Between 10-9 and 11-19………..I worked on my archery, conducted daily sessions (when his scheduled allowed) with Malcolm, and converted 14 people to Correlon!!!!!!!!!!!!! Olivia made herself a "zapper" wand, trading her labor (such as making continual light devices) for the supplies she needed. She also donated some to the temple. So she could make these things, I gave her some of the jewels I "found" in the Ogres room. On 10-11 she had her 100-kill party! Work crews were sent to the San Luis Valley to harvest crops, mid to late October a cold bug hit and started to make its rounds. Then it turned to flu. I spent a great deal of time in the clinic, with Morag, trying to keep flu from becoming pneumonia. Olivia keeps her students contained in the Tower so they all stayed healthy.

11-19-05 It was another crack of dawn day, off to the clinic. I was feeling so discouraged, it seems we just couldn't make a dent. Even with the seemingly endless supply of Power that Morag receives from Khahless, the sick just keep coming. Late morning, Malcolm summoned Olivia, Izzy, Morag and myself to go over the situation. Olivia suggested that we had better set up a quarantine, to keep this from spreading. After some discussion makes it clear that the medics can't keep up, even with help from Morag and I, Malcolm called in the head chirurgeon, who suggests we take a proactive approach to the problem. So we tried to think of all the places where we might be able to locate medicines and other supplies. Hospitals (of course), private doctors' offices, school clinics, pharmaceutical rep offices, post offices and veterinary offices. Some research using the computerized medical library that we "retrieved" from Sanctum Levi is able to tell us how to convert any veterinary medicines for use in Humans.

Malcolm asked Olivia and I if we are willing to go. We ask if we can take Justine with us, since she'll know what is truly needed, the chirurgeon agrees to let her go with us, even though he isn't happy about both of us leaving. So Olivia has Alfred get one of the Hummers ready while the rest of us packed up supplies (we figured better a Hummer than the Scooby-Van for this trip). When we had gotten a good ways away from the House, I asked Correlon to help us by cleansing us and everything in the Hummer of all contagion. The last thing we wanted to do was infect other people while trying to save our own. We headed for Montrose to get some current information. We went to the Inn of the Overlord, and Olivia requested see him. He allowed us in immediately.

Olivia told him what we were looking for and he gave us some info for "free". He told us that there had been a trader in town last week with some high-grade morphine that he had gotten from one of the big hospitals near downtown. He reported that the structure was pretty wrecked, but you could get in. Some others had tried to get in, but the instability of the place scared them away. He also reported that the Dragon had gotten the St Vrain power plant up and running so parts of town have electricity. The Dragon also had his workers rig up another one of the main hospitals as a trap. We asked the Overlord for more details and that was when he decided it was trading time. So Olivia and I offered some of our "Services" in trade.

He asked if I could heal a servant of his who was suffering from some disease, and I told him that I would do my best. When it appeared that was not going to be enough, Olivia offered him one of our neuro-guns. He tested it out on some poor guy who happened to be handy, and was quite pleased with the result. So he tells us that St Anthony's Central is the hospital that has been trapped, and that St Joseph's is where the trader got his morphine. He also warned us that the area is being fought over by several different gangs, and that the best way to get into Denver is to come in from the North, thru Golden and then east on Colfax, right past the Dragon's Lair! Apparently the last thing we want to do is sneak around. Just go in, do what we need to, and if anyone questions us, we look them square in the eyes and say "The Dragon Commands".

So with all the info we were going to get, the Overlord summoned the servant we wanted me to heal. Turns out she just had the clap. She had been purchased to work in his brothel; she'd been condemned to slavery for killing 3 of the town constables. When I was finished, Olivia and I headed to the bookshop, Olivia was looking for some items that she might be able to make "magical". She found some wand "bodies" and some crystals that she thought had potential. So she offered one completed wand with healing properties to the shopkeeper in trade. The woman agreed and wrote up a contract, sealed it with her blood and had Olivia do the same. The piece of paper started to glow and a silver crescent moon appeared over the "signatures"……very impressive.

