tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-136411902024-03-07T12:05:21.418-07:00Sporadic MaunderingsWritten by a practitioner of mathematics, philosophy, taiji, gluten-free cooking, chant, meditation, gardening, and renovation, with no particular end in mind. Were there an end, it would come too soon, and the Path would cease to Wander.Qalmleahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17131154882107531113noreply@blogger.comBlogger1518125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13641190.post-38360065397546845952012-11-18T11:50:00.001-07:002012-11-18T11:50:01.155-07:00<span id="fullpost">
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</span>Qalmleahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17131154882107531113noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13641190.post-21878850586223866722010-06-05T15:35:00.003-06:002010-06-05T15:52:59.941-06:00Vaszura Do'Ar, Chapter 3And here is the third installment, which will be the last until we play again. The primary purpose of this segment was to get the disparate characters forged into an actual team. Hopefully we interact more smoothly from here on out, but no guarantees. &-:<br /><br /><br /><br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:donotoptimizeforbrowser/> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} p.MsoBodyTextIndent, li.MsoBodyTextIndent, div.MsoBodyTextIndent {margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; text-indent:.5in; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} span.il {mso-style-name:il;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Zura wasn’t surprised when Belhrys fell in beside her as she walked towards the duke’s palace for her meeting with him.<span style=""> </span>It was broad daylight for a change, and Zura had her headdress and veil firmly in place to block out most of the sun.<span style=""> </span>That wasn’t the only change, though.<span style=""> </span>Belhrys’s good humor seemed to have gone.<span style=""> </span>“There have been a few changes in the political landscape,” he told her.<span style=""> </span>“For now, I’m calling off the job.<span style=""> </span>You performed admirably, but the political climate is not right for trying again.<span style=""> </span>Not right now.”</p> <span id="fullpost"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“The duke is offering me a job today.<span style=""> </span>Since he’s the one who wound up with the artifact, this could work to your advantage,” Zura said.<span style=""> </span>Belhrys smiled faintly and shook his head.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Sometime later, perhaps, when the political climate shifts again.<span style=""> </span>For now, no.<span style=""> </span>Still, you performed admirably.<span style=""> </span>Even if you didn’t succeed, I think you’ve more than earned the rest of your commission.”<span style=""> </span>He handed her a sack of coins.<span style=""> </span>Zura gaped at him for a moment before taking it.<span style=""> </span>She had <i>botched</i> the job by letting greed cloud her judgment.<span style=""> </span>Still, gold was gold and she wasn’t going to complain.<span style=""> </span>She decided to change the subject.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“You told me there would be a diversion at the ball.<span style=""> </span>Did <i>you</i> arrange for the Monkeys to attack?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Belhrys smiled ruefully.<span style=""> </span>“You know, I almost wish I had.<span style=""> </span>But, no.<span style=""> </span>That was a happy coincidence.<span style=""> </span>The diversion I had planned would not have been nearly as effective.<span style=""> </span>Then again, my diversion also wouldn’t have resulted in guards storming up the staircase at just the wrong moment.<span style=""> </span>Ah well.<span style=""> </span>That’s fate for you.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Some <i>secret</i> staircase,” Zura muttered reproachfully.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Come, come.<span style=""> </span>I knew the guards were aware of it, but I had no idea that the countess knew of it as well.”</p> <p class="MsoBodyTextIndent">Zura muttered to herself.<span style=""> </span>If she hadn’t had to waste time opening the secret door, she probably could have gotten out of there without being shot at.<span style=""> </span>Belhrys shrugged, possibly in apology.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“I don’t know when I might see you next,” he said, “but I wish you well.”<span style=""> </span>The duke’s palace was coming into view, and Belhrys seemed to take that as his cue to leave.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Vedaust,” Zura said.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Vedaust.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">It was only after he’d gone that Zura realized she’d never told him who the buyer was, and that he’d never even bothered to ask.<span style=""> </span>It might have been an oversight, but something seemed off.