Today we finally got a reply from the town council as to our request to rent, buy or otherwise habitate an un-occupied building in the city. We had been given a slight runaround by the city council for some few weeks.

It seems they finally decided to reply and gave us the following information. We can rent the place we have been living in for the price of 6 Silver pieces per person living there. In the interest of giving ourselves a chance to get it organized, we agreed to the deal for those of us present and for those who were not available to be consulted.

At this time, the city is under the assumption that we have 9 people living at our premises.

After getting title to the house we will be using, we went out and hired a number of persons to come in to repair the facilities. Part of the building is roofless and other things that need to be repaired. We went out and hired a general contractor who will be bringing in a large crew that he has available. There will be roofers, thatchers, carpenters, plasterers and other types to make the house winter-worthy. I found out while wandering around town that hiring these people to come in and work on our house has created some very good will between the general population of Enonia and us. Evidently, it has been quite some time since anyone has hired some much labor. At this rate we may revitalized the economy of the entire city. (Maybe). In order to get this work done, we need to come up with 139 Gold and 2 Silver to cover the work. Again we took charge for those who weren’t around and made commitments in their name for the group.

On top of everything else, we finally got notice from Seralnue the Jeweler that there was a buyer for the Dwarven items we had found!

Not only did we find a buyer but we found a very powerful one at that. The jeweler showed up at the Inn one morning with a guard on tow carrying a large strong box. Evidently, the buyer sent the box along with their own guards. Seralnue claims that he does not know who the buyer is and will not tell us about it. With a nervous as he is about the subject, I would just as soon not know either. Nonetheless, the payment we got for it was no less than 105 Gold for the inlaid helm, 35 Gold each for the 8 short swords, and one 300GP diamond for each of the sets of chain mail. I was able to make payments out to those of us who were present, but we have to find someone to convert some of the gems to pay off the other members who weren’t around when we got paid.

We had a new person who joined the group this morning. Maxlor, is a young priest from the temple, who evidently came from further west into the kingdom. Alana was familiar with him and was able to vouch for him.

Evidently, both of our temple priests have heard rumors, that there is new trouble near the monastery. We have not been there since we came back with Melkrit’s (one time young temple acolyte, later powerful priest of the dark) head earlier in the summer. This has not stopped others from going there however.

Supposedly other groups had been up in the area and run into a lot of trouble with Goblins. Well, in the interest of keeping the vermin down, we went up to check out the ruins of The Monastery of St Eggix. When we got within approximately half a mile of the site we noticed two fires burning at the site. I moved in much more closely by myself and crept to less than 100 yards from the site, and spotted half a dozen or so Goblins tending their fire. I was nearly spotted by the Goblins when I loudly stepped on a branch. But was able to keep out of sight when they swept the ground around me. I evidently did even better than I thought, because I had snuck passed a couple of their own guards and didn’t get spotted (of course I didn’t see them either until they shouted out and gave the all clear). I snuck in just a little farther then got out while I still could to report the situation to the rest of the party.

We didn’t really have a good plan but closed in quietly on the camp and managed to reach nearly the edge of the temple ruins before we were spotted. The fight was brisk but fairly short leaving ten goblins laying about on the ground.

A search of the area indicated there were a lot more than just ten goblins present and that they were moving in and out of the underground in large numbers.

At this point we decided to go down and re-search the catacombs. While searching we came across a number of things in the areas we had already been in previously: 6 zomblins (Goblin-Zombies), 8 giant rats, another dozen goblins and the rather badly chewed upon and decomposed bodies of three militiamen and three more citadel guards.

It is very interesting that we were told to stay out of this temple complex, yet the city is sending guards down into this thing.

Also of note is the fact that all the living goblins were found wearing amulets of a crude three clawed hand shaped like an inverted Y. They acted woodenly, moved stiffly, fought tenaciously, not one running or attempting to surrender. They all acted as if they were operating in a form not of their own volition. About the time we had swept 70% of the area we had been in previously, all the clerics were nearly out of spells for the day, much of the party was sporting wounds and everyone was exhausted. We packed out what gear and treasure we found (18 GP), brought up the guards that we had found down below and got out of the catacombs.

The clerics did rites for the dead guards and we burned their bodies in the approved fashion and then headed back to town.

Being heavily loaded with plunder we had found, forced us to take a long time to reach the east gate. When we arrived a party of peasants were approaching from the south while we approached from the north. As normal, the guards ordered both groups to halt which we did. The other group did not, and actually acted as if they were orientating their movement on the activity at the gates. It seemed obvious that something was wrong so I dropped my excess plunder I was carrying and urged the others to do the same.

Quite suddenly the peasants charged a position that the guards crossbowmen were using swamping the two in that foxhole and tearing them apart. It was obvious now that what we were dealing with were more of the Damned (think the not-zombies from 28 days later and you have the picture). The guards covering us ran for the gate urging us to join them. We ran for the gate while the guards tried to lay down covering fire and got in amongst the other gate defenders.

The battle that followed lasted easily a quarter hour maybe more and was a nightmare on so many levels. Every time, someone was dragged down by the Damned, they would jump back up within 2-3 minutes and start attacking their friends. Of the original 8 peasants we were attacked by, we ended up killing all of them as well as nine of the guards that were turned during the fight. Only two guards ran from the fight in fear. One just ran, but the other screamed about being on fire or some such as he left. Luckily, Alana our one female cleric had the presence of mind to realize that he might be infected and managed to follow him until they found some people who could grab him and drag him off to the priests to be healed. During the fight I hit many times and was also infected. As soon as the last Damned was laid low, I turned and rushed for the temple myself. I lost consciousness myself somewhere but was carried to the temple. Evidently, I was in the middle of turning myself and had to be restrained by many hands.

That is all I remember until this morning. According to Alana, they had to vouch for me several times, that I was intimately involved in the defense in order to get myself cured. The way she explained it, they were more than happy to put me out of my misery until they found they actually owed me some help.

Have I ever mentioned that the management of this city make me very nervous?

Anyway, I sit here in bed trying to recover, but it feels as if I will never be quite the same again (I permanently lost 1 point of Constitution with the hit points that were part of it). Once I get out of this hospital bed, I intend to look into the defenses of this city very closely. I intend to suggest numerous changes to the defenses. The defenses presently in use are worse than useless. All they do is drain large amounts of treasure from the city while defending nothing. If we had not arrived at the time that we did, we would have walked back into a dead city, and found ourselves surrounded by hundreds of the damned.

This cannot be allowed to happen again, a second time and we will all die in a most horrible and swift fashion.