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Great update - love Kiki's checking for traps :-)
Kind of like your mum asking if you brushed your teeth..."Uhm ... of course I did ... you don't need to check!"
JollyDoc's campaign is all the way up to Into The Maw now, and it's to be found at ... this location.
Thanks for the link carborundum, I like Jollydoc writing style, and I'm sure Dax (or anyone else) can find lots of great ideas from his writing. While we're on the subject though, one thing I noticed from other journals on this site and others, is that many of the PCs in the STAP seem to be of questionable moral values, and good characters may actually be in the minority. Is this just my imagination? Is there something about the prospective of fighting pirates/demons/dinosaurs that seems to bring out the sinister PCs?
Quick question: if you were to assign alignments to the PCs in the Lidu diaries what would you call them?
Taking a stab at it based on the journal I would peg them as...
Kikki - CN
Kale - LG/LN I go back and forth on which one
Buffy - NG
Tristan - N/CN again I go back and forth
Churtle - N
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Great update - love Kiki's checking for traps :-)
Kind of like your mum asking if you brushed your teeth..."Uhm ... of course I did ... you don't need to check!"
JollyDoc's campaign is all the way up to Into The Maw now, and it's to be found at ... this location.
Thanks for the link carborundum, I like Jollydoc writing style, and I'm sure Dax (or anyone else) can find lots of great ideas from his writing. While we're on the subject though, one thing I noticed from other journals on this site and others, is that many of the PCs in the STAP seem to be of questionable moral values, and good characters may actually be in the minority. Is this just my imagination? Is there something about the prospective of fighting pirates/demons/dinosaurs that seems to bring out the sinister PCs?
Quick question: if you were to assign alignments to the PCs in the Lidu diaries what would you call them?
Interesting that you should mention that Guy, I've been noticing the same thing. Can one be a pirate, and a good man? Certian movies suggest so, however I think it might be a rather difficult line to walk. Anyway, here are my guesses:
Kikki - CN
Kale - LG
Buffy - NG
Tristan - LN/NG (I disagree with Brent here. There are plenty of examples of lawful behavior from Tristan - group leader(at least in her own mind), captain, and a constant need to protect the others). Of course she may not stay lawful for much longer, but I think she started out there.
James - ??
Frederick - CN
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A canuk runs Savage Tide by P.H. Dungeon, his crew is further along then mine; and so, I had to stop reading for fear of spoilers.
a Madman GMs The Savage Tide by Turin the Mad, not as much heavy on the story or character interaction, but there is good crunch stuff for people who like the rules/ power gaming aspect of the game.
Oh I do read them and I like them too. Those are DM perspective though and you can't beat player perspective for drama and excitement. Actually not having knowledge of the future helps to make for an interesting read.
I'm loving this journal too, Tristan! Between this and JollyDoc's on enworld, I've got plenty of ideas for my own fortnightly campaign. I really like your characters and the effort you've put into the backstories - keep it up whenever you have the time :)
I'll give it a shot. Thanks.
Not sure if I should spoil anything on alignments yet.......
Alignment - Lawful Good
Too late. (Quote from page 4)
I'm in trouble now. My group will start HTBM next Sunday. I depend on this diary to help me run my games and I'll be ahead of them in two weeks.I wish I could help you out Dax but I'm struggling to update once a week now. Sounds like moving along at a good pace though. I hope your players are enjoying themselves.
I can offer you some other journals to help you out though:
A canuk runs Savage Tide by P.H. Dungeon, his crew is further along then mine; and so, I had to stop reading for fear of spoilers.
a Madman GMs The Savage Tide by Turin the Mad, not as much heavy on the story or character interaction, but there is good crunch stuff for people who like the rules/ power gaming aspect of the game.
And there's one more that I've heard carborundum mention:
I'm loving this journal too, Tristan! Between this and JollyDoc's on enworld, I've got plenty of ideas for my own fortnightly campaign. I really like your characters and the effort you've put into the backstories - keep it up whenever you have the time :)I found it once, and from what little I saw it looked really good, but sadly I can't locate it right now. Maybe one of my other regulars can link it up for you.
Dax, my players in Crew 1 have a composite character-perspective journal of their own put together under the aegies of Cap'n Monkamuck, recently become Admiral Monkamuck. Crew 2 has as yet to even think of putting together their own character-perspective campaign journal at this time.
And yes, the 'Turin-tweaked' versions of the deathbugs made their debut yesterday - not so great against Freedom of Movement, but if they ever confront something with reliable dispelling ability acting as fire support for a brood of 8 advanced deathbugs, they're in deep kimshee...
Fragments of a dream:
Perhaps it was too much crab the previous night, perhaps it was the uncomfortable ground, but regardless of the reason I woke with this dream so vividly in my head that I – no I must record this before we pack-up and begin our journey.
It was the ball at castle Teraknian, this time I was in attendance instead of looking after the children in the observatory, and instead of my cousins dress I was wearing my great, great, great, grand aunt Velhmda’s dress. I’ll not get into the other details of the dream as they are of a personal nature but I need to record this last portion or else forget it . . .
At the far side of the room was a great full length mirror. After we’d finished our dance . . . my partner and I walked over to the refreshment table to enjoy some punch. We walked past the mirror. I poured some punch and looked into the mirror. An uneasy feeling began to creep over me. We were both laughing and having such a wonderful time but as I glanced at the mirror for the third time I knew something was wrong. I didn’t know what it was at first, I just had this terrible felling of something being horribly amiss, but I still couldn’t figure out what it was. My eyes focused on the mirror. There was something about it, something wrong, and as the rest of the world faded away it slowly dawned on me. The realization was like a spider crawling down the back of your neck, it felt creepy and frightening, and I hopped that it was just my imagination . . .
The face wasn’t my own. It was my image, it looked like me, but it wasn’t me. It was as though a doppelganger or succubus had stolen my image and now coldly regarded me through a doorframe rather than a mirror.
“Who are you?” I asked. I half expected the image not to answer, to continue playing an image, but it looked at me and smiled.
“Why can’t you tell by the flesh I wear?” she asked, “I’m the young lady with the yellow hair. You must have always sensed me on the edge of your dreams, I warn you young Tristan I’m not what I seem.”
“What are you . . .” I found myself asking.
“Perhaps you could call me the ghost of Tristan past,” it said with a hauntingly vacant smile, “I say this perhaps because I think this visage will be our last.”
“Our?” I whispered.
“There will be plenty of time for grand disclosure,” it said placing its hands on its side of the glass, “and it’s been a thousand years for this exposure. Soon you will know all and it will drive you mad, say goodbye to what little sanity you thought you had.”
“You’re not me . . .”
“No,” it said with a scornful look, “but soon you will be me, and what a horrid blessing that will be. It’s not your mind that’s slowly been fading, but the boundary between worlds that’s quickly decaying!”
“Are you the future?” I gasped, “My future?”
“Future, past, up, down, it’s all the same thing from the other way round. I am what you were but I am also what you will become, but it’s not your future that I am from. Now young mortal you’d better wake from your dream . . . and do us a favor, try not to scream.”
___________________________________________________________________________ ________
I awoke with a start.
Churtle, who’d been edging closer to wake me, practically jumped when I suddenly snapped awake.
“Morning boss,” she said nervously eyeing me as I pulled out my diary and began recording my dream, “Breakfasts is done and the toads is fed. Maybes, if you’re not too busies, you could teach me more about dragons?”
I nodded, but continued writing. I thought I needed to record this dream before it left me. Dreams are such fleeting things, and I’ve lost many a dream to the ravages of the day, but it seems the nightmares (for some reason) always seem to linger. I still remember that weird rhyming dream as if it just happened. I quickly finished my writing before turning to my next task.
“Dragons?” Churtle prompted when she saw that I’d finished my writing. I nodded and struggled to answer her questions. Yesterday on the road she had picked my mind dry. So much so that I scarcely felt like writing when we finally made camp that night, I wrote about the tunnels, but had little mental energy left to write further. (The rest of our journey that day was completely uneventful I’ll now add, and with the exception of a bit of rain, completely pleasant). Churtle was quickly testing the limits of my knowledge.
We ate our breakfast and continued our hike. Many of us were quite stiff that morning. I was lucky enough to have had the foresight to bring a bed roll on this voyage, but others hadn’t, and some had been forced to sleep on the cold uneven rock. I lent what I could from my haversack. Tavey, Amella, and Avner shared a blanket, some sheets, and some old dresses to sleep on. Avner almost ended up sleeping on the ground when he turned up his nose at my sheet (it was the one I sometimes use as a cape and admittedly it was very bloodstained at this point), it was lucky for him I was too tired to care, and he ended up taking one of my old dresses to sleep on. It was little more than a pillow for him though.
The scenery was rather breathtaking. As much as I hate this island I did find myself almost enjoying myself that morning. As much as I was worried about our survival, the strange dream, and Churtle’s education, the bright sun, cool ocean breeze, and breathtaking scenery almost made me forget about my problems . . . almost. The other advantage of taking this route (up to that point) was we weren’t running into any opposition, this would change sadly, but for the time being I was content.
The illusion of safety on the mountain pass was shattered a few hours before sundown. The attack caught us all completely by surprise, I didn’t know we were under attack until after I heard all the shouts, and I was even one of the first victims of that surprise attack! I felt something bump into my hip, whatever it was it hit so hard it almost knocked me off my stride, and I thought for a moment I might lose my balance. I’m not sure what I thought had slammed into me but the shouting and screams from behind drew my attention that way first. A nasty winged humanoid was attacking Urol and a heartbeat later another swooped down and tried to push Tavey off the road and down onto the cliffs below. I turned to see what had rammed into me: another beast was picking himself up off the ground. I have no idea how he had failed to move me, he looked to be twice my size and possibly made of stone, but somehow he had failed to budge me!
My first instinct was to begin summoning, but with this beast beside me that was tactically foolish, and so I quickly retreated hoping that someone else would stand between me and the monster. Amazingly Churtle attempted to do just that, armed only with her cooking knife and my aunt’s crossbow she stepped in front of the beast. The monster simply sidestepped my brave kobold companion and slashed at me with its claws . . .
Suddenly Amella was on the things back stabbing away with her rapier. Churtle screamed something and a ray of sparking energy shot forth from hand and struck the beast! It seemed to sag suddenly under Amella’s weight. It turned to assault Churtle and I blasted the thing with rays of flame (thankfully Amella had been tossed aside moments earlier). The thing screeched and fell to the ground. Elsewhere the beasts fared just as worse. The monsters had stone tough skin but our warriors knew where the vulnerable places were: ahead of me on the path I watched as Kale clubbed one with his broadsword and when it turned to retaliate, Kiki lunged into its unprotected flank! James and Fredrick surrounded another, raining down blow after blow with their flashing swords until the thing crumbled. And behind me on the path the last one was getting the worst of Buffy’s mace, Orlani had just arrived to aid the priestess when the beast clearly saw the writing on the wall. It took to the air and tried to escape . . .
“And where do you think you’re going?” I found myself asking as I pumped it full of magic missiles. I smiled as I watched it spiral into the sea.
“Are you ok?” Amella asked.
“I’m fine,” I said glancing down at the claw marks, the torn dress, and the cascading blood, “this dress on the other hand is another story.”
Buffy was quick to heal my wounds. There was very little pain however, I suspect that the wound looked far worse than it was, and if not for the amount of blood and damage to my dress, there probably wouldn’t have been so much concern.