<span style=""> </span>She tried to think it through as she climbed the short flight of stairs into the duke’s ballroom and followed a guard to the meeting chamber.<span style=""> </span>Then it hit her.<span style=""> </span>In the port town, she’d met Rhyl’mur’ss right after meeting Belhrys.<span style=""> </span>At the ball, Belhrys had appeared shortly after Rhyl’mur’ss had gone.<span style=""> </span>Coincidence?<span style=""> </span>Maybe.<span style=""> </span>She hoped it was.<span style=""> </span>She rather liked Belhrys and the thought of him associating with the likes of Rhyl’mur’ss lessened her opinion of him.<span style=""> </span>For now, she put those thoughts out of her mind.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">When she saw the meeting room, Zura winced.<span style=""> </span>Bad enough that the silly human wanted to meet during daylight hours, he’d <i>also</i> chosen a room with a <i>skylight</i>.<span style=""> </span>Most of the room was bathed in painfully bright sunlight, but there were stuffed creatures in each corner that provided some shade.<span style=""> </span>Zura took refuge in the shadow of a large stuffed reptile, perhaps five feet long with a sort of fin on its back that was at least as tall as the reptile was long.<span style=""> </span>It reminded her somewhat of a riding lizard, but the spine would make it useless as a mount or pack animal.<span style=""> </span>She was the first to arrive, and while she waited she pulled out her hand crossbow and loaded it.<span style=""> </span>She meant to give a lesson in manners if the deva showed up.<span style=""> </span>As luck would have it, he was the next to arrive.<span style=""> </span>She sent a crossbow bolt whistling by his ear, and smiled.<span style=""> </span>“<i>That</i> is how you fire a warning shot,” she said, calmly lowering the crossbow while she waited to see how he would respond.<span style=""> </span>He seemed genuinely surprised.<span style=""> </span>She couldn’t quite hear what he said, something about not <i>intending</i> to warn anyone.<span style=""> </span>Zura shook her head disgustedly. <i>That </i>was exactly the problem.<span style=""> </span>When she was certain he wasn’t going to pull out his own crossbow to retaliate, she put hers back in its holster on her back.<span style=""> </span>She had the impression he was trying to make some sort of point by standing in the brightest part of the room while Zura stayed in the blessed relief of the shade.<span style=""> </span>She shrugged to herself.<span style=""> </span>If he wanted to demonstrate that his eyes were less acute due to constant damage from the damned yellow orb, that was his problem.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">They waited in uncomfortable silence for a few minutes, until the elf and the goliath showed up with the duke, and a rather peculiar looking fellow.<span style=""> </span>He seemed to be covered in metallic dust for some reason, and there were odd stains over most of his exposed skin.<span style=""> </span>As for the duke, he seemed quite pleased that all four of the interlopers had shown up again.<span style=""> </span>He carefully closed the door before speaking.<span style=""> </span>Zura didn’t see the point when there was a great big window in the ceiling, ready-made for spying.<span style=""> </span>“My friends,” the duke began, “I am going to share something with you that only a very few people know.<span style=""> </span>I have discovered that there is a traitor among my staff, and a plot on my life.<span style=""> </span>You four are outsiders, so I can be certain you are not in on the plot.<span style=""> </span>I need you to try and learn who <i>is</i> in on it, and who has betrayed me.<span style=""> </span>More importantly, though, I need you to protect and train my son.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Zura’s mind began racing.<span style=""> </span>A plot on the duke’s life?<span style=""> </span>Could the Monkey attack have been a part of it?<span style=""> </span>Or …<span style=""> </span>or perhaps that had been the original diversion Belhrys had spoken of, the one the Monkeys had interrupted.<span style=""> </span>He had spoken of working for someone else, someone Zura was better off not knowing about.<span style=""> </span>Suddenly she wondered about the timing.<span style=""> </span>He had made certain to meet with her before this meeting, quite possibly to avoid awkward questions.<span style=""> </span>She brought her mind back to the people at hand.<span style=""> </span>The elf asked who stood to gain from the duke’s death.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Unclear,” the duke said.<span style=""> </span>“The island would likely descend into chaos within a few months, forcing the king to send troops from the mainland to restore order.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“What other family do you have?” Zura asked.<span style=""> </span>They were always the most likely suspects.<span style=""> </span>“Sisters?<span style=""> </span>Brothers?<span style=""> </span>Cousins?”<span style=""> </span>But the duke was already shaking his head.<span style=""> </span>There was no one else on the island who could claim his position.