25 Kythorn
We did not even rest in the Inn, camping a few hours out from it once our business was completed, keeping our journey as quick as possible. Horses are useless in the Cloakwood, so I know we have a chance ahead of any surviving bandits as long as we keep the pace. Unless, teleportation magic. (The Mirrorshades do not have anything; we did check.)
It is a vast castle; an old temple of Bhaal. Gorion's friends are certainly no longer there. Ajantis has his plate armour and longsword new; Shar-Teel paid for Tenhammer's full plate to be properly fitted for her, and passed Ajantis Tenhammer's shield to boot. Potions; powerful bullets and arrows; Gellana Mirrorshade's healing for Garrick; on Edwin's initiative, a new set of orange robes (orange? I do not mean just the colour's effect on his complexion) embroidered heavily in gold thread, premade for someone slightly more muscular in build than him. Supplies. As prepared as we can be for murder. (Doubting the practicality of Edwin's sartorial tastes. Then again, I'm not one to talk.)
Garrick sung outside the Inn, gaining a few coppers; he asked Imoen and I to juggle or dance or perform her magic tricks with him, as we've done before. Of course we refused, for no time to spare.
Our first experience of the mighty Cloakwood was a band of predatory tasloi; one dropped a cloak that I now wear, since Garrick divined that it protects against magical detection of unseen movement. A useful item to possess in order to stab Anchev in the back. It matches the description of a cloak an old dwarf in Beregost had stolen; but we are a long way from Beregost.
Then there were three spiders. Viconia screamed about the vengeance of Lloth falling upon her, useless in the battle. A teleporting spider leapt on Imoen and me, my Varscona stabbing desperately at its head. I killed it, the other two falling to Shar-Teel and Ajantis. Viconia still shook after the battle was done, her eyes blank and unseeing, needing to be chased after in her wild, illogical running away. Imoen's comfort may not have been enough, but:
"If profit on a drow head outstrips your use in battle, Sharran, I'll add the first to other bounties." Shar-Teel walked on; Viconia followed her. The next time the spiders attacked, she hit with her sling, a priestess victorious.
We passed near a hunting lodge owned by a man I knew, a little: Aldeth Sashenstar. He recognised me and called me the Grand Duke's daughter; he wore a very tacky diamond ring on his left little finger, a stone the size of an eyeball. He asked Ajantis for help against druids, but I made Sashenstar admit he had killed one of their number; that was enough to allow our paladin to comply with our plans. Not as strong, quick, or even as quick-thinking as Shar-Teel, but the knight is useful. A healer, too.
A diamond the size of an eyeball joins the hidden pocket in Imoen's spell component pouch.
More spiders. We crossed over a bridge—perhaps there was a distant whistling, but no creature emerged to attack us. We were obliged to battle dreadwolves for a place to rest, near to the remains of a wooden hut far older than Sashenstar's. Compared to a vampiric wolf...they were still scary.
Again, Shar-Teel tried with me, while the others rested, when my limbs were so tired I might as well have been boneless, making pitiful attempts at learning to use a sword. I woke black with bruises.
—
The watcher above—though she would have preferred to be called, The lady, or something similarly respectful—continued the role of her named occupation. The forests thickened; the canopy of trees gave heavy shadows to the ground, the leaves deep green, oak nuts fecund, borne in heavy clusters by high branches.
The group's female leader marched not far from the quick, and quiet, girl in front; that one sometimes looked above her head in case of higher-placed traps, but had naturally failed to observe the observer. The orange-clad young man wrestled yet again with his elaborate and impractical clothing; which was becoming progressively less elaborate. The priestess picked her way slowly through the forest at the group's rear, and the fair-singing boy stood close to his recent-made friend; he did not touch the harp he carried, and nervously twitched upon occasion.
It was the endearingly foolish squire who was the true focus of her attention, and at this time he did not look up. His new plate shone in a way he would surely be proud of, like the jackdaw was proud of collecting silver to its nest. How irritated the boy would be if she told him such a comparison; but she did not seem to be bound by the standards of his Helm, not that such technicalities were of import. The belief at least kept him well behaved and gave him a feeling of usefulness. Nourishing a healthy sense of self-esteem in the young and unsophisticated was so important.
The girl with the pale pink hair lost a tin platter carelessly fastened to her pack, and spent a cantrip to retrieve it from the ground; the lady rather approved of magic in general. A mixed group—marching in the direction of further danger, no doubt, even if they had chosen to leave the man who had helped to kill a druid to his fate—
The watcher sighed.
—