The Kozlo S.M.A.T. Team

While Will was busy charming the gate guards, pigeon-Yaz flew high over the city and then swooped down through the many spires of the churches, cathedrals and temples of Olmutz trying to locate the Cathedral of Lechit. As he sees that the shops of this particular area are mainly comprised of apothecaries and herbalists, he realizes that he must be getting pretty close. He then sees the spires of the cathedral rising above the buildings surrounding it and so swoops over the rooftops in order to get to the building.

The pigeon lands upon the steps of the cathedral and Yaz sees that the doors are open. Peering through the open door, he sees that the antechamber of the cathedral is half full of people who seem to be suffering from a variety of ailments.

"Sod that," pigeon-Yaz cheeps to himself, remembering the long wait at the Cathedral in Vysoke Myto.

The pigeon takes to the air once more and circles the building. He soon finds a half-opened window and flies through it. He sees that he is in a small room, which contains a large desk that is piled high with paper as well a couch. Sat behind the desk, working away on some paperwork by the light of a solitary candle is a man dressed in flowing white robes, who appears to be in his early seventies.

Pigeon-Yaz flies through the window and comes to rest upon the couch. So engrossed is the priest in his paperwork that he does not see the pigeon flutter down at all. However, when the pigeon starts to morph into the form of Yaz, he most certainly does sit up and notice.

Initially he is startled by the sudden appearance of a druid on his couch, but he soon calms down and waits for Yaz to finish his transformation:

"A priest of Prirodna, I take it?" he says calmly to the new arrival, "and one of no little ability I see."

"That's right," Yaz replies.

"And what can I do for you at this late hour?" he asks.

"I'm looking for the big guy 'round here," Yaz says in response. "I've got something important to talk to him about."

"Well in that case, I think you've found him," the old man answers benignly. "I am Surgeon General Pasternak. I believe that I am the 'big guy' whom you are seeking."

"Now what can I do for you that is so important?"

Yaz hands him 'The Purifier'.

Pasternak takes the sword and squints at it for a moment. It's obvious that his eyesight is failing as a result of his advanced years. After a few moments, his eyebrows rise and he looks up at Yaz:

"The Purifier?" he asks. "Where did you find this? What happened to FaithHealer Geisler?"

Yaz shrugs:

"He died, I guess."

The Surgeon General holds his head in his hands and shakes his head from side to side:

"That's the most terrible news I've heard in a long while. Geisler was a good man, one of the best that I've known."

"We found his sword in the Nemotz temple laboratory thing four days west from here," Yaz replies. "We killed the High Priest, the GermSpreaders, the clerics, and the demon they worshipped. All the Nemotz are dead. There are forty naked refugees there, and some of them are turning into animals. And their hole is filled with disease, and bottles of nasty viruses and shit just waiting to break open and kill people."

The Surgeon General looks terribly confused as Yaz spews forth a torrent of information:

"Slow down a bit a moment can you, lad? You found it four days WEST of here? But what was Geisler doing there? He should have been north of here, in Opava. And Nemotz, you say?"

Pasternak looks a little pale and sinks deep into his chair:

"Surely you must be mistaken? There have been no Nemotz in Bohavia for the past century."

He goes quiet for a moment, his mind obviously racing:

"They have a temple, you say? Laboratory? And a DEMON? My, my, my, if what you say is true, then this is terrible news indeed. Absolutely terrible."

He sips from a glass of water to try and steady his racing heart:

"And refugees and disease? Oh my Lord, this is absolutely terrible. It's like our worst nightmare come true."

He goes quiet for a moment, shaking his head, his countenance becoming more ashen by the second:

"This is all we need, what with the Slovenes heading this way and all of the other problems."

He goes quiet for a moment, almost forgetting that Yaz is still in the room with him.

"One of us is a LawBringer of Spravedelna," Yaz continues after Pasternak has stopped rambling. "His church is sending people to help, and they're gonna leave first thing in the morning. Maybe you can have your guys ready to go in the morning, too, and send a leader type to meet us outside the 'Pen and Parchment' at dawn to get organized."

"A LawBringer of Spravedelna, you say?" Pasternak replies, continuing to ramble. "Well, if what you say is true, then we'll certainly need all of the help that we can get."

"Terrible," he mutters once again to himself. "Absolutely terrible."

Yaz looks at him quizzically:

"Not really, General," he says. "We killed all of them, y'know, like I said."

