Loose+ends

Loose ends
We began by arranging to have the black ship refitted and repaired. Raven paid for that(2000 gold), and it will take 6 weeks for the repairs. Then we debated where to take that evil sword sheath. We were going to Aegir, but too many of the religious people began to distrust the story we had heard from him/her. We decided to take it to the Bifrost Bridge and Heimdall. We arrived and began meeting with successively higher Valkyries and retelling the story over and over, and they gave us their version of the story. Apparently Aegir and Njord together brought down the black ship, but not because of the artifact, but because a shadow baron was on the ship. He was sent home, but that was when they learned about the sword. We now believe the Shadow Baron threw them both overboard before meeting the Gods, they got separated, and that huge water elemental has the sword while the sheath floated further away before sinking. For this information, we were paid with a gem each, worth 1d10x1000gp.

In addition, a valkyrie spent an evening with us swapping war stories. Each person told a story for a prize. Almost all of us got a kiss, which is worth a half healing one time. Neville won the contest, receiving a free resurrection, the half healing, and he also spent the night with the valkyrie. He now seems to think Lea is nothing special anymore.

As a fun finish, we met about 50 weenie earth elementals swarming around the library outer grounds. They died like flies, and learned what Great Cleave can do. We plan to fix the were-weasel problem next.

**__Weasel City__**
We took our ship west and used birdform to cruise to the city unseen. On the first day, we scouted the area as seagulls. Boss Smash was seen, and the Lord of Weasel Town tossed a color spray at him to get rid of him. Boss resisted and flew away. The Lord knew that should have been impossible, so he freaked out and ordered every seagull in the town killed. We left for the day. The next we talked to nearby farmspeople who clearly knew about the curse, but were supporting their relatives. None would tell us what was going on. Max also scouted out the Manor House as an earth elemental the next day. He found two floors below the keep. The first looked like a normal storage area, but the one below that was a "dungeon" filled with cells and bones. He entered and found out it had been sealed up with no entrance, the skeletons were of teenaged humans and some rats, and it had all happened around 100 years before.

Many wanted to check that out, while others thought it of interest and probably made during the source of the curse, but only the location, not the current cause. We were split on whether to confront the Lord first, then check out the dungeon, or to check out the dungeon and risk losing our surprise, such as it was. We decided to buff up and let an early morning Augury decide the issue. It said "weal" to check it out and so we birded up and teleported down there. (Max making his teleport roll by one, his 1st use of teleport.) Searching among the bones, we found a diary giving the story of the people there.

After the Comet and amid the economic, cultural chaos, a group of young Politzanian nobility, all in their teens, decided to sneak away and head to the site of the Cometfall and pray there for a normalizing of the weather. The group was led by the daughter of the then current High Priest of Odin, boarded a ship and sailed east. In Weasel, they were lured ashore and confined to be sold into slavery. Before they were sold, however, the Lord realized just how highborn and important they were. Unsure of what to do, and nearly in panic from thoughts of the punishment he was about to face, he decided to just wall off the dungeon and bury all evidence of what he had done. The young Odin priestess wrote about it in her diary, Cursing them repeatedly calling them weasels, liars, and scum. At the end of the diary, written in gold and in Celestial, was the summation, "As it was written, so it shall be done". After a brief discussion, we decided that 100 years later, if the townsfolk repented and confessed the sins of their fathers, they could be cured of their lycanthropy. We birdformed up, tore out the wall contruction, and flew to the front of the keep and made our appearance.

Raven stood front and center, demanding to see the Lord and for him to repent. Zaldiston sent a fireball skyward that exploded leaving a sign for all to come forward and repent and be cured. Other party members got into place and waited. The Lord appeared and demanded to know who we were and by whose authority we were demanding anything. He didn't like our answer and shouted for his guards to attack.

There were six guards outside with crossbows and swords, 4 archers in each corner tower on either side of the door, the Lord in front with two guards, and lots of staff inside the keep, and hundreds of townsfolk outside the keep. Everett and Rastik killed the guards outside, Max and Zaldiston neutralized/killed the archers, and Raven, Boss, and Neville went front and center. The Lord cast Project Image before confronting us, so Raven's attack hit only illusion. His two guards zipped back inside, Raven just got in also, before they dropped the beam back, locking them all in. The Lord dropped spells on those in front after an initial stinking cloud on everyone. Soon the battlefield was in chaos with little duels all over the place, and Boss and Benelux repeatedly slipping in slush and getting frustrated. Finally, Neville the Earth Elemental got under the front door, removed the bar, and Raven, Neville, and Boss finished off the Keep staff, 12 wereweasels trying to grapple and bite Raven. Max managed to catch the still-invisible Lord in a fireball and kill him. Zaldiston's sky signs and Everett's diplomacy first panicked, then calmed the townspeople. They had heard a different story from the Lord of Weasel, and thought they had been wrongly cursed for saving people, not for killing them. We had the townspeople visit the dungeon, read the diary, and plan a delegation to Homeguard to return the bones and apologize. Once they learned that they were justly cursed, they seemed willing to do this to rid themselves of their curse.

For loot, we found lots of various scrolls, but some good stuff. There is a +1 steel shield, a +4 steel shield (Benelux?), a Staff of Frost (Max), and a wand of Cure Moderate Wounds.