We're out 5/16, 5/23, 6/6, and 6/20. Life gets busy sometimes, doesn't it?

That leaves 5/30, 6/13, 6/27...

In the interest of first come, first served, how is everyone for 5/30?

Off to LA in 6 days...

Sure, why not.

Works for me...now if I can only remember where I am ???

Not far from a computer would be a good place to start looking.

Sorry, busy that weekend.

OK... 5/30 should work for me. The next date thereafter would be 6/13 or 6/20.

Sorry I've been a bit tied up with school, work and life.

Well, as he mentioned a few posts up, Jonathan had something come up on the 30th. I can't keep track of his busy social calendar anymore! Sigh. The 13th is good and the 20th is bad. I mean, I'm free for all of them, myself... I don't have a life. ; )

Recap time!

The party helped the paladin get back on his feet, looking somewhat the worse for wear. We headed down the hallway that the evil mage had fled down. The first room we came to had beds and chests, and the rogues got to work looting the place. The paladin went a little down the next hallway when he suddenly sensed an intense evil, so strong that it made him ill. It was gone quickly, and when the party went to investigate, they found an unrecognizable body, not quite dead yet. The paladin put him out of his misery, as he was clearly not savable and had been left there to suffer. After some work clearing the dead man's liver out of his mouth and throat, a cast of "speak with dead" gave the party the chance to ask some questions.

"What killed you?" "Arrogance."
"Who killed you?" "Vengeance."
"What is the name of who killed you?" "I don't know."

As usual, not terribly helpful, but we decided the mage had been killed by whoever - or whatever - he had been toying with when we had interrupted him.

The cat showed up again at some point and was following us around again. We took a look around but didn't see anything of much interest, so we headed back to the surface, snuck out of town, and found our beds in the inn in the early morning hours.

It was a day or so before the party heard from the king's men again. The thief spent some of the time miraculously not blowing up the inn.

When one of the king's men did arrive, it was the one the paladin had sensed some evil in. The party explained what had happened beneath the city, which he didn't quite seem to believe, but he said he'd check it out. As for Bob's girlfriend, he had found very little except that it seemed that she had not been murdered. There was, however, a slave trade in town. He had sent someone out to check into the matter, but did not expect to be able to provide more resources than that. He told the party to keep an eye out for a female human fighter, and to let him know when she arrived.

The fighter, when she arrived, did not so much walk in as stagger in and collapse. The party quickly went to her rescue, with the paladin immediately laying hands on her and calling for the cleric. Between the two of them, they stabilized her, and called for the King's man (Serral? Not sure how it's spelled.) Serral came downstairs, and as soon as the woman woke, demanded a report. The fighter looked somewhat confused and demanded to know who he was, who any of us were, where she was, etc. The paladin took a close look and saw that her eyes were not focusing properly, and that she had interocular bleeding. He concluded that she had taken a blow to the head and therefore had amnesia. Serral, disgusted, tossed the rest of her pay at the paladin and stormed off, although not before the sorceress asked him for the fighter's name - Aurora. The party helped the fighter get upstairs and into a bed, giving her a chance to rest and recover from her ordeal.

The ranger and the wizard tracked Aurora's trail back, away from the road and to a stream. There they found a weapons belt with a longsword, dagger, bow, and quiver. They took a little more look around, but didn't see anything - they did, however, hear dogs braying in the distance. Concerned, they brought the belt back to the inn and gave it back to the fighter. The elf decided to wait through the night, watching for any comers.

Meanwhile, the sorceress, not knowing these developments, was out letting her owl fly and hunt. The owl seemed to notice something strange and interesting, so the sorceress followed, not in any hurry. When the owl lost interest and came back, she described a hunting party that had come to the stream, then returned the way they had come. The pair headed back to the inn, not realizing they had seen the party that had been chasing the fighter.