"But what if there's more of them?" Pasternak replies. "You can't know for sure that you have eradicated all of them."

The Surgeon General pauses once again, thinking deeply.

"I shall definitely see what I can do. Dawn, you say? Well that's very short notice to get everything organized if you say that there are forty refugees there. We'll need to make a lot of preparations if we are to bring them all back to Olmutz."

"We have Geisler's notebook; you can read if you want," Yaz adds. "When you show up in the morning with everything ready, I'll give it to you."

Pasternak nods sadly:

"Yes, I would very much like to see it. Perhaps it contains some clues as to what his fate was."

He goes quiet once more:

"I shall meet you at the inn at dawn, as you suggest. I'm not sure that we shall be able to depart immediately, but I shall try my best."

He shakes his head again:

"Lechit's work is never done."

"Ya, well, tell me about it," Yaz responds. "Say, General, I got a question. I have this bad lycanthropy thing that turns me into a wolf on full moons. Is there anything you can do to help me get rid of it? Like, before it happens again in a coupla days?"

"Lycanthropy as well?" the Surgeon General replies shaking his head even more than before. "Really, this just gets worse and worse."

"Yes, I have performed the cleansing ritual before on others that have been tainted by the Curse in the past. I cannot guarantee that I shall be successful, as one can never be in these circumstances, but I shall do my utmost to try and repay your services to the Church by performing the ritual. Please come round and see me on the night of the full moon, but make sure that you get here early."

"And you can be discreet about it, huh?"the druid asks. "I mean, none of the others know, and I don't want them to find out, so... We can just do it secretly, OK?"

Pasternak looks a little offended at the question:

"Why of course," he replies. "Patient confidentiality is one of the most Holiest of Lechit's values."

"Oh, and one more thing, doc," Yaz finishes. "It really hurts when I do this..."

Yaz raises his left elbow square with his shoulders and lets his forearm swing back and forth. He looks at the man questioningly, grimacing slightly.

"Got any advice?"

The Surgeon General strokes his chin for a moment:

"Do you get a burning sensation when you urinate?" he asks.

Yaz looks puzzled:

"No, but is that really relevant?"

"No," the Surgeon General replies with a shrug. "I was just interested, that's all."

"As for my advice regarding the pain in your shoulder," he continues, "my advice to you is not to raise your left elbow square with your shoulder and then swing your forearm back and forth. I'm sure that you will find that this puts an end to the pain instantly."

"Errm…thanks doc," Yaz replies. "Anyway, I'll see you tomorrow, I really have to fly now."

With that, Yaz morphs into the form of a bat and flies out through the window that he entered by. The Surgeon General shakes his head, rubs his eyes, and goes back to fretting over the situation.

Meanwhile, the rest of the party head through the quiet, wet streets of Olmutz heading for the Cathedral of Spravedelna. Not surprisingly considering the late hour and the inclement weather, the streets are almost empty, but they are able to find someone to point them in the right direction of the Cathedral.

As they get closer and enter the Cathedral's parish, Winnacer sees to his annoyance that the area seems to have a very large Nyemetz presence, passing a number of goblin patrols on the journey.

None of the patrols stop the party, much to their relief, and so they soon arrive at the Cathedral, which is a quite magnificent building, with spires at each corner that seem to touch the sky. Milan and Tadeus take care of the wagon and their horses while Winnacer leads the rest of them inside.

The doors are open, but the Cathedral is nearly empty inside. Winnacer leads them inside and he walks up to one of the acolytes, who is busy cleaning the altar.

Winnacer coughs in order to attract the acolyte's attention and holds his silver gavel in his hand.

The acolyte turns round:

"May I help you?" she asks.

"I'd like to see the Chief Justice, if he is available," Winnacer replies.

The acolyte starts to shake her head but then sees the gavel in Winnacer's hand:

"L-let me go and see if he's available," she replies, "Sir."

The acolyte lifts the hem of her orange robes and rushes off towards the back of the Cathedral. She returns some five minutes later:

"That will be fine, Sir," she says. "Let me show you and your guests to the Chief Justice's office."

They follow the acolyte as she leads them through a series of corridors until she finally stops before a thick wooden door. She knocks and then opens the door, and then stands aside in order to allow them entry to the room.

The office is a large one, with a laden bookshelf on one side of the room. At the far end of the room in front of a roaring fireplace is a desk, and behind that a seated figure.

