goes to find help. As she's about to leave the library, she see's the wizards guard being attacked by undead. Cortanna returns to Gideon to warn him, but while she was gone it appears he's spited Dipper back into a rampage. Suddenly Billy was there and he grabbed Mable and began to crush her between his arms until she was no more. Dipper then dissipated, but the library was still ablaze. The remaining adventurers gather outside, many of the wizard guard are dead and injured. They meet back up with Rekka, but Arjah is nowhere to be seen. Apparently Rekka saw her run into the night obviously upset. We later learn that a bounty has been set on her head and she's wanted for ratting out poor Cleric Rob.

Rekka goes to find Arjah to warn her, but Isaac, Billy, Gideon, and Cortanna, go to crash a commemoration party in Pendral's tower for their leader's sudden departure. When they get there, there are four men left. They drink heavily, lamenting their fallen leader. Cortanna tries to spur the drunken men to say something to imprison them and it works. The leader says he knows a way to get rid of Duke Sardic once and for all to avenge Lord Pendral. The group follows the drunken men, but as they try to redirect the men, it turns into a chase. They find out Cortanna's ploy and race for Pendral's chambers to conduct their plan. Gideon and Cortanna follow the leader into a hidden room while Billy and Isaac contain the other three men. The leader starts reading a spell from a large book in the center of the room. Cortanna aims her bow to kill. Gideon gets to close and in the process is knocked unconscious by strange magics. Finally, Cortanna lands a death blow and ceases the leaders attempt for revenge. She stabilizes Gideon until he regains consciousness and they leave the now empty room. Billy and Isaac had knocked the other men unconscious and the group elects to leave the tower before more harm can be done. Cortanna reluctantly follows, unsure of what the other three drunken men will remember once they awake.

(Switching to first person)

The next day we finally get to meet Duke Sardic. As it turns out, he had been disguising himself as the captain of the guard all along! The rumors about Duke Lupic being a wearwolf are true, and as it turns out, Sardic is Lupic's brother. Sardic is also a wearwolf, cursed by his own brother. We are told that Lupic is in control of the elite force of wearwolves, who had driven the goblins from the mountains into our little town of Podunk. As it turns out, Lupic has been putting a corner on the market for silver mines, and I suspect its so no one can use the silver to rise up against him and his wearwolf army. Lord Pendral was also under Duke Lupic's control. There's not much Sardic can offer in the way of help for now, so my companions and I plan to leave the city soon.

We go about purchasing supplies to ready us for our journey. I've decided I'm going to need a good war horse if I'm going to face the fearsome wearwolves, who have probably moved in and destroyed what's left of our town. I hear tale of an auction later that evening where retired warhorses were being offered up, and figured that would be a good place to start. As I'm looking around the city, I'm approached by a man, who desperately asks for my help. The jewels he intended to show his soon to be father-in-law so that he could be wed to his fiance had been stolen. Someone had gone into his home and stolen them out right, and the wedding was only in a few days time. I eye the man considering his unfortunate story. I then realize how carelessly my friends and I had been spending our recently acquired wealth and wondered if the man was only trying to cheat me out of some jems. And if I gave him what he wanted, surely he would tell others of my generocity. Then there would be no telling how many others I'd be confronted by, pleading for a fraction of my wealth until I had no more. In a long round about way I tell him no....but at the last minute I give in and pull out a handful of lesser gems, ones that wouldn't be missed. The man gets angry at me! He doesn't take my offering and snidely says, "You're as bad as they say you are," and leaves! I say hotly after him, "Yah, and what are they saying?" but he pays me no mind and disappears in the crowd.

Evening time finally comes and I make my way over to the auction. I arrive early enough to examine the beasts on display. Many of the horses were much to old or injured to be any use in battle. My hopes were beginning to wane, but as I moved on to the next horse I heard, "Hey, you! Buy me!" Confused I look around, "Who said that?" I say. Suddenly the horse in front of me knickers and throws its head. It appears to be a young black mare.