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“My wife might manage to hold onto power for a short time, but I do not think she would last for very long, and my son is not yet of age.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Son?<span style=""> </span>Zura cocked her head to one side.<span style=""> </span>“If I were planning this, I would take out your son before going after you,” Zura said.<span style=""> </span>The duke’s face said he was all too aware of that possibility.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“That’s why I need you four to protect and train him,” the duke said when he had recovered.<span style=""> </span>“He needs to know magic and he needs to know how to defend himself.<span style=""> </span>But until then, he needs to be protected.<span style=""> </span>That’s why Noonien Sungh is here with us.”<span style=""> </span>He gestured to the guest who was covered in odd stains.<span style=""> </span>“He is in the process of constructing a war-forged to help protect my son.<span style=""> </span>The project is not yet complete, so until then, I will be relying on the four of you.”</p> <p class="MsoBodyTextIndent">Noonien Sungh took the floor and began describing in great detail the processes involved in creating the warforged.<span style=""> </span>It mostly involved very intricate and technical magic, and Zura had never had much of a head for that sort of thing. <span style=""> </span>While Noonien rambled, she pondered other options.<span style=""> </span>She wondered how close the son was to coming of age.<span style=""> </span>In a drow household, it was almost expected that the First-Daughter would go after her mother’s position when the time was right.<span style=""> </span>She’d heard that humans often stepped down to allow their children to take over, so perhaps this didn’t happen as often in human society.<span style=""> </span>Then there was the wife.<span style=""> </span>Her absence was perplexing.<span style=""> </span>She was the mother of the child they were to protect. She should have a say in their hiring.<span style=""> </span>It was insulting not to include her.<span style=""> </span>Zura reminded herself that surface dwellers had a bizarre habit of coddling females and keeping them from positions of power.<span style=""> </span>Perhaps this one had had enough of being upstaged by her husband and thought she could do a better job.<span style=""> </span>She may even have deliberately fooled the duke into thinking she was incapable to lull him into a false sense of security.<span style=""> </span>From what Zura knew of surface males, mentioning this would probably drive the duke into a fit of rage, so Zura would have to look into it herself, discreetly.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoBodyTextIndent">Noonien finally subsided from his technical harangue, much to everyone’s relief.<span style=""> </span>Zura wasn’t going to suggest the duke’s son or wife as suspects without any evidence, but there were other obvious candidates.<span style=""> </span>“What of Belhrys and Rhyl’mur’ss, or whatever their real names are?” Zura asked.<span style=""> </span>“Belhryss is very familiar with your palace layout and Rhyl’mur’ss was willing to carry out illegal business under your very nose.”<span style=""> </span>Zura didn’t count her own attempted heist in the same category.<span style=""> </span>That was <i>stopping</i> illegal business through good, honest stealing.<span style=""> </span>She would have preferred not to mention Belhrys, but the others had seen him as well, so there wasn’t much point in trying to hide him.<span style=""> </span>For now she kept her suspicions of a connection between him and Rhyl’mur’ss to herself.<span style=""> </span>The duke shook his head, though.<span style=""> </span>“I did not recognize the descriptions you provided, and I’m sure that the traitor is someone that I know.”</p> <p class="MsoBodyTextIndent">“Odd that the man in black, your Belhrys, only showed up after the man in red had gone,” the deva said.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoBodyTextIndent">“Not that odd,” Zura said, despite her own thoughts in that direction.<span style=""> </span>“He had probably been waiting for me to deliver the package and became concerned when I was late and when the palace turned out to be full of Monkeys.”</p> <p class="MsoBodyTextIndent">“Speculation will get us nowhere,” the duke said.<span style=""> </span>“For now, I want to move on to other business.<span style=""> </span>In addition to protecting my son, the four of you will be sent out on missions to protect the security of my dukedom.<span style=""> </span>You may or may not realize that the Monkey attack on the ball was completely at odds with normal Monkey behavior.<span style=""> </span>They had to travel over a very long distance to get here, a journey that would take more than a full day, and their attack was completely illogical.<span style=""> </span>The Monkey Mage’s speech would have been accurate a hundred years ago, but no one on the island has actively hunted or enslaved Monkeys since before I was appointed duke.”