Olivia didn't want to risk taking these supplies on the road so we went back to the Inn and requested to see the Overlord again. While we were waiting, a "court" officer led the woman I had healed out of the office. He was explaining to her that as part of her "sentence" she must give birth to and raise at least 2 children for the community. In his office, the Overlord agreed to keep Olivia's goods in his safe, putting them there himself and having his clerk write her up a receipt. As we were leaving Montrose, we realized that this was going to be the first time that we would be in Denver since we left for Estrella, back in February. Boy! Wasn't that a world and a lifetime away from here and now! We decided that we were going to need a story in case anyone should ask. So we decided that since we all knew Montrose well enough if we were questioned that our story would be that we had been in the Montrose are when the change hit. We had stayed until now, but felt we had to leave because of they way the people in town kept treating the Drow. And I left with them because we had all been friends "Before".

Pretty sketchy, but we thought it would do in a pinch. It was early evening when we approached Fairplay and saw the barricade and 50 or 60 people who were huddled outside of it. As Alfred slowed the Hummer to approach the gates, the crowd rushed us. Olivia leaded out her window to fire some warning shots, but as she did, some of them grabbed her and started to pull her out of the Hummer! I grabbed her around the waist to pull her back in, but there were too many of them and she got pulled further out. She cast a ball of fire out into the center of the crowd and about a dozen people fell, including some of the ones pulling on her, so I was able to pull her back in.

Alfred put the Hummer into reverse and Justine checked on Olivia to see if she was hurt. The crowd started to move in again, throwing rocks this time. So I popped out the top hatch to use the machine gun. And the ones I didn't hit ran off into the darkness. The guards on the barricade waved us in. They closed the gates behind us and started to question us. I told them that we were going to Boulder so I can check on some family. They told me I was wasting my time and I assured them it was my time to waste. Then they then "requested" an entrance fee to escort us thru town and out the other gate. They wanted 4guns, with clips! Olivia countered with a bottle of freshly made mead. They said no, what about a bottle of rubbing alcohol. Well we only have one, so when we hesitated they threatened to "arrest" us for vagrancy, so Olivia gave them the damn guns. How much longer will they be of use, anyway?!?!

At the gate on the opposite end of town, they fired some warning shots over the crowd that was gathered there and opened the gates for us. I used the machine gun to fire more warning shots as we went thru, and they did back up enough to let us pass. Further up the road, almost to I-70, we heard a bullet hit the back of the Hummer. Olivia spotted a guy up in a hunter's roost with a rifle firing at our tires. Alfred saw 30-40 more people up the road a bit waiting for us. Olivia fired a shot at the guy up the tree, just in time to see another guy pop up from a ditch by the road, and he had a shotgun! Olivia conjured up a mist to obscure their sight, Alfred floored it and we managed to get past them with no damage done. We made it to Idaho Springs with no further incidents. As we pulled closer we could see that it was pretty much destroyed and that there are a few people camping in the area but more are living around the actual springs. As we approached the springs there was a sign "No Vagrants, No Handouts, No Exceptions".

When we stopped at the guard-shack, we had to give the guy on duty 2 guns, and he told us that we could camp here but we had to provide our own security. Olivia asked him about the rockshop that used to be here and he told her it burned with the rest of the town. As we set up camp, some of our "neighbors" offered to help guard our stuff in exchange for some food. Olivia and Justine were discussing giving them some of the MRE's that we'd brought. But there was quite a few of them, including children, and they looked awfully hungry. So I sent out an urgent plea to Corellon to help these people, and He granted me the power to conjure up food for them. I was hoping that He would provide just some basics, but He must have "felt" their despair, because what appeared was truly wondrous, meats, breads and fruits! It looked like there was enough to feed maybe a dozen people for a full day!

