Day 1 - Confused

Hhhmmm...no headache; no shakes; no pain... fuzzy memory, slightly woozy.... very strange (Note to self - take more care experimenting with hallucinatory poisons!!)

The last thing I clearly recall was releasing a bandit leader I'd tortured for a couple of days. The fact that he was missing several small (not entirely necessary) body parts and sporting some severely disfiguring scars was to serve as an example. I remember saying "Hurts doesn't it??? Don't forget to tell the others." Then.... here I am sitting at a table in an unfamiliar inn with a bunch of strangers. I don't play well with strangers so I immediately demanded they bugger off. I only had a moment to notice the woman sitting opposite before she leaped from her seat and bolted from the room. Funny the way some people react... While I was still wondering what that was all about, there was a muffled thwump (sounded like a fireball), the strange woman who'd just left, reappeared in the seat opposite, looked around with wide eyes, shrieked and ran from the room ..... again.... I waited for a moment - just in case - but the show seemed to be over. I perused the remaining strangers, apparently a party, though they didn't seem to really know each other either... Curioser and curioser. The rest of plebs, too rude to move, were looking about the room... they were a Dwarf, a half-Orc (half something else - I don't even want to guess) another half-elf and a VERY smelly human. They too seemed disoriented.

I looked around the rest of the room casually, not staring, and trying to seem like I knew where I was. There were other tables, other groups.. the regular low-life scum and riff-raff you find in inns, though this inn DID seem to be cleaner and better maintained than many I've stayed at. I moseyed up to the bar....

"Evening Trixie..." said the human behind the bar - I hid my surprise well - "...the usual?"

I nodded, wondering what I would end up with...did I have a usual?? The Bar-Keep must have known me as he served me a perfectly chilled brandy with cream and nutmeg, just the way I like it. I glanced back over my shoulder, the rest of the group at my table were chatting cautiously with each other, probably trying to work out how they got here, or perhaps even who they were. I chatted with the Bar-Keep - Bertrand - who seems to run this place; apparently we are the Black Company (shows a singular lack of imagination if you ask me) and we work out of this inn - news to me. Casually I asked Bertrand about the woman who'd been at the table;

"Quite a show earlier eh?" I ventured.
"Yuna, well she can be a bit touchy," he replied polishing glasses.
"But you know what she's like."
'Yeah right' I thought.

Bertrand - and the Far Shore Inn - seem to be some sort of zeitgeist employment agency/hoc shop/market bazaar for adventurers. By Bertrand’s account, we have just returned from getting rid of some pesky banditos who'd been plaguing an area; robbing the merchants and upsetting the sheep (or some such) Lord Randal-Moore from Dagger Dale had hired us - wonder if we did the job... wonder if we ever got paid?

The 'strangers' at my table are still engrossed in each other; the half-Orc, Rumbles, looks like he'd be useful in a fight and he probably doesn't have annoying scruples either (Orcs rarely do) We could probably work together, though at the moment he seems totally absorbed in his self imposed task of trying to drink EVERYTHING. There's still no sign of the mad screaming woman, Yuna - no idea what she does; other than act VERY strangely. The others seem normal enough. I hung round the table for a while watching and listening...who are these people?? Do I really know them?? The half-elf is a Ranger, Damir Dokic, he seems OK... a bit straight but most folk are; the smelly human is a Monk, Hoo Dung. It could be handy to have a Monk around, I've heard they make fabulous trap detectors (Note to self - STAY DOWNWIND!!) At the far end of the table, drinking almost as much as Rumbles, was the Dwarf. Hoo Dung said he's a Cledric of Wee Jaas and that his name's Stumpy - I think he may be joshing me (either that or trying to stir up trouble) Later I learned his name was really Norton, which is just confusing. If I were a Dwarf with a name like Norton I might prefer being called Stumpy. Too much, too soon....I went up onto the roof for a smoke and a breath of fresh air.

The inn looks much bigger from the roof - in fact it appears to cover areas I would've sworn were not even built on!! A road leads away from the front of the inn and into the forest which surrounds it, while another winds in from the forest to the rear where there are stables, outbuildings and.. Oh joy! a bath-house. Things are looking up. I climbed down and went back inside where I tried to find out (without looking like too much of a git) whether I had a room here... no easy task when there are gaping great holes in one's memory. I earned a very peculiar look from Bertrand but I did find out about my room. Apparently we ALL keep rooms here... live and learn eh!? This is all too difficult. I'm going for a bath and I'm not coming out till I wrinkle.

I made my way upstairs and was not totally surprised to find the corridor was much, much longer and far wider than the downstairs dimensions of the inn would indicate. There were torches at intervals down the hall so I wandered down a bit to haved a look around. Wow! There's a whole other world up here, well almost. Stalls began to appear off to the sides of the corridor; then shops and markets and libraries and... well, just about everything. It looks like you could sell off any extra booty and re-equip here in between adventures - handy. I didn't wander far as I still wanted my bath, but I did stop at a shop with some fabulous cloaks - I just couldn't resist a little mink and seal number - it had one of those stunning cowl collars and was soft and black as a shadow. I tired it on - it was perfect... It may have been my imagination but it seemed to make me blend even more beautifully into the shadows - could be useful. Enough shopping for the moment... My room was certainly MY room, the traps were set just the way I like them - dangerously and on a hair trigger - and everything was where I would expect it to be. I grabbed my bath gear and headed back out.

The bath house was a dream, they had a shower, a hot pool, a cold pool, attendants to scrub your back and feet, fluffy towels, bath salts, fragrant oils, loofahs, pumices, scented powders... MMMMMMmmmmmmmmm I stayed there for hours.

After I dried off and dressed I headed back inside. Hoo Dung and Damir had moved to the bar and were talking to Bertrand. Norton and Rumbles were STILL drinking. I took my bath gear back upstairs, changed again (this time into something black and close fitting and good for sneaking in) and left the inn via an upstairs window. I dropped to the ground outside - the night was clear and pleasant - I looked for the moon but couldn't see it thought its light illuminated the woods around me. A faint breeze whiffled through the trees making them rustle softly as I set off down the path. I was quite quiet but so was the surrounding forest... I'm not a woodsy person but I'm sure there should have been some noise; small furry creatures, nocturnal insects, that sort of thing but all was still and silent. I continued. After a while I came to a cottage - it looked really out of place here by itself on the path in the wood and I made my way to it moving without sound from shadow to shadow - a deeper darkness in the night. The cottage was small and seemed to be made all of one piece. I took a look round the outside and found no doors or windows or any sort of breech or gap at all; it was like little fortress (or a medium/large trap) With no obvious points of entry I decided to continue and come back to the cottage at some later time. I continued along the road for a while longer till I saw lights up ahead through the trees. It was the inn again... I'd come full circle. It's something to think about, but for now I'm off to bed.

Back to The Inn of the Far Shore.