15. Innsanity

"I'm gettin' a little sleepy!" Imoen yawned, and playfully rested her head for one second on Onyx's shoulder as they walked.

Looking for a place to spend the night, the party marched into the Jovial Juggler. The first sight to greet them was a blonde armored man hobbling up to them. He carried a spear, tall like himself, but seemed to use more as a crutch than a weapon.

"Hark there, fellow paladin!" He called to Onyx. "I am Sir Bjornin. And you?"

My tabard's under my armor, how'd he... he then noticed, almost knowing more than seeing, as if aware that it were his brain highlighting what his eyes actually saw, this Bjornin's aura. Oh yeah, we recognize each other. Well, at least he's not an assassin...I think. Not that Ajantis was much better. Hey, how come he didn't seem to...

"His name is Robin Locksley, and I am Jaheira," the druid stepped forward and answered, while her eyes scanned the room, obviously looking for assassins that might still recognize her charge by face alone.

Nice one, Jaheira.

"You know, brother in arms," Bjornin grinned, showing off teeth that were quite pearly, perhaps artificially so, "There's a band of ogres fortified southwest of here. They did a real number on me," he lifted his leg awkwardly, as if his limp weren't already obvious. "I shall have to heal for awhile..."

Us paladins can heal ourselves. It shouldn't take that long...? Onyx wondered.

"...But if you would be so noble as to give them a taste of justice, it'd do me proud, fellow knight."

Jaheira and Onyx exchanged glances that said much the same thing.

"So..." Onyx began, "You said 'fortified'."

"Yes," Bjornin smiled, "They should still be there."

"So then they're not, say, assaulting Beregost, they're just...fortified."

"Precisely," the blonde paladin nodded, visibly impatient, "And a threat to anyone who goes there."

Another skeptical glance between Onyx and Jaheira. Her smile told him that she preferred to let him handle this, so he did. "Sort of like we'd be a threat if, say, the ogres came to town."

Bjornin gasped. "Why yes! They could attack at any moment! Excellent thinking, you are truly vigilant, my brother! Make haste, make haste!"

"That, eh, not quite what I meant," Onyx gritted his teeth. "I mean, anyone 'could' attack after all. My point was, isn't where they're 'fortified' sorta like their, uh, home?"

"Exactly! Slay the beast in its lair!" Bjornin nodded eagerly.

"So were they, uh, attacking anyone?"

"Of course!" Bjornin screeched impatiently, gesturing down at his leg. "I quested to their fortification, challenged them to a duel to the death, and they had at me!"

"Anyone else?"

"Hmmm...probably. They are ogres, after all."

Onyx sighed.

Jaheira glanced at her charge. "You are wise, my child, but you are...too kind and patient with him." She then directed a stern, very typically Jaheiran, gaze at the blonde paladin, and she seemed to grow while he shrank until she was much taller than he. "Listen, you idiot! That is the ogres' home! Just like Beregost is your home! As far as we know, they weren't attacking anyone until you attacked them! And now thanks to you, they'll probably attack the next people who do happen to come by! Thank you very much for doing everything in your meager power to engineer strife of bloodshed, noble paladin!"

Bjornin gasped and hobbled back from the angry druid gripping the enchanted quarterstaff, and moved his mouth speechlessly for a moment, as if chewing something quite bitter, then worked up the courage to shout, "Foul witch! You should be burned at-.."

" Don't ," Onyx hissed, "Threaten my friend. Or call her a witch." Jaheira snickered and grinned. She was having trouble deciding whether it was more enjoyable to tell people off herself or watch her charge do it. Both, she decided.

Bjornin screamed like a girl, fell off his spear, and crashed onto the ground in his platemail, stuttering. "S-she's enchanted you! It is as I feared!"

Khalid smiled, looking unusually calm. "Well, she's enchanted me."