When we saw they were drinking water from the springs, Olivia and I purified all that they had so they would have good water. Another group offered them some penicillin for some of the food. We asked them where the got the penicillin and they said that for some food, they would show us where they got it! So I appealed to Correlon to favor me again, that these were good people who were apparently giving extra rations to the children and a couple of pregnant women who were with them. And He heard my plea. Again giving me the ability to "create" the food these people needed. As they were eating, we told them about the House, that there was a place to go that would provide them with shelter and food in return for some good honest work. When they expressed an interest, we radioed Malcolm. He suggested sending them to Alamosa, that they had been telling him how they needed more workers. So we radioed them and they agreed to send some kind of transport since these people have none and we made sure to warn them about Fairplay.

So with our "neighbors" guarding our stuff, we went to the hot springs. After getting the "Welcome" spiel: totally neutral - no guns, no magic, no trouble, etc. we soaked for a while and headed back to camp. When we got back, there were more people, wanting food. So I asked Corellon one more time and one more time He let me provide these poor people with food. So we pitched our tents, and before I sleep tonite I will offer many prayers of thanks to Corellon for His generosity.

11-20-05 Woke this morning to the sound of the trucks from Alamosa arriving. They sent a crew of Elves, so they drove all night. They told us they would get some sleep, load up everyone who wanted to go to Alamosa and leave after dark. The family that had offered to show us where they got the penicillin told us that their son, Jake had gone into Denver to get medicines when some of them got sick. They brought him over to meet us……he's only 14 years old! We promised his folks that we would take good care of him and personally see to it that he meets up with them in Alamosa, and they agreed to let him go with us. So he grabbed his stuff and went with us.

He told us that he had gone in on foot. He came out of the hills around Rocky Flats, made his way to Federal Blvd, and just strolled down Federal with some wire coils slung over his shoulder. As long as it looked like he was with either the crews doing the re-construction work or the crews doing the scavenging, noone bothered him. It seems that with the Dragon's "influence" noone ever questions anyone else. So we got to Hwy 93 and headed south thru Golden. The streets were pretty empty; all we saw was an occasional crew doing some construction. We did get stopped at a checkpoint. When they asked us what were we doing out on the roads, Olivia said that we had been sent to search for certain items (the truth, right???). The guy had a kind of far-away look (like those "ambassadors" that the Dragon sent to Malcolm demanding our help finding Rhiannon) and said "The Dragon Commands".

I tried my best Olivia being a hard-ass imitation and said "The Dragon does command" The guy couldn't seem to back away fast enough. As we traveled West Colfax we were amazed by what we saw. There were no cars, most of the buildings were burnt out, and there were bodies hanging from lightposts. As we got closer to downtown we saw the "police" crucifying a man. Jake told us to keep our eyes straight-ahead and just keep going, and that's what we did! We had just reached Federal when we saw the Dragon himself! He flew directly overhead; carrying 2 large steers, and settled down in the stadium. As his shadow would touch people out on the street, working, they would fall to their knees. And I have to confess; I felt a pretty overwhelming urge to do the same thing. We got over the Colfax Viaduct, driving so close to his lair seemed mighty strange to me, and looking into downtown Denver I was horrified by the damage.

Some buildings were in complete ruin, others were currently being demolished, and nothing was being repaired. We could see a huge plume of smoke and ash coming from Coors Field, and when the wind shifted slightly we also got a whiff of the stench. Wasn't too hard to figure out what they were doing with all the dead bodies they were finding. When we got to Broadway, we saw a dump truck headed that way, filled with dead, decomposing bodies. Olivia really wanted to go by her old house, and since we were so close, not one of us could think of a reason why she shouldn't.