“I might be able to help you with the dress,” Orlani said as she walked past. I was a bit surprised, she and I had only talked a handful of times sense we left Sasserine, and to be quite honest I was under the impression that she didn’t like me. I knew that in many ways Orlani was shy like me, but unlike me, she almost never shared her opinion with anyone. When we had our girl’s night out on Renkrue Laimae and Lirith did most of the talking. Poor Lirith, she seemed so full of life, it seemed so sad and senseless that she was dead.
“Bring the dress over to me when we camp for the night,” Orlani was saying, “I think I can fix it up almost as good as new.”
Now that I think about, it I’m sure that Orlani resented me for taking command of the Sea Wyvern. She probably thought her man was more deserving, and if you could look past James’ questionable past, he might well have been the best choice for captain. Amella was still the best choice of the three of us though, her experience was unquestionable, but James was clearly learning fast. I don’t doubt that if we ever reclaim the Wyvern, James will likely be at her helm, but I fully intend to see that Amella gets my full recommendations and I don’t doubt that she’ll end up as captain of another ship somewhere.
I’d been drawing designs for a ship of my own as well. Not to lose my train of thought here, but when you’re walking there is little else to do but to talk and think, and I’ve been thinking of a ship. The problem with most ships is that they’re at the mercy of the sea, the wind and the water were the dominating factors in our own crash, but if I were to design a ship that could sit under the waves and wind . . . the ocean currents could still be a problem – but I’ve seen diagrams of type of ship called a theurgeme, and I’m convinced that I could use that technology to power my own ship. A powerful enough mystic engine could easily handle the ocean currents. My design calls for a metal hull though, there is little else capable of withstanding the pressure and strain of driving under the water coupled with the constant strain and vibration of the engine, and also the hull would need to be completely air tight.
The rest of the walk was almost peaceful, yet we didn’t know why the monsters had attacked us, and that left us on edge. They were gargoyles, I could tell that now, but completely unlike the pictures I’d seen in my textbooks. Strangely these creatures had geometrical patterns similar to those found in the Oman ruins. It makes you wonder if these creatures somehow were shaped after the ruins or the ruins were designed after the monsters. Perhaps this needs research. We saw no more attacks that day.
“What sort of magic did you use there Churtle?” I asked after we had walked a ways, “I wasn’t paying attention.”
“Oh thats,” Churtle said looking up at me, “I makes him weaker. I cuts him down to size.”
“That’s an enfeeblement spell,” I said with surprise, “that’s from the first sphere!”
“Yup,” She chirped with a toothy grin, “I bes a sorcerer now.”
“A sorcerer?” I asked, “Are you sure? You’ve certainly taken your first step to becoming a powerful spell caster, but a sorcerer? Maybe you’re something completely different.”
“Maybe . . .” she said thinking, “maybe a witch or beguiler . . .”
“Well I don’t know about . . .”
“Oooo,” she said with a smile, “Maybe I bes a duskblade!”
“I think they’re elven warriors aren’t they?” I said scratching my head, “martial spell casters or something.”
“Ya but even elves gots to start somewhere,” she said raising a finger, “maybe I likes first duskblade!”
I didn’t think it likely but I wasn’t going to question her. I couldn’t really think of a better guess though.
“Thanks for helping me out back there,” I said to my kobold companion.
“We gots to stick together,” Churtle said, “we bes strangest Kobold tribe ever, but we gots to look out for each others. Everyone wants to kill kobolds. So we gots to act like and think like kobold . . . and every kobold knows wizards be very weak and squishy . . .”
“Thanks Churtle,” I muttered.
“And not I bes powerful duskblade and not just cook anymore,” she happily continued, “so I gots to look after weaker members of our tribe . . .”
“Thank you Churtle,” I said.
“That’s a human trait though,” she said, “looking after weaker members. I just tease you though, the boss isn’t weak, but she needs protection to cast her spells. I think I sees how humans work. If you never gets protection you never gets to be powerful caster. We works together so that we gets stronger. Kobolds just tries to survive. Kobold not always gives each other the chance to gets strong. Just like I never gets to be duskblade if you never help protect me.”
“Perhaps,” I said, “but maybe there’s destiny at work here as well. Maybe Kurtulmak . . .”
“Kurt be great trickster, kobold god of battle and revenge, him gots no love for humans, and him biggest and strongest of all kobolds and I thinks him gots no desire to have anyone else as powerful as him. I not thinks Kurt looks out for me anymore, not sense me come to human lands. I think I looks to Io now. Him be father of all dragon kind and him most likely to look after and care for lonely little kobold like me.”
“Well maybe Io wanted you to be a . . . duskblade, and so maybe that’s why our paths crossed, maybe this is all part of some grand scheme . . .”
“Yep,” Churtle said rapidly nodding in agreement, “gods gots big part in all this. I wish I knows what they wants though, why we survive this far? Where we going from here? Gods got plans, but wes the ones that gots to do the real work. I heared once that gods make plans but mortals makes their own luck.”
I couldn’t add much more to that. I glanced back at our priestess. I wondered what it would be like to feel my god’s power running through my veins, if knowing and feeling my god’s presence on a day to day basis would give me more strength to face the unknown? I glanced to the fading sun and wondered (not for the first time) what Wee Jas had planned for me. Her presence in my life was unmistakable, her hand had guided me, but I desperately wondered what her ultimate goal was. Then again she was not known as a particularly kind god. It might be best not knowing what she wanted. I knew first hand that there are some things not worth seeing. There were some things that I wish I’d never seen.
We made camp not long after the gargoyle attack. We still had plenty of the crab meat left (it wouldn’t keep much longer and it needed to be eaten) but I held off on it. Last night’s dream still bothered me and I had no desire to have a repeat performance of the weird rhyming lady. After it got dark I took Churtle a ways down the path so she could help me change out of my old dress and into something else. I wanted her for a spotter more than anything . . . I’d rather not have any of the men (especially Avner) ‘accidentally’ walk over while I was changing. I dropped my dress off to Orlani and watched as her nimble hands quickly sewed up the slashes in my dress. I glanced over at Kale. Son of a tailor and the man couldn’t even sew a button on.
“Where’d you learn to sew?” I asked Orlani, looking to make small talk.
“You expect me to say my mother?” she asked, eyeing me carefully.
“No . . . “ I said, now worried that I had somehow offended her, “no, my mother never taught me anything useful like that . . .”
“Probably the work servants anyways . . .”
I couldn’t help but laugh. People have such misconceptions about the nobility. The Meravanchis didn’t help matters any, but this idea that we’re all spoiled elitist snobs that have never done an honest day’s work in our lives was so unfair. My grandfather worked on a plantation (one the family owned but he worked there none the less). My father worked as a scribe and translator. I’ve never known a day of simple luxury or idleness in my life. When I wasn’t studying I was working. We Lidu believe that everyone must earn their keep, a lesson that was learned during the reign of Sea Princes, and a lesson that survives to this day.
“Something funny,” Orlani asked, setting my dress down.
“It’s just this idea of servants for everything, my sisters all know how to sew, and they learned from their cousins. If I hadn’t shown as much talent for learning as I did so early on don’t doubt for a moment that I wouldn’t have been expected to pick up those skills as well. Weaving is a respectable pastime for ladies of the court. Please understand that we Lidu are not the same as the Meravanchi, and even if we were, I’m currently 19th in line for the Lidu title, and that rank can only get worse as time goes on. The only difference between you and me is that I have a famous name.”
She glared at me for a moment, perhaps judging if I was making fun of her, then she picked up my dress again and continued sewing.
“On board ship” she finally said.
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“You wanted to know where I learned to sew,” she said, “so now I’m telling you. I was like Tavey, a young lass looking to make her way in the world, and being a cabin girl seemed better then a pickpocket or cut purse. Luckily a ship took a chance on me and I learned everything there was to learn about ships from there on out.”
“So you learned to patch up cloths aboard ship . . .”
“No,” she said with a shake of her head, “I learned to patch sails. The two things aren’t that much different mind you, but I never learned any of those fancy stitches I see on your dresses, just the simple cross stitch. This is the first dress I ever worked on, I’ve patched up my share of breaches and shirts, but this is my first dress. It doesn’t look so bad,” she said holding my dress up to the torch, “but I doubt you’ll be warring this to any fancy balls.”
I smiled. My good dress was safely packed away in my haversack. This was one of the fine courtier’s dresses that I had taken from the wardrobe of Rowyn Kellani. They were beautiful dresses but nothing I’d ever wear to a ball. Not now that I had my grey silk. It occurred to me though that neither James nor Orlani had ever seen me in my plain white dress. They’d only known me after my lot in life had improved! No wonder Orlani thought of me as a spoiled rich noble!
“Thank you Orlani,” I said, taking the dress when it was handed to me, “maybe I can return the favor somehow.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she mumbled, “I’m going to get some shut eye now. Me and James have the swing watch tonight. You’d better get some sleep as well. I think we might need your magic before too much longer.”
I walked over to Amella (who was struggling to find a less lumpy spot on the road) and sat down beside her.
“Are you sleeping?” I asked.
“No,” she grumbled, “but not for a lack of trying. Everything is uneven and pointy.”
“We could share my bed roll,” I said, “but I’d have to have your word to mind your elbows.”
“I’m not promising anything,” she said sitting up, “but I’d rather try sleeping on a bed roll then this cursed blanket. So I’ll try to behave.”
I drew out my bedroll and allowed Amella to set it up.
“I’ve got something I want to show you,” I said opening my journal to my ship designs and holding up my everburning torch for her to see with, “I want your honest opinions.”
“What is it?” she asked after looking it over a few minutes.
“It’s a ship,” I said matter of factly, “powered by magic. The crew would be inside.”
“Why’s it shaped like a fish?” she said trying to read my notes, which I’d written in abyssal out of habit, “seems like you’d be using a lot of wood for nothing . . .”
“I’m using metal,” I corrected, “the whole thing is going to be made out of metal.”
“Metal doesn’t float,” Amella sneered, “the thing would sink like a rock!”
“Well, a metal boat could float but that’s not the idea with this thing, it’s built to travel under the water.”
“Under the water,” Amella repeated, “how would the crew breath?”
“There’s air inside the ship, and I plan on using an air elemental to power the thing, it’s possible that it could also be coaxed to circulate the air.”
“Possible,“ she gasped, “Tristan you’d better work out these details before you start drawing up plans like these . . .”
“The ship could run along the surface,” I said, “and these two hatches can open up to allow fresh air, but the idea is for it to run under the water away from the waves and weather. It could sit peacefully under a hurricane or run harmlessly under a naval blockade, but if it needed to fight, this metal hull could plow harmlessly through almost any wooden ship.”
“How would it go under water?” she asked hesitantly.
“Oh that’s easy,” I said holding out my hands, one to represent the water the other to represent my ship, I think dropped my imaginary ship bellow the water as quickly as I imagined it diving. Amella’s face went white. “But the crew would be fine,” I quickly added, “the ship would be air tight and they’d have lots of breathing air . . .”
“I don’t think it would be a very good idea,” she carefully said, clearly trying hard not to offend me, “maybe you ought to try your hand at designing ships that go on the surface before you try building ships that go under it . . .”
