Mick's Journal


Tomb of Martek:

After destroying the Pasha of the Afriti, Martek returned us to his tomb. 
He reluctantly allowed us to take some treasure from him; we took a bunch 
of cool-looking stuff. He didn't give us much chance to make selections; 
he kept giving us this look of "Why don't you bunch of losers hurry up, so 
that I can get back to important things like building annoying pocket 
universes to toy with people in?" What an incredible plonker. After all, if 
it weren't for us, he'd still be a pile of bones. You'd think he'd show 
some gratitude. 

Back at the Oasis:

He teleported us back to the white palm Oasis, where we got our loot (or, 
as Erose says, "booty") identified and appraised by a wrinked old geezer 
named Agba.  He worked pretty cheap.  some of the stuff is cool, some of it 
is not.  This whole process took a few days, during which Keef and I drank 
a lot of whiskey from Happy Hogan's.  It wasn't the greatest, but it was a 
damn sight better than that fucking tequila of Keef's.  After that, we 
played a gig at Hogan's, and I picked up a bottle of whiskey for the road.  
We decided to wait for the caravan leaving for Greece in a couple of days, 
so that we could have safety in numbers.  Since we had an evening to spare, 
I looked up Francesca, the Franconian girl I rescued from the Sandfarer's 
Guild, and took her out for dinner at Hogan's (not the most romantic place, 
but entertainment options are quite limited in the middle of the bloody 
desert). She was amenable to further entertainment back at my hotel, so 
the evening turned out quite nicely all around. Before leaving with the 
caravan the next day, I gave her the silver Kepta bracelet I got in 
Mexico, and told her to look me up if she ever was in Steinhall the City. 
To travel, I got an extremely overpriced nag. The trader I bought her from 
didn't have a name for her, and since I don't plan on keeping her for 
long, I probably won't be giving her one, either. I agreed to take a 
letter to Hogan's family in Steinhall the City from him. 

Oh, right, we also divided some of the loot; Erose, Hal, and I diced for 
Telecaster, and of course, Erose won. I think I'll look to buy a magic 
sword once I get to Steinhall; we certainly have enough money. Billy Ray 
too the weird Book of Infinite Spells, and Sanjay took the Book of 
Smartness. Schnellmaken kept the scimitar he's been practising with, and 
Udo took the morningstar (that's a spikey ball on a chain on a stick). 

On the Road:

We travelled with the caravan, and after about a week, we met up with 
another caravan which joined in with ours. Travelling with them was 
Linwere, a lovely elf from Eldamar (Alfheim), who has been travelling in 
the desert for some time. She's a mage, who's been travelling around 
seeking out knowledge of the magic variety. 

Greece:

We found our way back to the rebel encampment. Flyn and the others were 
very impressed with the Amp. They had a plug for it, so Keef plugged it 
in, turned it up to 11, and started playing; the stage collapsed, keef and 
the amp fell through, it was a mess. We tried it again, starting from 1 and 
turning it up slowly. Anyway, the bards fixed us up with guitars, a bass 
(although we're going to have to find a new bassist; Erose isn't really 
into the music scene), and some devices that we can plug into the Amp to 
bring my voice and Charlie^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Udo's drums up to the same volume 
as the guitars. I know that I was indeed destined to find the amp, because 
the hole where I plug my voice-loudening-thing in has my name on it. (Of 
course, it wasn't spelled right, but even Fender couldn't know 
everything.)  

We agreed to play a huge gig in the middle of the DMZ. Thousands of people 
showed up, it was great; but about an hour into the show, some of those 
Black-dressed fuckers showed up and tried to opress us.  I used the Amp, at 
11, on them (Keef was playing the whole time). The Amp's powers helped us 
to defeat them, after which the audience came back and had a grand time 
stomping on the Men in Black's bodies. (The nondead ones were tied up, 
maybe the bards can use them in some prisoner exchange.)

Oh, and it is now early winter. 
 
More Travelling:
 
We sorted out our finances enough for Me & Keef to buy our equipment. I 
also convinced everybody that we ought to give the Sword of Soul-sucking to 
the church of Odin (or Thor, or some other good god); it's likely that 
they'd be able to store it away somewhere safe, where it won't be able to 
get out and work mischeif. They may even be able to destroy it, or at least 
release any souls stuck in it. 

I tried the heal-water from Martek on Billy Ray, who got pretty messed up 
in the fight with the MIBs. It did seem to work, so I'm glad I got some. 

We figured out a route back to Steinhall which would pretty much keep us 
clear of the MIB territory it follows the foothills of the northern 
mountains.  We should come into Steinhall around Keef's hometown.  We 
travelled for a few days with some peasants from the concert.  They shared 
some liquor called "ouzo" with us.  I'm not sure exactly what's in it; it 
has an anise flavor to it.  That was some strong shit.  The weather's been 
awful, pretty much constant rain.  Cold and snow would be preferable, 
because I could use my bow.  Damn the weather spirits.

