In which we have a chance to relax, and get to know one another better

I apologise for the longish gap in these letters, but you will be glad to hear that I have had a much more peaceful couple of weeks!
 
Firstly, to finish off the saga of the spiders! After recovering our strength, we ventured back down into the caverns while Altria completed the brewing of the ephedra potions. We wanted to check that we had completely cleared out the nest, destroy any remaining eggs, and ensure that it was definitely safe for Altria to use those caves again. After all, ephedra, and whatever else is down there, will still be needed after we have moved on.
 
We were cautious in our approach, but all seemed quiet and deserted below. Zeni was visibly nervous about going down there again and I actually thought that she might prefer to wait above, but in the end she did come along. With Sabali taking point, we carefully explored each branching cave in turn, finding a few things of interest, but thankfully no more live spiders.
 
In one area, Gnolls had made a camp and had seemingly spent some time down here before falling victim to the spiders. We found some rather sad little temporary huts, a few spider silk-wrapped bodies, and a box containing some coin and other valuables. These we shared amongst the party – there was an awkward moment when it looked as though Enessa and Wind had tried to take more than their fair share, but when challenged on it, they both more or less laughed it off. Raphael went so far as to call Wind a thief, which, to be fair, I suppose that she is.
 
We next revisited the corpses of the spiders that we had killed on our earlier foray – Enessa and Sabali took on the gruesome task of figuring out whether any parts could be useful, and they did seem to find a few things – poison drained from the fangs, and, if you can believe it, the eyes of the disappearing spider, which Sabali wrapped carefully in a handkerchief. I’m sure they will come in handy for something, but I’m very glad I didn’t have to put any dismembered eyes into my own pocket!
 
Finally, we found an underground river, with a fairly strong current to it. It was suggested that we might want to take a look further upstream, and Raphael immediately stripped to the waist to make the swim. I don’t know what he was thinking, because almost as soon as he was in the water he began to struggle and had to be fished out by Zeni and Arin. He had another couple of goes, but without any more success. I suspect that perhaps he has never learned to swim – there’s no shame in that, but why he was so determined to try in that case remains a mystery.
 
Anyway, after this little performance was over, and Raphael had rather reluctantly covered himself up again, Enessa and I swam against the current to reach a locked door, or rather a sort of metal grid which stretched both above and below the water. We could see through it to a little shoreline beyond where some bags and boxes were stacked. Neither of us have any skill with locks, and so after a cursory inspection we made our way back to the group to fetch Wind, who is very capable in such matters. She had done a brilliant job with the lock on the Gnolls’ chest, and so I hoped that she would have little trouble with this one, which looked fairly basic, to my untrained eye at least.
 
Wind wasn’t too keen on making the trip, and although I think that Enessa might have been able to persuade her eventually, Arin stepped forward. ‘The blessings of Ioun take many forms,’ he said, ‘lend me your tools and I will make the attempt.’ I had heard that Ioun’s children could borrow her learning at need, but I had never thought of it being applied to something like lockpicking! Still it worked out well enough, and with Enessa and I steadying him, he quickly swung the heavy metal door open.
 
We took a look at the stuff piled up on the shoreline, and found a ladder leading up to a trapdoor of some sort. Arin used Wind’s tools again on the locked chests and we found several bags of tarnished silver pieces, a smaller amount of gold, and some beautiful gems of different colours. The rest of the party made the journey, with more or less ease and assistance, and we packed up what was, presumably, the treasure which the bandits had buried there and then been unable to retrieve. I hope that we can put it to better use than they would have done. The top of the ladder led out into the area of the forest where the bandits had been camped, and we gladly made our way from there back to Altria’s cottage, rather than being forced to swim back into the cave. All apart from Sabali that is, who insisted on going the long way around rather than getting his fur wet.
 
By this time, Altria had made up the ten potions, as promised, and had packed them neatly into a special case for safe travel. Before we left, we helped her to remove the boards over her well, and we parted with good wishes all around.
 
As we passed the little shrine to the Wildmother, Zeni asked for a moment alone, and we all retreated to a respectful distance. I would not have imagined her to be particularly devout, but she no doubt wanted to offer thanks to the gods for her safe deliverance from the spider’s lair. She had a very close call, and such things can certainly bring us closer to the divine. I pray that she found the peace that she sought.
 
As we walked back to town, Zeni reflected on the greatest gift that she had been given – her spellbook, a legacy, she said, from her mentor Pallias, before his passing. She explained that she tries to live everyday in service to his memory, and from what I have seen of Zeni so far, he must have been a brave and principled man. Sabali seems to also have known this Pallias, and I have no doubt that if these strange siblings ever cross paths with his killers, there will be no quarter given, as the sailors say!
 