The man rises from his seat and walks towards the party as they enter. The man is tall, standing well over 6'3" and appears to be in his mid-fifties. He has piercing blue eyes and a neatly trimmed black beard. He is dressed in immaculate orange robes, underneath which, they see sparkling silver chainmail.

He spots Winnacer's gavel and walks over to greet him, ignoring the others. He shakes Winnacer by the hand:

"Chief Justice Ondrey Soukup," he says sternly, without any trace of emotion. "I don't think we've been introduced in the past."

"LawBringer Winnacer Duene Stradheim of the Cathedral of Spravedelna in Pardubitze," Winnacer replies.

Chief Justice Soukup grasps Winnacer firmly by the hand and looks deep into his eyes for a fraction too long for comfort. He then relaxes his grip and speaks:

"High Priestess Valechkova told me that Spravedelna had sent her a new LawBringer. I'm very pleased to make your acquaintance."

"Now, perhaps you would like to take a seat and tell me why you have requested an audience with me at this late hour."

Winnacer bows his head briefly, thanking the Chief Justice as he takes a seat. He beckons the others to do the same, which they do. The Chief Justice returns to his seat behind the desk and absentmindedly strokes his beard as he listens to what Winnacer has to say.

"The pursuit of Injustice has embroiled my companions and myself in a plot so nefarious that it is almost blasphemy to describe," Winnacer starts. "We stumbled across a secret Nemotz lab filled with multitudes of unnatural diseases and denizens. It seems that the Nemotz have created a new plague, one that turns the infected into a mindless zombie ready to be controlled by the Nemotz. They also have made some filthy alliance with a race of man-rats, with technology alien to anything that I've ever seen. Our forays have revealed that they plan to unleash their plague upon the city of Opava on St. Vatzlav's Day. It is my intent to oppose this possibility with all of my ability and we seek to move out shortly."

"As is evil's way, the Nemotz have left in their wake a legacy of horror. Over forty refugees have been left behind in various states of disease by our cleansing of their keep. These innocents deserve the possibility of Justice, and I appeal to you to organize aid to leave immediately to fully cleanse the Nemotz temples of their evil and bring hope and Justice to those held against their will. We are also contacting the Temple of Lechit to provide the healing arts that will be necessary in reversing the horrors we witnessed."

"The Temple site, once purged, may be a considerable asset to Spravedelna in the future as well. Justice will need such defensible points in the future and it would be best if some of our own were to evaluate its potential."

"We are tentatively planning on having a meeting in the early morning at the 'Pen and Parchment' Inn. If you can attend, or send some representatives, I would be appreciative."

Winnacer pauses:

"We also have some more mundane requests to make. Our expedition has yielded many items that would draw great suspicion if left out for prying eyes to see. We wish to leave our equipment in your care for safekeeping while we are in Olmutz. We also have lost a considerable number of our comrades in the battle against the Nemotz. To have a chance at standing in the way of Injustice, we will need to be put in contact with good-hearted men and women willing to do their part against the evils plaguing Bohavia. Perhaps you can arrange some introductions for us over the next couple of days."

"It is for these reasons that I disturb you at such a late hour. I pray that you will be able to aid us in all of these undertakings."

The Chief Justice does not react at all to Winnacer's words at first, although it is obvious that he is listening intently to all that the LawBringer has to say. He thinks over all that Winnacer has said and then rises from his seat and starts to pace up and down his office as he responds:

"Nemotz," he starts, talking as much to himself as to those sat before him. "The most Unjust of all religions ever to infest the land of Bohavia. Malignant scum the lot of them."

He then looks up at Winnacer and the rest of the party:

"You did well to smite them down in Spravedelna's name, LawBringer, and I hope that you made them pay for their crimes against mankind. You did well to alert the attention of the Church of Lechit to this matter as well. Spravedelna's earthly representatives are able to fight most forms of Injustice, but the filthy, nefarious acts of disease spreading inflicted upon all that is good is not something that Spravedelna is well versed in. This is most certainly a job for the Church of Lechit. However, they are a weak Church that lacks the strength to fight against greater Evils. I will lend the support of our Church to assist them in this matter."

"This matter with these 'rat men' is also very disturbing, as I cannot believe that such a hybrid would know the meaning of Justice. In the name of Spravedelna, I hope that you and your comrades are able to put a stop to whatever abominable activities they have on their agenda. I wish that it would be possible to assist you upon your task with resources from the Church, yet I regret to say that our resources are stretched nearly to breaking point at the moment. The Slovenes have broken through the Nyemetz lines and an army is heading in this direction and I need to keep the majority of our clergy here in case the situation deteriorates further."