We've been seeing signs of orcs travelling south from the mountains; that's 
bad news for the folks living down in the dead zone between Steinhall and 
Greece. Oh, and I've discovered another disturbing thing about Vrba's clan; 
apparently they eat orc. That is one of the most incredibly vile things 
I've heard in a while. He also made some bizarre comments about how he 
believes that all elves used to follow his strange religion, and we "fell 
away from the true path." I didn't disabuse him of the notion, because 
religious zealots can get a bit unbalanced when you dispute their dogmas, 
but he is an odd bloke. 
----
I woke up this morning, and found Erose's sword stuck into the ground a 
foot from my head.  'twas quite disturbing; I was worried that she'd nearly 
avoided slaying me in my sleep, but Hal explained that she was actually 
_giving_ me the sword, since she got _Telecaster_.  I didn't even think she 
liked me. I'll have to try to have a more charitable attitude towards her 
in the future. I think she is a very disturbed young woman who needs to 
find a path in life. Anyway, I accepted the sword, at least for the time 
being; if I acquire one of my own, or if we part ways, I will give it back 
to her. 

We captured an orc; and tried to interrogate him about what's going on with 
the orc movement.  He wasn't very forthcoming, or very smart.  It seems as 
if they're coming south to do the usual rape and pillage business which 
orcs are so fond of.  Keef killed him when we were done; there was no 
sense in letting him loose to rejoin his group.  ---- We've seen more orcs; 
these ones were very dead--sliced into bits by a single person, apparently.  
Billy Ray summoned the spirit of one of the dead orcs, and asked who killed 
him.  He didn't get much of an answer, something about a "wimpy redhead 
buttmunch" with a sword.  Somebody killing orcs who are out to rape and 
pillage can only be a good thing, and it doesn't really concern us, 
although I'm curious about who did that.
----

This is so terrible, I can hardly bear to write about it.  I must get my 
thoughts in order, and make as fresh a record of what happenned as I can; 
there's nothing else I can do for Keef right now.  Elspeth and I were on 
first watch, everyone else was asleep.  The weather was terrible, a bloody 
thunderstorm in fucking winter.  It was pouring down; I could hardly see a 
thing.  We'd been watching for some time, and I went to take a piss.  While 
I was at it, everything suddenly fell silent, even the storm.  I drew 
Svengal, and I ran back to Elspeth; I saw that she'd fallen asleep.  I 
couldn't wake her at all; I tried to rouse the next closest person, who was 
Hal.  He wouldn't wake up either.  There was obviously magic afoot, and I 
though that maybe there was a sleep spell on the camp.  Since elves are 
naturally resistant to sleep magic, I tried waking the other elves.  Sanjay 
woke easily, but Vrba was dead to the world.  I was about to go over to 
Linwere and try to get her up, when I saw, in a flash of lightening, some 
bloke dragging Keef off into the woods.  I knew in that instant that I had 
to stop them from taking him; I grabbed Sanjay and bolted in the direction 
I'd seen the guy moving.  A horse ran past.

Before we could make it very far, we were grabbed from behind by two men.  
We turned to fight them off; I got a good whack in on the guy attacking me; 
he also tried to hit me, but he was very consciously using the flat of his 
sword, like he was trying to knock me out, not kill me.  Sanjay's guy did 
not show him the same consideration, he just tried to skewer the little 
runt.  Sanjay tried to cast a spell, but nothing happenned.  (The silence 
was thus due to a "silence" spell, not due to a deafness spell.) I tried to 
beat Sanjay's opponent off; I distracted him enough for Sanjay to get away.  
Sanjay ran back towards camp, with the asshole in pursuit.  I then broke 
free of my guy, and ran as hard as I could after Keef.  While I was 
running, the goon took a swing at me and hit, fortunately I could still 
run.

Lightening flashed, and ahead of me I saw what I can only describe as a 
black rectangular hole in the air. The guy with Keef had slung him over his 
shoulder, and he also was carrying a box--the Amp. He ran into the hole 
and was followed by a person who had been waiting beside the hole, or 
portal, or whatever it was. I tried as hard as I could to reach the portal 
before it closed, but it was too far. I fell to the ground and cried. 

I was later told that when Sanjay ran back to the camp, he fell on Hal, 
and woke him up. Hal dispatched the guy chasing Sanjay. They saw me 
running, and they saw the guy chasing me fall. Then the spells ended, and 
they heard me screaming, which woke up the rest of the group. Under normal 
circumstances, I'd be embarassed over such a tawdry display of emotion, 
but I'm still upset over these events. 

Linwere is gone.  Obviously the bitch was planning this all along.  Women.  
Somebody ran our horses off, hopefully we'll be able to recover most of 
them.  The guy who'd been chasing me had been killed by an arrow.  We have 
nothing to discover who was behind this, where they were from, or where 
they went.  I'm extremely upset over this; I haven't slept tonight, not 
because I think they'll come back, but because I just cannot rest.  I've 
been writing and thinking and drinking.  Everything was going so well; I 
_know_ that Keef is the one the seer meant when she told me to seek the 
twin of my soul.  I felt a connection between us the moment he agreed to 
play with me in that bar in Tijuana.  In the past six months, I've only 
become more certain.  Keef's like my brother, born by accident(?)  to human 
parents.  I feel like I've known him all my life, even though he's not even 
been alive for most of my life so far.  I must find him.  After I get him 
back, we'll get the Amp back from the fuckers who kidnapped him and stole 
it.  (Then we'll find some better security for the thing.)  