"I've heard of your tales of bravery. I'm not ready to retire!" the horse says.

I jump our of astonishment. A talking horse? Was I dreaming? For whatever reason I decide to strike up casual conversation, while trying not to draw attention from the other buyers, "I'm Cortanna. What's your name? Can you run fast and make sure your rider doesn't fall off?"

"Absolutely-hee-hee" the horse says, "Oh, and my name's..." the mare whinnies.

I didn't know what to think. I was completely dumbfounded, "....right," I say, "What's a horse like you doing here at the auction? Surely the city guard would have found you useful?"

"They don't know I can talk."

"So why now?" I say, "You do realize you could be pulling a plow until your hooves fall off?"

"I want out of the City Guard. I've been looking for my chance to get out. I seek adventure!"

"Alright," I say, convinced that I'm giving this "thrown away" horse a second chance, "Just keep a low profile. I'll see what I can do."

Shortly after the auction starts. I watch as many of the older and injured horses are bought by farmers and shiver at the thought of them being worked to death. Finally the talking horse is up for bid. I allow the other citizens to bid for a while but as the bidding slows I ante in. Suddenly I realize I'm being run up by an ugly man that has a striking resemblance to Isaac.....finally I end the biding at 70 gold pieces and the talking horse is mine! I take the horse to a blacksmith to see about fitting her with some barding. On the way I learn that the horse was very well taken care of by her previous master, who also called her Brier. I only hoped I could take just as good care of her. The smith tells me that barding would be ready the next day so I decide to take Brier back to the inn to meet up with the rest of the party. Brier tells me that her previous master always let her sleep inside the inn and that they'd never been separated. I nervously say, "Okay." Surely the inn keeper wouldn't allow Brier inside the inn. I begin to wonder about Brier's previous master...

When the party meets up again we exchange stories. It turns out Isaac had nearly been pick pocketed by a kid from the Thieves Guild and I wonder if the man who had confronted me had also been from the Thieves Guild. I introduce them to Brier and her uncanny ability to talk and my friends are not as impressed. :( Suddenly we realize Rekka is missing again. We begin to search for her and receive a lead that she was seen in the lower merchant district with some shady figures. We immediately go there. A scream peals through the air and we go directly to its source. Its late now and most of the merchants and citizens have gone to bed. We're drawn to a warehouse and hear things going on inside. I assist in bashing down the door with my weapon handle and we burst through in no time. A group of shady characters turn to face us, and in a cage in the far corner is Rekka! We charge into the room and engage in battle. Brier waits outside. Suddenly I'm stunned and for some time I was unable to move. In the commotion we identify the leader of the group as a man named Sir. Finally I can move again, but before I can score a good hit, I'm badly injured by one of the men. Brier rushes in and begins stomping the man before me. Suddenly Sir begins to shift and then we realize he is a wearwolf! At Isaac's command Billy wrestles with Sir, trying to pin him. I draw my bow and plunge two silvered arrows into Sir's furry hide. He becomes unconscious, but the other men are trying to escape. Billy chases after a man that slinks out the back door, while the Bar Wench trots over and sits on the unconscious wearwolf. A moment later, Sir rally's and bits the Bar Wench. Sir tries to escape, but the party is hot on his heels. For the first time I ride Brier as we chase Sir down. Billy is able to subdue the wearwolf once more while the others begin ripping him apart. Finally the wearwolf explodes into a mound of giblets.

I leave the group, remembering I'd left my weapon handle in the warehouse. As I go in, I see the Bar Wench feeding on one of the dead bodies. Its clear she has turned. I manage to get my weapon handle before hightailing it out of there, the bar wench hot on my heels! I hop on Brier and urgently tell her to run. The Bar Wench nearly had us, but ended up slipping off Brier's rump and we sped away before she could catch us again. I try to lead the enraged Bar Wench from the rest of the group, but my tactic doesn't work and she charges toward them. Thankfully Billy is able to subdue her and then Isaac disappears with Billy and the Bar Wench as if an invisibility cloak had been thrown over them. When Isaac comes back he has Billy raise Sir's spirit. Sir appears to be very unhappy, especially when Arjah started to rummage around in his guts X_X but I can't hear what he's saying. Somewhere in the midst of things I learn that Brier likes to eat meat and her old master used to be Lord Pendral himself!!!

