Matthew Hunter

In the early days of the internet, and even before that, there was a distinct difference in the terminology used for the people who obtained unauthorized access to computer systems. The term hacker meant someone who created an interesting hack, usually something interesting that used a system – not necessarily even a computer system – to do something outside its design intent. A Rube Goldberg machine is a good example of a hack. So is playing music with printers. Conversely, cracker was applied to people who broke into computer systems for nefarious purposes. There was often some overlap between the two, as people making interesting hacks often didn’t have authorized access to the systems they were using.

u-Heury and Kiba chose to accompany me to the dwarven town of Hamelet to see the Squeeblade destroyed. This actually caused problems. Hammerick the dwarf refused to allow Kiba’s dog to ride in the carriage, which offended her. u-Heury’s uncivilized nature presented a similar problem. We did eventually resolve the problem by using two separate carriages.

The road to Hamelet was eventful. On the second day, u-Heury came across a force of 30 or so men blocking the road ahead. He had been scouting ahead of our carriages, and was able to warn us of the obstacle before they noticed us. We stopped beside the road and made camp early, with Hammerick and his guards acting as bait. Sure enough a small group of men scouted Hammerick’s camp. u-Heury and Kiba snuck close while I offered ranged cover with my bow. Our ambush succeeded, and the attackers fled.

I recently took and passed the GCIH Certification. It’s primarily focused on understanding how attackers behave, the tools they use, and why those tools do the things they do.

Last weekend, I took the certification exam to become a GIAC certified incident handler. Both the exam and the course material leading up to it were interesting enough to deserve a few comments.

One thing I was moderately surprised by in the SANS course was the initial focus on Linux shell tools and Windows Powershell. I’ve been using Linux for a long time, so there weren’t any surprises there. The Powershell material was new to me.

Faran Magebane

We made arrangements for the repair of my armor and went off to see the wizard – err, the chief gnomes. On the way we met a musician playing a vast crystalline bowl like a musical instrument; Creeper and I joined in. He had some kind of flute, and I had the god of storms and war, by which I mean thunder.

Creg chose that moment to speak up about an animated hand he had been carrying the whole time. Apparently he had picked it up from the remains of a zombie a ways back before I joined the group. After a few inquiries, we took it to the local burial grounds, as the spirit of the hand requested. The priest there promptly smashed it to a pulp, but did promise to give the pulp a proper burial. Creg seemed satisfied. The priest also mentioned a haunted house. We might try to clear it later. Who else are ya gonna call?

With my soul in a better place and a fresh herbal cleanse, it was time to seek out Forrest and my sword. He was surprisingly eassy to find, having set up a temple to Cloacina in the poor district. He actually seemed sincere, and after we had conversations about the matter, agreed that if the sword found me worthy, he would pass it over to me and focus on administering the church he had founded to spread Cloacina’s glory. The sword Verminbane agreed to try it, feeling there was still a need for Cloacina’s cause to be advanced in the world, over and above her newly founded church.

Faran Magebane

Turns out there were at least three puddings and dessert was planning to eat us. And, oh yes, the water levels were visibly rising and someone had peaked inside the watery room and noticed large cracks in the walls from which water was pouring in to the whole complex.

Someone had the clever idea to use the cube to block the puddings and buy us some time. Well two of them. It was apparently up to the dwarf who had already been tasted by the cube and bitten by the first small pudding to feed the third. Between smacking it around with my new mace and more sparklefingers, I held it back for a while. By then the narcoleptic wizard had decided to shatter the ceiling of the water-filled cavern, bringing in even more water. Surprisingly, this actually helped. The water was coming from a source above us, an underground river, with air and a nearby shore.

We made our way from the temple of Doghma to the Happy Cow Inn, bumping into Sanfire in the process. The halfling offered to join us for the evening, even rented a room, but left to use the outhouse early in the evening. He didn’t return. Rowen and Lyrian were drunk, so I loaned them spikes for their door and went to check on the halfing. I didn’t find the halfling, but someone else was there. He claimed not to have seen any halflings. I puttered around long enough for Sanfire to make some sort of noise if he was being held captive in the outhouse. Nothing. If he was in there, it was consensual. Or he was unconscious. But I wasn’t going to just bust in without something. What if there was no halfing there? I returned to the rooms, finding Lyrian and Rowen still drinking, but only Rowen actuallu drunk. I stayed the night in their room and we all traded watches.

Gradually, very gradually, we regained movement. When most of us had recovered, we moved to the southern room, where Thomas had befriended a kobold. We set the kobold to digging out a new sewer entrance from that room and explored a little to the east, finding a watery area we weren’t ready to explore further. It might still connect to the temple room to the north, but not that we could see from the shore. We also managed to search Squee’s body, finding his short sword (which I immediately dubbed Squeeblade). It looked to be of dwarven make, with an octagonal hilt. I’ll have it checked for magic later.

Faran Magebane

A cave-in blocked off the passageway behind us, and we were forced to look for alternate routes. We found a strange passage into the depths after a brief search, though the passages showed evidence of water leakage. I thought about warning this group of misfits that the caves were likely unstable. But then, it was the only path forward we could find, and we had just had a cave-in. If they didn’t know that much already, they are even bigger idiots than they look.