We got on our horses and headed back towards RE. As usual, we stopped at the Inn in Grosslangheim for the night. The bar maid looked a bit stressed out. She said, with some relief, that she was very glad we came. We unloaded, and went to the common room for the standard stew and ale. There were only five other people there: four locals, and a suspicious-looking guy dressed all in black, with a wide-brimmed hat pulled down over his eyes. He was sitting in the darkest corner of the room, so we couldn't see his features very well, but we could see that he had a rapier.
By the time we were done eating, two of the locals had left. Keef decided he was bored, and walked over to the suspicious guy in the corner. "Here, why are you skulking about?" he asked. The guy gave Keef a pointy-toothed grin. His skin was inky-black.
The Drow replied, in perfect Steinhall, "I don't want any trouble with you."
"Well, if you don't want trouble with me, who are you seeking trouble with?"
"I seek trouble with no one. In fact, I intend to leave this country as quickly as possible. I'm travelling east. I believe that it is against the law to kill travellers in this country, is it not?"
Keef gave a shrug implying that the Drow should be less worried about the laws and more worried about Keef. "Of course. After all, I am a watchman. Who the fuck are you?"
"I've just recently been granted citizenship in this country. Here are my papers, good watchman."
Keef inspected the papers. They named the Drow "Morpheus," and indicated that he had some sort of noble status, and that he was permitted to carry a weapon. The papers were signed by Duke Dumas (the Duke of Steinhall City and environs). They looked to be in order, so Keef told him to stay out of trouble and came back to our table. I asked Keef what was up with the mysterious guy in the corner. Keef said, "He was spooky. I told him to bugger off." Shortly after his conversation with Keef, the fellow skulked out of the common room and went upstairs.
About an hour later, a scruffy, short man came in. Oddly enough, he also carried a rapier. He laid a gold Imperial (10 Au piece) on the bar and shouted, "Ale, wench! Bring me ale!" The ever-friendly bar maid brought him ale and spoke to him softly. After the guy drank his ale, he went into the kitchen. The bar maid came out, and asked if anybody needed anything else, before she retired for the evening. Then, she went back to the kitchen. Some of our party retired for the evening (Erose, Sanjay, Vrba).
Shortly after that, another man came into the inn. He was blond, and wore black leather armor with the sign of Baron Draco on, in silver. He looked like he'd been riding hard for several days. He asked if the bar maid was around, and everybody made lewd comments about how she was busy with another customer. The fellow served himself and left some money. He went over and talked to the two locals who were still in the bar. Then, he came over to our table. He said he was a King's Marshal, and was tracking a murderer. The murderer had used a rapier. I mentioned that we'd seen two guys with rapiers in this inn, this evening. At this point, Keef said, "Yeah, that Drow had one." I almost had apoplexy.
"Drow?!?! That guy was a Drow?" At this point, Keef told the whole story about the Drow and his papers from Duke Dumas. We also told the ranger about the guy in the kitchen. The Drow was the obvious suspect, but the ranger didn't want to go up and charge into a Drow's room.
"Why not?" I said. "If he gives you any trouble, just kill him."
"Kill a Drow? Just like that?"
"Yeah, we've done it plenty of times."
"You killed Drow, without magic?" He clearly didn't belive me.
"Crossbows work well. Swords, too." At this point, he dismissed me as a terrible liar, and went to the kitchen to question the fellow who was banging the maid. The guy ran out, pursued by the ranger. The ranger caught the guy, and knocked him around a bit. The ranger obviously belonged to the "scream in their face" school of interrogation. "Where did you meet Kirchoff?" he yelled at the suspect. "Why did you kill him? Is this your sword? Where'd you get all this gold?" He jangled a bag of coin in the suspect's face.
The suspect was clearly intimidated, because he immediately confessed. "Alright, alright, I did it! I never met the guy," he cried hysterically. The ranger said he was going to have to take the prisoner back to Stony Brook. He questioned the prisoner further. The guy said that he'd been paid to kill this Kirchoff fellow, and he was really sorry. The ranger asked who had hired him. The prisoner said that he wouldn't say because he was afraid they'd kill him if he told.
I found it extremely hard to believe that the Drow had nothing to do with this, so I tried talking to the prisoner. I told him horror stories about prison, and suggested that the authorities might go easier on him if he talked. However, this just seemed to upset the guy some more, and he refused to say anything.
Keef suggested to the ranger that he should talk to the Drow, just to be sure, and volunteered to go up and get him. The ranger gave Keef a googly-eyed stare, and said, "whatever you want to do." So, Keef stomped upstairs and barged into the Drow's room. The vile creature was in the process of fucking some wench. Keef just grabbed the fellow, and hauled him downstairs (after letting him put some trousers on). When keef brought the Drow downstairs, the ranger looked flabbergasted. "Who are you people?" he asked me. I considered a moment, various responses running through my head. I settled on, "We're the Rolling Stones." The ranger asked for our autographs.