Will silently smiles to himself, wondering about their Slovene friend, and how this may bode well for Bohavia.

"Yet I will try and aid you in any way that I can," the Chief Justice continues. "I will pray to Spravedelna that She delivers you some men and women of stout heart and body to assist you in your endeavors. As for taking care of your belongings during your stay in the city, this will not be a problem. We are used to keeping secrets from the Injustice of the Nyemetz and I can assure you that your equipment will be well looked after."

He pauses for a moment:

"It is nearly curfew now and I can see that you are tired. I suggest that you take your leave now and that we continue our discussions in the morning. I shall meet you at the 'Pen and Parchment' inn tomorrow morning, as you requested."

"Thank you," he finishes. "That will be all. You are dismissed."

With that, he walks over to the door and opens it for them. The acolyte is waiting patiently outside the door:

"See to it that LawBringer Stradheim obtains all possible assistance," he says to the acolyte.

He shakes them all firmly by the hand as they leave:

"Until tomorrow," he says with a nod and then closes the door behind him.

The acolyte walks them back through the corridors to the main area of the Cathedral. Winnacer asks her about a safe place to leave the wagon and she tells him to take it around the back. They return to the wagon and tell Milan to drive it around the side of the Cathedral. They find the acolyte waiting for them, holding the double doors to the courtyard open and so Milan drives the wagon inside. They thank the acolyte for her assistance and then unhitch the horses from the back of the wagon, mounting them in order to ride to the inn. The acolyte closes the door behind them. As she does so, Winnacer asks her for directions to the 'Pen & Parchment' and she tells him the way to get there. Winnacer thanks her once again for her assistance and then the party trots off in the direction that she indicated.

It takes them just five minutes to ride the short journey to the Pen & Parchment, a small, nondescript looking inn on the edge of the Kitry parish, tucked in between a scribes and a bookseller. In front of the inn, they see that Yaz is waiting for them, having finished with his business at the Cathedral of Lechit and returned back to Yaz-form. The rest of them dismount and leave Milan and Tadeus to stable the horses. As they walk into the inn, they see that there is no one in the reception area and so they walk into the tavern area.

They see the landlord behind the bar placing towels over the handpumps. Just two drinkers remain in the bar. He looks up tiredly at the visitors as he sees them enter:

"Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but we're closed now," he says to them. "It's curfew in ten minutes, don't you know? Best be heading home."

Winnacer lets his Silver Gavel hang freely from his hip as he smiles at the landlord:

"Actually, we were hoping to get some rooms for the next few days while we are in town."

Winnacer glances around the tavern, taking in the whole of it.

"There really is no cozier Inn within the whole of Olmutz."

As Winnacer says these words, the man's bored and tired expression changes immediately. The color blanches from his face and he starts to tremble a little before he stutters his reply:

"W-we m-m-might n-not h-have the b-b-b-biggest inn in Olmutz, b-b-but w-w-we t-t-try to c-c-cater f-f-for all our g-g-guests' needs," he stutters.

Winnacer then attempts to settle upon a price for rooms and stables.

The landlord appears to be in hurry to complete the deal:

"F-f-fine, it'll be a g-g-gold p-p-piece for each of y-y-you and a s-s-silver for each h-h-horse for the night."

Winnacer hands the man ten gold pieces, which the man immediately puts into his pouch and then they follow him out to the lobby of the inn. He walks behind the counter and takes seven keys off the hooks, which he hands to each of them.

Oldrich immediately leaves them, heading back to the bar to speak to the innkeeper about performing at the inn in return for accommodation and drink.

The Padre yawns:

"Well that's me finished f'r th' day. I'll see ye in th' mornin'."

With that, he walks up the stairs, heading for his room.

Aneira heads after him:

"Tomorrow I seek the temple of Zima. It's going to be a long day."

And with that, she too heads for her room, leaving Winnacer, Faewen'il, Yaz and Will in the lobby.

The innkeeper appears again with a matronly woman in her mid-forties:

"I-I-I've just got to pop out for a moment," he says, wrapping his cloak around him. "My wife will attend to your needs if there is anything you need while I'm gone."

