Anything but Halflings

I received some good healing at that temple of Ilmater. Luckily, the clergy there also agreed to help our new friend Keplo so long as they received money sufficient enough for the spell ingredients. Scorch also inquired about having his memory restored. The clergyman, Sir Ander, warned us that the same spell might not work for Scorch and it the materials for another spell would cost us another hundred dragons. Scorch seems like he's decided to go through with it. Maybe, if it works, we can find a way to cheat the ring off of my finger without wasting a wish. It's hard to have my private thoughts about elf girls and the like with someone else sharing my headspace.
 
When all was said and done at the temple, I said a prayer. With all the magical nonsense I've witnessed in my years, I've learned to respect the gods. There are two that I respect more than all the others: Ilmater and Oghma. I like Ilmater because he's a compassionate god, especially towards all those that suffer in life. The clergy isn't bad either. They put themselves in a place of poverty to help anyone in need. If the lords of Waterdeep were more like Ilmater and his clergy, perhaps the city would be a better place for everyone.
 
Once everyone received their healing, we decided to check out that hostel in the Dock Ward. We found it, and Daara set upon the guard with all kinds of weird questions. (I may or may not have said some nonsense about mongooses [mongeese?].) When things started to escalate and Daara got a bit handsy, I felt the need to look around for any errant guardsmen or watchmen. What I found was much worse. Angry halflings lined the nearby rooftops, ranged weapons drawn.
 
Now we could have fought the halflings there in the streets of the dock ward. Hell, we might've even won. But there's a thing about fighting halflings (or gnomes or any of the smaller folk in general.) If you're winning you look really bad. I know that small warriors can be as ferocious as a raging goliath. I've seen Urku and Igris cut people to ribbons with little effort. When your average passer by sees halflings being swung around by their ankles and being thrown through windows by larger folk, they tend to go to the city watch seeking justice for the poor little fuckers. That would've complicated things. It would have been even worse if we went through with the fight and were beaten. It's one thing to meet your end in a hail of dragon's breath or against an army of orcs or something. Being killed by a gang of halflings damages your reputation posthumously. People would stroll past our gravestones and laugh. When I meet my end (with my luck, it'll probably be sooner than later) I hope it's by any other means than a mob of angry halflings.
 
I stopped the fight by claiming there was a misunderstanding and appealing to the halflings' sense of pity. They allowed us to run out of there with our tails between our legs. Fortunately, we were more or less able to confirm that Dasher Snowbeetle was amongst their ranks. We wasted no time returning to the Snowbeetle estate. Uncle Snowbeetle gave us 200 gold just for the information we were able to acquire. That's the most money I've ever made for failing horribly.
 
When we returned to the Brass Dragon, I attempted to grill Leif about the ghost child again, but to no avail. Later that night, I was visited by that very ghost child. I think it tried to possess my body, but I managed not to let it in. It told me to "Stop." I assumed it meant for me to stop trying to talk to Leif about the situation. When we woke, I spoke to the group about it. We agreed that we should probably bring in a professional to help deal with things.
 
Urku complained about hearing a voice in his head commanding us to head to Blackstaff Tower. (Gods, I certainly know how... cramped it feels to have another voice in your mind.) We agreed to go to the tower. It had one of those doors that only lets you in when it wants to. The master of the tower, a dark skinned woman in brown and purple garb, gave us a pitch about becoming part of Force Grey. Essentially, it would involve us going on missions too dangerous for the city guard, and giving us free reign to cause all the damage we need to. At first I was hesitant to join; I'm not exactly a special forces kind of guy. Then Urku pointed out that we would be making the authorities seem incompetent, and I changed my tune. In Force Grey, I doubt that I'll meet my end at the hands of any halflings.
 
When the Blackstaff woman kicked us out of her tower, we headed for the nearby Font of Knowledge to look for information about our ghost problem. The most interesting thing I was able to confirm was that Leif and Portia (corpses located in the cellar and larder respectively) met their ends through some sort of necromantic means. Before their tenure there, the place was an orphanage headed by some evil hag. The old woman was lynched, but some of the children that lived there were never accounted for. I'm guessing that that's the origin of our torn out throat girl.
 
We got a lead on a holy person that might be able to help us. As I write this, we're on our way to the City of the Dead to seek them out. No telling what kind weird shit we'll encounter there. Best case scenario, I'll be forced into an awkward conversation with kobolds when we run across my mom's grave. Worst case scenario, zombies, lots of zombies. At least there probably won't be any angry halflings.