Keef and the ranger questioned the Drow about his movements and whereabouts. I asked the prisoner if he recognised the Drow, he said no. The Drow told Keef and the ranger that he was "Morpheus." He had been travelling from Lubeck through Stony Brook, Grosslangheim, RE, and then east, out of the country. He claimed to be a trader, who'd visited Duke Dumas. He said he'd been banished from Drow society for being a pervert. Apparently, he only got sexual satisfaction from screwing human women. For some reason, the Duke had given the Drow papers, provided the Drow leave the country immediately. This seems a little fishy to me. The Drow complained about the "poor hospitality" he'd been receiving. If I'd been there, I'd have pointed out that he should be glad that nobody'd seen fit to kill him. However, I'd left the room shortly after Keef brought him down.
I went upstairs with the goal of searching the Drow's room and belongings for evidence of wrongdoing. I ran into Erose, who asked what was going on. I told her, and asked her to keep the Drow downstairs while I searched his stuff. I went to the Drow's room (which was obvious by the knocked-in door). Unfortunately, it was not empty; there was a naked woman in there. She was in a very bad mood. In an attempt to get her out of the room, I told her that her client would probably be a while, and that I'd be happy to employ her services in the meantime, if she'd be willing to go down to my room. She didn't take this very well. Since I couldn't get her to leave, I just looked around the room, noting where the Drow's saddle-bags and other equipment was, in the hope that I could get in there later, somehow. I heard a thunk from the stairwell, and heard Erose apologise for being so clumsy. The Drow then said something very smarmy to her. Thus warned, I left the whore and went down the back stairs. I had a thought to check out the stables, and see what sort of horse the Drow had. It was a big, black thing, branded with a lightning bolt. There was also a very scruffy-looking animal, which I guess belonged to the scruffy-looking prisoner.
I went back into the common room, and sat down next to the prisoner. He looked very unhappy, and said to the ranger, "Oh, don't let this scary man sit next to me, he keeps talking about Turkish prisons and Gladiator ballads."
I responded, "I'm not a man."
The prisoner peered at me and said, "Well, you don't exactly look like a woman."
"I'm an elf, you idiot."
He looked very confused, and said, "But I thought all elves had black skin."
"Oh, really? Well, I can assure you that is not true."
The fellow looked at me with wide-eyed fear and said, "You're not one of those bad elves, are you?"
I pondered this, and said, "I'm a little fuzzy on the whole good-bad thing. What's the difference between a good elf and a bad elf?"
"The bad elves eat people's hearts!"
I sneered at Vrba in my mind, and replied, "No, I don't do that.... Was it an elf who hired you?"
"Um, well, it might've been." I took this to mean, "yes."
The fellow seemed very nervous. I pulled out my herbs, rolled myself a joint, and offered some to the prisoner. After he'd smoked a bit, he relaxed, and I started to draw his story out of him.
His "adventure" began two weeks ago, when he lurking along a roadway, looking for somebody to rob. He saw some people, and rode up to them, ordering them to stand and deliver. He got a whole 5Au from these folks, who had inky-black skin and pointy teeth. They told him that they were "very impressed by his fierceness" and wanted to hire him to do a job for them. At this point, Keef interrupted and asked, "Hey, idiot criminal man, what is your name?" The fellow replied, "I'm not an idiot, and I'm not a criminal."
"Well, I can't just call you 'man,'" Keef said irritably. "What are you called?"
The guy sat up straight, and said, "I am Dennis the Menace," in very much the same tone Sanjay uses when introducing himself as Sanjay the Destructor.
Dennis resumed his story. He met up with his "victims," who had been joined by a fourth Drow. The new one was apparently the spokesperson. He told Dennis that they were "Elves of the Light" who had come to Steinhall to do good. They claimed to be working for the King. There was a man working in the government facility in Stony Brook who was a traitor. The "elves" wanted to scare the traitor by having him mugged while he was on his way to perform his traitorous deed. This is where Dennis came in. He was to rob the traitor when he left the facility. In particular, he was to steal a bunch of papers the traitor would be carrying, and bring them to the Drow. For this service, Dennis would be paid 1000 Au. Dennis agreed to perform this service. He felt very patriotic and heroic. Before he went to assault this fellow, the Drow asked to inspect his sword, to make sure it was up to snuff. They did so, and send Dennis off.
Dennis met the target leaving the facility. He threatened the man and demanded his papers. The man said, "Get out of my way!" and stabbed Dennis with a dagger. Dennis cut the guy with his rapier, not to inflict a mortal wound, just to wound him. The guy fell over dead. Dennis chickened out and ran away, without getting the papers. Two days later, one of the Drow met him, and paid him. The authorities were beginning to ask questions, and Dennis got worried. He was upset that all this heat was on him, when he'd been performing a service for the king. He decided that he should get more money from his employers. {What happenned in here?} Dennis went on the lam, and ended up in Grosslangheim.
