The 17th of Vor, 1329 Avard: Chill screams swept the night, and the Guard shouted at everyone to get indoors, for their own safety. Criers with armed escorts called out warnings – warnings that a guild of assassins had been flushed out of their hiding place within the city. Citizens were warned to stay indoors, while curfew was enacted. The militia had been called up to help enforce the curfew, and hunt for the assassins. Kelerin the Antiquitor was the head of the assassins' guild, and was known as the Scorpion; any citizen seeing Kelerin was to withdraw immediately, and inform the Guard.

Ethosivalisan Eskesieresal was irritated. Splashed with blood and nearly out of bindings for the wounded, he was a healer, a warrior, and a missionary for the Cirrathwhaelin – the Church of Whalin, in his native elven tongue. Ethos, as he went by, was escorted by several of the guard. The land he had traveled to as part of his missionary work was a barbaric mix of human and dwarven realms, but he sensed great potential in the people of the realm. As witness to those thoughts, he had seen the Guard turn out in such force to ensure the peace of the city of Kashin that even the jaded elf was somewhat impressed. The Guard had immediately requested aid from all of the churches and temples, and the small monastery to the healing god, Whalin, had become the local hospice for the wounded, and the dead.

Ethos' longbow lent a comfortable weight to his back, and the jostling of the arrows in his quiver was a welcome sound amidst the relative silence of the city's night and the three Guardians that accompanied him. A small battle broke out some blocks away, a man screamed shrilly in pain, and a distinctively dwarven battle cry was cut short. Ethos and his Guardians broke into a sprint, heading quickly towards the sounds of battle. The elf pulled his twin maces from his belt as he ran, using the extra heft of the light maces to lend his arms strength as he sprinted towards the sounds of battle – hoping against time that he could save whomever was wounded or dying.

* * *

'Zap' was a fair-sized young man, at six-feet and an inch, and a hefty build of muscle and sinew. He had just graduated the six-month-long War College, and ached to be in the battles raging on in the city's streets. Unfortunately, his duties were very clear – with his parents visiting friends when the chaos had begun, someone had to stay with the house, and watch out for his sister and her friend Sky – both just in from Lok Magius, the Mages' Academy.

Zap's sister, Leigh, was a long time gone to the privies, and so the concerned older brother stepped outside to check on her. To his horror, he found her dead inside the outhouse, a crossbow quarrel having penetrated the wood at the back of the privie, and driven itself into the back of Leigh's head.

Outraged, incensed, and beside himself with grief, Zap thought to take his sister's body to the nearest place of worship, a monastery of Whalin not too far away. The city's Guard ordered Zap back inside, and off of the streets because of the curfew.

Helpless before the might of the law, Zap went back inside, feeling somewhat betrayed by the War College's teachings.

Alerted by other members of the Guard, Ethos arrived at the house and knocked on the door, hoping he was in time to save whatever young lady had been injured. He discovered Leigh dead, instead, and offered what condolences he could to the young human warrior.

Zap, however, wanted to join Ethos out on the streets, and get to the bottom of the problem. The human felt that just tending the injured was a reaction, instead of action. Ethos, after mulling the idea over, agreed. Together with young Sky, Leigh's grief-stricken friend, the three took to the streets with Ethos' vestments giving them free reign to seek out the source of the chaos.

Almost in front of them, a Guardsman fell dead, killed by many spiders, each the size of a man's hand. The hairy, orange-and-black patterned spiders scurried off into the darkness – but not before the elven sorceress Sky had picked one up. Throwing it quickly into an unused preserve jar, the three then pounded for the nearest leaders of the Guard with their spider as evidence of some evil in the night other than a guild of assassins.

The Assistant Chaplain of the Guard had set up a nearby triage and relief node at an intersection of several streets. She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt the source of the chaos and confusion in the streets, for she and some new-found friends had helped flush out the Scorpion Guild of assassins. While her friends had battled their way through the guild, 'Spooks' as Cassandra was called, had been helping the Guard take care of other troubles.

When Zap launched into his chaotic and confusing tirade on getting to the source of the chaos in the streets, the Assistant Chaplain had no time for the young upstart. She upbraided him in his place, and told him to get out of her way.

Crest-fallen but undeterred, Zap rekindled his energies, and with Sky and Ethos in tow, ran towards the guild-house of the assassins seeking more information.

At a rich and ostentatious manor that had once belonged to the merchant Kelerain, they encountered one of Cassandra's friends: a ten-foot tall minotaur named Tor. Intimidated by the giant beast, and thinking him part of the scheme of the assassins, Zap led them away.

The young warrior convinced Sky to find a laboratory to compare the spider's venom, with that of the Scorpion's poison Ethos had obtained from Tor. The three of them went to the Lyle House, where the local mage-recruiter had a laboratory. Unfortunately, the mage wasn't home, and the house was under guard. The Guard tried to turn the group aside, but Zap's demeanor and attitude caused them alarm. Sky cast a magical spell on two of them, instantly putting them to sleep, even as the Guard went for their weapons. Ethos, forced to act, put the fear of Whalin in the man, sending him screaming and running for his life from some inner demon that only the Guard could see.

The remaining Guard, having seen Zap start the ruckus by trying to sap one of them from behind, ran for help.

Zap, realizing the debacle he had made of trying to break into the Lyle House to use the laboratory, proceeded to turn himself in to the Guard, who promptly took him to jail. Ethos was released of his own priestly cognizance, with Sky invisible in her magic.

