The following morning had a heavy chill in the air. Either that or our combined low morale weighed heavily on us all, as few people spoke during breakfast. The day passed rather uneventfully. I remember little of it, recalling just flashbacks of the previous night and my dreams. It was almost nightfall when we reached the inn at the Southern Star. The jovial voices we could hear from inside lifted our spirits a little as we approached and, with a slight dispersing of the gloom that had followed us all day, we entered the tavern and prepared for an evening of warm meals and warm beds. All, that is, except Fengal, who stated a preference to sleep away on his own.
The bar inside was split into two rooms, both being very smoking and smelling of beer. Someone purchased a round of drinks, I remember not who, and we sat down, finally managing to relax for the first time in, what seemed like, ages. Gullen got chatting to a rather large farmer, Phobos spent his time talking with the bartender, an attractive young woman, and Wretch and Zugger spent their time gathering reports on the village that we were heading towards - Barton Marsh (or Marsh Barton, I cannot recall exactly). Some talk was flying around about it having vanished into the swamp, but this seemed a little ludicrous. Leaving the others to chat amongst themselves I made my way to bed in one of the rooms we had rented for the night. I could hear the rain falling outside, but quickly managed to drift to sleep, at ease in such an obviously safe place.
Surely we were being pursued by bad luck that week, as it was just gone midnight when we were all awoken by horrific screams of agony and death. Gullen and I retreated out onto the balcony at quite a speed at these sounds, both of us preferring the rain to the sounds of obvious death coming from outside our door. After many minutes, and the sounds of the others dashing foolishly downstairs, Gullen leapt his way off the balcony to the ground below and made his way quickly away from the inn. I took a little longer to follow him, not quite as able to jump that distance as he and having to rely a little on family enchantments to make my way down, but when I managed to get down he was quite some way away. It was at this point that we heard an etherial-like singing coming from within the bar. At the first sounds of this Gullen slumped to the ground and, when I caught up with him, there was little I could do to rouse him from his comatose state.
After several minutes the singing stopped and, seeing little else I could do, I dragged Gullen back under the shade of the balcony to protect him a little from the rain. I was making sure he was safe there when two things seemed to happen at once. Firstly, the doors of the stables behind the inn burst open and a huge wagon burst forth, heading its way south at great speed. Also, unfortunately, at this point I heard Phobos' voice calling for me rather urgently.
When I made my way to where Phobos was I first laid eyes on the slaughter that had befallen the inn's occupants. The two main rooms were covered in torns apart corpses and blood, Pardna's still form being among them. Fortunately she still lived. From what I could gather from Wretch's and Phobos' garbled description, the bartender (whose corpse lay not that far from Pardna's) was, in fact, a werewolf and had attacked and killed everyone else in the inn. Phobos seemed to have acquired a new sword from somewhere during the combat, but he does seem to have a tendency to collect anything that isn't nailed down. I tended to Pardna's wounds and, when she was able to stand again, she, Wretch and Phobos decided to investigate the cellar. Meanwhile I found a bucket and mop and commenced to clean up all that I could, feeling extremely ill as I did so. Despite her religious tendencies, Pardna seemed little interested in the poor souls who lay dead about her feet. I was rather surprised but I had heard rumours of such about these god-preaching priests.
They found even more corpses down in the cellar and, even, one man alive. He seemed to be in total shock, not that this prompted any sympathy from my companions, and made little sense in what he was saying. I found some fresh vegetables and fruit, in an effort to find something to feed him (definately not trusting anything meat-like in that place), and it was about this point that we noticed that Zugger was missing. A quick search found him in the stables, fast asleep. Despite out best attempts to rouse him he stayed with his dreams, so, dragging him with us, we took him and the confused survivor and barricaded ourselves in our rooms, waiting for morning to come...