As the Padre and Aneira head off up the stairs, Winnacer calls out to them:

"Is there anything I can get you before you retire? A drink? Something to eat perhaps?"

"No," Aneira replies. "I just want to get a good night's sleep for once."

Noticing the strangeness of the innkeeper's disposition, Will takes his harp and begins to strum quietly a mystical little tune. However, before he gets terribly far, Winnacer walks over and gently puts his hand on Will's shoulder, throwing off his tune a bit:

"It's been a long, hard day. We all can do with a quiet drink right now. Let's sit down and relax without the skillful sounds of your strumming."

Yaz is even less subtle than the bard, however:

"Where ya goin'?" asks the druid, blinking, knowing it's past curfew.

"Errrm," the innkeeper responds, obviously put on the spot. "I .. . errm .. . forgot to do something earlier today. It's .. .errm .. . nothing important really.. . errm .. . for you. Just got to .. .errm .. . get some fresh milk for breakfast tomorrow. Yes, just popping out for some milk."

Faewen'il simply stares at the man briefly, her hand resting on the amulet, as the innkeeper rushes out of the door.

After touching her amulet and while heading towards the bar to look for table, Fae speaks quietly in a casual tone of voice, though it was more to the wall than to anyone in particular.

"He be told t' be lookn foor such folk as us... an t' report ta Kit-tree iff'n we be on his doo-ur. He be fritnd foor hi' life foor havn' ta travll after t' curfew tho...."

Winnacer looks nearly as uncomfortable as the innkeeper does as he replies:

"Well, if he's heading for the Cathedral of Kitry, then we can be sure that he is not of bad intent. The Kitrians have proven themselves to be some of our greatest allies. Perhaps my sister has something to do with this. She is a priestess of Kitry and I told her that I would visit her one day soon. Perhaps she asked the innkeeper to alert her immediately should I come to this inn so that she could surprise me."

With Will's song having been ruined and the innkeeper now gone, the bard has little choice in the matter and so he wanders off into the bar to get himself a drink. The innkeeper's wife is behind the bar, trying to get rid of the last two clients of the bar, who are looking rather the worse for wear through drink:

"Time now gentlemen, please," she shouts out to them. "Haven't you got no homes to be going to? It's curfew in just five minutes and I'm only serving residents now. Please, can you finish your drinks now?"

The two drunks take the hint and sup the last of their ale before staggering out into the snowy streets of Olmutz.

Yaz just shrugs after hearing Winn's reply. He too walks to the bar area and sits down at the same table as Will and starts rolling joints with his new papers. He starts to experiment with fat ones, skinny ones, long ones, short ones, cones and balls and donut shapes. He lays them all out very scientifically on the table before him and, using the table candle, lights several at a time and tries them alternately to determine the ideal pot-paper configuration. Winnacer also joins Yaz and Will at the table, still looking rather concerned about something.

While Yaz is toying with all of the ganga possibilities, Winnacer sits at his side in thought, watching Yaz manipulate the joints:

"Yaz...did you ever think about taking on an apprentice? Somebody to tutor in the ways of Prirodna? I think you may be even happier if you had somebody to teach."

Winnacer shrugs, wondering if the words themselves arose simply by being too close to the ever-smoking Yaz.

Yaz shrugs too:

"I dunno. I don't think that I'd make a very good teacher. Shit, I can't even read."

After a pause, Winnacer again starts chatting:

"Do you think you could take me to the Temple of Prirodna with you, Yaz? I'm kind of interested to see what they are like and what they have to say."

"Sure, you've let me come with you to you temples often enough."

Faewen'il finds herself a table of her own, which she has the squires drag her chest to. Opening it up, she retrieves a journal, along with her writing implements and begins to write things down again. The table, as always, is the furthest away from the hearth fire that she can find.

At one point during her scribblings, she reaches out and rolls up one of her sleeves. Upon the entire length of her arm gleam delft blue tattoos in varying patterns of triangles and circles. Those of them who remember her in 'The Vine' in Pardubitze after her 'exposure' do not recall seeing the tattoos.

By the way she is looking back and forth from the journal to her arm, the others figure that she is copying the patterns down. When done with the first arm, she goes to her second; the patterns similar, but not exact duplicates.

The innkeeper's wife brings drinks for them all and then returns to her place behind the bar, washing glasses as she does so.

Only when Faewen'il is done with her task does she lay the journal out to let the ink dry and approach the table where the others were sitting.