I let it pass. I had hoped that Amella would see the advantage of such a design but perhaps I had brought this to her attention too soon after the Sea Wyvern’s disaster. Still I couldn’t help but feel disappointed. I’d put a lot of thought and effort into my plans only to have them dismissed outright. Perhaps I should have shown James . . .
Still it’s late and I need my sleep. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll have more time to design my ship. I’m not crazy. This ship would work. I know it . . .
I hope I don’t dream of her again
Cthulhu Dreams,
- Something’s out there. Can’t really tell what. Churtle says its magical darkness.
Nothing. I’m going back to sleep.
- Again! Darkness! What’s out there? Why won’t it show itself?
Nothing. Whatever it is it’s only trying to scare us. I’ll write more in the morning.
Cool. I like seeing the stat blocks of the characters in the journals. Two questions. 1. How does she get a +6 magic bonus to all her saves? 2. Can you give me a bit more info about the sudden meta magic feats (How do they work, why them over regular metamagic)?
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Cool. I like seeing the stat blocks of the characters in the journals. Two questions. 1. How does she get a +6 magic bonus to all her saves?this is one of Tristan's spells, 'Resistance, superior', +6 resistance bonus on all saves for 24 hours (pg 174 SC). It's a great spell, but it it can be dispelled.
2. Can you give me a bit more info about the sudden meta magic feats (How do they work, why them over regular metamagic)?Basically once per day, Tristan can add that metamagic feat to any spell per feat. If Tristan discovers that she's facing off against an enemy spell caster for example, she could apply the quicken feat to spell turning for example and then cast a summons. Basically these feats seem to function like the rods of metamagic . . . except that I've never seen any rules anywhere saying that Tristan can't apply more then one feat on a single spell. This means that Tristan could ultra blast someone with a quickened silent still empowered maximized meteor swarm, fallowed by an ordinary meteor swarm. These feats appear in the complete arcane BTW.
You are correct about there not being stacking limitations. This really gets wanky if you add normal metamagic feats on top of the sudden ones. For example, take Twin Spell and put it on an orb of cold, and then sudden maximize, empower, quicken, silent, and still cast it and add a second twinned orb of cold on top. This can be done at 13th level with the right feat selection, and you would end up with 325 cold damage (13d6 for the orb spell x2 for being twinned is 26d6. Empowered makes it 39d6 and maximised makes that 234 pts of damage for the first spell, then the second twinned spell does 26d6 more damage which on average is 91 pts of damage. Add 91 to 234 and voila 325 damage at 13th level).
I really like how you have designed Tristan. Any ideas on where you are going to go with her once Alienest is done in a few levels? Finally has Tristan made use of Planar Binding yet? If so what did she bind? I would be curious to hear if you have incorporated more powerful aberrations from the Far Realm as servants for Tristan using the Planar Binding magic. Great journal Guy, keep up the great work!!!
Well it doesn't say so in the feat description, but there is a precident set in the spell compendium that all spells with the "sudden" designator attached to them are swift actions to cast. I would consider ruling as a gm that only one sudden metamagic feat could be used on a spell. On the other hand since the feat can only be used once per day I suppose you could argue that there should not be any such restriction. If the spellcaster wants to burn it all in one super metamagiced spell that's his/her business. I haven't had to deal with these feats in my campaign yet, so I haven't made the ruling. However they look like great feats for NPC spell casters since they don't tend to have a long life anyhow, why not let them get some licks in with feats like that?
This worked once with devastating results at the end of ToD. Shortest BBEG battle ever. Didn't hurt that it was an orb spell and there was a confirmed natural 20 thrown into the mix! I'll expand on that later.
This was EPIC!
Something is stalking us. For what reason I don’t know but it wants to kill or scare us off, that much is certain, but why is anyone’s guess. Admittedly my knowledge of gargoyles is limited, but I doubt they’re behind these mind games, and so the who and why of these little mysteries remains a secret. I wonder if Lithira’s warnings might yield any clues?
The dreams continue. This one didn’t feel as important, perhaps nothing more figment of my memories, but I remember being bothered by it none the less. I think I dreamed that I was unraveling, like my head was coming apart like a turban, and Hop-Toy had sprouted tentacles and wings. Such things are possible: as my mind further adapts to the frequency and harmonics of the far realms Hop-Toy, who is basically a figment of my being, will start to resonate with these harmonics. I suspect that this will lead to him shifting into something not completely of this world. I hope he spouts wings. That would be interesting.
Anyways! In this dream I found myself talking with a ‘past incarnation’, I kept telling her that reincarnation (from a genealogical and religious standpoint) was impossible, and she kept spouting something about a well. I’m not even sure we were arguing. Perhaps it was the constant interruptions but I woke with only the faintest memories of dream time encounter. Amella says that I was talking in my sleep though . . .
Which brings me to the encounters in the night: twice our camp was hit with magical darkness. Fredrick had been on duty for the first incident, he claimed that he had ‘felt’ something out in the darkness. He couldn’t see or hear it, but he had just known it was there. I won’t question his senses because something was out there and that something was capable of magic. Thankfully Fredrick had the common sense to wake someone when he sensed the thing. He woke Kale and James. Then the camp was hit with darkness. The alarm was raised. I woke to Churtle shouting that it was magical darkness. I dispelled the magic, and for a time the camp was lit with our magical lights, but suddenly the camp was once again plunged into darkness.
There were a few moments of panic as everyone expected an attack at any moment but then, as time passed, our nerves began to settle. I had summoned a creature, their sense of smell is truly incredible, and commanded it to howl if anything odd should come into range. Nothing ever did. I summoned a hippogriff like creature to scout around the area but it came back having found nothing. Then we waited it out. I must have drifted back to sleep, but sometime later Kale woke me to tell me that the darkness had disappeared, I nodded and then I drifted back to sleep. I was woken once more in the night by Amella because I was talking in my sleep.
“Quit talking about the age of worms,” she grumbled, “that happened almost two years ago . . .”
“What?” I mumbled.
“You’re talking in your sleep,” she said, “put a cork in it.”
When I finally woke that morning I found camp a rather somber affair. People were still worried about the events that occurred in the night. I had my own problems quite frankly, I pretended to be sympathetic, but I had my own fears that were a little more pressing then our nocturnal prankster. I think I might have begun to crack. I found it near impossible to concentrate on anything that morning. I looked through my spell book, ate my breakfast, and packed up my things without saying a word. When Amella had woken me, for a moment, I felt as though I was someone else. Was I losing my mind? Everything had seemed so real, I knew names, places, and had seen firsthand terrible events . . . but all of that was ancient history. I had felt it was real though, and much of what I recalled I knew wasn’t in any of the history books I’d read . . .
I found no joy in the scenery that morning, just as well, we were hit with intermittent rain throughout the day and this only helped to darken my mood. Late that morning we spotted a deserted Oman village on the shore bellow us. There was no obvious way down and it was about an eighty foot drop more or less strait down. Kale contemplated climbing down, but seeing as he wasn’t a strong climber, and seeing as nobody else seemed keen on the idea, and seeing as the others would need to rescue his fool head if he fell, he wisely thought better of the idea. We continued our trek.
The afternoon brought with it more rain, surprises, and bad luck. First was the rain. It was heavy at times, hard enough to obscure the path ahead of us, but it ended quickly. Within five minutes of it starting the rain had all but ended . . . only to have it come back two hours later. Next was the landslide of human skulls. We thought they were rocks at first. Those black eye sockets staring vacantly out at us was impossible to miss though . . . our tormenter was behind this, there was little doubt, but for some strange reason these blatant attempts to frighten us made me giddy.
“My God,” muttered Fredrick, as he looked over the skulls, “who could be behind such a thing?”
“What?” I said, struggling to keep a straight face, “this could be a completely naturally occurring phenomenon.”
“How?” Fredrick asked, “How could any of this . . .”
“Simple,” I said turning to the others, “we past a village back there, which if you recall was strangely deserted. Where did the people go? Assume that they decided to move to higher ground and there calamity struck. All those poor people died of purely natural causes. Imagine monkey pox or something equally horrible. Their bodies decompose on the mountain side vultures and such pick at the bones but the only parts of their bodies that travel down the mountains are their heads, and that’s only because of their shape. Now imagine that somewhere on the cliffs above there was a small flat patch, a great flat rock maybe, and the skulls of these poor long forgotten people had collected there. Now also suppose that all that rain we’d experienced this morning washed out the underlying soil that this rock sat on and it tipped suddenly just as we approached, well to the laymen this might look like the deliberate workings of some sad and pathetic creature, to rightfully frightened to dare confront us in the open and thus reduced to cheap copper piece book theatrics, but you’d be wrong: what we’ve just experienced was a simple random anomaly, a bit of pure chance. Its chance far too staggering for a mere mortal like myself to mathematically calculate, but its chance none the less. Think about it: What is far more likely? That some beast with an impressive skull collection just randomly finds us on this deserted path on the edge of a savage jungle, inexplicably decides to hate us, and then equally inexplicably tries to scare us; or, the wind tips over a strange burial mound? I mean where would a monster get all those skulls? It’s clearly too frightened to attack anything directly. Are you telling me that this bogey monster found a bunch of skulls out here in the wilderness and then just dumped them in our path? You people are honestly too quick to jump to conclusions.”
The others just stared at me for the longest time.
“You believe that Tristan?” Kiki asked.
“Why not?” I said, “It’s all equally likely when you add enough variables, I wouldn’t worry too much about this.”
“You know,” Urol said, “I never really thought of it that way, it’s an interesting conundrum, one which my colleges at the university . . .”
“Shut up gnome,” Amella snapped. Urol turned angrily towards Amella but thankfully James interrupted any possible arguments.
“Let’s just keep moving,” James said, “the sooner we get to . . . where we’re going the better.”
It was nearly an hour later when we discovered the mechanical lift. It was a crude device, an elevator basically, used to transport people and things between the great gap in the roadway, and at first glance it seemed safe enough. Below we spotted more Oman huts. This had once been a thriving community, the wood alone used to build these structures would have taken weeks to harvest and transport, and from what I could see at the bottom, the Omans had built this thing to last. Still we weren’t going to take any chances! I cast fly on myself and inspected the other side of the mechanism. I needed to reach the top to release the mechanism anyways. Structurally it seemed sound. I think I’d have added more pulleys if I had designed the lift myself, I’m sure it worked fine for whoever had built the thing, but more pulleys would have reduced the amount of pull needed to move the platform.
“Is it safe?” Kale called up to me.
“It’s pretty old,” I said, “but the wood looks good, and nothing rotten. It should work.”
“Alright, I’m going to give it a try!” Kale said moving over to the lift.
“Wait a second,” I said flying back down, lowering the lift with me, “what about Thunderstrike? He’s the heaviest, and that makes him the possible deal breaker, if we can’t get him up then we’ll have to find another way up.”
“Makes sense,” Kale said. The others nodded in agreement.
Kale and Urol lead Thunderstrike onto the lift, a vine securing the lift snapped, the lift jerked violently and pitched to the side, and Thunderstrike let out a horrible cry and tumbled off the platform to his doom. Moments later the remaining vine snapped and the lift fell down on top of him. We all stood there in total shock. Then the men ran to the edge to see what had happened. The grim looks on their faces told me all I needed to know. For a time there was silence. I expected Avner to turn on me, to snap and blame me for Thunderstrike’s fate, but he just stood there, looking down upon his dead horse. His face even seemed to show a new emotion: sorrow, an emotion that the poor young fool probably never experienced in his life. It was almost possible to feel sorry for the fool at that moment, showing that he was capable of caring for another living thing almost made him seem human. Almost.