</p> <p class="MsoBodyTextIndent">“What about the Monkeys we knocked out?” the elf asked.<span style=""> </span>“What happened to them?”</p> <p class="MsoBodyTextIndent">“They are imprisoned in a secure facility,” the duke said, “and they are all claiming insanity.<span style=""> </span>This is hardly a surprise, but in this case I am inclined to believe them.<span style=""> </span>They claim that they barely remember the attack, and that all events from the time they left the jungle until they woke up imprisoned are hazy in their minds.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Have you tortured any of them yet?” Zura asked, earning a glare from the scholar.<span style=""> </span>Apparently shooting people for no obvious reason was fine, but torturing them for an actual purpose was not.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">The duke hesitated for a moment.<span style=""> </span>“Ye-ess… and they told us nothing new.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Zura nodded, satisfied, though she would have offered her services if the duke had been too squeamish to order torture himself.<span style=""> </span>There seemed to be little else they could do without first gathering more information.<span style=""> </span>The others threw out various theories, each wilder than the next, while the duke outlined their mission.<span style=""> </span>They were to go to the place from which the attacking Monkeys originated and find out what was really going on.<span style=""> </span>Zura looked around the room and wondered if she really wanted to team up with a trigger-happy deva, an axe-happy goliath, and, gods-help-her, an <i>elf</i>.<span style=""> </span>Strangely, she found she so far liked the elf better than any of the others, possibly because he was the only one who hadn’t tried to kill her yet.<span style=""> </span>He also seemed completely indifferent to her drow heritage.<span style=""> </span>Zura would have expected at least a glare or a questioning look—she’d certainly looked askance at <i>him</i> often enough—but it really didn’t seem to bother him.<span style=""> </span>Better not to question her luck, she supposed.<span style=""> </span>Still, she’d seen what they all could do in battle and it was impressive, so long as it wasn’t aimed at <i>her</i>.<span style=""> </span>She’d have to watch her back if she joined forces with them, but that was nothing new to her.<span style=""> </span>Only among her family had she been able to relax that constant vigilance, and even there not completely.<span style=""> </span>She decided that she would join the duke’s team on this mad quest.<span style=""> </span>They clearly needed the guiding hand of someone familiar with treachery and deceit, and who better to fill that role than a drow?<span style=""> </span>She did decide on one small caveat.<span style=""> </span>If the deva ever, <i>ever</i>, fired his crossbow at her again, she was going to slip a poisoned dagger through his ribs while he slept.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p><br /></span>Qalmleahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17131154882107531113noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13641190.post-42462965109421218792010-06-05T15:26:00.005-06:002010-06-05T15:44:50.336-06:00Vaszura Do'Ar, Chapter 2Here is Chapter 2. I tried copy/pasting into Compose mode this time to try and preserve formatting. I hope this doesn't cause loading issues, since I'm seeing a ton of code littered throughout. Anyway, this is where the campaign actually starts. Two of the other player characters are present at the beginning: Gar (the goliath guard), and Allonar (the deva artificer). This is the same Allonar as the previous campaign, but in a former life (since devas simply keep reincarnating). The fourth player character shows up in the battle with the monkeys (he actually had more to do with them than the rest of us, as he was in the ballroom when they first showed up). He appears as an elf bard, but is in fact a changeling bard. None of us know this IC; as far as we're aware, he's just an elf.<br /><br /><br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:donotoptimizeforbrowser/> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} p.MsoBodyTextIndent, li.MsoBodyTextIndent, div.MsoBodyTextIndent {margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; text-indent:.5in; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} span.il {mso-style-name:il;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> <p class="MsoBodyTextIndent">The day the transaction was to take place, Zura made her way up the secret staircase and hid in the canopy over the bed.<span style=""> </span>She did not care for there being only two ways out of the room, but there wasn’t much she could do about that.<span style=""> </span>A bookcase in one corner opened out onto the secret stairs when the correct book was pulled out.<span style=""> </span>Opposite that was a mirrored dresser.<span style=""> </span>There was also an armoire that matched the rest of the furniture and an old rickety table that didn’t.