"I bay needn ta go ta t' Templ o Ki-tree onna tamoroow."

Will nods in agreement:

"I plan on heading there tomorrow also. We need to get the items which we retrieved from the temple identified and this is a task that I am sure the priesthood of Kitry will be happy to assist us with."

Faewen'il then returns to her table and continues sipping her wine.

They have been in the bar for around forty minutes and are finishing their drinks and thinking about heading for their rooms, when everything seems to go in slow motion.

Around the table where Faewen'il is sitting, three figures dressed in black appear as if from nowhere, obviously having surrounded her unseen as a result of being invisible. All three men are wearing masks covering their faces, and wear matching uniforms, which bulge with various pouches. They are wearing several belts, from which hang an assortment of weaponry and other items. Two of the men are wearing chainmail under their cloaks.

As they all recoil from the shock of the masked men's sudden appearance, they can see that two of the men are casting spells, one of them having a large crystal in his hands as he does so.

The third masked man, who is standing right behind Faewen'il, grabs her around the neck with his elbow, squeezing her head into his armpit and choking her slightly so that she cannot even scream. He then kicks the legs of the chair out beneath her, and supports her to the ground as she topples to the ground. Once Faewen'il and her chair are on the floor, he swiftly swings a leg over her, sitting upon her chest, and pinning her firmly to the ground so that she is totally unable to move.

Immediately, the second of the men finishes his incantation and gestures towards Faewen'il. As he finishes, Faewen'il's body goes completely rigid, unable to move a muscle other than her eyes, which dart around in panic. The first man then leaps off Faewen'il's chest, deftly pulling a stiletto from his scabbard and placing it at her throat.

The third of the masked men then also finishes his casting by pointing towards the prone lass. As he does so, the crystal that he held in his hand as he was casting starts to glow brightly, while at the same time, the light in Faewen'il's eyes dim immediately.

The first of the masked men with the stiletto held at Faewen'il's throat calls out to the man holding the crystal:

"Have you got the son-of-a bitch?" he asks.

"Sure have," the man with the crystal replies, peering into the glowing gemstone. "I must have got the pair of them I guess. We can separate them back in the lab tomorrow."

The second man breathes a sigh of relief. He pulls his mask off to reveal the fact that he is in his late-forties. He has wavy black hair with bushy sideburns:

"Well, that went a lot easier than I thought it would," he says with a smile. "I think that we all deserve a drink after that."

The man with the crystal then removes his mask, revealing a man in his early forties with brown curly hair. He is smiling as he shakes his head:

"No, I knew that it would be a cinch. He met his match when we got put on his case."

The first man takes his stiletto away from Faewen'il's throat and places it back in its sheathe. He too removes his mask to show a grizzled looking man in his early fifties with a crewcut. He reaches into his pouch and produces a stogie which he pops into his mouth and lights from the candle on Faewen'il's table.

He looks down at Faewen'il's soulless corpse with a smile and then looks back up at his two colleagues:

"Excellent work there, team. That's another one to add to the record."

He then turns around to see the shocked faces of Winnacer, Will and Yaz looking back at them:

"So I guess that you guys must be the friends of Konan of Hradetz. Well, you can relax now, it's all been taken care of."

At first, for an instant, Will's eyes grew wide with shock, then in an instant, the ranger was on his feet, blades bared and squaring off against the men in black.

Then, suddenly he seems to come to awareness of the situation and sits back a slight bit, pausing, but still coiled as if to strike.

When the men unmask and speak, Will redresses them:

"I presume that in separating our Fae from the necromancer, her spirit will be safe and rejoined with her physical body shortly."

"No sweat," the masked man with the curly hair says. "We just need to isolate the lich in the safety of the Lab tomorrow and we'll have the girl back in her body and right as rain in no time."

Yaz makes no reply, but, as easy-brained as he is from his conspicuous consumption of holy ganja, smiles slightly and nods as he butts out his remaining joints and slides them to the edge of the table into his belt pouch. He then looks around him from side to side to make sure he's got everything, and with a pat on the head for Gertrude, who perches on the back of the chair next to him near the wall, makes to get up.

Winnacer's face remains pale after the men have done their work:

"No...I don't think you got him. Spravedelna has shown me that he resides in a second female within our group, who is upstairs right now. I believe he shifted bodies a week or two back, and that you have the wrong life essence in your hands. We need to make sure that Aneira is free of the taint as well before we start congratulating ourselves."

