Vrba and Keef were destoned, then somebody ran into the temple, and said, "Help! Mayor Randolph's daughter has been kidnapped!" We ran over to the Mayor's house. One of the guards there said that hideous manlike creatures with scales had attacked the house and killed Bob. (Bob was one of the guards of the Mayor's house.)
Hal found tracks of four lizard-men leading off into the woods; one of them looked like it was weighed down with the mayor's daughter. Bob the guard had been killed by a Dreaded Southern Battle Halbard (TM), which is kind of long-bladed, short-handled chopping weapon, and is apparently not a common weapon amoung the lizard-men of Steinhall.
Hal and Keef set out to track the lizards, and the rest of us went to get our equipment together. Hal and Keef followed the tracks into the woods until they ended abruptly. Keef had a flash of insight, and looked up. Four lizardmen were in the trees above them. Hal got out his bow and shot at the lizards. There was rustling in the underbrush. The underbrush stood up, and there were ten more lizard men surrounding Keef and Hal. A fight ensued. Keef and Hal thought they were goners, but after beating them down, the lizards ran down the road. They clearly had someplace to be urgently.
We (me, Erose, Sanjay, and BRB) caught up with them after the fight. BRB fixed Hal and Keef up, and we proceeded to track the lizards. We came across a dead lizard man, he'd died of wounds inflicted in the fight. His companions had done some sort of ritual over the body, there was a note pinned to his shirt, and a little pile of stones on him. A DSBH(TM) was placed next to his body. We travelled on. We finally came to the edge of the woods.
Beyond the woods was some grassland, with a hill nearby. This was an oddly-shaped hill, kind of a double-hill, with a cleft down the middle. The locals called it Butt Hill. Erose had one of her little episodes, and said something about how she was seeing sounds, or something like that. Keef then encouraged her to take some of his sense-mixing mushrooms. She took the entire bag! She was seriously tripping. Overhead, we saw a flock of bats fly south, then wheel around and flew back north-- not a normal bat flying pattern. Sanjay, Hal, and I went to scout out the hill. As we neared it, we saw that there were some lizardman guards on the top. We snuck around the side, and saw the lizards' camp below us, at the bottom of the hill. There were about 10 large tents, a corral with horses and some sort of large lizards, and some enclosed gyspy-type wagons. One of the wagons had bars on the windows. There were about 60 lizardmen dancing around the campfire. The entire group had equipment-- tents, armor, weapons-- which Hal said was of the style found in southern Steinhall.
It clearly wasn't safe to go down into the camp to find the girls, but I had a brilliant idea. I got out Joe the Djin's bottle and summonned him. He appeared, and I asked him if he could go check out the camp for us. I told him we were looking for a man of Lazlo's description, and some girls. Joe turned into mist, and went to check out the camp. He came back and said that they guy was in the wagon with bars on, and that there were a bunch of girls in one of the tents. They were chained to the ground, and guarded by seven lizard men.
While we were doing all this, Keef and BRB were guarding the horses and Erose. Two black stallions with riders in black leather rode up. They were the two rangers who Draco had sent to find the missing girl. Their names were Frankfurt and Nice. Keef et al sent them after us.
The rangers found us checking out the lizards' camp from the east, near the wagons. We'd been making a really cool plan to save the chicks, involving a diversion and a fake army attack which would let us sneak in and rescue Lazlo and the girls. The rangers put a stop to that, telling us that they were planning on getting an actual army to attack the lizards once they'd travelled further south, into the Royal Woods. We didn't think that was a great idea, too much leeway for the lizards to do something unexpected. We figured we'd go get Lord Lara or the Regent to produce an armed force to deal with the lizard-man army invading their territory. We left the rangers to keep an eye on the lizards, and went back to RE with the news.
While preparations were being made, we lazed around the town. Luke talked with Sanjay and Vrba about a way he'd discovered for two mages to link their powers to produce more powerful spells. Keef had a dream that he was very small, standing near a giant woman who was fighting Vidar. Keef stabbed the woman in the foot, and thus enabled Vidar to defeat her. I asked Throntax to help me figure out the guitar, as repayment for helping rescue her sister. She said that I could leave the guitar with her for a week or two, but I didn't want to leave it.