“What do we do now?” Kiki finally asked.
“You killed my horse,” Avner muttered.
“We climb down and get the supplies we need off of poor Thunderstrike,” I said, “and seeing as there’s a village down there, we should also have a quick look through that . . .”
“You killed my horse,” Avner said loud enough for everyone to hear. He turned his gaze on me. “You killed my horse!”
I looked at him blankly, “I think gravity bares some of the blame in this . . .”
“You b~$~$!” he snapped, “How dare you!”
“There was nothing wrong with the lift that I could see!” I snapped, “Structurally, it should have worked! I can’t be blamed if the vines couldn’t hold the weight of horse, vines aren’t within my area of expertise . . .”
“You killed him!” Avner screamed, “You put him on that lift.”
“I never studied vines in university,” I continued, “and there was no reason to believe that they wouldn’t hold a horse. As far as I knew they could hold twice that weight!”
“You owe me a new horse,” Avner sanpped.
“And don’t try to avoid culpability by trying to blame Thunderstrike’s death on my suggestion that we send him up first, I didn’t hear any objections, and I sure as hell wasn’t the one that actually physically put him on that lift . . .”
“You never liked my horse,” Avner spat, emotion creeping into his voice, “you’ve been trying your best to get rid of him.”
“Avner,” I said, in the calmest voice I could manage, “I’m very sorry Thunderstrke is dead, he was a fine horse, and he deserved more out of life then he got,” namely you as a master, I thought, but didn’t say, “but I’m not the one that brought that fine animal on this expedition and I’m not the one that ultimately caused his death. Thunderstrike will be missed, just like everyone else that’s died on this cursed island, but right now we need to focus on the living!”
Orlani had secured a rope by the time we were finished arguing. James and the others started climbing down, I decided to wait for Avner to descend before I climbed down myself. I didn’t think he’d try anything if we were alone together but why take chances? Amella and Churtle waited with me.
The village held nothing of interest. I found Kiki examining the busted lift and that did hold some interesting information.
“These vines were cut,” Kiki said, as I drew close, “this lift was sabotaged.”
“Who knows about this?” I asked?
“Nobody,” Kiki said with a confused look on her face, “why?”
“This might have been sabotaged years ago by the original Oman villagers when they fled the area, let’s not cause unnecessary panic, we’ll watch the road far more carefully, and I’ll get you to check for traps should we come across any more obstacles like this.”
“You think this is the work of the monster?” Kiki asked.
“I don’t know,” I honestly said, “I suspect that it may be, but I don’t what the others to be worried about this.”
Kiki nodded but maybe didn’t see my need for secrecy. The simple fact of the matter was that this monster was trying to breed fear and mistrust; I didn’t like that, but for the time being I was powerless to stop him. What I could do was disrupt his plans. The others thought that this was a case of bad luck. I wanted them to continue thinking that. This beast wasn’t going to cause any more strife in our party if I could help it.
We took the time to bury Thunderstrike. I meant what I said to Avner, I did feel sorry for Thunderstrike, he was one of the few of us that didn’t choose to come on this expedition, and I knew we needed to do right by him. We covered the horse’s crumpled body with stones and then we packed up what supplies we could. We didn’t feel like continuing our trek after the disaster with the lift, and seeing as we’d only see another hour or so of walking after we secured a rope and everyone climbed the one hundred and forty feet to rejoin the road, we decided to stay put for the time being. Food and supplies wouldn’t be a problem with Buffy being able to create food and water, the food was extremely bland, but at least we wouldn’t starve.
When the others began setting up camp I went looking for a hut large enough for me to practice my magic in. I’d remembered some writing by Leomund, a wizard from a distant land who wrote an interesting article on the anti-matter planes, and he described a spell he’d created capable of creating secure shelter. Being in the wilds and sleeping under the stars and rain really gives an appreciation of shelter, and being stalked and tormented by some sinister monster really gives you time to think about security. It took me a couple of days but I was now confident that I was ready for my first attempt. I closed my eyes and summoned my magics. When I opened my eyes I was looking at the front door an ordinary looking lodge. I gave it an experimental poke. It seemed real enough. I opened the door and had a look inside: there were eight stools, a table, some bunk beds, and most impressive of all: a writing desk! I smiled at my handy work. I quickly returned to the others to show them my accomplishment.
“I’ve had enough of you pushing me around Amella,” I heard the usually cheerful gnome snap; “you’ve been on my back from the moment I set foot on the Sea Wyvern!”
“And I should have thrown your fool hide right over the side right then and there,” Amella was retorting, “and saved everyone a ton of grief!”
“You know what I think?” Urol growled.
“No!” Amella yelled, “And that’s the point Urol! Nobody cares what you think! Why can’t you just learn to shut up for once in your worthless life? Didn’t they teach that course in university?”
“At least I’m able to do the job they hired me for!” Urol roared.
Amella’s face went white, her face was that of pure white hot rage, and for a moment I thought she was going to reach for a weapon. I ran to get between them.
“How dare you . . .” Amella snarled taking an aggressive step toward the gnome as I stepped between them. Behind me Urol was trying to get at Amella. I thought for sure that I was going to be in the middle of a fist fight. Then Kale was there and he snatched up Urol and Buffy came out of nowhere to help me restrain Amella. The two shouted at each other for some time before we were able to calm them down. Amella stormed off, and for the time being I let her go, I wanted to find out how this fight had started, but nobody had seen how it had unfolded and had pretty much caught as much as I had. I decided to let Kale and Fredrick talk to the gnome to hear his side of the tale while I went after Amella. I found her sitting on a rock staring out at the ocean at the edge of the village.
I approached thinking of using the firebrand approach, ‘what the hell was that’ or ‘what the heck were you thinking?’, but as I drew closer I saw Amella’s shoulders slumped, and she seemed to be shaking . . . it took me a moment to realize it, but Amella was crying! It was an emotion that I thought would be completely alien to a stern wave mistress like Amella, but as I approached I watched as she straitened herself out and quickly wiped her face, and that left little doubt in my mind. I approached slowly. She sat up straight but didn’t turn to face me. I sat down beside her facing the camp so she wouldn’t have to look at me if she didn’t want to. I waited a few moments longer before speaking.
“Amella,” I said slowly, “I’m your friend, I’m not sure what just happened back there in the village but I’d like to talk about it.”
“Nothing happened,” Amella said with a forced laugh, “that bloody gnome was yammering away and I called him out on it.”
“Really?” I asked.
“I’m so sick of him,” Amella muttered, “every freaking day on the Wyvern I saw him, every day I had to hear him yap. You had a cabin, you could hide from him, but I had to listen to that freckling gnome from sun up to sun down. I wanted to bash his freaking face in, to pound him till he stopped talking, to toss him over the side and let him sink . . .”
“Amella . . .”
“No,” she snapped, “you listen; I’ve had to listen to him all the time Tristan. I hate him, I hate him with every fiber of my being, and nothing you’re going to say is going to change that! You don’t know what that’s like Tristan, hating someone that much, and I’m at the end of my rope here, I can’t take him anymore . . .” she stopped talking as the emotion started to creep into her voice.
We sat in silence for some time.
“The last few days have been pretty stressful on everyone,” I said, “but that’s not it, and yes Urol does talk an awful lot, but that’s not it either. I have a habit of talking as well and that’s never seemed to bother you so much . . . there’s something you’re not telling me Amella and . . .” I paused, she had turned away from me further, and I thought that it was a sure sign that she didn’t want to talk futher, “fine,” I said, “you don’t want to talk about it. I understand. But know this Amella Venkalie . . .” again I paused, Amella was crying again, and I was dumbfounded. I placed an arm around her and suddenly she was in my arms almost crying like a babe.
“He killed my Heldram,” she sobbed, “he killed my Heldram.”
Heldram Flashwell was Amella’s late husband. I knew quite a bit about him from our casual conversations, from how he wore a sword, to the boot polish he preferred, to his beliefs and superstitions. Amella often talked about him, and he seemed an amazing man, but Amella never elaborated on the circumstances surrounding his death. My mind reeled at the possibility that Urol could have been a killer hiding in our midst all this time . . .
“If that’s the case Amella,” I said after a while, “we see that justice is done.”
“How,” she whispered, “we might not even make it back to civilization . . .”
“Amella,” I said, “I swear to you, I’m not going to lose another soul to this island, and as far as Urol goes . . .”
She sat up wiping her eyes, “I’m sorry Tristan, but I just can’t look at Urol without thinking of that monster Shortstone Badgewell. I know it’s not Urol’s fault, but everytime I look at him . . .”
“I’ll keep you two apart,” I said breathing a sigh of relief. Admittedly my people sense hasn’t been the best on this voyage so far, but if Urol had been murder I’d have to have given up on pretty much all my people senses all together. I sat with Amella a while longer till I spotted Kale walking towards us. I gave Amella a quick pat on the back and quickly moved over to intercept him.
“As near as I can tell,” Kale said, “she seems to have started it. I know the gnome can be annoying at times but she’s got learn that . . .”
“Leave it be Kale,” I said leading him back to camp, “she knows that. Everyone has been under a lot of stress lately, I think she knows Urol isn’t to blame, but she’ll apologize when she’s ready.”
“Alright,” Kale said, “but she’s your friend, you keep her in line.”
Good old insensitive Kale. I wonder if he actually had to work at being carelessly cruel or if it was a natural god given talent. I said nothing though, Amella would share her past when she was ready.
When everyone had settled down, Amella had returned, and we had eaten our suppers, I led them to the magical shelter I’d created.
“Now before this afternoon’s excitement I created this,” I said opening the door for everyone to see inside, “It’s going to be cramped, and a couple of us will need to share bunks . . .” I caught James and Orlani eyeing each other, THAT wasn’t going to happen under my roof, “but it’ll keep us out of the weather, and more importantly, it should keep anything from bothering us in the night.
“Now,” I said stepping into the cabin, “a couple of rules,” I drew a line strait down the middle of the cabin, “Girls on this side, boys on that side.”
“Tristan,” Kale said, “is this really necessary?”
“Second, although this house seems secure, but it is only magic. We maintain watches.”
“Ok,” Kale said, “but . . .”
“Third and final rule,” I snapped, “There’ll be no gossip, arguing, or fighting under my roof. You want to fight you take it out doors. Everyone got it?” I waited for at least one person to nod, good old Kiki didn’t let me down, “good, let’s pack in and shut the door. If anyone needs me I’ll be at my writing desk.”
The evening passed with any more incidents, my eyes are getting pretty droopy so I better leave it here, but I do hope this new arrangement will make travel easier. Seems to me Lavinia worships a god of travel, I wonder how she’s doing and what she’d think of my new spell . . .
Gods have mercy on the weary travelers,
Cthulhu dreams
Kale was quite confused at the line. He didn't think anyone would try any hanky panky in such close quarters. In fact the thought of anyone doing that in the party while adventuring didn't cross Kale's mind. I think Kale was more floored that Tristan was so worried about. Kale never did question Tristan's intent on this. He just figured she was worring too much.
I think Guy told me a certain scene is comming up in the next issue. So I'll give the shocking preview!