Jaheira smiled lovingly at her husband while Onyx snickered, and Bjornon really freaked out. "Heeelp!! I'm injured! I can't be expected to fight them! Ah!" Dragging his precious spear, he crawled away from them, over the dirty, putrid floor of the Juggler, with a complete lack of dignity that the other patrons found extremely laugh-worthy.

"Pathetic," Viconia chuckled.

"Ooookay..." Imoen giggled.

The party broke out in laughter, but no sooner had the lame blonde paladin dragged himself around a corner into a hallway, than a rather high-strung skinny man in blue sprang up from a table, and, with his eyes dancing wildly, stared at Onyx and began babbling, "Wow! H-hey...names' Oogie Wisham. That Bjornin...glad you took care of him! I can feel his eyes looking at me. He's a paladin, you know. They ain't right in the head." He tapped his head.

"And you are?" Viconia snickered.

"They..." 'Oogie' continued obliviously, "They just look at you and you've been judged. What right do they have to do that?"

Onyx calmly extracated himself from the man's grasp. "Well, it's just looking."

Jaheira scowled at her charge. "So's a diviner using a cantrip to look under a lady's clothes, child. Not very polite, is it?"

"Point taken, J," Onyx admitted. Jaheira nodded and smiled, but the one-letter nickname brought a scowl, which Onyx smiled at. You call me child, I call you J. Let's see how long it takes. This'll be fun.

Meanwhile, outside of Onyx's thoughts, Oogie was nervously babbling, "Recent evidence suggests that a barrel full of monkeys is not half as fun as previously claimed! In fact, it's terrifying!!"

Onyx sighed. Why is everyone who approaches me when I walk into an inn or down the street either (1) a lunatic/fanatic, (2) an assassin, (3) someone who needs a small quest done for them (4) someone who wants to join my party, or (5) some combination of the above? Usually #1 coupled with one of the others...Is the whole world outside Candlekeep like this, or am I a loony magnet?

Onyx turned towards Oogie and gave him a devilish grin. "I'm a paladin too. Boo!"

Oogie's eyes bulged into saucers. "Aieeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!" he spun on a dime and scrambled across the room, disappearing up a stairwell. "The paladins! They're watching meeeeee..."

"Now the whole tavern is watching you," Onyx chuckled.

"Lucky stiff," Garrick sighed, "I can never get them to, even when I try."


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Foul, foul air assaulted the party as they stepped through the threshold of Feldepost's Inn, upon it the aromas of multiple beverage and bodily fluid types.

And this is the nice inn in Beregost? Onyx wondered skeptically as two particularly drowned patrons at the nearest table leered at him.

"'Ere URP now!" called one of them, a stocky brown-haired local. "I don't like your type in here!"

"Heh," chuckled his blonde and slightly leaner, but no cleaner, friend, "You tell 'em, Marl."

Just what exactly is my type? Onyx wondered aloud as 'Marl' managed to stand, heavily leaning on the table and burping.

"Hey!" he cried, waving one arm accusing the party, "I told ya to get lost! Ain't no room here for ye trouble makin' strangers."

Jaheira stepped abreast of Onyx and declared, " We're not making the trouble."

After processing this for a second, Marl finally answered Onyx's first mental question by declaring, "I'm sick of you freakish adventurers going out, consorting with gods know what, and dragging your trouble back into my home town! What do you say to that?"

Onyx calmly answered, "Well, good sir, we tend to solve more trouble than we cause."

"Usually!" Imoen giggled, peeking around his arm. Gee, thanks Immy.

"Ohhhhhhhh," Marl drew himself up, apparently deciding he could now stand without an arm on the table, and Onyx moving his arm protectively over Imoen. "You HIC think it's funny, do you!" You mess up the local economy with your treasure..." Marl pretended to pat his pockets as if they were much fuller than they were.

"Treasure'd do more for the economy in an abandoned dungeon?" Onyx asked with calm sarcasm.

"If you're worried about poverty, don't drink yourself into it," Jaheira smirked.

"...You upset the balance of nature..." he drunkenly tried to point out the nearest window.