<span style=""> </span>Zura didn’t know if the duke’s colors were blue and gold or if the person who had last occupied the room had just really liked those colors, but all the furniture except for the table had been lacquered in varying shades of blue and gold.<span style=""> </span>The canopy was certainly not the only place to hide, but while most guards would look inside and behind things, they rarely thought to look <i>up</i>.<span style=""> </span>She waited quietly, wishing the window in the room were better covered.<span style=""> </span>She was just starting to get impatient when her prey walked in and set a lit candle on the table.<span style=""> </span>The light from the window was adequate, more than adequate, for any sane creature, so Zura did not see the point of the candle.<span style=""> </span>From a tiny tear in the fabric of the canopy, Zura could see that this was the infamous countess, a rather portly woman with an unhappy tendency to wear flimsy white dresses that would look better on someone half her size and age.<span style=""> </span>Blast.<span style=""> </span>A goliath guard, nearly twice Zura’s height, followed the countess into the room.<span style=""> </span>Zura had seen the guard trailing the countess around, but she’d hoped he would be left behind for the transaction.<span style=""> </span>She hoped he was as big and dumb as his size suggested, but knew better than to count on that.<span style=""> </span>She was mildly surprised when he only looked around the room without bothering to look inside any of the cupboards or drawers, and more surprised when the countess didn’t call him on it.<span style=""> </span>She could have chosen a more comfortable hiding spot.</p> <br /><span id="fullpost"> <p class="MsoBodyTextIndent">It took Zura a moment to place the race of the next person to arrive.<span style=""> </span>He was tall, though not as tall as the goliath, and slightly built with strangely glowing eyes.<span style=""> </span>Glowing eyes… Zura realized that he must be a deva.<span style=""> </span>The wicked crossbow on his back seemed out of place, as everything else suggested that he was a scholar of some sort.<span style=""> </span>Behind the scholar was a human in a red cloak.<span style=""> </span>Zura stiffened in rage when she caught a good look at his face and recognized Rhyl’mur’ss.<span style=""> </span>She did <i>not</i> like being played for a fool.<span style=""> </span>She found herself wondering if it was just coincidence that she’d run into him both in the port-town and now here.<span style=""> </span>She schooled herself back to quiet patience.<span style=""> </span>At the very least, she had to wait and see which of the two was the buyer before doing anything to interrupt the proceedings.<span style=""> </span>Her best bet would be to wait until the transaction was over and follow whoever wound up with the object.<span style=""> </span>She knew this.<span style=""> </span>But if it was truly valuable, and she could act quickly, she might be able to get both the money <i>and</i> the object.<span style=""> </span>It would make things more difficult, but she decided it was worth the risk.<span style=""> </span>After the four were settled at the table, Zura softly leapt down beside the bed.<span style=""> </span>The bed still hid her, and from here she could move quickly if she needed to.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">The countess suggested that they begin.<span style=""> </span>She opened the box she’d brought with her and pulled out an object roughly the size of Zura’s head and in the shape of a dodecahedron.<span style=""> </span>Each side bore symbols similar to the one she’d seen on the monkey statue in the port-town.<span style=""> </span>An unexpected calmness settled over her, telling her she didn’t want to fight.<span style=""> </span>It was a very mild compulsion, and she had no trouble resisting, but she was certain it came from the object.<span style=""> </span>It quickly became clear that Rhyl’mur’ss was there to buy it and that he’d brought the deva scholar to verify that it was real.<span style=""> </span>Most of the time they whispered together, but Zura caught tantalizing hints here and there, including one that suggested the object would be useless on the mainland.<span style=""> </span>This news seemed to disappoint Rhyl’mur’ss, but he still wanted to procure the object.<span style=""> </span>When the bargaining started in earnest, Zura mostly ignored it.<span style=""> </span>She wanted to wait for both the money <i>and</i> the object to be on the table before acting.<span style=""> </span>Her ears pricked up when the countess called Rhyl’mur’ss a “king’s man.”<span style=""> </span>For just a moment he seemed nonplussed, but then he challenged her to find a single person in the king’s employ who would recognize him.<span style=""> </span>Then he looked at his scholar and suggested they leave if the countess was only going to play games.<span style=""> </span>A moment after she threw the smoke bomb, Zura realized she’d moved too soon.<span style=""> </span>Again.<span style=""> </span>But it was too late to take it back now.