The man with the crewcut and the stogie is silent for a moment, staring at Winnacer. He exhales a mouthful of smoke into Winnacer's face and then replies:

"It's changed bodies?" he says, not sure whether to believe what Winnacer is saying or not.

He casts a glance towards his colleagues and then returns his attention back to Winnacer:

"Hell, Konan didn't say anything about it changing bodies. He just told us to look for a girl in her mid-teens, red hair, sulky looking with a bit of an attitude and do it before she knew what was going on."

He pauses once more, looking at the dormant body of Faewen'il on the ground and then back up at Winnacer:

"You're damn sure about this?" he asks, "because Kozlo help us all if you're wrong."

Winnacer nods, still looking rather fragile.

"Shit," the man says, before turning to the one with the crystal:

"Can you put her back in her shell, Oskar?"

The man with the crystal nods and then starts to cast another spell. As he chants the incantation, he points towards the crystal and then towards Faewen'il's form. As he does so, the brightly glowing crystal starts to dim and Faewen'il's eyes start to flutter as she begins to stir, looking very much confused.

The man with the stogie crouches down and takes Faewen'il's pale hand in his own, he then pulls her to his feet and deposits her in a chair.

"I'm sorry about that, ma'am," he says to her in a tone that does not appear to be over-apologetic, "but accidents sometimes happen in our line of business. Still, no harm done."

He returns his attention to Winnacer:

"I guess that we should introduce ourselves," he says. "We're the Kozlo S.M.A.T. Team."

"Special Magick and Tactics," the second man with the sideburns explains.

"The best of the best," the third man with the curly hair and the crystal in his hand adds. "The ones that they turn to when all else fails."

"I'm MageMinder Pavel Kafka, by the way," the first man with the stogie says.

"This is Priest Premysl Klima" he continues pointing towards the priest with the sideburns.

"And the final member of our crack team is Master Mage Oskar the Overconfident of Olmutz," he finishes with a nod towards the man with the crystal.

At this point, the innkeeper appears. He doesn't say a word, but heads behind the bar, whispering something to his wife, who disappears.

MageMinder Kafka pulls a chair around the same table as Winnacer, Will and Yaz and the other two men do also. The innkeeper brings them each a flagon of ale and the MageMinder starts to speak after taking a draught:

"So let's get the latest Intel report so that we don't end up wasting any more of our spells. So you believe that the lich is now occupying the mind of another member of your group?"

"That's right," Winnacer agrees. "Her name is Aneira."

The MageMinder nods and takes another draught:

"And where is she now?" he asks calmly.

"She went upstairs to her room," Winnacer replies.

"Sh-she's in Room 13," the innkeeper nervously adds.

"Right," says MageMinder Kafka after downing the remainder of his ale. "Let's nail this son-of-a-bitch once and for all."

He looks over at his two colleagues:

"You guys still got enough spells for this?" he asks.

"No problem," replies Oskar.

"Great," the MageMinder replies, pulling down his mask again. "Let's do it."

"Piece of piss," Oskar agrees.

The other two pull their masks down, check over their equipment and then head over to the stairs. As they do so, the four members of the party get up and start to follow them over to the stairs. As they do so, MageMinder Kafka turns and speaks to them:

"This is a job for the trained professionals who know exactly what they're doing," he warns.

"The elite," adds Master Mage Oskar.

"You kids had better stand back and not get under our feet," the MageMinder continues. "You can watch us in action if you like, though. I'm sure you'll have plenty to learn from seeing the masters of their art in action."

"The ultimate fighting force," adds Master Mage Oskar.

Winnacer's face is not quite sure how to manipulate itself during this deluge of comments. Before the lot of them head back upstairs, Winnacer interjects:

"Do you guys have a way of detecting Boscobelous? If it would be helpful, I could use Spravedelna's Judgemental Eye to help make sure that what you capture is truly the soul of the necromancer."

"Oh yes, sonny," MageMinder Kafka replies confidently, "the Holy Warriors of Kozlo have the same powers of detecting good and evil as you 'LawBringers' do."

"Don't you worry," he adds. "Everything's completely under control. Just you wait and see."

"Just keep out of our way and don't do anything to start becoming a nuisance to us."

The look of confusion on Faewen'il's face didn't last long, as a look of rage begins to replace it. Those who knew her weren't at all surprised at the tone of her voice as she tried to remove the accent from it.