...  

How could this happen?  

...  

Finished the whiskey a while ago; the sun's coming up. Here's what I need 
to figure out, and what I need to do:

1. Why take Keef? He isn't rich, his parents aren't anybody important. If 
they were just after one of the party, why go for the biggest, most 
troublesome one? I can understand why anybody would want the Amp, but why 
Keef? Maybe they wanted him to show them how to use it? But why Keef, and 
not me? 

2. _Did_ they want me, too? The goons were definitely not trying to kill me, 
and that wasn't due to any moral sentiment on their parts; they tried to 
disembowl Sanjay. Why did they not want me dead? Will they be coming back 
for me?

3. Assuming she'd been planning this since before she met us, how did 
Linwere (if that's her real name) fix upon us? How did she know who we 
were? How did she find us? How did she know so much about me? Her cover 
story, in retrospect, seems to have been specifically designed to attract 
me to her. 

4. Where did they go?

I have so little to go on. They could be anywhere. 

-- The two goons were clearly not part of the main plan; they were killed 
out of hand.  Still, maybe they can tell us something.  I should ask Billy 
Ray to try to summon their ghosts and question them.

-- Linwere Lorchild. Is that her real name? Is it anybody's real name? I 
need to find out if Lorchild is a real clan, and if it's from the 
Highlands, as she said, and if she's really from that clan. She had red 
hair, which is not very common among elves. (PK: what areas are known for 
redheads?) Maybe she has some human blood. Did she leave anything behind?

-- Crystal ball. Get Sanjay or Vrba to scry for Keef, the Amp, Linwere, to 
see if we can discover where any of the above are. If I can find one, it 
will most likely give clues to where I can find the others. 

-- Throntax. I dread seeing that woman again, but she's the nearest mage of 
any serious power who I know at all. If Vrba and Sanjay can't help, maybe 
she can. 

-- Liquidation of assets.  Sell what we can, as fast as we can; I feel I'll 
need all the money I can get.  Who in the River's end area likely to have 
enough money to take the books off our hands?  Throntax, maybe, Baron 
Draco, Lord Lara, Baron von Lubeck.

-- Beg the rest of my travelling companions to help me find & rescue Keef.  
I'll do it alone if I must, but I will have a better chance of succeeding 
if I have people to help me.

They're waking up now; I guess we'd better take stock of what we've got and 
where we're at.  I'm almost out of reds, but I need some if I'm going to 
travel today. 
------------- 

We looked around the campsite in the morning, looking for clues.  All of 
Linwere's stuff was gone.  We rounded up the horses, we couldn't find the 
nag I got in the desert, no great loss, although I'd hoped to recover at 
least some of the 50 Au I spent on her.  I've been riding Keef's horse 
Alpo.  We checked out the two dead guys, one had nothing on him but a 
sword; the other had Steinhall ID papers on him which said "Ed Stuenkel," 
and said he was in the River's End guard.  Billy Ray summoned up their 
spirits, we found out that they were hired by a guy named Harris from 
Steinhall, and Teri from Greece.  Sanjay scried in the crystal ball for 
Keef, and saw a bundled figure in the back of a wagon; he couldn't get 
anything more useful.  Hal discovered some tracks leading off to the west, 
which we followed (we were going that way, anyway).

The tracks led, after a while, to what looked like a campsite or rendezvous 
point, where we saw two wagon tracks leading to the northwest and the 
southwest.  I recalled that instance in Egypt when I knew Keef was in grave 
danger (when he put on that necklace from the temple of Set), and tried to 
see if I could somehow sense which way Keef went.  It didn't work, but I 
got a hideous pain in my right arm; it felt like I'd broken it.  Sanjay 
consulted the crystal ball again, and tried to see some of the terrain 
around Keef; it didn't look as hilly as we'd expect the way to the north 
would be, so we decided to follow the southwest trail (headed towards 
River's End).

It occurred to Erose and I that it wouldn't be real smart to travel through 
Rivers' End with Keef in the back, so we went to scout out the northern 
trail. We travelled for a while, and I saw a figure in a tree. I pointed it 
out to Erose. Thinking it might be an ambush, I indicated that I'd sneak 
around to the other side. I did so, the fellow didn't seem very observant. 
I snuck up on him, and called out to him to come out with his hands up. 
(Not very logical to say to a guy in a tree, but I'd been up all night and 
was running on purely artificial stimulants.) He turned around very 
painfully, took a careful look at me, and said, "Oh, hi, Mick." 

I recognised the voice; I'd know that voice anywhere. It was NOT a voice 
I'd ever thought I'd hear in the middle of the woods in fucking Steinhall.

"Dave?" I asked, "What the fuck are you doing in a tree in the woods in 
fucking Steinhall?" 

"Could you help me down from here?"

I called Erose over, and climbed up to see to Dave. He was in a bad way; it 
looked like he'd been treated badly, there were bruises all over him, he 
was filthy, there were rope burns on his wrists. I doubted I could carry 
him down the tree, so I got Erose to help out. When we got him down, I 
gave him some of the Martek water, which cleared up some of his injuries, 
and made him feel better. He wasn't willing to discuss his situation in 
front of a stranger, so I didn't press. We took him back to the group.  