When we got there, we were surprised to see it still standing. There were some iron bars that had been added to the windows and doors and there was some smoke coming from the fireplace. Olivia went up and knocked and after a bit, Lisa answered but she didn't want to believe it was Olivia, so I chimed in. Then she didn't want to believe it was me! It took a bit of secret telling, but she finally let us all in. Sharing the house with her was 6 SCA folk who also missed the trip, and 3 people she used to work with. They had a good supply of weapons, but hardly any food. Lisa said they thought we were all dead. We told them what had been happening, and what the SCA had become. Lisa said that she wanted to go with us. The gal, who was staying in Olivia's old room, went to get Olivia's belongings that they had stored away.

She wanted her D&D stuff and her ritual items, but they had to burn the books. There was a knock on the door, and a voice announced that they were police and to open the door now! A couple of Lisa's new roomies started to whine that we were going to get them all killed. Olivia shut them up with a look as she and I went to the door. We each stood to a side and Lisa opened the door to let them in. There were only two of them and when they were inside, Olivia and I hit each of them with a spell to break the hold of the Dragon. When they came to their senses, Olivia asked them if they knew Malcolm, luckily they did.

Olivia told him that we're his friends, and that he had sent us here. They were very grateful for us "freeing" them. And asked if they could go with us. We told them what our "mission" here was and they also warned us of the gangs around Hospital row. One of them asked if we would wait for him while he went to go get is wife and kids, so we told him that we would be a few hours, and we would meet him back here. After seeing that we had "power" over the Dragon, Lisa's roomie decided that they wanted to go, too. So we told them to pack all their supplies in their vehicles and be ready when we came back. Jake told us that he had gotten his drugs from the Rose Emergency Medical Center, downtown, so we didn't need to bother the gangs.

He told us that they hadn't started to scavenge the building so that it was going to be "messy" inside. And on top of that, he said that there were some "things" inside. The way he described them, they sounded like those undead things we found eating the victims of that bus wreck we found. We figured somebody had to stay with the Hummer, and Alfred was the logical one to stay, but he was not happy about it. I went in first, with my gun in one hand and holding my medallion of Correlon in the other hand. When the stench hit us, Olivia, Justine, and I all had to stop. Jake was very apologetic; he felt that he hadn't warned us well enough.

After the 3 of us stopped puking, we started back in. After our eyes adjusted, we saw some cats that had to be dead, eating some of the rotted bodies. Jake told us "Don't worry, they won't hurt you", but, gee, for some reason that didn't make me feel a whole bunch better. The further we got into the atrium, the more destruction we saw, and the floor in particular didn't look real sturdy, so we were kinda creeping along the walls. All the sudden there was a groan and a creak and the floor beneath Olivia gave way. I just blindly reached out and somehow managed to grab her arm, Jake who was walking beside me helped me pull her up. Justine grabbed us and said "Something is moving over there, and it's bigger than a cat!" And from around a corner, we could see some figure moving towards us. I help up my medallion of Corellon, and in His name commanded them to get away. There was a blinding flash, actually four of them, and the things turned to ash. All the cats, too. From where we stood we could see that the escalator was crammed with bodies, it looked as if there was a sudden panic that sent everyone running for the doors, so we needed another way to get to the 2nd floor of the atrium.

Jake told us that he had crawled thru the vents when he was here before, but we weren't real crazy about that idea so we looked around until we located the stairway. It was locked. Olivia used some magic to open it, but it too, was full of bodies. So Olivia got the rope we'd brought along and did something magical to it so that it would stay upright by itself, and we used that to climb up the open side of the atrium. As we got closer to the clinic, we saw what had to be the body of a Waster. That would certainly explain the panic and mass exodus.

The front doors to the clinic looked as if they had been blasted open. We could hear something inside, rustling around. I went thru the door, holding my medallion high, ready to command the evil inside away. But it turned out to be nothing more that a couple of raccoons. Behind the reception desk, it looked as if they had tried to build some kind of barricade. To keep the waster out? When we check the cabinets, they looked pretty much intact. So Justine started to go thru them with Jake helping her. Olivia and I went to look for something to put it all in. We found some sturdy looking boxes that were supposed to be for disposing of waste and were marked with the biohazard signs, so we grabbed those for Justine to pack the medicines in. And then we found some big mailbags and started to fill those with everything else we could find: bandages, tapes, gauze, syringes, splints, anything and everything.