"Then why didn' ye bother ta check ME a'fore ye snatchd me out o me body? Wha' kind o sloppy bit o wark was tha'?!"

The MageMinder spins round at hearing the magess' outburst:

"Don't start blaming me for what happened, little lady. Who was the one who went and got herself possessed by a lich in the first place, I'd like to know? Huh?"

He pauses to look at his two colleagues and then returns his gaze to Faewen'il:

"It's just damned careless of you, if you ask me."

"OH REALLY?????" Faewen'il says in a tone most cold.

"Well then..... parhaps the others here would ha' been better off dead. Instead, I bought thar lives with a deal... a deal tha' went fine until a sartain SOMEONE started messin wi' it. At NO TIME was I ever possessed by th' damned thin, I'll have ye know!!!!"

"Or would ye ha' preferred I let him traipse about tha countryside takin o'er people at random, creatin' more o his kind????"

"A thankless job tho it was, keepin him in one place until the lot o you lazy bastards could get yarselves together to do a job. No thanks from tha people whose lives I saved ta be sartain.. but I ha' come to accept tha'. But ta get lip from YE... ye all act as iffen ye would step in a pile o poisonous snakes cause yar instructions said ta walk in a straight line down tha road....bah...."

"Get out o me sight.... an this time, TRY an capture tha right parson in yar gem," Fae says with disgust as she shakes her head and walks away from them to gather up her journal.

"Yeah, yeah," replies the MageMinder sarcastically. "I hear that all the time."

"Gee... I wonder why..." Fae mutters, her voice dripping in sarcasm.

He adopts a whining self-pitying voice:

"'It wasn't MY fault I got possessed by the lich'," he mocks. "'If it wasn't me then it would have been someone else'."

"Save it for the clerics, baby," he adds, "'cuz I don't give a damn. All I care about is kicking me some lich-ass."

Fae says nothing out loud, but she knew Bosco would chew him up alive. And she found that at this point, she really didn't care. Fae didn't even bother to hide the disdain that shone forth from her eyes as she turned away.

She began to wonder if the idiots even knew that Bosco certainly knew about them. Loss of contact with her mind would have certainly clued the lich in that something was up. Though she didn't sense him within her, it didn't matter.

The MageMinder shakes his head:

"If anyone's responsible for this SNAFU, then blame Konan. Our orders didn't say anything about checking in advance that you were still possessed. We were just ordered to take you down and suck your souls out. Nothing more, nothing less. And we carried out our orders to the letter, like the crack team of professionals we are."

"At th' time I spoke ta Konan, th' plan be for him t' be wi' me... tis troo...but CIRCUMSTANCES" Faewen'il says over her shoulder as she glared at Winnacer in a most unfriendly way, "chang'd tha."

The sorceress then folded her arms and tapped her foot on the floor in annoyance.

"Th' way ye handl'd this.. I donna see why I should bothr ta warn ye...but me dislike o Bosco is more th'n me dislike o ye... He be trooly possessin her, not just simply sittin in har mind as he did me. What be left o har now not be wirth savin...f'r madness ha' claimed her an she welcom'd it."

Priest Klima walks over to her and pinches her cheek in a friendly but patronizing manner:

"Don't go worrying your pretty little head about that big sister of yours, sweetheart. We'll soon have that nasty lich all locked up nice and tight in the crystal and your friend back on her feet in no time at all."

"Tha last time she spoke ta me as harself, she be wishin far death," Fae said coolly.

The Priest shakes his head:

"I can imagine that she has been badly traumatized by her ordeal. But, if it is Kozlo's will, then I'm sure that she'll be smiling again in no time."

"She never smiled when she was fine... why should she start now?" Fae mutters as she shakes her head.

Priest Klima shrugs in response:

"I dunno. I could tickle her, I guess."

"Better go catch up with yar suicidal idiot friends," Faewen'il retorts, "it should be a most amusin show."

Slack-jawed, Yaz sits slowly down in his chair again, watching the conversation in amazement. Without looking, he dips into his belt pouch and retrieves a good-sized doobie, which he lights with the candle flame. He takes a good, long, bug-eyed drag on it, and holds it in as long as he can.

"Fuuuuuuck," he eventually manages. "This is some serious shit..."

Sensing impending disaster, Winnacer decides to sit back down at the table with Yaz, Faewen'il and Will. He starts praying to himself that the situation resolves itself better than he thinks it will.