He was willing to talk about what had been happenning to him. He was on the 
run from some fellows in England, who apparently caught up with him  in 
Franconia a few months ago. He thought they'd be taking him back to 
England, but they didn't. He doesn't remember much about his captivity; 
they kept him drugged most of the time. He was freed last night by a big 
ugly fellow prisoner, who by Dave's description was Keef. Apparently Mr. 
Harris underestimated Keef's capacity for narcotics, and Keef woke up 
earlier than expected, got loose, and set Dave loose. Unfortunately, 
Harris caught up with Keef, and broke his right arm. 

Dave gave us a description of Harris and Teri. Harris is a short human 
with red hair, very wiry, in his early 20s, with a scar on his face. 
Carries a sword, and is way stronger than he looks. Teri is not much bigger 
than Harris, dark hair and eyes, swarthy complexion, very good archer.

We stopped to camp by a stream that evening, I gave Dave some soap to wash 
up. Vrba seems to have had a recurrance of the fleas or whatever they 
were, he did some serious cleaning and fumigating of himself and his 
belongings. Erose and Sanjay got into a fight over something stupid. Before 
they could kill everybody in the camp, Dave intervened by asking Erose if 
she wanted to dance. She seemed so surprised by this that she accepted. 
Thank the gods. That woman needs to learn to control her temper.  

We travelled some more, and finally got to Dreistall (A little village NE 
of RE) about a week and a half after Keef was kidnapped.  Apparently, the 
area's been having severe orc problems.  The town was fortified with a 
wood wall, and there were lots of militia about. We asked around about 
that Harris bloke, or Teri. Nobody recalled seeing anyone of their 
description. We went on to RE the next day. 

---------

Got to Rivers' End.  It's grown noticeably since the last time I was here, 
in the summer.  A lot of the farmers have moved into town to avoid the 
orcs, and a lot of mercenary types have been hired to beef up the guard.  
There's a very nice new inn where I'm staying, called the Golden Boar.  
We've done some asking around, trying to find out about Harris, and the two 
goons we met in the woods.  Asking around in bars, we found out that Ed 
Stuenkel and the other guy (Ray Gottlieb) were mercs working for the town 
guard, who were hired by Harris.  Harris had been in town a month or so 
ago, and helped kill some orcs. 

I went to see Keef's parents to tell them the bad news.  Doris mentioned 
that a stranger had been asking around about Keef about a month or so ago, 
he was especially curious as to when Keef was born.  This guy matches the 
description we have of Harris.  This was about a month and a half ago, 
around the time we were at Martek's tomb.  I then went to see Throntax, to 
request her assistance in seeking Keef out.  She mentioned that she felt 
the presence of a very powerful magic artifact off to the south about a day 
and a half ago; I'm sure that must have been the amp.  She suggested Sanjay 
try to do a location spell on the cart he'd been scrying; if he found it, 
then that means we'd been following the right cart all along, if he didn't, 
then we may have been following the wrong one.  He did it, and found the 
cart in a rental place.  We found out from the guy in charge that the cart 
had been hired by "Karl" and "Otto" who returned it yesterday.  Further 
inquisition revealed that K & O were known to drink in the Bloody Fist, a 
disreputable tavern to the north of town, near the whorehouse.  We did find 
a clue in the cart, the word "London" had been scratched into the wood on 
the bottom of the cart.  That's two things pointing to England as the 
source of Keef's kidnappers.

Erose, Elspeth, and I went to the Bloody Fist to seek K & O. In the bar, 
we met a friend of Erose's, one Klaus by name, who agreed to help us 
question those guys over Keef's abduction. We located the two of them, I 
tried to talk some info from them, but they got suspicious, and tried to 
jump me. Erose & Elspeth intervened, meyham ensued, they got arrested. 
After questioning, we found out that they'd been hired by Harris to drive 
out with a cart during the night. Harris met them with Keef, the Amp, and 
Linwere. They were also met by Teri. They split into two groups, Harris, 
Karl, & Otto taking Keef and the amp towards RE; Linwere and Teri took the 
majority of the group's posessions and went NW. Harris killed some orcs 
(he's apparently the "wimpy red-haired butt-munch"), then shortly after 
that, Harris took Keef and the Amp off on his horse, leaving K&O to drive 
the cart back to RE. Oh, and apparently I was a kidnap target, too, 
although they didn't seem too avid in pursuing that goal; they could have 
got me if they'd really wanted to. I was running after them, after all.

I hung out with Dave tonight, catching up on the past seven years. He's 
definitely changed some. He's more reserved; that's probably due to playing 
His Lordship^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H his father's role. He seems visibly 
weighted down by his responsibilities. I'm glad I didn't follow him into 
that life. Heh. He's married now; part of the package, I guess.  

Fuck. I was checking everything before turning in, and I discovered that 
I've been robbed. Somebody's stolen one of Keef's guitars (the six-string). 
Nothing to do about it now, I'll deal with it in the morning.
---

I just woke up from a dream; I must write it down before I forget it. This 
must be what Keef is on about when he talks about getting songs in dreams 
and the like. 

