The last fortified Inn lies behind us. Now, the road between us and the
Woodwall garrison will become more dangerous. Tirtu is a very rough and
rugged land, and its people, the Neachtu, are the same. Thomas has hired
some additional men, including local scouts, Lee and Evan. We are joined
also by a Bard, a charming lady by the name of Sweet Anna.

During the first night, three thieves tryed to steal our horses, but Lee
heard them, and interrupted their work. They fled, and one was wounded by
an arrow.

The next night was uneventful.

Tirtu's weather is not the nicest. Around midday, it began to drizzle,
gradually becoming heavier.

As we continued along the road, we were ambushed by bandits. There were
about two dozen or so, some with bows, some on foot, and some mounted. We
drove them off, taking some injuries ourselves, including Jack and Anna.
I was most impressed by Evan. He killed several of the ambushers. He is
quite silent, but that is no bad thing in a warrior.

Master Thomas was worried about proceeding, but we knew that going back
would not provide safety. We were too far from the last Inn for that. We
pressed onwards, taking some of the attackers' horses with us.

That night was thankfully uneventful.

As we plodded onwards, another group of men was spotted in the trees
ahead. We formed the wagons into defensive positions, loaded our
crossbows, and waited. They fired their arrows, rather ineffectively, and
charged. We were outnumbered, and already weakened from the earlier fight.
This lot of bandits seemed better armed and more skilled than the last
lot, and man after man fell to them. I saw them hack down Thomas, Graham, 
Jack, Lee, Anna... Evan had been sent to observe them, and was nowhere to
be seen. The guards and wagon-drivers were also beaten. I was already
fighting two of the bandits, and saw more coming for me, so I ran for the
nearest horse, jumped on, and fled. I'm glad I learned to ride.

The horse (who was a warhorse, and which I will refer to as
'Sandy') suddently indicated that he wanted to go in a certain
direction. I was pretty tired, and lost, at this stage, so I let him go
that way. After what seemed like quite a while, we approached a lake, and
I became more alert again. A thought suddenly occured to me - what if this
was one of the bandit's warhorses, and I had just let it return home! I
was about to turn and gallop off, when I heard Jack's voice, coming from a
nearby cave. This seemed like a trap. I dismounted, loaded my crossbow,
and walked slowly towards the cave.

To my surprise, Jack, Anna, Lee and Evan were there, alive and well - with
an elf. I'd never seen one of these before, but I knew the stories: no elf
should be here, behind the Wall. The others explained that this wasn't an
elf, but a half-elf (how unfortunate), called 'the Mender'. The Mender had
apparently come across the scene of the fight, and healed a few of the
dying.

'Mender' told us about some evil, or 'bane', that was beneath the forest,
and held there by the trees. The bandits were felling trees, releasing
this bane. Mender wanted us to help get rid of the bandits - all 100 or
more of them! Mender thinks that killing their leader might scare
them off.

Now, I wasn't in this Mender's debt (as the others were), but I was angry
at the bandits - they'd killed my friends, stolen our goods, and prevented
us from making our delivery. It sickens me that Free-Staters would steal
supplies meant for the Free State Army which has protected us from the
elves for so long. They're even worse than the new crop of demagogues who
seem to want to weaken the Free States and the Army for the benefit of
their own cities (and their own wealth). So, I decided to help this
Mender. Maybe we'll even get our goods back.

The others went to take a look at the castle in which the bandits lived.

When they returned, Mender led us down a tunnel, which supposedly goes
into the castle. There was a rusty, earthy smell, and an abundance of
luminous moss. We came to a dead end, which turned out to have a weak
earthen wall into a chamber with several armoured corpses lying around.
They died violently, by the look of it.

One of the heaps formed into a huge warrior. It's hard to describe without
sounding crazy - it was like nothing I've ever seen. It was made of the
dead bodies, and earth, and glowing worms. It stood up, and shambled
towards Jack. I drew my long-knives and charged it, only to be sent flying
against the wall. The others followed in kind. This fellow was nasty -
took a lot of damage to take him down. He occasionally spewed some foul
substance from his mouth, which was very hard to remove, and could almost
choke a man to death. Anyway, it took some work, but we killed it.

We decided to march on, past more passages and chambers, 'til we reached a
much larger chamber with ledges. There was a chittering noise. We formed a
circle, and Mender increased the light of the lantern. (Jack claims Mender
uses 'Magic', like the 'wizards' supposedly did at the greatest battle of
the war with the Elves. I was sceptical, but that's changed.) We saw
a multitude of little humanoids, with neither eyes not noses. They
scattered from the light.

A mass of the little things then fell on us from above, trying to put out
the light. I managed to dive out of the way, but some of the others were
trapped under them. I sliced some to pieces, as the chittering became a
wail - and then a *pop* as they exploded! We nearly drowned in the sea
of... well, I'm not sure what to call it.

Jack realised there was someone else present, a hovering glowing white
figure. It was terrifying. I decided to fire crossbow bolts at it. Evan
hit it hard as it was preparing to use what I can only call a 'spell'.
It then managed to transfix Evan, Lee and Jack with a glowing
light. Mender summoned a creature or spirit of some sort, which attacked
the white figure, to little effect. The figure seemed to consist of the
remains of the upper part of a human skeleton, and a coat of glowing
worms. We kept attacking it, and it fell.

We were tired and sore at this point, but we went on, and reached a
trapdoor, which was blocked by a bone above it. We managed to get it open,
to find ourselves emerging into a dusty crypt, with a sealed off exit in
the wall. We decided to rest. (Jack found another exit, in another tomb.)