Early in the morning, two men came to the inn from the direction of the stream. The elf, sitting in the tree, noted this and followed them inside. The suspicious pair sat at a table, threatened the waitstaff a bit, and seemed to be watching and waiting. As the party rose and came downstairs for breakfast, the serving girl let them know that the pair seemed to be looking for a wounded fighter. Since the fighter was doing quite well at this point, and did not look wounded at all thanks to the myriad of healing spells the party had thrown at her, she did not quite fit the description. The pair did not give her any more scrutiny than they did Geena or Eden.

The party discussed their next steps. The paladin was very eager to finally return his holy avenger, which was a four day trip each way. Bob was not happy to just leave when he felt we were so close to finding his lost love. It took some convincing to get him to come along with the party on the short side-trip, which would give the fighter time to recover her memories, which were the only clue we had at the moment anyway. Finally Bob reluctantly agreed, and the party headed for the monastery to return the sword.

The trip was surprisingly quick and uneventful. The monks seemed to be waiting for us - or, at least, for the paladin. They thanked the paladin for the safe return of the sword, and asked him to take a token in exchange. The "token" was yet another holy avenger, although this one was new, younger, and had less... shall we say, personality. This one should hopefully be well within the paladin's abilities to wield, and will hopefully grow well alongside him.

The party headed back to the inn, and that is where we called it a night.

Since Dennis left before eeps were handed out, he doesn't get any. ...just kidding, we got 350 each. Next meeting is June 20th.

The investigator's name was Cyril. And don't forget the cat that has apparently adopted Aurora.

When the party returned to the inn, Merideth (the younger of the serving maids) tried to tell the party something, but was visibly upset and was unable to get the words out. It was the co owner, Delulia who informed the group that Myra, the elder of the servers, had been taken from the inn two days after the party left.

Right, I did forget that part. For some reason my mental narrative ended after the trip to the monastery.

Saturday still a go?

Lisa's planning on going, but I'm busy again.

I'll let Michelle know; she was talking about making cupcakes, and was concerned about making something sugar free.

I'll take a stab at this, before it gets too far from the front of my mind. ;-) Looking back, doesn't seem like more than a year since my last writeup, and yet there it is... or rather, isn't.

The group returned to the inn, and was told that one of the innkeeper's daughters, Myra (or Meridith, depending on who you ask), had been taken by slavers. A round of interrogations lead by the Paladin brought out concern for the captured girl, but also a general air of MYOB. Meridith was eventually pressured into revealing that the kidnappers have 'skimmed' the human populace from time to time for a while now, and everyone keeps quiet under general pain of things worse than the occasional missing relative. There were 3 camps in the area where people were being held, obstensibly in work camps. This revelation lead to an argument amongst the family, who was worried they would all be snuffed out for revealing the slaver's locations. James did the paladin-like thing and offered a new life in his fish town, and earned a reluctant thanks once it was made clear that no amount of dissuasion was going to keep him from going hunting for slavers.

Meanwhile, Aurora's memory was spotty at best, and the lingering head injury caused a semi-debilitating headache. After some plan alterations, it was eventually decided to send Elephant on a scouting mission for the camp that was dubbed the most likely to contain workers with less-than-legal reasons for being there. The owl found the camp, and the next day the group set out to see it in person.

Boarslayer took up the rear of the procession, and after a short while noticed someone following the group and staying hidden. Without preamble, he fired a few shots, and found arrows being reutrned at him; the latter being far deadlier than the former. Losing his target, and under a barrage, he decided to run for it, and made it back to the group to report his newly-aquired position as a pincushion.

Geena was noticed to be missing at this point, and when several of the group doubled back to deal with their tail, she stepped from behind a tree holding the man's head, sans body. Despite not carrying anything solidly linking him to the slavers, it wasn't a stretch, and the group carried on their way: hoping, of course, that this was the only one, and that their travel plans were still off the radar.

The party arrived around dusk, and surveyed the camp / fortress from a partially concealed position on a rise. It was around this point that Aurora recalled a larger portion of her time before the head wound: she had been here before, infiltrated the camp at night, and surprised a drow warrior which she believes was left either badly injured or dead.

After some discussion of the nature of drow and their slaving ways, we broke for the night.

Next game: Tentatively 8/1