When we reached the place where we had fought the wolves the day before, the corpses of the beasts were gone – Enessa was not happy at all, but honestly, I don’t really see how she could have carried them anyway, especially burdened as we were by bandit silver.
 
Raphael and I spoke quietly as we walked, about the fate of the two bandits who he had sent ahead to Rebur to await our return. I was glad to see that he had not forgotten them, and we agreed that if some useful and lawful employment could be found for both then it would be a job well done. However, keen as we both were to find some resolution to that situation, we decided to press on to the Sunrise Lodge first, to deliver the medicine as quickly as possible.
 
The councillor was out, but we handed them over to Mistress Snatch, who seemed impressed to see us back so quickly. She gave us the agreed upon reward very readily, and in only a few minutes we were heading back to the Eagle’s Landing. Orlando hung back to ask for news of whatever guild business had brought him here.
 
On arriving at the Eagle’s Landing, Rebur immediately sent Zeni off to the kitchen! She didn’t seem to mind, but Sabali was having none of it. He grabbed an apron and declared that he would cover the kitchen himself – Rebur asked if he had cooked much before, and he just shrugged. It didn’t inspire much confidence, but actually, the end result was really not bad at all.
 
It quickly became apparent that the two bandits were not there, and according to Rebur, a couple of chaps had popped in with wolf pelts to sell, but had not lingered. Raphael was quite downcast at that, and it was indeed a shame, but to be honest, I wasn’t all that surprised. It would have been a big leap of trust for them, and they didn’t look like men all that used to benevolence from lords and ladies. The person who seemed most upset was Enessa, especially at mention of the pelts. She said that they owed her for them, and I could see her point, but it seemed a little harsh to begrudge them the handful of silver they probably sold the skins for, when her own pack was heavy with the coin we had taken from their stash.
 
We all took rooms at the inn, Raphael, Enessa and Orlando in private digs, and Arin, Wind and I bunking together. I don’t know where Sabali ended up, but I assume that Zeni sorted something out for him. Once we were all settled, Rebur asked for the tale of our adventures, and I did my best to tell it fairly and with a little dramatic flair. He seemed quite impressed and I was glad that his faith in us had not been misplaced.
 
Raphael offered to take the gems which we had found into town to sell them, and Rebur recommended a jeweller’s shop called the Graceful Bauble. Arin and Wind went along with him, and they seemed happy with the price they got. My purse has rarely been as well stocked as it is now – a very unexpected outcome.
 
Enessa, still clearly fuming about the wolf pelts, headed back out into the forest. I’m not sure what she was looking to achieve there, but maybe she was looking to find some trace of the erstwhile bandits passing. Sabali, wearing a dark hood, went into town, apparently to ‘ask a few questions’, but he said no more about it afterwards, so don’t know if he found out anything useful.
 
Orlando had by this time filled me in a bit about his business in town, but I will leave him to tell the details of that tale. Suffice to say, it concerned Bayou (I will just say that for now, just in case anyone else reads this letter by mistake), which had been borrowed and not returned. Of course I promised to do everything in my power to assist him, and so we ended up heading into town to visit one Mr Silverbeard, the proprietor of the Silver Chain, a pawnshop. After a few enquiries, it turned out that he did have a very battered looking Bayou in his possession, pawned by an associate of Orlando’s who had passed through some weeks earlier. Mr Silverbeard allowed Orlando to redeem the weapon for 50 gold, which he seemed satisfied with. The shopkeeper had also, thankfully, preserved the ammunition and powder intact as well. Even I could see that Bayou was badly damaged, but still, Orlando seemed very well pleased to have it back in his possession. On the way back to the tavern I could tell that he was already mulling over how the repairs might be accomplished.
 
This detailed narrative is getting very lengthy now, and so to close, I will just summarise how everyone has kept themselves busy over the last couple of weeks, which have been, for me at least, very relaxing.
 
Orlando has spent almost the whole time tinkering with Bayou, although I think that he has found it quite a frustrating experience. The damage turned out to be a bit more extensive than was immediately obvious, and it took him almost a week just to get it all cleaned up and ready to work on. I did offer to help, but it’s not really a two-person job, unfortunately. He has seemed a bit happier in the past few days, so hopefully he is making some progress now.
 
