SPQT -- Swine and amazons

February 28 - I have a ghastly headcold. Yesterday morning, Uncle called us in to relay disturbing news from the second Aquitanian villa, the one near the portals. Someday we must explore those properly - I grow quite curious about them. Anyway, during the past days, several men have vanished from the vicinity, most during daylight hours. Though the complex has been sealed, and not all of the men - who were all alone when they vanished - had expressed any intention of going near it, the portals were the first though not the only possibility that sprang to mind. Most of the vanished were large, burly countrymen, so whatever the problem was, it was no trifle. We packed at once and departed via teleport circle.

Once at the villa, we were informed that the most recent disappearance had been from the woods nearby - a large farmhand who had been searching for the missing men. This wood was in the opposite direction from the portals.

With Robyn and his dogs in the lead, we proceeded to track the man for upwards of an hour, at the end of which time Robyn detected signs of a violent struggle. His were the only clear tracks in the vicinity of the site, but Robyn's scrutiny revealed that perhaps half a dozen individuals had been there, and had subsequently taken pains to obliterate their traces. We followed their trail, which was particularly arduous. (At one point we had to leap a stream, a feat which I accomplished with astonishing ease, but Decimus muffed. I don't know what was worse for him - that he got wet, or that I didn't.)

We spent the rest of the day following tracks I couldn't see through ridiculously difficult terrain. I was completely lost and confused. Robyn found a campsite, where our half-dozen seemed to have hooked up with a larger group, and signs of an ambush - but no blood, no bodies, nothing that would make sense of the route, which Corvus remarked impatiently seemed to be deliberately taking the hardest possible ways around everything. As dark came on, we stopped to camp, and Robyn decided to take his magical steed Proteus on a night flight. In a short time, he returned, saying that he had seen four fires - ours, one to the south, and two to the west and north. One of the northwestern ones was surrounded by Gaulish tribesmen, no very surprising sight in this area; the other was partially concealed by a shelter and appeared, from the air, to be deserted. This seemed the obvious starting point. I would much have preferred to stay by the fire and drink decongestant tea, but duty called. Leaving Gaius in charge of the dogs and the campsite, we took our hits from the flying wand and followed Robyn to the fire in question.

My brain was much too full of phlegm to attempt making plans, but I must exert myself to remind others to do so in the future, because our lack of one was soon plain. Fortunately Orus was watching over us. The next events were fairly confused at the time, but I have pieced it together as follows:

Corvus and Robyn landed among the trees in order to inspect the area more closely, while I flew low enough to detect evil. There was quite a bit of it. Corvus stepped on a twig, which caused feminine Acheaen voices to challenge him. While retreating invisibly into the air, Corvus spotted a farmhand-sized bundle on the ground and an archer in a tree. Robyn saw the bundle and one shapely sentry, but no one else. I saw a sentry pursusing the sound Corvus had made and platforms in the trees with people apparently sleeping on them. Decimus could see eight magical auras. Alfredus, growing bored and not troubling to consult anyone, attempted to land softly with the notion of retrieving the farmhand, and failed.

Arrows and spells bounced back and forth chaotically. I made no attempt to track strategy once I saw someone in a tree cast a spell at Alfredus. (Decimus, who is an expert if anyone is, says it was polymorph other.) Not being able to see the caster clearly, I cast "silence" at the correct level on the tree, and pointed her out to Decimus as our responsibility. Corvus attacked one from behind, and Robyn started shooting with his special arrows that stun but do not kill, knowing I would want someone for questioning. Alfredus grabbed the "farmhand" and began to run with it, though he said when he picked it up, he almost dropped it again in surprise. I was pretty surprised by the pig squeals, myself. Alfredus astutely realized that the disappearing men were being transformed into piglets, and that he had narrowly escaped this fate himself, and this knowledge enabled him to maintain his grip and encouraged him to keep running. When one of the women confronted him he tried to speak to her, in his own language, but she only attacked him for his pains; so he flew away.

Meantime, Decimus lost his temper at the women shooting at him and cast a fireball into their midst. I failed to secure the spellcaster with a "hold person" spell. This was unfortunate, as it appears that she has studied the art of casting "fireball" without a verbal component. She intelligently threw it at Decimus. This at last caught his attention enough for him to polymorph her into a tortoise. Now that I know about the piglets, I find this satisfactory; I just wish he'd done it sooner.

The fireball and Corvus and Robyn's efforts by this time had reduced the number of the ablebodied to the point that the two left standing decided to run away, ignoring my call for surrender. As Robyn, Corvus, and Alfredus pursued them, I attended to the wounded. Decimus teleported me, one woman, the turtle, and the poke of piglets to the villa, where we made our report and explained the situation. It took us most of the rest of the night to organize the necessary transports to fetch the wounded prisoners and horses for ourselves. During our absence, things had taken a dark turn, for Robyn's group found one of the women dangling from a tree with two arrows in her back. Tracking the murderer's footprints, they had the good fortune to detect her ambush before she could spring it. The conflict might have had tragic consequences, had the woman not had the sense to call a truce when the baby on her back woke up and commenced crying.

The tale she told was as horrific as it was fantastic. She is Thyra, one of the legendary amazons, who attempted to escape from her people when she bore a male child. Male children, like their captive fathers and any girl children with "imperfections," are sacrificed by these monsters in human form every equinox. She had been pursued over a considerable distance, and when she found the other side of the portal in the midst of a jungle, she had unhesitatingly stepped through it. However, the search party had followed her even there. Once through, they had decided to combine searching for her with collecting men for the equinoctical sacrifice - this was the intended fate of all our poor piglets. If any returned, she said, they would surely bear back word to the amazon empress, who would not hesitate to send more raids through the portal; therefore, it was urgent to prevent the last remaining amazon from escaping.

Utilizing their superior knowledge of the area, Robyn, Corvus, and Alfredus led Thyra to an ambush location, arriving ahead of the amazon captain. She fought fiercely, and would not surrender. By the time Decimus and I arrived, it was all over. The captain's body and leather armor had suffered extreme damage from a hail of arrows from the ambushers, but her weapons and other magical items were turned over to Thyra. We returned to Gaius - who was half-mad with anxiety - and I supervised the apprehension of the wounded amazons, who will be dealt with as common raiders by the local authorities.

Uncle, Decimus, and I have a fair job ahead of us, disenchanting all these piglets; but Uncle is pleased with us, and so am I. Thyra wishes to find work to support herself and her son - who she considers naming after her three benefactors (Robyn suggested naming the child Alexandros, after the legendary hero, and Thyra says she's familiar with some of the legends but they feature a heroine named Alexandra) - and Uncle is extolling the advantages of life in a senatorial guard. Nobody else has a genuine amazon! She would throw everyone else's barbarians quite into the shade. However, she needs a bath, a good meal, and a good rest before she decides anything - as do the rest of us. Steam. That's what my head needs, and plenty of it.