20210131 Finding hostages under every rock

Two nights in a row of good sleep is a record. I should write that down in my journal. I can't remember when was the last time I got that. Tonight is not looking that great, stuck in an alchemist's magical hut that apparently can move if you turn the wrong dial to who knows where. But travelling at night would invite battle with the roaming Hell-cows that are looking for us when they are at their strongest. Maybe I should write this down in chronological order.
 
Bull and Gore Hester were willing to try eating a Holy Rose Wafer . Holy Hotcakes! The demon-possession and the big horns on their heads shot out to get away from those Rose Wafers in their stomachs. We caught the djinni-like smokey demons in high quality bottles that the Baccherri Caravan left for us to find. Hey! Genie in a bottle! That suddenly makes perfect sense. So they were not evil anymore, more like Neutral, which is all good.
 
Then we decided to split up.
 
I know.
 
Miro and I went to Miss Melinda's formerly-secret hideaway, a place that I could find easily enough after Mother Nature transformed me into an owl temporarily of course. Easy to see from above.
 
Inside, we found chili peppers, something called "climb water" (?), and a whole barrel of large-grain sea salt. All valuable stuff, but probably only the salt might be useful for anti-demon home recipes.
 
The hideaway had a fireplace that totally screamed super-villain magic-talking-mirror on the wall, that kinda vibe. We didn't touch it. There was also a knocking sound like maybe Miss Melinda kept somebody tied up in the basement, or maybe some Big Bad Wolf tied her up in the basement. The grinning skull guarding the cellar door reeked of Trap.
 
I grabbed the candelabra, hoping a secret door would open up.
 
It didn't.
 
A magical trap went off instead, or so I'm told.
 
The next thing I know, Bruthasmus' arrow knocks the candelabra out of my hand. He and Sephia say that we were frozen in place for like hours and small change.
 
But we did get the door open in no time, geologically speaking.
 
Two guys were in cages in the cellar! Big Lui and Big Mauri! Last we heard, they had had second thoughts about the whole it's-ok-to-get-our-cows-possessed-by-demons-to-fight-the-farmers'-killer-plants idea, and they went out to fix the issue, according to their journal we found. They came here like Miro and I did and got caught, kinda like we did. They also said this talking calf wanted ownership of their land. That might be the demon-prince in the body of that young calf, leading all the others. Wouldn't it be great if we could just send him back to hell and the others would follow their prince? Then again, they are not known for loyalty to any one.
 
Miro found a cowhide map that could possibly help us out. I didn't get much chance to look at it, but it showed the local area.
 
I did find something very useful in this abandoned (?) alchemist's hideaway, 3 bottles of high quality Ginger Root Extract! Useful for:
1) All-natural male enhancement
2) Purifying the body and repelling evil spirits.
 
Oh, nad one other thing. After a LOT of searching odd (stolen) books and educational papers with various magical theories, I found a book on "Sealing off Outsider Planes of Existence", (and it was NOT written by Evil Seed), which sounds close enough to "How to tell demons possessing cattle, 'Goodbye,' and make it stick" to me.
 
Here's an idea:
We need to load up the Hesters with Rose Wafers and set them on any other Hell-Hands. Nobody better than someone whose life was turned around to convince somebody to give it a try.
 
Uh, oh.
 
Where did I leave Topiary Rex?