When Sir's visage fades away, we suddenly realize we're being accompanied by a group of citizens who have heard the commotion. They look on frightened at the armor clad warriors wondering what the ruckus was all about. Arjah tells them that we just killed a wear wolf. The frightened citizens ask if any of us had been bit and if there were any more. Suddenly someone from the crowd points to me and claims in my injured state that I had been bit. Arjah assures the citizen that my wounds were from weapons. Then Rekka yells "there's one right now!" and points at the man who'd made the accusation. The crowd proceeds to attack the man. Arjah begins to frantically question where Billy has gone. I tell her he's probably hiding so not to add to the citizens fright. Unfortunately, my comment is over heard and the citizens go into a frenzy. Finally the Town Guard arrive to restore order, only they are being killed by black hooded figures that suddenly appear in the crowd. The group decides to leave the square, unsure of the new threat. Brier accidentally tramples a couple citizens as we try to move through the crowded market square.

Suddenly a voice yells "STOP!" and everyone in the market square freeze, including me and my friends. A group of guard are moving through the crowd marking the black hooded figures and citizens with different colored markers, and then suddenly they disappear in thin air. When they get to us they put special markers on us and we're transported to outside the jail house. Apparently, this is where Isaac took the Bar Wench to, in order to safely confine her...I hear some growls and groaning of dying men from the inside. I tell the others, but no one seems to believe me. Some of them are more interested in finding out more about the black hooded figures and Rekka won't let Isaac out of her sight. It gets quiet on the inside of the jail and my concerns only grow deeper. Sure enough the wear Bar Wench comes bursting through the front door. We engage in combat and I let fly my slivered arrows. In no time, the wear Bar Wench is knocked unconscious. Gideon and I decide to go to the Square of the Gods to see if we can find a cure for the wear Bar Wench while the others check for survivors. We ride there on Brier so we could get there as fast as we could before she had a chance to rage again.

Upon arriving, Gideon and I are swarmed by Cleriks and Paladins carrying weapons. We dismount Brier and tell our audience why we are there. They seem disinterested and are more concerned about the evil that has descended upon their place of holiness. For some reason that think Brier and I are evil. Suddenly a clerik walks forward with a staff and taps it in front of Brier. The visage of the horse fades and now a fiery maned, cloven hooved creature stands in its place.

 I stare at Brier, no the creature, in shock, but the Cleriks and Paladins are not buying it. They suspect I knew all about the creatures true form all along.  I try to drag an explination out of Brier, but the creature seems to be non the wiser. Gideon and I try to convince our audience that we have no ill will toward them, but the only way they'll let us out is by walking through a "circle of good". The next thing I know, Gideon calls on his Deity for help and a moment later the ground glows in a shimmering circle. From what I understand, as long as we've done more good deed's then bad we would not be destroyed. Gideon and I step into the circle, but Brier is reluctant. I yell at Brier in frustration to step into the circle. I didn't know if Brier was leading me on; putting on a guise of innocence only to cause trouble later. Brier obeys, fearing she will be destroyed. There's a bright light and a moment later we're back were we were. Even Brier is still there. My faith in the creature is slightly restored, but I find myself wanting to know more about her. I ask the cleriks if there's a way they could disguise her, even if it was temporary, so she didn't frighten the citizens further. The clerik that had used the staff on Brier smartly says "Well why don't you ask the horse". Suddenly Brier stomps a hoof and the original illusion of the black horse takes place over her true form. I try to glean more info out of the moody clerik but he just walks off. The others arrive shortly after. We exchange info and it turns out there's now a wearwolf out break. The cleriks are able to help out, but the Bar Wench refuses to be cured knowing there was a chance the cure might kill her outright.