Arin has been trying to use the extra ephedra that he collected, along with the herbs that Altria gave him, to make some potions. This too seemed to be harder than he expected, but I think he has made a least a few useful brews. He’s also spent a fair amount of time in the forest, I would guess looking for other ingredients that might be useful. While Wind has been out on the town, our shared room has become a sanctuary for quiet prayer and reflection before sleep.
 
Sabali pretty much disappeared for the first week, although I did hear from Zeni that he had been performing some of his old jester’s tricks for passers-by in the town square – she told me that he had been trained as an entertainer before finding his vocation as a monk, which makes total sense having spent some time with him. In this last week, he has been participating in a rather exciting unofficial tourney of unarmed combat down at the dockside – I’ve been to see a few of the bouts in the evenings, and he is an impressive fighter. I have really enjoyed cheering him on from the sidelines, and I think he won often enough to earn a fair amount of coin for his trouble.
 
Zeni spent most of the first week in the library – when I asked what she was doing, she told me that she was researching spiders, so as to be better prepared to face them in the future. I very much hope that we will not have another occasion to need such lore, but forewarned is forearmed! This second week she went off to study with Altria, to better learn how to use her healers kit. She said that Altria was happy to teach her, but clearly the apothecary is a much sterner instructor than I would have imagined. Zeni returned back each evening looking harried and drained, and once she had a broad purple bruise on her arm as though she had been struck by a cane or something similar. I tried to ask her about it, but she didn’t seem to want to discuss it and I did not pry. Still, I am surprised at Altria, she seemed rather a kindly soul.
 
I have only found out in the past couple of days what Raphael had been up to this whole time. He had been very – I don’t want to say secretive, but certainly discreet – coming and going at odd hours and not gathering in the evenings as the rest of us had got into the habit of doing. It turns out, as I learned from a very reliable brother at the Temple of the Dawnfather, that Raphael has been running a sort of makeshift soup kitchen for the poor and indigent children of the town. I think he may even have been cooking the simple meals himself. That man is full of surprises.
 
Wind on the other hand, I was not too astonished to see, has been up to her old tricks again. I don’t think that all the stories that she told me are true, but even so, she seems to have had a lively couple of weeks. She would stagger into our shared bedroom in the early hours, moving with the exaggerated caution of the somewhat inebriated, and usually seemed to have something to add to the little stash of gold beneath her pillow. I hope that she wasn’t up to too much mischief, but since I declined all (rather insistent) offers to accompany her on her nocturnal adventures, I really couldn’t say. She seems in very good spirits though.
 
I’m not too sure what Enessa has been up to either – she obviously has a lot of friends here in Drynna, and she always seemed to be going from one group to another, telling the tale of our adventures. I don’t know if this was her intention, but it definitely got us noticed. A number of people I had never met before came up to me on the street to thank us for our efforts in bringing the medicine back from Altria’s, and I can only assume that Enessa spreading the word must have been responsible.
 
For myself, I have had a lovely couple of weeks. Last week I kept mainly to the Eagle’s Landing, resting up and chatting with Rebur during the day. I like him very much, and there is something naggingly familiar about him that I can’t quite put my finger on. He has been helping me to write some simple music to accompany the more dramatic parts of our tale, which has been a lot of fun. He encouraged me to perform the new piece, and some other traditional Issylrian songs, for the patrons of the Tavern on a few evenings, and although I was extremely nervous about doing it, it was actually a really lovely experience. Enessa had clearly told all her friends, which definitely helped to fill the place up! Everyone was very kind, and I think that people appreciated hearing something different. Even the most everyday Vasselheim drinking song sounds quite exotic here, and a few verses in celestial always lifts a ballad beyond the commonplace.
 
This week I’ve been out and about in the town, and lending what help I can at the Temple of the Dawnfather (in the absence of a dedicated Dragon Church in Drynna). They seemed to appreciate the help, and I have made some friends there. You can always be sure of finding good people in Pelor’s House, and it was refreshment for my heart and soul to focus for a while on the quiet work of that gentle order.
 
Which brings me to this morning, when we had some disturbing news – although the potions which Altria brewed have helped to treat the symptoms of those laid low by the mysterious ailment, the infection continues to spread. It seems that some people are speculating that it is connected in some way to the Root Garden, a nearby swampy area. There is a suggestion that we might go and investigate it further, and personally, I would welcome another opportunity for adventuring with this rather strange group. We have got to know each other better over the past couple of weeks, and my conviction that we are all needed for some purpose, and are together for some strongly fated reason has not lessened in the least. I will certainly do what I can to keep our little band together.