Dwarfs.

I like dwarfs. They imbibe large quantiles of various alcoholic beverages, sing a lot, and mine lots of precious metals which they just love to bring into the city in bags that are just aching to be picked. I mean, the bags must be extremely heavy. They should thank me for helping me ease their burden by a few pounds. Do they? Rarely. Why, I remember one time-

Right.

So we wound up in this dwarven city by the name if Hilmdell. Biggest city we had been in a long time. I truly missed being in a city.

My only regret was that dwarven women tend to be bearded.

I was still a little jumpy over my recent involvement with things from beyond this mortal coil, so I decided to pay their temple a visit. I figured that they may be able to tell me some things about what's been happening to me.

Oh, they were able to, all right.

After a quick check, they informed me that they had a ceremony they could perform that would help reduce the influence of the CREATURE GROWING INSIDE ME and-

First I had heard of it, too.

Anyway, they could not destroy the creature, that had to be done at the monestary. At least they hoped the monks there could do it. What they could do was help reduce it's influence over me. The whole drinking blood kind of thing. They warned me it would require my “full and willing cooperation”.

Ha.

I hate those words. Always have. “Cooperate!” people say “Go for the common good!” people say. “Stop taking things that don't belong to you!”.

And so on and so on and so on.

This time I agreed.

I was in a bind! I really didn't know what to do. They tell me there's some creature inside me that's likely to kill me and certainly send my soul to some place I certainly don't want to be. What would you do?

So I did everything they told me to do.

You would think I would know better.

They started off by questioning me about everything that happened to me since I met up with the man who had cursed me. They then confiscated the gems and the crossbow the merchant gave me.

That was just the start.

Then, they cast a number of spells on me. That took several hours.

Then I was brought to a room. There were three pentagrams on the floor, each drawn inside the other. One copper, one silver, one gold. In the center of all three pentagrams was a altar. I was placed on the altar and shackled to it. (For my own protection, they told me. Ha.) They then began to cast several more spells.

This took about an hour. I then felt...

I then felt SOMETHING. Something inside me. Moving. It wasn't happy about what was happening to it.

Not at all.

I felt it scream.

Excuse me a moment.

After a while, they told me to meditate every night. They said that should help.

For a while.

Ha.