Kale gets down on one knee before Tristan! Kale purposes?!?! Does Tristan accept? The answer will skock you! Or am I just screwing with ya'll.
Another night another dream . . . I can’t remember dreaming this much back in Sasserine, but then I can’t say I’d ever been under this much stress before. These dreams seem to follow a theme, this time I was certain I was dreaming that I was someone else. This one was steeped in ancient history though, if last night’s dream was set around the time of the twin cataclysms, this one had to have been set hundreds of years earlier. I felt as though I was looking through the eyes of an ancient Suloise noble, and not the sort of nobility I’d been accustomed too, but rather the truly brutal all powerful totalitarian sorts that excised in many a culture’s shameful past. Rumor has it that such empires still exist in this day and age!
I remember few of the details (my ancient Suloise is very rusty) but I seem to remember ordering a cathedral to Wee Jas, who was, in that day and age, apparently not as popular as she is today. Odd. This dream, again, only bares notice because of the incredible details and layers, detail that I never would have thought myself capable of inventing. The clothing and language I recognized, but there were some things that I knew I’d never read about in my history books. I knew what each ring on my finger signified, I knew the job of each slave just by where she stood and what she wore, and I knew which foods I should sample and which foods to pass . . . even though much of it looked alien to me. I found such detail fascinating. I wondered how I had come to imagine it . . . perhaps there was something to this past lives thing, and I would need to look into this should I ever return to Sasserine, or perhaps I was just insane. Personally I prefer to think that I have a vivid imagination or in the possibilities of reincarnation.
I awoke to find everyone calm and well rested for once. Having a safe place to sleep really seems to do wonders for moral. Even Avner seemed slightly less whiny today. He still ate more than his share of food and demanded that Kale or Fredrick guard him from attacks or assassination attempts but his voice seemed less shrill and loathsome today. The others told him ‘shut it’ or ‘to go fly’ rather than simply ignore him. All in all I’d say that despite the tragedy of yesterday things are looking up.
We decided to attack the cliffs in two stages, first we’d scale back to the original roadside, than we’d attack the final sixty foot assent that the broken lift was meant to cover. It would be a lengthy time consuming process, our gear was too heavy to carry as we climbed, and so that would need to be pulled up later. A simple block and tackle would make that back breaking task so much easier. Getting the people up was considerably easier then getting the gear. Kiki lent Orlani her slippers of spider climbing and the young woman quickly scaled the cliff and threw down a secured rope for us to climb. I wouldn’t try climbing though, I fit as much gear as I could manage into my haversack and then I flew directly to the top of the path.
I didn’t travel alone, I carried Churtle with me, I figured I’d help in any little way I could. My kobold companion was as heavy as my old book bag, I always suspected that she’d be lighter, but I Guess kobolds are very dense for their size. Churtle pulled out my aunt May’s crossbow, preparing to offer cover fire for our companions, and scanned the terrain for possible ambushes. Our caution was unwarranted. Seems our stalker only makes his moves under cover of darkness or while we’re distracted. We managed to climb back onto the road without much difficulty. The only truly cumbersome pieces of equipment were the massive shield and the long spear and if they weren’t so potentially valuable we probably would have left them behind.
It took the better part of the morning to scale the cliff and we were closer to noon then breakfast when we all stood high atop the road. Avner had made a fuss about climbing, he thought that we could build a lift out of the shield, and Kale and James could simply pull him up with the supplies. Needless to say James suggestion that we leave Avner behind to appease the gargoyles didn’t help matters any. Fredrick, the diplomat, seemed as though he was considering trying to smooth things over when Kale snapped! He hollered at the Avner for near five minutes straight! Avner seemed near a quivering wreak by the time Kale was finished, and I don’t think he made a single complaint for the rest of the day . . . nor did anyone else that I can remember, at least not in Kale’s company.
We made good progress despite the absence of Thunderstrike, or perhaps it was because of his absence that we made better progress, as we didn’t have to periodically stop to allow Urol to calm him. Without Urol needing to be alongside Thunderstrike we were even able to piggyback Urol and Kiki to further speed our progress. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that everyone was well rested for a change. Despite the Kale/ Avner incident in the morning the vast majority of the day was peaceful and people remained in high spirits. Tavey in particular seemed in high spirits, desperately trying to impress Kale (his hero) with some impromptu acrobatics, and earning only gruff reprimands in return. Admittedly Tavey getting awful close to the ledge with his antics but it’s a shame that Kale doesn’t seem to respond to the lad other than to chastise or scold him. I think the lad needs a mentor and it seems a shame that Kale doesn’t seem willing or able to fill that role.
The afternoon brought with it another confrontation with the gargoyles. These beasts didn’t set up an ambush, they flew straight at us, and the battle was nothing if it wasn’t fierce. Our main opponent was a fierce looking gargoyle king (I say king because he was wearing a crown) but I didn’t get a good look at him because I was forced to deal with the monsters that swarmed the rear and middle. I don’t know if the beasts are intelligent or not but they certainly knew how to use their increased mobility to quickly gain tactical advantage. Much of the fight (for me) was simply staying out of claw range. I was able to use my spells, but because I was forced to constantly move through most of the fight, my summons only came into play towards the end of the battle. I was able to summon my dire wolf like creature to assist in the mop up operations. It made short work of the lone gargoyle that remained in the rear and Kale, Kiki, Fredrick, and Buffy were slowly pounding down the gargoyle king through a war of attrition. Kale had called for the priestess’ assistance very early in the fight and now with her healing our side of the battle, and no one remaining to assist the gargoyle king, victory was inevitable.
“I want that Crown,” Kale said after our last adversary finally fell, “I call dibs!”
I couldn’t quite understand why, it did turn out to be magical, but I felt it was an ugly angular thing, and not at all like my beautiful, shapely, and organic Bullywug crown.
‘He’s jealous of you,’ Hop-Toy muttered from somewhere under my aforementioned crown, ‘he’s trying to emulate you.’
“Don’t be ridiculous, “I muttered under my breath, normally I didn’t mind talking to Hop-Toy in the presence of others, but talking to him about people standing fairly close to me was still awkward! Thankfully I was the only one that could understand the toad. “He just wants it because it’s likely a powerful magical devise . . .”
I couldn’t help but notice Amella and Kiki looking at me, both knew quite well that I had a pet toad that I occasionally talked too, but I’m not sure either knew about Hop-Toy’s true nature. I quickly pulled out my toad to ensure that the two knew I was talking to the toad and not to myself. I had a bad habit of doing that as well, talking to myself, and it usually scared the crew. Considering all that we’d gone through over these past few days I didn’t want to give my friends to worry about my sanity.
‘He was quick to get that journal if you remember,’ Hop-Toy croaked, ‘and he made it a habit of writing in it whenever you were on deck.’
I laughed, and then suddenly remembering my friends, I made it a point to look at my toad. “Oh you’re such a silly frog!” I cooed, “Yes you are!”
‘Fine!” Hop-Toy croaked in disgust, ‘You want to be nasty you can put me back under the hat, and I’ll keep my observations to myself!’
“Oh you want to go back under the hat? Ok!” I said returning Hop-Toy to his resting spot, “ok there little guy.” Perhaps I’d been too hard on my familiar, he’d been unusually quite these last few days, and when he did speak I was rather rude to him. Still, his comments today seemed to do little but stir up trouble. I didn’t really care why Kale wanted the crown.
We walked for another hour or so. We needed to find a flat piece of rock wide enough for me to create my magical secure shelter. The sun was just beginning to dip when we found the location I needed and I cast my spell. I drew the line down the centre of the shelter and then invited everyone inside.
“We’re halfway to the Omen villages tonight,” Urol said, as everyone got settled down for the night, “This road is making travel so much easier, if somewhat uninteresting . . .”
“Gargoyles not interesting enough for you gnome?” James muttered.
“No,” he said turning towards James, “see my specialty is insects, and although we have seen a few interesting samples along our journey thus far, and I am thinking of those lovely centipedes we discovered foraging in the caves . . .”
“You can shut your mouth about them!” Avner snapped.
“This has been a sadly uneventful trip,” Urol continued, “This road is a marvelous discovery from a cartographer’s point of view, but the naturalist in me wishes we were inland discovering new insects and fauna!”
“Well,” Fredrick muttered, scratching his chin “seems to me that these cliffs only extend so far and I doubt there’s a dirt road along the hills. We’ll probably have to turn inland in tomorrow or the day after so you’re bound to get your wish sooner than later . . .” he mused.
“The jungle!” Avner gasped, “I thought we’d see the last of it!”
“It’s a called the Isle of Dread dingle berry,” James snapped, “what’d you think? It got its name because there’s no opera or fashionable designers?”
“Listen you knave,” Avner snapped, “Perhaps you’re used to having everything wanting to kill you, but unlike you, people will actually care if I’m assassinated!”
“Oh not this again,” James muttered.
“You can laugh all you want but something is stalking me!” Avner hollered, “why else would this creature leave markings and lay traps for us? It’s clearly after the Meravanchi clan! Think about it. My uncle practically runs this island to the south of here, my father is a man of great power in Sasserine, and whatever this thing is doesn’t want me around to consolidate our power!”
“Isn’t the Lidu family more powerful?” Kiki asked.
“She’ll never inherit,” Avner laughed, “I know her pedigree, she’s got four or five more likely choices on her side of the family alone! Besides they don’t allow raving lunatics to inherit anymore, not after the whole Orren Teraknian fiasco.”
“Hey,” Kiki snapped, “Tristan’s nowhere near raving!”
“And you and Tristan aren’t the only nobles here,” Buffy said as she gestured over to Fredrick.
“Oh yes,” Avner said, rolling his eyes, “I forgot about the glorified ferryman! I’m sure if someone wants to keep the stevedores off the island the Nortons are prime targets, but let’s get serious, the only sensible target is me!”
“Interesting point,” Fredrick said from his bunk, “and the most likely suspect is the Vanderboren clan as they’d have the most to gain by the sudden demise of the Meravanchi, but the only way to get rid of the uncle is to send agents directly to the Isle of Dread. And the only way to get close to the uncle is to rescue the nephew, seems the lad has seen through our plot,” he said drawing his knife, “I guess we’ll just have to tell him that Avner died on the way here.”
“Fredrick,” I snapped, looking up from my writing, “stop playing with Avner,” I glanced over at Avner (who had gone quite pale), “and Avner, quite inviting abuse by being yourself. If you two can’t behave I’ll put you both outside.”
“Fine with me,” Fredrick said smiling down at Avner, “it would be loud and messy anyways.”
Avner backed into a wall.
“I mean it!” I snapped, “I’m not putting up with anymore nonsense. One more peep out of either of you and you can both sleep outside. We’re not Vanderboren assassins Avner, if we were, with my magic and Kiki’s ingenuity, I can guarantee you wouldn’t have lived this far. We most definitely could have made it look like an accident as well! Now go to bed and get some sleep we have a lot of walking ahead of us yet!”
Avner didn’t really calm down any, but he was quite for a change.
Five more days till we see civilization again,
Cthulhu dreams
Ok, this weeks update is going to be on Wednesday, and I'm talking next week off.
Looking forward to it Sir Humual and Lady Tristan. :)
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You know, honestly, with the way that Tristan's mind is being influenced by her advancement in the alienist class, I'd almost have expected it to influence the conjured shelter; something along the lines of perhaps an organic look to the shape of it, as if the stone walls grew from the ground, or something similar.
