Hans was very sad about the Baron's passing. Rupert consoled him, saying, "He will go to Valhalla to meet his wife." The Baron's body was prepared for transport, as was Goebels'. The Reinhart army was staying to keep order until a new lord was appointed. While preparations were being made, I scrounged up some fresh clothing, which wasn't covered in sewer muck.
The Lubeck party and a squad of the Reinhart troops were assembling to depart when there was a commotion at the castle gates. It was a bunch of peasants with torches, looking like they were about to go on a rampage. They were shouting about killing Drow. Some of the guards were eying Vrba oddly. The commander of the Reinhart troops tried to disperse the peasants, and their spokesman said that they wanted the Drow turned over to them. They knew there was a Drow, because "only Drow eat the hearts of lords!" Of course, this just set Vrba off. He ran around on the ramparts shouting obscenities. The peasents threw rotten vegetables at him. Finally, the commander sent some guys to get Vrba down. He told Vrba to shut the hell up, and that he would be snuck out through the sewers. Of course, Vrba objected to this, and tried to sell the commander on the idea of Vrba waiting until the next day, and then blowing the peasants up. I could see that the commander was considering giving Vrba to the peasants then and there, but he simply told him that he WAS going through the sewers, and that there would be no killing of peasants.
We finally got out of the castle, and travelled to Naussberg. We met with the Baron of Reinhart, who thanked us all for our efforts, and told us not to let the door hit our asses on the way out. He explained to Vrba that a commoner desecrating the body of a lord was generally a capital offense, but because of the circumstances, he was just going to banish Vrba from the Barony. Vrba objected, claiming that Goebels was a traitor, and the Baron explained that while that may have been the case, it wasn't the place of a minor mage, who is a foreigner to boot, to decide what is appropriate behavior regarding Goebels' body. That's the Baron's job.
Vrba had some kind of bad dream involving dark clouds.
We travelled back to Lubeck, gathering a mighty funeral procession as we went. When we reached Lubeck, the Baron's funeral was prepared. It was quite a splendid funeral. All eight lords of the Barony were there, as was Draco. There were many speeches about how great Baron Arnold had been. First was the new regent, Vombauer (the mage with the puffy hat). Last was the heir, Hans. Hans said that he would try to work to improve the lives of the peasants. This elicited some unpleasant looks from the nobles, but Hans quickly moved on to the Baron's final wish: "Ale for all!" There was a big city-wide Beer Fest. The Baron's body was placed on a fancy boat and set on fire. Much drinking was done.
Sometime during the evening, Draco came by. Erose made a flagrant pass at him, inviting him to have breakfast with her, but he declined. Later on, Regent Vombauer gathered us all together to give us rewards. Sanjay's reward was a grant to improve his school. Erose was declared a "Gentrified Lady." Basically she got a gold star on her citizenship papers, and a higher tax rate, but it made her happy. Hal was appointed as a Royal Ranger {like a Federal Marshall}. The rest of us got a motley assortment of items which Vombauer must have come across while cleaning the castle attic. Udo and Schnellmaken got a nice assortment of gems. Vrba received a small velvet bag which contained a small skull with a mystic sigil on it. Vombauer said he didn't know what it was. Keef received a heavy gold necklace with a gaudy pendant on. It's just the type of thing Keef loved to wear before he stopped wearing necklaces. I received an ancient guitar. It was magical, like the Fenders, and was dead black, except for one sigil, inlaid in mother-of-pearl. This sigil was a hooked cross. I immediately recognized it; more on this later. Vombauer told Elspeth to see him later about her reward.
Of course, Keef wanted to try the guitar out immediately, and so I had to explain about the Blue Oyster Cult. Many, many centuries ago, shortly (as elves measure things) after the founding of the Rock College, there was a secret group of Bards within the College. All of these Bards were also mages, which is almost unheard of today, but was more common back when the College was founded. Anyway, this secret society is rumored to have been involved in the Black Arts and Evil Doings. They produced the Codex of the Black Mirror, also known as Imaginos: a Random Access Myth. This is the book of prophecies which those guys we found in the mine were looking for, in the hope that it would validate their music to the Bards. I couldn't tell them that the book is well-known to the Bards, and the Library has at least one copy, but that its existence is secret. Vrba currently has posession of the copy we found in the mine; I'll have to get it from him at some point. Anyway, the sigil on the guitar is the sigil of the BOC. I was not about to play the guitar without having it inspected for evil magics.
We travelled back to RE. A contingent of dwarves was busy at work on Throntax's tower and Sanjay's school. Everybody was glad to see Throntax. Several of my friends undertook training. I hung around with Keef a lot. I talked to Throntax about the guitar. I was having a very difficult time avoiding the temptation to play it. I haven't felt this kind of desire for a piece of equipment since we lost the Holy Amp. Throntax said the guitar was definitely magic, and seemed to have some kind of magic in addition to the sound-throwing capabilities, but it wasn't evil. So, Keef and I went out to the woods one night to try it out. Hal came along. We took turns playing it. It sounded great. We'd been jamming for a long time, when something amazing happenned. I was playing the intro to "Get off of my Cloud" when I started floating in the air! I stopped playing, but I kept floating. At first, I thought it was a bad trip, but Hal saw it too, and he hadn't been eating any mushrooms. I wailed, "How do I get down?!?!" and I came back down. So, I tried it again, and noticed the flying happenned after playing a certain sequence of chords ("#7"), and ended when I thought about landing. Keef tried it, but it didn't work for him. Maybe the magic only works for elves, or for Bards.