I slept fitfully, plagued by muscle cramps and slick with sweat.  In the morning I laid in bed curled up in pain until the maid came in and checked on me.  She seemed genuinely concerned and returned with a roving priest of Strider.  He held me up for 150 gold before he would deign to cast Cure Disease on me.  I didn’t feel any different and he said that it doesn’t always work the first time.  He refused to refund my money and had the gall to ask for another 150 to try again.  I told him I would see him burn in the Thirteen Hells before I gave him a thin copper. 

The maid seemed horrified by this turn of events and I was so touched by her anxiety and I gave her a gold coin, my hand shaking so hard I almost dropped it. 

At this moment the manager came in to demand more money or for me to leave.  I explained to him about the Thirteen Hells as well and gathered my things, collapsing into a coach and telling the driver to take me to Sage Mirror, an herbalist shop that sold potions.  The proprietor wanted 750 hold for a potion of cure disease!  No wonder poor people are always sick if this is the way it works. I wished for him to get buggared by an owlbear and took my leave. 

I spent several hours looking for a new place to stay but the decent inns wouldn’t have me – afraid that I was bringing a pestilence to their patrons – and I was too afraid to stay in a cheap flophouse, in my condition I would be an easy target for theft.  At a loss of what to do, I met up with Augrim for my lesson but upon seeing my condition he offered a solution.  He claimed that the Kostelos had an effective treatment for this ailment and took me into the woods, at the end he literally carried me.  He took me into a cave, covered the entrance with branches and leaves, and built up a roaring fire that he seasoned with foul smelling herbs. 

He said that the smoke would leach the poison from my body.  I felt like I was dying.  When he dragged me out I felt no better.  Of course not!  I must really in the grips of fever if I’m trying this primitive malarkey.  Augrim carried me back to town and I decided to make the best bad decision I could, I had the coach take me to the Sonsts family mausoleum and collapsed on the cold hard marble floor, shivering and burning up at the same time.  My fingers trembling, I shoved some of the dry tea leaves into my mouth and chewed them up raw hoping that sleep would overtake me.

It was dark when I awoke, and I heard the sounds of drunken conversation as clear as day.  Crawling to my feet I staggered out of the tomb with a candlerod and saw two grave robbers with a hooded lantern going out their business as they passed a bottle back and forth.  I shouldn’t have cared in the least but for some reason I was enraged.  I thought about all that had befallen me and I hated them.  I walked up on them, they were too engrossed in their drinking and shoveling to notice, and clobbered one of them across the back of the head so hard I broke my walking stick. 

He toppled to the ground and his companion jumped back with a startled yelp.  He fumbled for a flask at his belt and tossed a liquid on me.  It didn’t do anything which seemed to terrify them.  They ran off as if their lives depended on it.  Later I realized I was so ill-looking, and covered with cemetery dirt, they thought I was a ghoul and they had thrown holy water on me.  I took their bottle of cheap wine and returned to the mausoleum where I drank myself to sleep. 

I have never felt more scared and alone.  When I was abandoned here I didn’t despair in the slighted, I started planning my revenge.  By laying on the freezing stones wracked with pain I felt defeated and powerless. I almost don’t care if I ever wake up.

____________________________________________________________

Funds: 85 platinum, 111 gold

XP: 2000

Inventory: Peasant outfit (with hidden pockets) , Signet Ring , Stiletto , Map case, quill pen, red riding cloak, candlerod (4) , dreamer’s star tea (1 servings) , poison ring, awful pendant, disguise kit (6 uses) , Fashionable Accessories, hollow heeled boot, poison locket , courtier’s outfit, different fashionable accessories , Ring of Many Garments, money belt, broken crossbow, playing cards, hooded lantern

Revenge List: Duke Eaglevane, Piltis Swine, Rince Electrum, watchman Gridley, White-Muzzle the worg, Percy Ringle the butler , Alice Kinsey , “Patch”, Meddlesome adventurers, Cardshire Arms manager, priest of Strider, owner of the Sage Mirror

Anti-Revenge List: Dorehe the maid

Rumors : Murderous servants (70%) , exiled noblewoman (55%)

Behind the curtain – Ela failed her Fortitude check for the filth fever again and took 1 point of Dexterity Damage and 3 points of Constitution damage for a total of 2 Dexterity and 5 Constitution. The cleric failed his level check to remove the filth fever.  I had forgotten enough that rule, seems pretty weak for a third level spell but I suppose that explains why disease still exists in D&D, besides the alleged scarcity of magic.

Ela is now a 2^nd level expert.  I’ve debated about whether to be advancing her as a rogue or a bard or some other scoundrelly class but I wanted another level of expert based on her current skill list before I branched out. I’ve never noticed before that expert has 3/4^th BAB.  Seems a bit silly.