"We fight for the balance of nature," Jaheira hissed through gritted teeth, and only Khalid's hand reaching for hers kept her from ripping out the man's throat. "Your belch might unbalance it," she snarled under her breath.

"...You flash your magic around..." Marl began to wave his arms in an unusually bad imitation of spellcasting.

Onyx, Imoen, Jaheira, Khalid, Viconia, and Garrick all exchanged glances that read 'So?'

"...and..." Marl began to stagger up to Onyx, "...because of it maybe somebody's son thinks it's fun and goes out and gets himself killed! It'd a bad example and somebody ought to kick your ass for it!"

"This isn't really a hypothetical, is it?" Onyx arched an eyebrow.

Marl would have stood right in Onyx's face, but the height difference put him closer to the breast of the young paladin, who made a point of looking down at the overweight drunkard impassively.

KILL HIM!!!!

Onyx took a deep breath, which unfortunately meant inhaling Marl's, but nevertheless it calmed him, though it nearly gagged him too. "Now," he began as if placating to an angry child, "Everyone chooses their own path. I'll not be held accountable for his. Sorry."

Marl didn't seem satisfied. "He was a good boy...til your kind," he stuck his index finger into Onyx's splint-mailed chest, "...came through town! Filled 'is head with nonsense, they did, and because of it he's...he's dead! Now why shoudn't I take THAT out on your hide?!"

"He might have gone anyway," Onyx shrugged, "It's a calling you're born with. Nobody gives it to you." Except in my case. I was 'given' the adventuring life by a very large man with spiky armor and glowing eyes.

Jaheira frowned. Her charge was, of course, right in more ways than he new.

"'Tain't true!" Mar cried, his shoulders slumping, and Onyx decided he had just past the drunkard's threshold from 'being more likely to try to fight me' to 'being more likely to try to cry on me.' "He was going to take over the farm and settle down!" Marl wailed. "Maybe apprentice with Thunderhammer during the winter! He never wanted to adventure!"

Marl blew his nose, fortunately on his own sleeve and not Onyx's chest, and his blonde friend stood and gripped his shoulders, 'cooing' in the best soothing voice a drunk man can, "That was what you wanted, Marl! Fun's fun, but yer blaming these folk fer what couldn' tbe helped! That boy was a firebrand if ever there was..."

"No, Dunkin!" Marl cried in denial as 'Dunkin' sat him back down. "He was settling down! He wanted...he wanted..." Marl buried his face in the grungy tableclothing and burped.

At least this time only he has to breathe it himself. Onyx thought.

"That new plow ye bought last year," Dunkin leaned low over Marl and patted his shoulder, "He got the gold by helpin' clear kobolds near Ulgoth's Beard! He wanted to make a difference, make the Realms a bit safer, just like these folks most likely."

Buying a plow. There's adventuring destroying the economy for you, Onyx thought, but smiled. "That's right, Marl," he said in a kind voice. Earning a glare from Jaheira, he strode forward and sat down with the two men, joining Dunkin in looking down at Marl. "We're trying to look into this confounded iron shortage. You know, I actually used to hunt kobolds myself up north too." Let's not mention the city, lest more assassins be patronizing this fine establishment.

"By Chauntea!" Marl sobbed, still pressing his face into the tablecloth and blowing his nose into it. "Why couldn't he just stay home!?" He trailed off sobbing and blew his nose again.

I wonder if he does this a lot. Is that how the tablecloth got so dirty? Onyx wondered, but patted Marl on the shoulder and sighed, "You know, the Realms call, and you go. He sounds a fine lad taken too son, but...doing what he was meant."

Marl bawled, and Dunkin turned to face Onyx, and chuckled, "Well, this is about the calmest I've seen him in a week. You might as well get on, Marl ain't known for his steady moods."

Gladly.


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"Ar! Ye be at the end of yer rope, I'll wager! Ain't nothing personal', understand, but I'm afraid your time on this 'ere ball of mud's just 'bout done! Like me coz Korgo always said, a price's a price, head's ha head, and whenever the two'll meet, there's ol' Karlat makin' his livin'. Har har!"

