We're traveling north now. I'm not sure where we're going, but it's nice to be outside and away from Pavalar. We're going on the theory that the further away we get from Pavalar, the better the pickings will be. We'll see. We were accosted by one of the usual groups of thugs wanting protection, and we stiffed them (or rather, we allowed them to be intimidated, apparently by Kestrel's horse (Malif wishes _he_ were that good.)).

Then we came across a village that we couldn't enter because we were persona non grata, not having paid the protection money. Silly system. There were _lots_ of people there, and we couldn't figure out why, though it soon became apparent.

We crossed some freshly plowed fields, and became that it was a giant underground monster doing the plowing. Worst of all, it was _fast_ (faster than me, sigh). Errol got us 21 minutes into the fields with silence spells, and just as I had predicted, that left us stranded (Errol's usually smarter than that, except where food is involved). Malif used a "phantom steed" spell (very neat!) to try to lure the creature away, which worked, but only briefly (smart monster!). So eventually we had to fight the thing. It was kind of like a hydra, with tentacles and really tough skin. My "spring attack" trick works wonderfully (I didn't get touched), but it turns out its main effect is to move damage from me to Kestrel, which is OK up to a certain point because he's bigger and better armored. Still, he almost got killed (must rethink tactics, again). A good thing he finished the beast first, with one of his best swipes yet.

Onwards.