Ethos returned to Kelerain's Manor, and spoke with Tor, and a mage of vile temperament. The mage, Norion, had been an apprentice at the Lyle House long ago, and still had the key. Norion offered the two the use of the laboratory, but would be unable to accompany them, as he and Tor and the rest were under orders to remain in the manor, and await the possible return of the guild or some of its members.

Sky worked long into the night at the Lyle House, while Ethos meditated downstairs. Some time in the night, Ethos came out of his meditations, realizing that Sky was gone. She had disappeared, much like her magics had let her do before, but this time, there was no trace of her. Concerned and confused, he returned to the jail house in time for Zap's release.

Convinced that there was a second power in the Night of Assassins, the two wondered if the Inquisition wasn't behind the assassins' guild. They felt it was possible, and had a dead mage and a missing mage as evidence – and a spider that had killed a Guardsman, all contrasting with the information the Guard had.

Zap's brash insistence on such a plot nearly landed him in jail, again, but Ethos managed to calm the young warrior down, and got them in to see the Lord Reeve and the Count, to whom they both confessed their fears, and also surreptiously studied the two, seeing if they were in on the plot. When Ethos had become convinced that the two leaders of the city were true to their word, he begged aid to find the master of the spiders.

The Lord Reeve, well-briefed by Cassandra, Tor, Norion, and the others, was convinced that the death of the Guardsman by spider bites might have been a coincidence. He promised to look into it, but wanted the meddling duo out from under-foot as the Guard resumed its hunt for the Scorpions Guild.

After asking numerous questions throughout the city, the two were almost ready to give up when they were attacked by giant spiders that could shoot webbing at them. These spiders were similar in appearance to the one they had captured, but the smallest of the monstrous spiders had a body as big as a man's head.

The two managed to escape the webs and get free, only to find themselves with no clues and no leads – only proof that they were on the right track.

They learned from a dealer in rare animals that the description of the spiders was similar to a hunter-species from the distant Gaebrum Forest. The spiders tended to eat mainly birds, catching them in their aerial webs.

With this clue in hand, Ethos went and questioned some local pigeons – and got nowhere, fast.

Splitting up to pursue different avenues of research, each was nearly killed by both spiders – and members of the Scorpions Guild!

In a fast battle in which archers fired from the rooftops, a hooded mage in gray robes spat spells, and a double-fistful of the monstrous spiders shot webbing at them, the two barely escaped with their lives – poisoned by both the Scorpions's arrows, and by the monstrous spiders' bites.

They fled to Kelerin's Manor, where they had made fast friends with Tor and his companions, and were nearly killed along the way. The hooded mage had the unerring ability to cast his daggers considerable distances without missing.

With the help of Tor, a half-dog creature known as Hrothgar, and several others, they managed to kill two of the Scorpions before losing the trail. Up in the air over one intersection, they found a bridge made of spider-silk. The discovery explained how the Scorpions had been able to traverse the city so quickly, and perhaps how they had escaped. -so ends the 18th of Vor, 1329 Avard.

Brent and his wife Jazzi (Jasmine) joined Ramon and I in my cramped little barracks room. The heat was stifling, and we had to borrow Brent's fan to keep us from melting while we played. They tell me that the installation's power management team won't turn on the air conditioning until we've had five successive days in a row with temperatures over 85F. Unfortunately, I live on the third floor, and for some reason, my room is baking even during the night, with the window open. I don't get it.

It was a lazy Saturday afternoon, and Brent was pumped to be able to play again after so long without. His wife Jazzi was apparently not so thrilled. For one, she's a local Korean woman – a tiny and attractive woman that is intimidated by these huge, hulking barbarians from another nation whom have no sense of propriety or culture, and who speak a tongue that sounds like a bunch of dogs barking (which is how I've had English described to me by the locals). But, Jazzi was interested in seeing this other hobby of her husband's, and figured that it would be similar to the Dark Age of Camelot game she and Brent had been playing together for some time.

Ramon had never played, before, but after reading the online comic series The Order of the Stick for some time, he was really looking forward to playing. Ramon had been playing WoW (World of Warcraft) online, and had played several other fantasy-like games. Once we figured out how to translate DnD into the vocabulary of these other games, Ramon picked up on the basics of DnD in a hurry.

About half-way through the evening, Jazzi gave up. The English was too rapid-fire for her to really enjoy the story-play, and she was also intimidated by Ramon and I (or more likely, me, since I'm a character when I'm running a campaign). I had a lot of trouble with Brent trying to speak for his wife, and perhaps my blunt approach of asking Jazzi for her character's reaction to everything, and not allowing Brent to speak for her, also made things difficult for her. Dad-gum-it. That's life, though, and her character 'disappeared'. I'll play it that she was kidnapped, or the like, so that the opening is there if she ever chooses to return.

With Brent, I had to continually beat him over the head. I'm going to get a rolled-up newspaper, and the next time he metagames (i.e. he plays for his character, instead of being in character, thus giving his character experience and knowledge far in excess of the 'reality' of the game), well… I plan on whopping him upside the head with that newspaper, next time it happens. But, towards the latter parts of the session, he started getting gooder. Not better, but gooder.

Ramon did pretty well for a first-timer. Playing a spell-caster as a first-timer is usually pretty difficult, but he carried it off, frequently researching the clerical spells whenever he had a chance. He also enjoyed the role-play, carrying off stunts that he could only dream of in WoW or other computer games. It's a heady thing, to use your imagination to its limits in game-play, and I think he's hooked.

So far, it's just the Fighter and the Cleric. We'll have to see about adding more characters, although I don't see how they'd even fit into my room. So, in addition to searching for other players, we'll have to see about finding somewhere else to play, too. Recon time!

2,000 (total to date is 2,000)