SPQT -- Crestquest: Last night in Brigantium and first days on ship

July 7 - Taking the opportunity provided by a small shrine with a holy water fountain, I scryed for every friend Erin could give me a lead on. All I found were urns in mausoleums. We offered up prayers for their souls. Poor girl!

July 9 - Home again. Everything seems to be in order, and Otho assures us we sail on the dawn tide three days from now. And not a moment to soon!

Spent the day discussing Erin's options with her and taking her around to various schools and places of employment. She likes apprenticing at Brax's best; and I admit it would be a relief to me to know, for a fact, that her employer would be not only willing, but able, to protect her from whoever happens to think she still is in possession of valuable commodities. Now to talk to Brax about it.

July 10 - All is in order. Erin is my ward until she's 21, and the value of her items and information is to be invested for her through Uncle's usual man of business. She's quite a level-headed girl and, if she can survive her grandfather's legacy, should do well in this world. According to her grandfather, the markings on the dagger form a map which can only be read properly in the distorted reflection of the Chalice. I have told her that if any more people come looking for her legacy, she is to take no risks and, in the event that they are not immediately routed, should declare that she's already sold it, and to whom. I'm sure we can handle anyone that brings after us.

The household is in an uproar, breaking up. Uncle thinks it too dangerous to maintain a household in Brigantium under current conditions, so the bulk of the servants and householders are retiring to the country. The confidential staff, including Tamara when her mission is completed, will retreat to Analubia, with all Alfredus's family, the Sunshine boys, and assorted livestock, ranging from Scipio to the children's pony. Otho has rented us all the cabin space in the vessel "Azure Princess," and assures us it will be the finest traveling we've ever done.

July 11-12: No point in going to bed again now! Robyn, displaying a laudable caution, decided to spend his last night in Brigantium on the roof, and sure enough - men in black, spellcasters, archers, the works! I missed most of it, since I was in the baths at the time, and by the time I got my ring, holy symbol, and tunica on, and rushed upstairs, they were in the alley; then by the time I reached the alley, they were running off, a couple of them invisible. A large barbarian was caught in a web at the end of the alley, but even he managed to break loose and escape. Well, we coudn't have that! Decimus, who was flying, tried to track the invisible one through the streets, but he went to ground in the sewers.

We were left with some blood and a few elven arrowheads. Using the arrowheads, I was able to scry an insula near the docks, and Decimus and Robyn were sure that they could track the bleeding elf through the sewers. Corvus went alone to the neighborhood where I determined the insula to be and gathered information about the house. Decimus and Robyn tracked their quarry, Decimus in guise as a bloodhound, in company with the vigiles, who I insisted on calling this time. Alfredus and I remained at the villa, on the theory that there was no particular reason to expect this to be the only attack on us. Fortunately we passed a quiet enough night. The wounded elf was tracked to a healing shrine, where he surrendered without a fight. The vigiles went in the front door at the insula, while Decimus hovered outside their window and Robyn and Corvus watched the rear exit, and all went well. These are the same bunch that tried to rob Otho that time. No need to ask what their objective was!

Dawn is almost here, and we will be on board the ship at last! Time to be gone, and past time.

July 12 - toward evening. Otho, sharing the cabin next to mine with his manservant and Sam, did not exaggerate. This is an amazing ship, and the captain obviously used to passengers. He has taught the children to fish off the back, in order to buy us some quiet. Alfredus is working on his poem, Otho's friend Sam is talking magic with Decimus, and dinner was an above-average assortment of shrimp dishes. Except for poor Corvus, who is spectacularly seasick even though the sea is the calmest I've ever sailed on, this should be the pleasantest voyage I've ever had. (Lists of planned activities, spells to enscroll, etc., snipped)

July 13. The captain lowered a swimming net for the enjoyment of the passengers. The children had a fine time, and Otho showed off a bit. It was a little crowded for my taste, but perhaps later in the voyage.

July 14 - Oh, well, it was nice while it lasted, and by the grace of Orus and the skin of our teeth we have no casualties. I'm having to be rather frosty with the captain, alas.

It started out minorly enough. Ludo came to me with a rat bite sustained while playing hide and seek in the hold. We cleaned it off and, as a precaution, used up one of my Cure Disease scrolls. Alfredus, recalling our last rat encounter on shipboard, insisted that we search the hold, but Decimus sensibly asked Primus for a report from the ship's cat first. He reported that there was indeed a large rat - approximately Primus's size - in the hold; and also that a box near the site of Ludo's incident was inspected daily by some of the other passengers. I had Gaius fetch me these passengers. They freely told me that they were transporting the body of their master to his home of Khmet, recently liberated, that he might be interred according to the customs of his people. They had seen no strange rats down there.

Corpses being always worrisome, I accompanied Decimus and Alfredus to the hold and systematically detected evil. The crate containing the coffin had a strong aura, and a moderate one moved about behind the boxes. Since it was broad daylight and I (not having anticipated any need for undead-protection spells at sea; foolish of me, I suppose!) had no appropriate spells for dealing with the Khmetian gentleman, who seemed content to lie still for now, we set about trapping the moderate evil. Decimus webbed off the exit, I cast Cloak of Righteousness on myself, and Alfredus started moving boxes. The large rat managed to evade us, however, for the duration of the spell; only after it faded did it become a boy and poke his head up, pleading with us not to hurt him.