Why, why, why, are my assassins so garrulous and theatrical? I think I've just figured out who's trying to kill me - The Sword Coast Bards' Guild. Yes, it must be them.

So thought Onyx as this Karlat fellow, a stereotypical enough dwarven mercenary - Axe, check. Beer-soaked beard, check. Sailor's tongue, check. Bloodlust, check. - accosted him in the anteroom of the Red Sheaf.

And why do they always insist on attacking in groups of one?

Onyx found himself at an immediate disadvantage, too close to effectively draw his longsword while his opponent hefted a battleaxe over his own head, and destined for his opponent's. The paladin lifted his shieldarm, planting his right leg back to both brace for the blow and give himself more room. Khalid aside him drew his blade, and no sooner had the dwarf's axe crashed into and even cleft Onyx's shield than the half-elf plunged the tip of his blade deep into Karlat's unarmored neck, which was at so convenient a height, and the dwarf stumbled backwards, gurgled, and fell over.

"Thanks Khalid," Onyx smiled weakly, tossing aside the remaining half os his shield and massaging his left wrist.

"Ya okay, Ony?" Imoen asked with a worried face that only three days ago she had scarcely ever worn.

Jaheira inspected the wrist briefly, and gave her charge a look that offered healing, but he politely declined with a head shake. "Thanks, I'll need to buy a new shield come morning, but I'm fine."

"Ooo," Imoen peered at the note she found while looting Karlat's body. "Another bounty notice. You're up to 350, Ony." She looked up at her friend, her face sad.

The paladin sighed, his heart heavy indeed. "Let's try the Burning Wizard. Maybe there aren't any bloodthirsty axe-murderers there."


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Onyx nearly tripped over a cowled halfling as he crossed the threshold of the Burning Wizard, companions in tow.

"Oooh, pardon me sir!" the cloaked hobbit cried, brushing himself off. "Zhurlong's the name. You invest in some boots of stealth, you set up shop in the badlands to the south of Beregost and then WHAM...Along comes a tribe of hobgoblins and they tear the boots from right off your feet! Damnblasted bullies is what they are and I'll pay 100 gold to whoever can get them to back me, I will...Oh, look! It's Drizzt D'Urden!"

I think I see where this is going. Let's humor him.

"Oh wow!!!!!" Onyx cried excitedly, and turned his head in the direction Zhurlong was pointing. The halfling immediately made a grab at the paladin's belt, but soon found himself levitated into the air, held by the scruff of his neck, and came face to face with the smiling paladin who'd stood double his height a few moments ago.

"Gulp..." Zhurlong looked down, his feet wiggling four feet off the floor. "Please don't hurt me!! I, uh, noticed a piece of lint on your armor and I was just brushing it off! It's such nice armor!" As the would-be pickpocket shook in terror, hanging from his cowl in the tall man's grasp, he quivered so badly that gold pieces began raining down out of his many pockets, creating a tiny glitter heap on the floor.

The hobbit looked away from the man to find a very angry half-elven woman glaring at him. "You dropped something," she said.

"Errr," Zhurlong tittered nervously, "I don't need it! Keep it! Have a drink! Make a donation!"

"Hmm," Onyx thought as he set down the halfling, who scurried off in terror, "Garrick, didn't you say there was a temple of Lathander just east of town." The bard nodded. "High time I paid it a visit..." .

Imoen yawned.

"...in the morning."

"But all of these inns are full of weirdos," Imoen pouted. "Where should we stay?"

Garrick cocked his head, and lit up. "There's always Silke's place. I call first dibs on a bubble bath and the waterbed! It's quite luxurious, actually. After all, I don't guess she'll be using it."

Onyx, Imoen, Jaheira, Khalid, and Viconia all glared at the bard, and in unison shouted, "Well why didn't you say so in the first place!?"