I was walking in a beautiful wooded glade; there were some excellent horses 
wandering about, birds were singing like no birds I've ever heard.  They 
were more of a chorus than random birdsong.  Bizarre.  I saw a gorgeous 
male elven bard sitting beneath a tree, playing some of the most incredibly 
lovely music I've ever heard. Then, I heard another tune cut across the 
first; it wasn't quite so exquisite, but still damn good. A voice began 
singing, and somehow I knew it was Keef, even though it didn't sound a 
thing like his singing (it was really good, among other things). The song 
he was singing went like this:

<Music notation>
We, in our present life, knew that the stars were right.
That if you are the first to go, you'll leave a sign to let me know,
Tell me so.
Please, carry the Lantern lights.

You crossed the sea of night, free from the spell of fright
Your cloak it is a spirit shroud.
You'll wake me in my sleeping hours, like a cloud.
So, please, carry the Lantern high.

Me, in my sorry plight, you waiting ev'ry night.
My face, it turns a deathly pale, you're talking to me, through your veil,
I hear you wail.
so please carry the Lantern light.

The servants sleep, the doors are barred.
You hear the stopping of my heart--we never part.
So please, carry the Lantern high.
</Music notation>

I hope this doesn't mean Keef is dead. I'll have to get Sanjay to check. 
--------

Threw a hissy fit at the innkeep, complaining about the theft from my room; 
innkeep was snarky, but called the Guard. That bloke Klaus showed up, looked 
around, and said he'd look into it. Unfortunately the situation in the bar 
yesterday effectively closed off any criminal contacts I could have made to 
find out who took the guitar. Fuckers. Ran over to the Spitting Camel and 
woke up Vrba, and got him to memorize Location today, so that if Klaus gets 
a lead, he can hunt down Keef's guitar. {Try the running around town idea.}

I went to Throntax and got her to put warding glyphs on the remaining 
instruments and the MIC. She said she'd keep an eye on them, if she could 
study them. I agreed. Sanjay has a pet. It's a weasel, how appropriate. 

Erose talked to Baron Draco via a magic mirror.  He's heard of Harris 
"throug deals", says he's good at his job, which is "being smart." My 
guess is that Harris & co. are expensive mercenaries who may, occasionally, 
operate on the shady side of the law. I'll have to check them out via 
channels, when we get to a larger town.

----

Erose tried to get Dave's story out of him. He was willing to discuss some 
of it, but not all the details. She asked me some about England, and I told 
her about the spate of deaths which had befallen the government of that 
country in recent years, and how as Archie gained power, the country slid 
downhill. She asked me when did it start, and I told her about Keef 
Glimmer's death about 20 years ago (speared through the heart with the 
splintered neck of his own guitar). Going over all that made me realize 
something--my mate Keef Richards was born within a year of Glimmer's 
death. This could be the significance of Keef's birthday. I was looking at 
local Steinhall events around that time, but I should have been looking at 
England all along, since, according to Dave, that is the origin of the 
plot. 

Could it be that somebody thinks that Keef Richards is Keef Glimmer reborn, 
and they had him stolen in connection with that?  It seems bizarre for an 
elven spirit to be born into a human body, and so soon after the end of its 
previous incarnation.  (The priests say that a spirit usually rests for 
some time in the otherlands before moving on to its next life.  Granted, 
one of the exceptions they claim is a violent death.)  I suppose it _could_ 
even be true; I knew there was something special about Keef the moment I 
met him.  If so, there must have been some heavy-duty magic that went into 
locating the soul. This doesn't bode well for our rescue mission. 

Anyway, as my da used to say, once is luck, twice is coincidence, thrice is 
a conspiracy. This is three pointers towards England: Dave's story, the 
message in the cart, and Harris' interest in Keef's birthdate, which was 
in a significant time period for England, but not Steinhall. They must be 
taking Keef to London, or at least to England. I shall follow; hopefully 
we'll be able to get a ship.
---- 

Klaus had some leads on local theives' stashes, and so we took Vrba to 
check them out.  He found the guitar hidden in a root cellar.  Klaus, Vrba, 
and Billy Ray staked it out, and caught a girl.  Klaus took her off for 
questioning.  BRB & Vrba made amusing potato sculptures.  Later, they 
caught the owner of the premises, and took him down to the barracks. Klaus 
had gotten the girl to confess to being the thief; she said she'd been 
hired by a Greek, Elitherios Baronos (aka Teri), to steal the guitar and 
bring it to Steinhall and meet him in an inn called the Puking Chicken on a 
date two and a half weeks hence. 

While Billy Ray and Vrba were in the cellar, I took the guitar to Throntax 
for security glyphing, and to leave it there. Sanjay checked on Keef, saw 
him lying unconscious in a bed, with his arm splinted. Linwere and a guy 
Sanjay said matched Harris' description were in the room talking. I gave 
Sanjay that clairaudience potion. He heard them discussing whether it was 
a good idea to wait for the guitar, or whether they should proceed without 
it. Linwere detected Sanjay's presence, and broke the connection. This 
means they are on to us, and they might go without the guitar. I wonder 
what kind of plot they (or their employers) have which involves Keef, the 
Amp, and a guitar? 

