Never Drink Unless You’re Alone, Or With Somebody

After we spent a couple of days in the city, it was time for me to head out for my “hunting trip.” It uh.. Yeah it was rough. Lonely and cold and.. whatever. I was away from people and I ran and ran and tasted blood and ran some more. I didn’t wanna remember nothin’ while transformed. I didn’t.. I was scared I’d done somethin’ unseemly. I dunno.

The third time I’d transformed, I followed a blue light to some kinda ruin. A temple, I guess, lookin’ back. I walked inside and suddenly I felt so, so tired. Sunrise wasn’t far off, and I was fed, so I plopped down somewhere and dreamed. I dunno if I oughta talk about it too much, I mean, it’s all mostly over now, so I don’t see why I couldn’t. It was a vision from Nylak. He showed me a lotta things, most of it’s already happened now. All the literal stuff anyhow. It felt like a dream, where suddenly I was in the forest, next I was back home, next I was in the ocean during a storm, next I was in Ptolonox, and a hundred other places. I saw you, and Ol’ Mav, and Kai. Nylak spoke through y’all, tellin’ me somethin’ bad was gonna happen and I needed to be in the right place at the right time to collect… treasure.

On my way back to Camino I found Big Clyde had discovered magic. Lookin’ back I really shouldn’t’ve been surprised. But he made a window between himself and some grains from a nearby homestead and I watched him devour all of it. It flowed outta the portal like a waterfall and he didn’t miss a drop of it. Or, a grain of it. He ate all of it is what I’m sayin’. Vebradu had somehow chanced his way into winnin’ a beautiful stallion. Strong, fast, stubborn as all hell. There wasn’t much I wouldn’t have given to bring him back home, but he was more worth to us sellin’. Got some pretty gold coins from that.

While the rest of us was exploring the city, Vidar had been busy starting up his mercenary group. He hired some fellas in the fields with aspirations and nothin’ better to do than pretend they’re heroes to help him kill some spider bug critters, and apparently they was successful enough they wanted to keep marchin’ under Vidar’s banner. A banner he made with Femur Frank’s stupid skull. He attached it to the end of a stick and displayed it all pompous and proud like. Until he woke up and saw the skull had up and disappeared. He was runnin’ around, frantic and heated. Anybody who looked at him funny he interrogated, tryin’ to figure out who stole the skull. Luckily Vebradu, Sledge, and I was able to bring him to his senses. Femur Frank’s a necromancer. The skull probably grew legs and walked out on its own. Or teleported or somethin’. Some kinda recall thing. Who the hell’d wanna steal a skull besides the fella the skull belonged to?

Vidar thought Larry might know a thing or two about how to track the skull down. We found him at a tavern nearby, but when we walked in, I recognized the whole place from my dream. I saw somebody sneak some vial of somethin’ into his beer, so without thinkin’ I drank all of it. Nearly knocked me on my ass, but at least I knew it was comin’. I tried to get everyone out as quick as I could, without drawin’ too much attention. I know I failed because that was when the bartender jumped across the counter with a knife out. When we came in she was a sweet ol’ lady, but when she attacked she didn’t move like one and her - his voice got deep.

He knew Larry and was aimin’ right for him. Luckily we still had our wits about us, I punched the guy in the face while Vidar tried disarmin’ him. The bartender had some kinda spell or smoke bomb or somethin’, I’m not sure how but the room filled with smoke and it got hard to see. Luckily Vebradu had some air magic and was able to sweep it all away. Once he did, I realized that the bartender was a changeling and he uh. Stole my face. He attacked Larry, stabbing him in the stomach. None of us took too kindly to that. Me least of all. Well, I mean, Larry least of all, but I wasn’t happy about it either.

Big Clyde gave him a good bite, and he tried makin’ his escape. He turned invisible, but Vebradu was able to spot the magic he was using and Vidar charged where Vebradu pointed. One big slash, and the bastard was down on the ground, bleeding blue. He said a few things, made it clear that he knew Larry from somewhere. Then he turned to flowers and grass on the ground. Vebradu guessed we had at least a week before the changeling could reform and come back after us. We made sure the actual bartender was alright, then we got the hell outta there. Grabbed our stuff real quick and didn’t look back to Camino. Not for awhile anyway.

Once we felt safe, I told everyone about my dreams. Kinda. At the time it didn’t seem like a good idea to tell them the whole truth, so I just said that we really, really needed to go to Ptolonox. And that I knew Larry’s drink was poisoned before we even saw him. I said that if I act weird and ask them to do somethin’ weird, to go along with it. We also set up a code word, in case any of us ever got our faces stolen. Larry told us a bit about the changeling. They used to work together, a long time ago. Their boss wasn’t happy Larry cut n’ run and she ain’t the kinda lady you make unhappy. It was a pretty bad situation. The second night we made camp on the roads toward Ptolonox, we realized we was bein’ followed. They kept their distance. They wanted to watch, not ambush. We figured they probably already knew we was gonna go north anyway. The Lady’s territory was mostly in the south, so once we crossed the border, we figured they’d let us go. For a time anyhow. Ol’ Mav said she had a friend in Halmsmill who could help us, and I figured it’d be a good place for us to lie low in case the thugs got too close.