Fair enough. Personally, as GM, I'd be willing to house-rule it as an unexpected side effect - the alien thought patterns 'corrupting' the spell or something along those lines - but then I've been a fan of fiddling with the descriptive aspect of spells ever since Dragon #200.
It seems to promote player morale when they can fiddle with the flavor text of their spells - especially when said flavor text doesn't impact the game mechanical aspects of the spell, only its 'special effects'. Why not have an organic look (which would double nicely as a foreshadowing to Lidu's group of the horrors they will view in dread Golismorga) of decidedly non-natural appearance? After all, it won't be too much longer before they start noting Tristan's 'extra appendage' and mutant bug eater...
I fully expected to dream again. This dream was again different from the others. I felt completely self aware in this dream and I knew what was coming before it happened. I felt less like a spectator and more like a participant. I felt completely part of the action: It was me that sharpened the scimitar, inspected every link in the chain armor, and strung the powerful re-curved bow. It was me that strapped on the armor, sword, bow, and buckler. I was the one to prepare and saddle the horse. Not once did I marvel at the strength that I possessed or the skill and ease at which I handled my tools of war. Everything seemed natural to me, as it had seemed in the noble dream, but this time I felt as though I had free will to alter things . . . yet I never did. I was the one to turn and face the kings wife, my queen, and even though I knew in the back of my mind what she was going to say, I was quick to kneel and accept her boon.
<If you bring me the head of my brother I’ll grant you your freedom,> she said in the ancient Suloise tongue, <bring me his head so I can prove to my husband that I don’t have designs on his empire.>
<If my lady wishes it, it shall be done,> I said stealing a glance up at her, and I felt joy once more at the smile that played across her lips.
<They’ll be watching for my forces,> she said, <and my own husband’s forces might expect you to turn traitor . . .>
<Perhaps there is an advantage my lady,> I said. I didn’t want her to ask something that could have been used against her later.
<Win me this day and we’ll have united all the Suel tribes under one banner,> she said, <we stand on edge of something monumental . . .>
<The battle begins my Lady,> I said quickly rising at the sounds of the horns, <I ask Wee Jas to let me bring my lady glory, or that she let me die in her service!>
<Don’t ask such things,> she gasped, <this war could end in many ways, none good for me or our cause, and I can’t afford to squander any of my resources . . .>
I jumped up upon my horse. I smiled because I already knew the outcome of this battle. I found my troops waiting on the hill; they looked egger, which was good, because today I’d lead them straight into the gates of hell. I knew that I’d survive to earn my freedom, but many of them wouldn’t, and they would die not knowing that their sacrifice would build an empire. I turned to my fellow horsemen, they watched me, waiting, and then I let out my battle cry and led forces my forces into battle and glory . . .
I awoke with the taste of blood in my mouth. Another shockingly vivid dream. For the most part it seemed a harmless bit of fantasy, but then, in the dream, I had road into battle and put my scimitar to work. I witnessed the horrors of war first hand. It had been horrible. But the worst image of all was the last . . . my victim was still breathing when he was brought before me . . . but the lady had called for his head. The warrior I dreamed up had been ruthless. For a brief moment my mind went back to that horrible moment under the Sunrise district in the Lotus Dragon lair and I remembered my Knife slicing into the neck of the filthy assassin that had tried to murder us. Those two imagines briefly intermingled and for a moment I was staring down upon the same two terrified eyes. I shuttered. Seems this dream was more of a nightmare after all.
“Where’s Kiki,” Kale asked.
Even though he wasn’t asking me specifically I sat up to have a look. She didn’t seem to be anywhere in the crowded cabin.
“She was on guard duty last,” James said from his bunk. He wasn’t one to move unless he had to, “I woke her when our shift ended.”
I glanced over at Churtle. She always took last watch with Kiki to start breakfast. She glanced up at me and quickly shuffled over.
“She left this mornings,” Churtle whispered, “I thinks to make water, but she’s not back yet.”
“Why didn’t you . . .” I glanced over at Kale, he was buckling on his sword belt and he looked perturbed, “How long ago,” I quickly asked Churtle.
“Maybes ten or twenty minutes,” she whimpered, “I didn’t realize that shes was still missings until now.”
“Don’t worry Churtle,” I said, “it’ll be alright.”
“She’s been gone for almost a half hour,” I said to the others, “could you guys do a quick search of the area? I’d better look at my spell book just in case we need magic.”
There was much shouting and shuffling about. I did my best to concentrate, but I, like everyone else, was worried. Churtle herself seemed particularly on edge and she kept wringing her hands while cooking the porridge. Perhaps she thought that she might get blamed for Kiki’s disappearance. I wanted to re-assure her but I needed to concentrate on my spells. If there was anything dangerous out there I needed to be completely prepared. I thought she’d be fine but in my mind I prepared for the worst.
Our fears were thankfully unfounded. Kiki strolled back into camp before I could finish with my spell book (meaning less than an hour). I could hear Kale giving a stern lecture about wandering off alone and not telling anyone, and I could just imagine how well it was going over . . . perhaps I’d have a talk with Kiki after we camped for the night. It was foolish and dangerous to wander off anywhere alone on the island and I hoped that Kiki understood that.
Our stalker seemed to be up to his old tricks again. Twelve birds, on X-frames, were on display just outside of camp. My companions made the discovery while searching for Kiki and hastily destroyed the display once they discovered that it had nothing to do with Kiki’s disappearance. Perhaps they had thought that they were sparing the weaker or more sensitive members of our group from the strain of having to witness such a horrific sight, and had they disposed of the display and then never spoke of it again they would have been far more successful, but by noon word of grim discovery had spread. I tried to make light of the discovery:
“Who knows what’s living on this island,” I said to Amella and Churtle who brought word of the discovery to me, “I take it you think that this is the work of our mysterious stalker?”
“Whatever this blasted beast is, it’s doing its best to break our balls,” Amella snarled.
“Balls?!” I asked with some surprise, I knew what she meant, but I’d never heard a woman use the expression.
“Break our keel, trying to take the wind out’a our sails,” Amella muttered, “it’s all the same thing. Its maken’ me pissed. If this coward thinks he can cow me . . .”
“It’s a big island,” I cut in, “with lots of things living on it. There’s no saying that something native to this island didn’t put those birds up for other reasons.”
“Ignoring the fact that they weren’t there last night, ignoring the fact that it was placed in our exact path, and ignoring the fact that they did it without making a sound, please continue,” Amella put in.
“First of all Amella,” I felt the need to correct, “not everything is up and active in the daylight, some creatures, like our kobold cook here, prefer the nighttime. Also you say our exact path like there’s some possible alternate route, really we have a choice of forwards or backwards, and if we find something on the path we can’t always assume that it was meant for us. I can’t imagine there are too many flat monster and foliage free locations on the island. Intelligent creatures living here might use this path for drying or curing food. And as to your last point, that the carcasses were set up without a sound, well, I’d like to point out that the walls to that cabin aren’t exactly paper thin. Also let me point out that even if the creature or creatures are whisper quite you can’t mistake that for malice or ill intent. There are plenty of beasts in this world that have the need for stealth for their own safety rather than survival. It’s completely possible that something left those dead animals there for something completely not pertaining to us, or, perhaps it wasn’t the dark message the men thought it was. Perhaps some small creature was merely offering us a sacrifice. We did make rather short work of a gargoyle king yesterday. Perhaps something saw us and was trying to show its gratitude. Again, people are quick to jump to conclusions! Let’s not always assume the worst alright?”
Amella merely rolled her eyes but she said nothing more about the dead birds or monsters. Churtle seemed to have a bit more bounce in her step after my reassurances, and even Avner (who always tries to eavesdrop on other people’s conversations) seemed less panicked and far whinier after my talk with Amella. I’ll not say that this put anyone in high spirits, but there was certainly less whispering and nervous chatter after I made them see the alternate possibilities. Reality can be such a tenuous fleeting thing.
Sometime after lunch a single Oman was spotted on the path far ahead of us.
“Hail,” I shouted in Oman as I moved to the front of the group, “we are travelers down on our luck and need directions to the Oman villages to the south.”
The man took no notice of us. Instead he stared out to the sea.
“Hello,” I tried, “can you hear me?”
Again the Oman made no sign that he heard me.
“Kale,” I said turning to the group, “you and the others wait here. I’m going to try to get closer and see if I can talk to him.”
I approached trying different languages. “Hello,” I said in sylvan, “do you understand me?”
Nothing.
“Do you understand Dwarven?” I tried in Dwarven to no effect, “what about Draconic?” I asked in Draconic. Suddenly the Oman drew a knife and pointed it toward his own chest, “Wait,” I shouted in Oman, “Talk to me!” The man plunged the dagger into his chest and then threw himself off of the cliff face! I was flabbergasted. “How rude,” was all I could think to say.
Kale came running up behind me. “Tristan what did you say to him?” he asked as he drew close. I ignored his implication that I had somehow caused this man to kill himself. I stepped over to the ledge and looked over . . . he must have landed in the water because I couldn’t see his body anywhere bellow.
I looked over at Kale (by this time the others had run over and were looking to the waters bellow). “Must be a cultural thing,” I said with a shrug, “these people worship human sacrificing deities and are known to practice necromancy. So we can’t judge them anymore then we can understand them. That must have been part of some sort of religious ceremony or something.”
We continued walking. I think many of us were strangely reflective after that incident, it’s not often that you witness someone kill themselves, and I’m sure some of us were now reflecting on their own mortality. Not me though. I’m sure some of us also wondered what would drive a man to do something so drastic . . . I really didn’t care though. Worshiping a god of death really helps keep things in perspective sometimes. Quite frankly I’m not sure why some of the others seemed to be dwelling on it, tragic as it was, but the fate of one suicidal Oman should have been the least of our worries.
Sometime before supper we came to a fork in the road, one route lead inland, and the other continued along the sea road. There was a far bit of debate over which route we should take:
“Let’s go inland,” Avner whined, “I feel horribly exposed here! There could be even more gargoyle attacks at any moment!”
“Wait,” Urol cut in, “we should finish mapping this road. This will aide out colonization of the island immensely.”
“Great, we have to choose between those two?” Amella grumbled, “Sounds like bad idea, worse idea.”
“We’ll need to head inland eventually,” Fredrick pointed out, “These cliffs don’t extend for eternity.”
“And that Oman had to have come from somewhere,” James added, “there’s nothing but ruins along this coast so far, I’m willing to bet he came from inland somewhere.”
“But,” Kale said raising a finger, “but we’ll make better time along this road then we ever would in the jungle.”
“I agree with Kale,” I said with a bit of surprise, he had practically taken the words out of my mouth, “let’s use this opportunity while we still have it. We’ll be sloshing through the jungle soon enough.”
We took a quick vote and we decided to continue along the road. A few hours later the road came to an abrupt end . . . perhaps it was the work of the weather, some great disaster, or perhaps the ancient Omen didn’t complete their road . . . whatever the reason the road didn’t continue and we could find no other way to continue along the cliffs. We were forced to backtrack. Avner of course wanted everyone to know that he had been right the entire time. I ignored him. I fully expected Kale to reprimand him or something but I guess there was something was in the air, as Kale seemed lost in thought for much of the day’s trip, and as we backtracked along the road he looked at me as if he’d made a decision. I had a feeling that it wasn’t going to be something that I’d enjoy.