We all met for dinner that evening, and discussed what to do. I begged 
everybody to help me save Keef. Some of the River's Enders were reluctant 
to leave their town when it was having trouble, but I think we managed to 
convince them to help Keef. Dave wants to head back westward, so he'll be 
going with us at least partway. I'm glad; I'll get more chace to catch up 
with him. 

We decided to leave for Steinhall the next day. However, the local Lord 
wanted to talk to us in the morning. so, we went up to her 
castle-in-the-works for breakfast. She wanted the group to act as agents 
for her; she wanted us to give her information on the situation in England, 
if our quest took us that far. I couldn't promise to serve her interests; 
I have other loyalties, but the River's Enders were willing to do her job, 
and she was satisfied with that. 

Throntax gave us a bunch of gems and gold for the books.  

---- 

Vrba's taken to accosting small woodland animals.  This has caused no end 
of disputing between him and Hal. 

Hm, that sentence didn't come out the way I intended it to.

Two weeks of travel.  The usual thing. I keep having that dream about the 
wooded glen, and the bard, and Keef singing so well. It must mean 
something. There was also some kind of odd group-dreaming thing goin on, 
over the course of our travelling, we all had the same dream, on subsequent 
nights. It involved standing in front of a full-length mirror, like they 
have in expensive tailor's shops, and in the mirror, you could see all 
your merits and flaws. Then, the mirror fell down, and it was filled with 
people. You tried to look up, and then you woke up. Somebody is messing 
with our heads. 

---- 

Got to Steinhall.  There's a couple of days before the rendezvous, so we 
took care of some business.  Billy Ray, Udo, and Schnellmaken scoped out 
the Puking Chicken. Erose and Sanjay went to the Street of Illusionists 
and arranged to have Sanjay disguised as the theif chick who was supposed 
to meet Teri, and my acoustic guitar disguised as an electric guitar. I 
visited Dirty Enzio to see if he had any dirt on Harris. He told me that 
Harris isn't as well known as he could be, because he avoids publicity at 
all costs. All he could tell me was that Harris is extremely expensive to 
hire, and is considered to be worth every penny. Erose and Elspeth visited 
the Union of the Snake guys; aparently they'd had some dealings with them 
in the past, to see if they could find out anything about Harris. They 
didn't get anything out of the fellow they talked to, apart from the fact 
that the Union of the Snake is also very interested in locating Harris. 

Yeesh. That Erose sure is testy. Whenever anybody points out a potential 
flaw in an idea of hers, she gets all affronted and acts like we've 
insulted the honor of her clan. From the way she acts, it's as if she 
thinks she's the only one with half a brain in the lot of us, or as if her 
opinion is the only one which counts. I wonder if it's because she's a 
so-called "lady." I do wonder at human customs at times. Just because 
somebody owns a few acres of farmland, they're automatically superior in 
intellect, and not subject to criticism? What's the deal with that? 

Vrba did some magic-shopping, and got himself a new book, and a new spell, 
and a long copper rod. Now he can try that long-distance Shocking Grasp 
thing he's been trying to come up with. With that copper rod and his 
bright red cape, he's quite a sight to behold. Somebody called him the 
Electricity Fairy, and I think that epithet has stuck. 

I got Dave to go out for some low-key entertainment. The poor guy really 
needs to have some distractions from his problems. I asked, with some 
trepidation, if he'd go to bed with me. I needn't have worried. I think 
he's been very lonely; I don't think politics leads to making many close 
friends. If I don't think about the fact that somebody's trying to kill or 
kidnap us, or about Keef, it's almost like old times. 

Heh.  How's this for irony: after all the vain efforts I've made to get her 
in bed over the past few months, _Elspeth_ made a pass at _me_. Any time 
before yesterday, I'd have gladly grabbed the chance. However, I want to 
spend as much time with Dave as I can; I guess I've been lonely, too.

-----

Anyway, we made a whole slew of plans for trying to capture this Teri guy, 
or finding out where he was hiding, or where his friends were.  What 
actually happenned was this: Sanjay, carrying the disguised guitar, and 
disguised as the theif, went into the pub and sat and waited.  Elspeth sat 
near the back door, so that nobody could leave that way.  I waited near a 
fountain outside, where I could see the other two exits from the pub.  
Erose and Vrba (and BRB?) also waited inside.  After a while, a 
Greek-looking guy was persistant in trying to get Sanjay to give him the 
guitar; Sanjay evaded doing so, got him over by Erose's table, and cast a 
sleep spell on him, after being told his name was Elitherios Baronos.  
Erose "helped" him out of the bar, followed by Sanjay, Vrba, (and BRB).  
Unfortunately, Erose went out the back door; things might have gone 
differently if I'd been able to follow them....Elspeth waited to see if 
anybody followed them.  Somebody did; she followed him.  I cooled my heels 
by the fountain until Sanjay's weasel came and fetched me.  As I approached 
the inn where we were staying, Elspeth ran into me, and told me about the 
guy she'd been following, but who she'd just lost.  Elspeth went to look to 
see if she could find the guy.  I was going to help but I had a sudden 
thought that our friends had a backup plan too, and went into the inn, up 
to my room, instead. We were not being robbed, so I grabbed the guitars 
and went to tell the others that we might have company soon.