I went down to the Spitting Camel to apologise to Sue for standing her up the other night, when we went off chasing the lizards. She accepted my apology, but she had to keep working. The town, and thus the inns, was getting very full from all the people coming into town to join the army. I was feeling bored, so I played some music in the Spitting Camel. Figuring that I could inspire the masses, or something, I started to play a song I'd recently learned, the ballad of Butt Hill. ("Butt Hill, Butt Hill, so cold, and still...") Suddenly, the guitar made a violent whining sound, and bluish red flames shot up in a 30-foot radius ring around me. The inn, the bar, everything caught on fire. I stopped playing immediately, but it was too late. The fires were eventually put out, but not before the bar, the inn, and parts of Olga's house were burnt down. The barn was the only structure which was okay. I had to pay Olga 800 gold pieces, and I'm now banned from playing in the Camel, after it is rebuilt. I felt bad about leaving Sue homeless, so I offerred to let her stay in my rooms at the Four Seasons. She accepted.
A contingent of fighers from Dreistall arrived, and said that Sam the Druid was coming to deal with the lizard-men One of the centaurs (a foal) who was under his protection had been kidnapped by the lizards, and Sam was very unhappy. We figured that Sam would be more than able to deal with a few dozen lizard-men, so we set out with the Dreistall soldiers for Butt Hill.
We went around Butt Hill to the east, and met some centaurs who said that Sam was coming. It started to rain. Then the weird shit started.
A wall of thorns grew up south of the hill, blocking off the easiest escape route for the lizards. The ground rose up, producing a 20-foot tall earth-creature which marched into the lizards' camp. The main fire in the camp did something similar. Lightning started striking all the tents but the one the girls were in. Keef and I snuck over to the prison wagon and let Lazlo out. The rest of our group went to get the chicks. They found the lizard-men guards strangled by vines. They let the girls out. One of them told Erose that a slave trader in the south hired the lizards to steal girls.
We took one of the wagons to take the girls back in. The wagon had a lot of documents in it, they looked like maps and communications in lizard-man. From a cursory glance at the maps, it looked like there were two squads of lizard-men still out, they'd gone to Wittenberg and Mulamer (a small town S of the river). We figured we could get Sanjay to translate the documents more thoroughly with magic. As we drove off towards RE, fire rained down on Butt Hill.
On the ride back, Keef talked with Lazlo about his dreams. Keef told him that Vidar's visions are signs of things to look for. They talked about Valhalla, and Keef said, "I've never been there, despite having died twice."
While riding along, one of the centaurs, Thomas by name, was chatting Erose up outrageously. He was complimenting her on her battle prowess, and her overall mightiness, like any centaur in a rut. Of course, Erose had no idea what was going on.
After we got back to town, Keef went to talk to Throntax about his soul. Afterwards, he came to talk to me. He said that she said that Keef's soul seemed "somewhat Elvish." She said that she had been looking into legends and prophecies, and had discovered something that might have a connection. This thing was connected to the thousand-year cycle of the Drow and their goddess. It said that every 1000 years the Drow sent their armies up into Alfheim and England to wreak havoc. Every time, they were fought and defeated by two brothers, who were soul-mates, reborn to fight the dark ones. This thing Throntax read said that the next time, the brothers would not be nobility, and not even elves, but the offspring of a farmer in some pissant town. However, Throntax noted, it was not likely that it was truly prophecy. Throntax said that she would like to know more, Keef said she should talk to Mick. At this point, Keef asked me what was this all about, anyway. I told him that the old priest Darthier had told me that it was possible that Keef's soul was cursed. I still don't think it's necessarily a good idea to tell him the details. I really wish I had somebody who's realy knowledgeable in these things, who I could consult about this, but there's not likely to be an Elven soul-talker closer than Aldarhan in Franconia.