We had just helped Justine pack up the last of the medicines when Alfred radioed in to say that there were people outside getting curious. So we got our stuff and ourselves outside as fast as we could. As Justine, Alfred and I were loading the supplies into the Hummer, Olivia took care of scaring off the looky-loos. We asked Justine if we had gotten enough medicine, or did we need to find more, and she figured we had plenty, so we headed back to Olivia's. As we approached Broadway again, we saw one of those HUGE construction/mining dump trucks, heavily armed with 30 or 40 guys in it. It looked like it had the Seal of the State of Kansas on it. A couple of the guys riding shot-gun took a good long look at us, like we were looking at them, we nodded to each other and went our separate ways.

Just as we drove up to Olivia's, the cops showed up with the one guys family, so we decided to go ahead and move out right then, since everyone was packed and ready to go. We had the cops, in their patrol car lead the way with us in the Hummer bringing up the rear. Olivia was going thru the box of her things, and found an e-mail from her brother, Leo, that was sent the morning we'd left for Estrella. It said "Olivia, things are going nuts. Get all the food and ammo you can and head for the hills. We're going to try to make it back to San Diego". The e-mail had originated from the Philippines.

We were on I-25 headed south when we were stopped at Arapahoe Road. We told them that we were going to the Castle Pines area to do some salvaging, "As the Dragon Commands" and they passed us right thru. We made it all the way down to the first exit for Co Spgs before we were stopped again. This time it was the US Army manning the roadblock. Olivia started he conversation by telling them "We're here to see Jesse". I thought Alfred was going to swallow his tongue! Justine and I gave them a few more details and id'd ourselves, they radioed in and came back to tell us there was an escort on the way. They were a little concerned about the boxes marked biohazard, so I told them that they were all personal belongings that I'd marked that way so the Dragon's goons wouldn't mess with them. We didn't want to let them know what was really in them, because, well, we got it, we fought for it, and we did it for our people. They can get their own damn supplies.

They took us into Cheyenne Mountain and we were shown to a meeting room to wait until Jesse was free. When he came in he was as cranky as always! We gave him the scoop on Denver. Seems he'd recently paid for some info that was bad. That made him even crankier. But he already knew about the "Kansas Coalition" and it seems that they aren't the only ones who go to Denver for looting expeditions. And the Dragon is oblivious to it all. Olivia asked if it was possible to check on her brother and Jesse sent an orderly to look into it. He came back with the info that they were aware of a couple of SEAL units boarding a submarine in the Philippines, and that sub had docked in San Diego, but that was all they had. They hadn't been in communications with any of the military installations at either San Diego or San Francisco for quite some time.

Jesse invited us to stay for dinner and offered us a place to sleep, so we took him up on it. But before we hit the sack I asked Jesse if we could use their equipment to radio Alamosa, to let Jake's folks know that he was all right and would be with them soon. Now that he's safely in bed, I will thank Correlon for His help in destroying those "things" today.

11-21-05 We woke to find a good breakfast waiting for us, courtesy of Jesse. So after we finished we headed back to the House. Malcolm met us on the road a few miles from home. He was very glad to see us back well and so quickly! He was ecstatic to see his "old" friends. We left them with Malcolm to catch up and came on back on their own. The head chirurgeon was beside himself when Justine showed him everything we had managed to get. He took the supplies to the clinic and Justine and I told him that we were going to go clean up and would meet him there. Olivia said she would take Jake to Izzy for some food and a place to sleep tonite. Someone will make sure he gets to Alamosa tomorrow. She then went off to find Cordelia and let her know what we'd found out about Leo.

So after a long, long day in the clinic there is actually a feeling of hope, between the medicines, and help from Khahless and Correlon the chirurgeons think we are going to be able to beat this.