23 Mirtul 1479

Well, I was right about Merrill.

We got up this morning to find Merrill gone - as well was Jacob. Nathan - bless his obnoxiously curious and sneaky heart - had managed to get a gander at that scroll and reported that it was about Ocrus and his vigrin sacrifices. We managed - with great effort - not to laugh. And I'm pretty sure I managed not to look... guilty or whatever. Anyway, safe to say an 8 year old boy counts as a vigrin (heh). And bless Jacob for listening to fairy tales, he left a trail of pooka shells for us to follow. We managed to track him, but it was a hard trek and we were rushing, leaving us - or at least me - puffing a bit.

We found the temple and found the skeletons outside guarding it. Skeletons should be scary, but these just didn't frighten me. We came up to the crypt and noted a fancy sigil over the archway to get in. Max spoke up, said it was a trap, divine magic - which I guessed by the ghostly bloody hands that reached out. He was able to call on Selune (and glad I am that he serves a goddess I'm comfortable with) and diddle the trap neatly. We came into a huge room with 2 rows of columns - one along each side - and a whole lotta zombies. Still not terrifying, but definitely creepy. Then down the stairs at the back of the big room and into the main arena.

We could hear the chanting and it sounded like Merrill was wrapping things up. We had to fight a bunch more zombies - including some that were starting to get scary - and we were getting some chewed, but still winning. I let Allyson distract Merrill while I dashed over and lurched over the altar to grab Jacob and pull him away. Took me longer than I wanted - I hate it when Allyson is right about my needing to exercise more - but I got him and took off. I'd've kept running, but apparently Allyson pissed Merrill off good and all - well, it IS what she's best at - and decided killing us was more important than Jacob so I stuck around and good thing too, my healing was definitely needed - I was getting a bit worried about Allyson. Although I did manage to trick one of the ghouls to peel off her and come towards Gnf - who he couldn't possibly reach - and then head back towards the fighters. A nice trick, I liked it.

We got back to camp without further issue and Gwyneth was both overjoyed and furious at the boys, all mom-like, and very grateful to us and wishing she could repay us. A little embarrassing, that - I mean, what else were we gonna do? Let the kid die? Seems wrong to let her think she owes us for doing the right thing, but I can't think of a way to say that without hurting her feelings, so...

As boring as trudging down the road is, I'm kinda hoping the rest of the trip to Daggerford is more boring. Adventure is a lot scarier than it sounds.