When Dennis was done with his story, we heard noises upstairs. The Drow was saying something in Dwarvish, of all things. His whore came down the stairs and left. We tried to think of a way to search the Drow's room. I suggested that Sanjay use his weasel to scare the Drow out of his room. Sanjay then suggested that he just have the weasel search the room itself for scrolls and the like. The weasel went off, and came back a bit later, carrying a scroll in its mouth. The scroll was written in the Old Tongue (Old Elvish). The scroll contained notes on the local politics of all the countries of the known world, maps, etc. They seemed to be geared towards personal use by this Morpheus character. He had summarized people who he should avoid at all costs (e.g. Draco, Malthus, Goebels, the MIBs), and people who he thought would be receptive to him (i.e. not kill him on sight). The latter list included Throntax and Duke Dumas, as well as various members of Dumas' court. The scroll also contained projections for the future for various areas. In particular, he expected that Greece would break up into many small city-states. He also projected that the NE area of Steinhall would collapse into political anarchy with the death of Baron Arnold of Lubeck. He believed this would create a power vacuum, and the various lords would vie to control the area. He also doubted that the King would intercede if the area fell into civil disorder. This is very odd. He also seemed to have a lot of knowledge about Dave's activities in England. In any case, this stuff really did seem to be personal, and not stolen from the facility at Stony Brook. Sanjay claimed that this was the only scroll the Drow had in his packs. The weasel took the scroll back to wherever it came from.
Everybody decided to go to bed. There was no way I was going to sleep in the same inn as a Drow, so Keef and I volunteered to watch Dennis. We did a little songwriting; one of the chords (#5) made me feel all warm and secure, although no other effects were noticed.
We'd decided that some of us would accompany the ranger and Dennis back to Softcraft, where they could get some people to protect them. Everyone else would go on to RE, and make sure the Drow didn't get up to any trouble there. We got ready to leave rather early. Unfortunately, the Drow was also leaving at that time. As we were preparing to leave, the Drow sniffed the air, and said, "I smell Drow death poison. No!" He started over towards Dennis, who was tied to his horse. Erose rode to intercept him, and Hal ran towards Dennis. Dennis slumped over, an arrow sticking out of him. The arrow had come from a two-story building down the street from the inn. Hal, Erose, and I headed towards the building. The two of them ran in the front door. Erose yelled, "somebody check the back for an exit." I headed around the back. Sure enough, there was a big door at the back. Like an idiot, I opened the door. Inside was a giant holding a big rock and a lizardy thing. Needless to say, I got out of the way. I was barely missed by a flying boulder. I rode over to get a mage. Sanjay was not apparent (I later learned that he'd gone inside), so I grabbed Vrba. Erose and Hal were fighting two lizard-men assassins in the upstairs of the building. Keef had charged around the building and was engaging the giant. I could hear him shout, "Have at you, windmill!" Sanjay shot lightning at the two monsters, killing the giant, and making the lizard mad. Vrba and I rode around the side of the building to see Keef freeze in place. The Drow jumped onto the back of the lizard and started stabbing it. For Vrba, this was too good to be true, and he started the incantation to shoot something nasty at both the Drow and the lizard. The lizard looked at him, and he too froze in place. Since he wasn't wearing lots of armour, I could see that Vrba'd been turned to stone. I realized the Drow had the right idea, and jumped on the basilisk's back. Eventually, it was killed. The lizard men had many arrows soaked in Drow poison. We took it all out into the sun so that it would be destroyed.
Both Dennis and the ranger had been killed by the archers, who had been using arrows tipped with Drow death poison. Keef and Vrba were both stoned, literally. Since it was a matter of national security, we decided that we'd try to get the ranger and Dennis raised from the dead, so that they could tell their stories to the authorities in Stony Brook. The closest town with a powerful cleric was Softcraft, about a day's ride west. The Drow, curse his black heart, insisted on traveling with us. I was NOT happy about that, but as the saying goes, "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer." I'd rather have him where I can keep an eye on him. Maybe he'll give us an excuse to kill him. We borrowed a cart from the innkeeper to transport the bodies and Vrba and Keef.
We got to Softcraft, and went to see the priestess of Freya. She said she could definitely raise the ranger, since he'd died gloriously in battle, but she wasn't sure about poor Dennis. The "donation" was 1000 Au per dead person, which we paid out of Dennis' money and the money we'd gotten off of the lizard men. The priestess said that I could stay and watch the rituals, which I agreed to.
Hal and Erose went to visit their friend Sven, the commander of the Softcraft garrison. The told him about how stupid Dennis had been tricked into thinking Drow were good elves, and vice versa. Sven told them that many common folk didn't know much about elves, so the Drow could confuse them easily. I will have to start doing more traditional ballads and tales at our shows, I guess.