He was not particularly inclined to explain himself to us, but was wearing a slave collar, and it was not that hard, once Alfredus stopped frightening him, to worm his story out of him. He is bearing messages in wererat form for his master - Senator V., in fact. He didn't wish to tell me, but having been recently briefed on the prominent figures at present interested in Analubia, it wasn't that hard to work out from the clues he dropped, and his expression when I mentioned the name gave the show away. He claims that being a rat gives him urges to do "terrible things," which he hates and is resisting.

I persuaded him to put himself in our hands, and took him to the Captain, who insisted - not unreasonably - on a cage in the hold. We got him a clean fowl pen, and I have arranged for Gaius to bring him better food than he could have found on his own. Robyn thinks we should just pay the boy's fare, but this is the first time we've ever had anything on Senator V himself that we could actually stick. I intend to try to break the enchantment on the next full moon, and get the boy confiscated in court, all above-board and legal, based on the captain's complaint against him for instructing the boy to stow away. Bringing an action for infecting the boy is the next step, and I'll need to collect affidavits in service to that. If we pay his fare and give him back, we've done V a favor; if we pay his fare, break the enchantment, and keep or free him, that's stealing. It must be done properly.

However, we still had the evil in the coffin to deal with. Robyn and Decimus hid in the hold to keep an eye on it while I dealt with the boy; and then I had Gaius bring back the commoners who have it in keeping, under pretext of bringing them up to date on the situation in the hold. While waiting, I set a Zone of Truth around my deck chair, about which I'm afraid I neglected to inform them. Therefore, when I asked if their master gave them instructions when they went down in the evening, they answered unthinkingly, and were shocked at themselves. They recovered quickly enough to tell me, when I asked what form their master presently was in, that they didn't wish to say. Since I was certain to find out anyway, and a charge of knowingly transporting the undead would be a sufficient occasion for the captain to confine them, I called on Alfredus and the Sunshine Boys to detain them. They broke and ran for the hold, screaming for their master, and I'm afraid my Hold Person spell was ineffectual; however, Sam happening to be in the neighborhood, he cast sleep on them handily enough, and down they went. Alfredus went below to inform Decimus and Robyn of the result and assist them in dealing with the coffin.

While I was explaining this to the captain and startled passengers, a sudden darkness boiled out of the hold. It transpired that Decimus, Robyn, and Alfredus had decided to go ahead and open the coffin, and the creature inside first cast a darkness spell, then departed the coffin so quickly that Alfredus, chopping down hard with his ax, hit only wood. I dispelled the darkness and Sam and Otho ran for their weapons. I cast Bless ahead of me as I descended into the hold, and saw, by the flickering light of Decimus's everburning torch, Alfredus raging against a man in banded mail and Robyn turning on Decimus - using the magic longsword, which is not what Uncle gave it to him for!

I had naturally expected a mummy, but after all, an undead fiend is an undead fiend. It had the audacity to attempt to turn *me,* which by the power of Orus was naturally ineffective. Alas, I was not strong enough to turn him, either, and Robyn was carving up poor Decimus, who was trying desperately to cast a spell, and not succeeding. The fiend attempted to take control of Alfredus, as well, which would have put me in a pretty pickle; fortunately, Alfredus hit him so hard he was obliged to turn into a cloud of mist, confirming my opinion that we were dealing with a vampire. I enclosed him in a tubular wind wall and Decimus at last got a spell off and sensibly turned invisible. Sam and Otho came pelting down the stairs behind me, and I filled them in quickly.

The wind wall would not last long, and Robyn, still searching for Decimus, needed to be released from his domination before the vampire had him switch targets. Sam dispeled magic on him, which fortunately was effective; but before I could formulate a plan for destroying the vampire when the wind wall died, I heard a cry of "clear the decks" above me, various cries of dismay, and a lightning bolt punched neatly through the deck immediately above the vampire. Not only did sunlight flood in, but the air pressure of the wind wall sucked him up into the open air, and the last we heard of the vampire was a scream on the wind.

The captain is extremely annoyed, and talking of setting us ashore at the next available opportunity. Although I sympathize with him about the damage to his ship, and would certainly have advised Decimus against it had I had an opportunity, the fact is, he *did* position the lightning so as to take out only the deck and not go all the way through the hull; he did *not* topple the mast; the vampire problem *was* solved; and he will spend as much time and magic as necessary to restore the damage to its original condition, if not slightly better. Otho, as the person who paid the fare, is taking the sweetly reasonable part and I am being frosty, dropping hints about lawyers and my uncle's wrath about his lack of security precautions, or is it criminal complicity? After all, a wererat and a vampire on the same voyage are a bit much!

I've healed everyone* and things have settled down a bit. One good result of all this - the slave no longer fears we will be unable to protect him from the wrath of his master! Gaius is inclined to pout about having been "left out" (!) of the mayhem, but he has the task of extracting from this boy all he can learn about V's internal organization, the nature of the messages he's been sending, and other such useful topics. This should keep him sufficiently occupied without any particular danger.

*I forgot to do this at the game, since Ryan and Al had to leave, so don't forget to make me roll the dice and use up the spells/charges at the beginning of the next game.