We traveled just far enough along the fork to reach the jungle once more and then we decided to make camp. The sun was quickly setting and we were all quite tired. I had just finished casting the shelter spell when Kale approached me.
“Tristan,” he said, “could I speak to you for a moment?”
“I suppose,” I said, dreading what it was going to be.
“Alone,” he said glancing at the others.
I grumbled but followed as he walked away from earshot. “Tristan,” he said after we were safely out of earshot, “as you may or may not know, I’ve studied swordsmanship and the ancient art of bushido, and it’s been my lifelong desire to become a samurai.” He waited a moment as if expecting me to mock him, my face remained neutral, although Hop-Toy and myself were mocking him on the inside, “Anyways one important step that a samurai must take is he must accept a lord and master to swear his life too . . .”
“Me?” I asked with some surprise.
“Of course not,” Kale snapped a bit too quickly, as if I wouldn’t have been an excellent master, “but you will need to take my pledge as you are the only representative of the Dawn Council . . .”
“You want to join the Dawn Council?”
“No,” he snapped, “would you just listen? I want to swear an oath to the city of Sasserine, to serve and protect it from danger, and I need you to accept my pledge.”
“Fine,” I said trying to remain as neutral as I could. Kale sounded sincere, and I know that men take these pledges very seriously, but it was my understanding that these sorts of pledges were given to lords and ladies, even gods or ideals, but not (in my limited experience) did one pledge one’s self to a city. “What do you need me to do?”
“Just stand there and agree to take my oath before the council when the time comes, and I warn you Tristan,” Kale muttered, “don’t you dare try and twist this for your own personal gain . . .”
“As if!” I snapped. I’d sworn my own oaths to both the Dawn Council and to the Witchwardens. I knew better then he what these oaths meant! The very idea that I’d mock or twist his oath was highly insulting. He must have thought I was the worst most manipulative person in the world! I was tempted to simply turn him down and let him find someone else to play knight with . . . still, judging by the look on his face he was taking this very seriously, and our relationship over the last few months hasn’t been the best . . . perhaps if I did this for him it might go some distance in repairing whatever grudge he had against me.
“One more thing,” Kale said, glancing over to the others.
“Yes?”
“I don’t want you spreading this around,” he said, “or lording this over me, I want you to promise me that you’ll not tell anyone about this till we make it back to Sasserine.”
“Fine,” I said, wishing he’d just get on with it.
“Fine,” Kale snapped, then immediately dropped to one knee, “I Kale Silverthumb, of the city of Sasserine, born and raised in the merchant district, do here by pledge my sword and my life to the city of Sasserine, to do with as it needs, till death takes me. As long as I breathe I shall defend you, as long as I stand I shall serve you, and as long as there is blood in my veins and strength in my arms I shall fight against all who would harm you . . .”
I became keenly aware of the others watching, I saw them gawking out of the corner of my eye, and I became immediately aware of what this must have looked like! I glanced down at Kale, who had his head bowed in his prayer, and suddenly wondered if he had set up this scene on purpose. Kale had stopped talking. I realized that he was waiting for a reply.
“On behalf of the Dawn Council and the city of Sasserine I accept,” I said, while shaking my head and waving my hands to indicate the negative. I didn’t want anyone watching to think for a moment that I was accepting a proposal from Kale! Kale raised his head just as I stopped my pantomime. “Is that it?” I asked.
“I guess . . .” he said, and I quickly made my way back to the others. I was suddenly swarmed by the other female members of our group.
“Are you all right?” Buffy asked.
“I never would have thought Kale the type . . .” Orlani was saying.
“Wow, you and Kale,” Kiki was saying, “guess he was in love with you all this time . . .”
“Did Kale really propose to you?” Amella was asking, surprise written all over her face.
“Look,” I said turning to the others, “I really don’t want to talk about it. Besides I promised Kale I wouldn’t say a word on the subject, although it was completely unexpected by me as well, but if you want to hear anything about it I think you’re going to have to talk to Kale about it.”
I glanced over at Kale. Judging by his embarrassed red face and angry glares in my direction he was likely beginning to realize what I had done . . .
“Relax old bean,” Avner was saying, “I’d offer you a drink if I had one, for I too know the sting of being rejected by that hag!”
I quickly moved into the cabin and drew the line down the centre. I hoped that there would be a reprieve from the questions about Kale once inside but the women were relentless. I told them over and over that I wasn’t going to talk about it, but that only seemed to encourage them, like a drop of blood into piranha infested waters. I guess I’d forgotten how much how much people loved to gossip, and seeing as gossip was a huge distraction from our current predicament, everyone was despite for information. Perhaps my little plan had backfired. My only consolation was that they were bugging Kale as much as they were bothering me. I was finally able to earn some peace and quiet when I turned to my writing.
‘Looks like stabbed your eye to spite your face with this charade,’ Hop-Toy said as I recorded my thoughts, ‘although I do rather like seeing that mammal squirm . . .’ He was talking about Kale of course.
“I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself,” I said looking up at the toad.
“Tristan,” Kiki said edging over to the desk.
“What?” I moaned, wondering how the question about me and Kale was going to be worded this time.
“Why do you always talk to your pet toad?” she asked.
“For the last time Kale and I . . .” I started, “wait, what?”
“You’re always talking to it . . .”
‘Him!’ Hop-Toy corrected.
“And I was sort of wondering why.”
“It’s because he’s my familiar,” I laughed, I found it hard to believe we’d been traveling all this time and she was only asking about him now, “he’s effectively part of me.”
“Wow,” Kiki exclaimed, “really? Can he cast spells?”
“No,” I said giving my Toad a very disappointed look.
“Can he turn into anything?”
“No.”
“Can he do any tricks?” she asked.
“Like sing and dance?” I asked for clarification.
“Ya, Like that!”
“No.”
“Can he talk?”
“Yes,” I said, but when I saw her face light up I knew I needed to add: “but only to me and creatures of his own kind. Amphibians basically.”
“So then what’s he good for?” she asked.
“I’ve been wondering that for years,” I said glancing over at the toad who gave me an indignant look back.
“Seriously though,” Kiki prodded, “he must be good for something.”
“Well truth be told,” I said looking fondly at my familiar, “he’s a good companion and usually a sound advisor. He sometimes sees things I’ve missed and he’s useful to consult when I need a second opinion.”
“And you really can hear him and it’s not all in your head?”
“You really don’t know what a familiar is?” I asked Kiki.
“No, never heard of them before!”
“Ok,” I said turning my back to Kiki, “hold up some fingers to Hop-Toy and I’ll tell you how many just through his eyes.”
‘This is degrading,’ Hop-Toy muttered.
“Ok,” Kiki laughed. Hop-Toy croaked that she was holding up her fists with nothing showing.
“You don’t have any fingers up,” I said, “now point to something, anything, and Hop-Toy will tell me what it is.”
I heard Kiki climb up into the top bunk.
“Keep in mind,” I added, “that if Hop-Toy can’t see it, he can’t report it.”
Hop-Toy reported that Kiki’s climbing and noise had been a diversion and she quietly hung over the bunk to point at Amella’s emerald ring. Amella, I realized, had been listening in with some interest.
“You’re pointing to the ring on Amella’s left hand,” I said, “now if you’ll excuse me I really need to get back to my writing.”
“Can he do any other tricks?” Kiki asked.
“Basically he knows anything I know. If you could cast a language comprehension spell he could tell you just about anything I know.”
“Does he understand what we’re saying?”
‘Of course,’ Hop-Toy snapped.
“Of course,” I said with a laugh.
“What did he just say?” Kiki asked, looking back and forth between us.
“Same thing I just said, only he sounded a bit perturbed, he doesn’t like it when people question his intelligence.”
“Wow,” Kiki laughed, looking back to Hop-Toy, “sorry Mr. Hop-Toy I didn’t know if you could understand me or not. I’ve never gone to magic school.”
“His last name is Dan,” I said, “Hop-Toy Dan, why don’t you take Dan outside to forage for bugs. He likes slugs best . . .”
‘Tristan don’t you dare leave me in the hands of this overgrown child!’ Hop-Toy snapped.
“What’d he say?” Kiki asked.
“Oh he said ‘oh, boy, slugs!’” I lied, “be gentle with him though and don’t let him out of your sight, there’s lots of things out there that would love to eat a juicy toad out there, so don’t let anything happen to him.”
‘Tristan!’ Hop-Toy croaked, ‘Don’t you dare! You’ve not heard the end of this!’
He was being a drama queen as usual. Kiki wasn’t going to hurt him or put him in any unnecessary risk, and I knew he wanted outside to forage, but he was waiting for me to finish my journal before he asked. This way I could do my writing and he’d get to forage. He’d complain, he’d moan, but he’d do it with a full tummy.
Toads are such crybabies,
Cthulhu dreams
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LOL! I really had to hold my laughter in while reading through this entry (or the people at work would think I was a little off...). This has been one of the more entertaining journals that I've read on this site, and I am very happy that you've continued with it.
And yes... I did catch that little tid-bit that you dropped about Tristan and Lavinia getting together. Not fair. :( I want to know the whole story now.
Actully, Kale hadn't quite leveled as Kensai just yet. I knew he would be at the end of the night, and both I and Kale were feeling presured to get the oath thing out of the way before it was too late. I was really hoping we would be in Farshore for it, but that was a long way off and it needed to be done NOW!
Again the dreams persist . . . this time I found myself wearing the crude skins of animals, a sure sign that I was amongst a primitive race or uncivilized people. I found myself in a small hut in some vast jungle. I remember grinding something with my mortar and pestle (perhaps I was an ancient apothecary) when I knew I needed water for my mixture. I grabbed a small leather cup stood and turned toward the pool of water behind me . . . but something in the water made me stop. The reflection in the water looked nothing like me, she was my height with similar facial features, but all similarities ended there. She wore a gown pure crimson lined with strange jewelry, almost like armor of gold and silver. Over that she wore a massive green cloak, which at first glance seemed to be made of moss and leaves, green with life and nature, but the inside of the cloak was pure grey (silk unless I missed my guess) which was stitched with hundreds of tiny runic symbols and skulls – Symbols that only became visible when the light caught the fabric in just the right direction. In her right hand she held an impressive looking scepter, which was probably a metamagic rod now that I think about it, and in the other she held a massive leather bound book. On her hip sat a scimitar and a jeweled knife was tucked in her belt (neither looked like decorations). A top her head was the Bullywug crown, more twisted and alien looking then before, and the missing gems had been replaced with living eyes that regarded me coldly. That wasn’t the most horrifying aspect of the visage though, as hard as that may be to believe, and I find my hand shaking as I think about it . . .
Her hair, braided and tied with ribbons, had gemstones with green continual flame spells on them woven into it, and it seemed to flow and wave as if of its own accorded. I slowly began to realize that somewhere within her hair another horror lurked. Green tentacles, seeming to originate from her skull, waved and squirmed throughout her hair, animating it, seemingly under their own power. I felt sick.
“Who are you?” I asked the visage. This wasn’t a mirror image and all pretenses of a dream had long ago faded away. This was a very real alien entity in my dreamscape.
“You act as if you don’t know . . .”
“Just answer . . .”
“Even after our last big show.”
“Not you again . . .”
“Not many people earn a second appearance; you seem worried, as though you fear us?”
