I’ll begin this portion by stating that in theory Garchik’s idea was not bad. In fact, it could have been quite useful. However, Garchik has odd habits and while she grows extremely irate when other’s attempt to handle her belongings, she believes that taking from others is behavior that is to be expected. But I get ahead of myself.

You see, while I was talking with the mayor and the gruff young man outside Garchik had, unbeknownst to me, quietly slipped away and had made her way into the large house that the mayor occupied. Again I shall relate that this idea was sound in theory; however, during her time inside she took it upon herself to steal a sword, and a family heirloom sword at that. When she was unable to immediately exit from the front door. She panicked and attempted to climb out the window. And here is where the poor plans begin to compound. For you see, Garchik did not climb out of the window as she wanted. Instead she fell out of the window. She fell near a young women peeling potatoes. This was bad, no doubt. However, instead of simply taking the initiative and running into the nearby tall wheat Garchik instead simply pretended to pass out. Keeping in mind that she had the mayor’s stolen heirloom sword strapped to her back.

The mayor was notified and we all made our way around back of the house to witness the most ludicrous display. What was Garchik thinking?! The problem with Garchik is she always tries to walk it in. Garchik having been caught red handed first pretended to be unconscious, then awoke with a start and begin to rant and self mutilate because of that idiotic custom which persists among her people. Signe, along with myself, found this act most uncomfortable to watch, but in another very poorly thought out moment attempted to subdue Garchik by using magic. I must admit that at this point was rather annoyed at all the theatrics was relieved that Garchik finally chose to simply run.

The extremely superstitious people of this land immediately turned on Signe claiming she was a witch. I should mention that at this point we heard a someone cry out in pain as horses whinnied in terror. What followed was a shrill warcry, the likes of which I had never heard before, as Tam tore around the side of the house mounted on Garchik’s pony. I tried to salavage the sitaution as much as possible, but I knew already that this was a lost cause. A mob of 10 to 15 people now searched the wheat field for Garchik even as Tam found her and esacped. The rude young man and the mayor warily surrounded Signe brandishing weapons. She was offering no resistance, and all the while Dimitri was attempting to regale the whole lot of us with a tale of how Typh the Mighty Dwarf once smote a giant chicken from the back of a war porpoise or some other such nonsense. Amidst all of this I must admit I lost my temper.

With the ire of the entire town now raised we would not be able to question anyone who could have sold supplies to Taren, and it was unlikely that the mayor would be willing to give anything as collateral towards the missing taxes until we could find them. Which meant that we would have to search for a 6 month old cold trail of a young man who was most likely dead and decomposed while bandits had spent the gold whoring and drinking. More importantly I would be made a fool of to this tax collector.

So, I did my best to salvage what I could from the situation. The mayor was left by the young man alone against the 3 of us. I played upon the idiot’s fear of magic and may have threatened to scour him and everything he loved from this plane of existence unless he was able to come up with 500 gold worth of coin and goods. As I led the man inside to collect the items; Signe, who was not even grateful that I had saved her from undoubtedly being burned alive and was even appalled at my attempts to take control of the situation,— she like so many others that day made the regrettable decision to mount a horse and ride off without so much as a “good day.” This left me sharing a horse with Dimitri. Dimitri, the moron, had managed to take the time during this crisis to proselytize to a young boy who, for his own good, needed to be removed from the situation as quickly as possible. I may have overdone it, but we were all alive as we hasitly made our way out of town with hopefully enough valuables to account for the towns taxes.