Meanwhile, inside, BRB, Erose, and Vrba were interrogating the prisoner. He 
was quite terrified of them. Erose put the sqeeze on him, and got out that 
he'd been threatened by Teri into talking to the "guitar girl." Then, 
somebody (I would guess the real Teri) threw flaming oil into the room. We 
had to rush to put out the fire, and while we were at it, he snuck in and 
stole the guitar. I guess he had several backup plans. There was nothing 
for it but to go to England, and see what developed. 

We switched inns, just to be on the safe side, and we left for Bremen in 
the morning. We travelled for a week or so, and Dave arranged passage for 
us to England on a not-so-above-board ship. The ship was mostly manned by 
elves; it was NOT a sea-folk ship. We stopped off in Eldamar to stash some 
stuff in care of Dave's people. The trip was, on the whole, dreadful. We 
had to stay in the hold with the cows the whole time. (Except for when we 
stopped in Eldamar, and we got to sleep in some sheds on Dave's land.) 
When we got to England, we rode a barge up the river Thames to London. 

Dave took us to an underground pub, the House of the Rising Sun, where 
"illegal people" like us gathered. A band called The Clash was playing, 
they were pretty good. We crashed there for one night. Next day, Dave took 
us around the city. We saw the houses of Parliament (from the outside), and 
the Temple of the Bards, where Keef and Mick Glimmer are buried. I burned 
some incense in their honor. Apparently, the temple of the bards has been 
taken over by government flunkies who support the bard-licensing and other 
repressive policies of the Lord Chamberlain. The temple had many 
interesting ancient murals, but I didn't look at them too closely, because 
one of the priests kept looking at me oddly, so I left. Hal wanted to talk 
to the head priest, and made an appointment for later on in the day. 

We then went to a place where licensed musicians played. It was a ritzy, 
upper-class joint called the Flamingo. The music was not bad, per se, but 
it lacked any life or substance. The first performer we saw was Lively 
Glimmer, the Lord Chamberlain's wife! What is the LC's wife doing singing 
in a club, one might ask? Apparently, it is something she enjoys doing, 
and he indulges her in this. Anyway, she is about 25, with blond, curly 
hair, rather voluptuous (it was easy to tell; her dress didn't leave much 
to the imagination). She's from someplace called "Atlanta." After her 
performance, she came over and chatted with us (not _too_ odd; that seems 
to be the general practise in the Flamingo), but she got shooed off by one 
of her minders.

Hal, Vrba, and BRB went off to meet the High Priest of the Bard Temple. 
There was some "dissent in the priesthood" which led to this guy becoming 
High Priest. I bet there was dissent. Hal noticed an interesting mural of 
some twins, one standing in a doorway, one not. It is part of a set which 
are not well-understood. It may be some old story or a prophecy. Some 
thought it might have been about the Glimmer Twins, before they died. There 
was more on the story in a book which was stolen from the temple around 60 
years ago. 

Meanwhile, Dave, Elspeth, Sanjay, and I enjoyed the Flamingo.  (Erose went 
for a walk.)  I had some glimmer of an idea of getting to know the 
Chamberlain's wife, so I went to ask the bartender when she'd be performing 
again.  He said she comes and goes sporadically, when her husband lets her; 
she's often in in the evening.  He then said that it looked like I'd like 
"a real drink" instead of the "wine cooler" I was drinking; I said yeah.  
He got me an ale, and I asked for something stronger.  He went down to the 
basement and came back with a dusty bottle of whiskey called "Rebel Yell."  
He sold me the whole bottle for 3 gp; apparently whiskey doesn't sell well 
in the Flamingo.  It was quite good.  While he was in the basement, a woman 
slipped me a note; it read "Come and meet me; I have some information for 
you."  It wasn't signed, but it was heavily perfumed.  It smelled like 
Lively Glimmer.  Since there was no where or when on the note, I didn't go 
anywhere.  The bartender's name is Nick, btw.

A group of chicks calling themselves the Spice Girls were performing (not 
much talent, but very easy on the eyes) when Lively came in, on the arm of 
a heavy-lidded, dark-haired elf. Everybody in the place stood up when they 
came in; turns out the bloke was Archibald Glimmer, the Lord Chamberlain. 
He's very slick-looking. They and their goons were seated at their special 
VIP table. I looked over to our table to see what Dave was doing and was 
relieved to see that he'd managed to disappear. I stayed at the bar. A bit 
later, Mrs. Glimmer left her table in the company of the girl who'd given 
me the note earlier and one of the goons. As she went into the back, she 
gave me a _look_. I decided to take the risk and follow, but I got Sanjay's 
attention and told him where I was headed, in case I didn't come back. 
(Elspeth had somehow managed to get on stage with the Spice Girls and was 
slam-dancing with "Scary Spice.")