“No,” I said trying to regain my composure, this thing, this nightmare, last time did horrible things to my mind. I could feel my composure and reason slipping away from me. “Why do you always speak in rhyme?” I asked trying to think of logical questions.
“It is an insidious key into the mind; people forget words, but seldom mine.” She said with a horribly insane grin. Suddenly she swung herself from the refection and somehow onto my plane of existence. It was like she fell backwards into the pool, only in reverse, and now she stood up right next to me. She drew closer.
“Stay away,” I said weakly, I felt powerless . . .
“Poor Tristan clinging to her mind, she doesn’t know to leave logic behind.”
“What do you want,” I cried as the creature seized me, “please leave me alone . . .”
“How could the future ever touch the past? If I’ve been honest, then explain this fast!” she said pulling me with unnaturally strong hands, forcing me towards a great black swirling void that appeared suddenly in the edge of the clearing. I didn’t know what it was but I knew I wanted to avoid it.
“You’re talking about null time?” I cried, the creature slowed as I scrambled to answer, “Traveling to the past altering the timeline from that point, and thus changing the future! Altering the past to the point where you no longer want or need to time travel in the future, creating a paradox, a time loop, and / or null time!”
“So now, let’s see; explain this conversation between you and me?”
“It’s not possible,” I squeaked. She suddenly pulled me closer to the void. “No wait,” I cried, “such an occurrence would have to have happened naturally in the time line! I would need memories of this meeting and something about this meeting would create the need for me to repeat the experience in the future!”
“A plausible answer, but far to plane; you disappoint me dear Tristan, that sounded quite sane.”
“What do you want?” I screamed.
“For to realize your first true step; and if I have to destroy you that’s what I’ll get,” I could feel the void behind me, pulling at me, and I knew that there would be no coming back from that icky blackness.
“I can’t think of any other way! It’s impossible! If you kill me you’d create an unrecoverable paradox!”
“No dear Tristan that’s not entirely true, even in the future I’m quite safe, not so for you,” I felt my hair, small strands, slip into the void and disappear . . . and strange as it might sound, I felt them go.
“But if you’re me, and you destroy me, you’ve destroyed yourself! Your own timeline ends here! Everything else after this is null time! If you’re me then you can’t possibly kill me!”
“That’s what I call a filthy old lie; your life is forfeit if you’re not going to try.”
“No wait,” I pleaded, “It just doesn’t make sense! Nothing I’ve ever learned . . .” the dream suddenly felt as though it was spinning, “a stitch,” I weakly cried, “Orlani said the only way to keep something from unraveling was to use good stitches . . .” I wondered why this monster hadn’t thrown me into the void yet.
“That was a very good guess, now little girl, fill in the rest!”
“W-what?” I gasped, “but,” I felt a strange buzzing sensation as my mind quickly began pulling at pieces of information and vague memories, “You’d need to anchor yourself outside of the normal time stream but all of the planes are linked to that . . . except . . .”
“What a tedious journey to get to this place, but I see you finally get it by the look on your face,” she said with that disturbingly vacant smile.
“But to get to the far realms, to actually physically get there, I’d need something from that plane to use as a focus . . .” My mind was reeling . . .
“We’ll burn that bridge when we come to cross it, for now let’s work on something less toxic.”
“Like what,” I asked, still shaking.
“I’ve planted the seed and that’s the scope of my power, but now you must see that seed to flower.”
“What?” I asked.
“An action, quite simple and brave, you musk kill the great ape and eat of his brains.”
“What?!”
“If you must, consider this act a symbolic gesture, but you must allow his chaotic thoughts in, and allow them to fester.”
“I . . . I”
“Tristan, listen,” she said as I felt the dream slipping away, “Lidu, can do.”
“What ape?” I asked.
“Meet him, beat him . . . kill him . . .”
___________________________________________________________________________ __________
I awoke with a start. I felt strange, like something in my head or in the world wasn’t quite right, almost like something was just outside of my realm of perception, and I was only catching glimpses. The others seemed strangely normal. They saw or felt nothing . . . yet I knew something was different . . . this universe wasn’t the same one as the one I had gone to sleep in. I felt like there were things I wasn’t seeing, like tiny hair like feelers on everything, or things I didn’t perceive like objects vibrating at super high frequencies, and if this weren’t disconcerting enough, on top of all this I still had the dream and the strange paradox of time travel to mull over.
“You seem awful quiet this morning,” Amella said to me as she tied her hair back into the tight braid she preferred.
I looked at her. For a moment I considered telling her everything I’d perceived, that this thing we know as reality is built on the false perceptions of ‘time’ and ‘matter’, that cosmic forces could destroy the world we live on as we crush bugs, that everything that we see, hear, and feel might just be figments of some sleeping god’s dreams . . . that should they wake we might all simply cease to exist . . . that every point of light we see in the sky is but a window to another world and another universe . . . but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t burden another soul with the weight I suddenly felt. Nothing was normal. Nothing would ever be the same again.
“Tristan?” Amella asked, concern creeping into her voice.
I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t said anything to her yet. I struggled to remember how humanoids interacted.
‘Smiles,’ Hop-Toy said, ‘humans like to see smiles.’
I allowed a grin to slide onto my face.
“I’m fine Amella,” I lied, trying to remember how happy people sounded, “everything is fine . . .”
Amella didn’t look as though she agreed. She tilted her head slightly to the side. “You don’t sound fine. You seem a bit off this morning . . .” She slid closer to me on the bed, “are you still upset about the whole thing with Kale?”
“Yes?” I said. That had seemed ages ago, I scarcely remembered the details, but I was thankful for the excuse. I must have seemed distracted, worrying over love or feelings seemed a likely cause for distraction, and if I let her believe what she wanted to believe what would be the harm? I would need to remember how people talk and act. I couldn’t use the Kale incident as an excuse for my strange behavior for long . . . especially around Kale.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.
“No,” I said before she could finish the question, I saw disappointment creep onto her face, “I mean yes,” I quickly added, “please tell me about men.”
Amella laughed, clearly anxious for the opportunity to share her experience with me, and I was thankful that my diversion had worked. She leaned in close and began sharing with me all her secret knowledge of male/female relationships. I smiled and nodded as Amella explained how the minds of men worked. It seemed exceedingly simple, basic even, and the information held little interest to me.
“Men don’t interest me,” I found myself saying, “I guess I might have to marry one eventually, but until then I’d rather not have to think of them.”
“That’ll change,” Amella laughed, “a young lady often has her thoughts change to men.”
“About what age does that happen?” I asked dryly.
“You’re at that age now,” Amella said, “You just haven’t met the right man.”
“And what if that never happens?” I asked, “what if I avoid all men or join a convent or something?”
Amella’s smile faded slightly, “well you might be one of those women that prefer the company of other women . . .”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“Whatever makes you happy I guess,” Amella said with a shrug, she was trying to act nonchalant, but I could tell she was disappointed, “never could understand that sort of thing myself, but I guess it happens from time to time. Few I came across were hard workers and kept to themselves mainly. I’ve heard of entire civilizations devoted to that kind of thing, amazons I think they were called, course it could have just been sailor talk.”
“I need to study my spell book,” I said. This sort of talk made me feel uncomfortable. I wasn’t sure why, Amella was a friend, and I didn’t doubt she knew more about this sort of thing then I did, but I didn’t think I could talk to her about this.
“Ok,” Amella said, probably sensing my discomfort, “I’ll leave you to it.”
Buffy channeled divine power to summon food and water for the day. We still had quite a bit of food that we’d salvaged from the ship yet, but we figured why stretch our rations if we didn’t have to? The food Pelor provided was rather bland; but that was hardly a complaint considering the amount of gruel and hard tack we’d been forced to eat over the past four months. At least this mush was easy to chew. From there we began our lengthy slog into the wilds.
The bugs were horrible at first. On the seaside road we’d had the odd bug, after a particularly nasty rain we had a couple of swarms of mosquitoes, but nothing like the jungle. There were flying bugs, crawling bugs, jumping bugs, and bugs that just dropped out of the trees upon you. Most seemed hungry for blood. Hop-Toy sat on my shoulder eating anything I picked off my hands and protecting my neck but even he couldn’t keep up with the swarms.
By lunch we found the swarms had died off. And as we moved deeper inland we discovered a fog bank. Fog in the heat of the afternoon sun was an odd, but not an entirely unwelcome occurrence as it got us out of the heat; however we soon discovered that the jungle that this vapor covered was even more unusual. The foliage was different here, the leaves were odd shaped, and strangely colored. The trees grew at strange angles, some had sickly looking tumor like growths, and others seemed to weep horrible pus like sap. Everything was damp. Strange bird calls echoed high above us, we caught glimpses of the odd creature, snakes mainly, but nothing lingered and everything fled at the sight of us. Urol seemed bothered by all this.
“This isn’t right,” he mumbled over and over, “none of this is right.”
“What’s not right?” James asked (as he was the closest).
“Everything, I know these plants but they’re all different, six pointed leaves where there should be eight, and that bark is the right shape but wrong color. I don’t recognize any of those strange growths. They’re completely unlike any sort of affliction I’m familiar with. Even these insects: multi colored wings, extra heads, limbs, and segments, everything is strange and not in a good or interesting way either. Some of these things I don’t understand how they can live!”
“This is the Isle of Dread, there are probably all sorts of weird creatures here,” James laughed, “you should know though! You were here before.”
“I was,” Urol snapped, clearly showing frustration, “but I never encountered anything like this!”
James wisely decided to let it drop. We continued walking but a sense of dread was creeping into our bones. We haven’t exactly had a good history with fog, starting with the fog bank at the mouth of the Atikula River, and including our horrible night on journey’s end, fog tended to bring disaster and danger. Personally I thought back to the aftermath of the shadow pearl at Kraken Cove, we witnessed strange misshapen animals then as well. Mind you, most of those creatures tried to kill us and these things seemed eager to avoid us, but I couldn’t help but feel the comparison was apt somehow.
By supper we discovered the ruins of some kind of structure. Who built these ruins, or what they might have once been remains a mystery, as no markings of any kind could be found anywhere on the structure. I didn’t examine the ruins till much later though . . . there was something else that caught our immediate attention! In the corner of the ruins was an X-frame (similar to the type the birds had been on, only much larger) and on the frame was a human body. We could tell the thing was dead from the distance, as there was a great big gaping hole where heart should have been, but as we approached the thing stirred and looked up at us!
“Welcome to my home, travelers.” It said in a horrible monotone voice, “You come a long way only to stay here forever. At least you live. That is good for now. My home is your home, now and forever.”
“What ----
YAY! Update! Nice work on the rhymes :)
I concur with Sir Carborundum's sentiment: your rhymes have been stellar work Sir Humual!
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Seriously though, if you ever have a dream with a weird rhyming version of yourself, back away slowly, don’t make eye contact, and certainly don’t do anything it says!
Anything stupid enough to accost me in the momentary flickering when I dream every few years deserves the nightmare it unleashes upon itself. ;) My mind is a place where even Far Realms critters should tread with caution.
As for Tristan's food, I'd say the rhyming one suggests a certain delicacy known in lands where primates dwell in profusion... No doubt to the shock and revulsion of those of more refined and Anglo-Saxon-based mores. Of course, we might well be surprised and find that she won't be following through on her dreaming mirror image's words. Perhaps some slugs and snails and spiders.