Anyway, I was directed by the woman who gave me the note to a private 
dressing room(!)  where Lively was preparing for a performance.  She told 
me that her husband was "up to something bad," and it somehow involved me.  
I played dumb, expressing surprise that the most powerful man in England 
was out to get me.  When I probed for details, she said that her husband 
was upset about something, that he had a fixation on his dead brothers, and 
seemed to have a guilty conscience wrt them.  She claimed that he has 
dealings with some nefarious priests, and that he'd wanted to prevent them 
from being reincarnated!  When that failed, or proved to be too late, or 
something like that, he had his necromancers try to search out the 
reincarnations of his brothers.  He has a reputation as a ruthless bloke, 
but I don't think anybody ever suspected that he was so incredibly evil to 
try such things!  For some reason, he's been seeking out people with the 
same names as his brothers.  This explains why he has been out for us, and 
also proves that the fellow is absolutely bonkers.  Lessee, she overheard 
him saying that he had something which would make "the mick" come to him.  
I guess he meant Keef, or maybe the Amp, and warned me to be careful.  I 
asked her why she was telling me all this, but she couldn't give me any 
concrete reason.  Could it be that she did it out of purely unselfish 
reasons? I asked her why she married such a nutcase in the first place; 
she said it was because he was rich and powerful. It's unfortunate that 
such an otherwise nice girl has such a strong mercenary streak. Anyway, 
she sings in the club because she enjoys performing. She said she had some 
connections with the "illegal people," which is how she found out about me, 
and that she was afraid that her husband was suspicious of her, and would 
do something to her, like lock her up and not let her out, or something.

I asked her if she'd seen our friends Harris, Teri, and Linwere; she's seen 
Harris around at the same time as the "nefarious priests." She also knew 
of Linwere; she's apparently from the Lorechild clan, which is a noble 
Eldamar clan. (I guess she was't lying about that.) She hadn't seen Keef.

A knock came at the door, and a voice asked what was taking her so long. 
She indicated it was her husband, and so I hid behind the dressing screen, 
and prayed he would not search the place. She opened the door, he came in, 
and they had an argument; he said he didn't trust her, knew she was up to 
something, and threatened to keep her locked up in the house. She got rid 
of him, and told me to leave by the back door (not necessary; I'd figured 
that out for myself). I think she was being honest with me throughout, or 
at least wasn't setting me up for her husband; if that was the case, she 
could have turned me over to him when I was hiding in her room. Then it'd 
have been game, set, and match to Lord Chamberlain Archie. 

I went out the back, into an alley, and ran into none other than Dave. We 
left the alley and took up a position where we could hide, but still see 
the entrance of the inn, so that we could collect our pals when they left. 
I told Dave about my conversation with Lively. We met up with our friends, 
and headed back towards the House of the Rising Sun. About halfway back, 
we were challenged by some guards, who asked to see our papers. I got 
ready to run, and noted that there were 2 more guards at the other end of 
the alley we were travelling through. There was a loud noise from around 
the corner; it sounded like a bunch of folks yelling "Spice Girls! Girl 
Power!" Sanjay cried, "Hey! It's the Spice Girls!" and ran past the guards 
and around the corner. The leader of the guards pulled out a sword, and we 
had a fight. Some guards got killed--that's going to cause us some 
problems. Guard reinforcements were coming when a bunch of guys jumped down 
from the roofs around us, and started fighting the guards, while we took 
off. We were directed into a door, which led to a room where we saw 
Sanjay, and a bunch of elves and some humans. One of the guys from the 
Clash was there, he was introduced as Joe Strummer. They led us through 
some sewers (fortunately, it is winter, and thus it didn't smell as bad as 
it could have); it still reeked. I was wearing nice clothes, too. We 
arrived at a hideout in the catacombs of London, which are covered in 
ancient murals like those in the Bard Temple. 

We were introduced to a old elf named Darthier. He said he was the High 
Priest of the Temple of the Bards. He told us about the murals, saying 
they were records and/or prophecies about England. He also mentioned the 
book which was of very important religious significance, and which was 
irritatingly vague. About some of the symbols, he said the snake was taken 
to represent some evil person or spirit, the broken heart--?, the twins 
were either twins or one person looking in a mirror. I asked him whether it 
would be possible for an elf to be reincarned as a human; he said it 
couldn't happen unless the soul had been cursed by a necromancer. somebody 
asked about Linwere, and he said that she had run away from her clan and 
family. I asked him about my dream, and sang him the Lantern Song. He was 
quite surprised to hear about it; he said that it was written by Keef 
Glimmer for his brother Mick after that latter's death, and that it was 
never performed in public. 

One of the murals we saw was the mirror/twin one, next to one with was 
filled with people. I immediately recognized it as that dream we all had 
on the road from River's End to Lubeck, and mentioned that to Darthier. He 
said that it sounded like some Power had been trying to contact us. I 
guess that dream was something trying to tell us that this image was 
important, somehow. Darthier also told us that there was another mural in 
the sequence, in the tunnells beneath the Lord Chamberlain's house, it 
shows a snake between the two figures, there is a horizontal line through 
one of the figures. Then, another image has the two figures, one big and 
one small, the big one stepping on the snake. It is surrounded by lots of 
vague writing. We decided to go look at it. Joe Strummer from the Clash 
took us. We fought some guards, and went past a door; it was a bit of a 
to-do, and it seemed like the house guard would be descending upon us 
soon, so I lit up Svengal to see if I could catch a glimpse of the picture 
before we had to run. I saw a figure lying on the floor, took a closer 
look, and saw it was Keef, chained to the wall. Erose and Elspeth ripped 
the chains from the wall, and we took off.