<span style=""> </span>She had thrown the canister straight at Rhyl’mur’ss, and was gratified<span style=""> </span>to hear him start coughing as a black column of smoke formed around him.<span style=""> </span>The others reacted more quickly than she’d anticipated.<span style=""> </span>The Countess put the object back in its box and started running toward the apparently not-so-secret passage.<span style=""> </span>The scholar tried to follow her, but the guard swung his axe at him.<span style=""> </span>“Don’t follow us,” he growled as he himself got up to follow his charge.<span style=""> </span>The scholar seemed shocked.<span style=""> </span>Zura needed to catch up quickly, but the blasted countess had shut the passageway behind her.<span style=""> </span>She leaped across the bed and raced over to the bookcase, ignoring the scholar and the hacking Rhyl’mur’ss as she reopened the passage and threw one of the flash-bangs down into it.<span style=""> </span>That was when things went horribly wrong.<span style=""> </span>The scholar pulled out his crossbow and took a shot at her.<span style=""> </span>It wasn’t an ordinary shot, either.<span style=""> </span>She felt the painful sting of acid burning her.<span style=""> </span>She was hurt.<span style=""> </span>Badly.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“I'm not here for you, <span class="il">foolish</span> <span class="il">angel</span>,” she said, practically growling. “But if you wish to die, by all means continue.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“I cannot allow that artifact to fall into evil hands,” the scholar said. “By your actions, whatever you are, I doubt your intentions are honest!”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Honest?” Zura spit and glared towards the man in the red cloak. “A fine word for someone who works for the likes of Rhyl'mur'ss. I would doubt it if he told me the sun was bright. I seek only to protect the Duke's interests. I'm sure he would not appreciate his upper chambers being used to fence stolen goods.”<span style=""> </span>Inwardly, she smiled.<span style=""> </span>Every sentence but one was true, and that one was nearly true.<span style=""> </span>She <i>was</i> protecting the Duke’s interests, but that was not her only, nor even her primary, goal.<span style=""> </span>The scholar was not convinced, however.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“I suppose I should trust a creature that lurks in the shadows and assaults people with incapacitating gasses? I know little of this man or the seller, but I know that artifact is not leaving my sight until I'm convinced it’s in the hands of the proper authorities!”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Zura fixed a smile in place.<span style=""> </span>“Very well. Help me take it from these thieves and we can present it to the Duke together. Bring Rhyl'mur'ss along if you like, but don't let him out of your sight.”<span style=""> </span>If necessary, she would go all the way to the duke himself and tell him she had only recently entered his service.<span style=""> </span>It would be the simple truth.<span style=""> </span>She would have entered his service when it became clear there was no way to get the object away from the damnable trigger-happy deva.<span style=""> </span>With luck, though, there would be no need to take it that far.<span style=""> </span>The scholar turned to his employer, who was already heading for the main staircase.<span style=""> </span>“If you ever want that artifact in your possession, you will follow me.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Rhyl’mur’ss paused for a moment, assessing the situation.<span style=""> </span>Zura couldn’t read his expression at all, not even to tell if he recognized her.<span style=""> </span>She’d left behind her cloak and veil this time, so perhaps he didn’t.<span style=""> </span>Finally he shook his head.<span style=""> </span>“Not worth it.”<span style=""> </span>He continued down the stairs.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">The sounds of Monkeys whooping came from the supposedly secret staircase. <span style=""> </span>Zura didn’t know where they’d come from, but she was grateful.<span style=""> </span>They might delay the countess and her guard long enough for Zura to complete her mission.<span style=""> </span>She kept an eye on the deva as she entered the blessed darkness of the stairwell.<span style=""> </span>The countess groped around blindly and didn’t seem to have heard Zura’s approach.<span style=""> </span>Good.<span style=""> </span>The flash-bang had done its job on her, though it didn’t seem to have affected the guard.<span style=""> </span>Zura took the package from her easily, but now she needed to keep out of reach of the guard’s axe.<span style=""> </span>She cast a cloud of darkness around her, letting it swallow the top part of the stair well, and she quietly dropped to the ground, rolled to one side, and became a part of the shadows.<span style=""> </span>She held her breath as the goliath guard fumbled his way through the darkness and back up into the room, but he’d come nowhere near her.<span style=""> </span>She smiled when she heard him ask the scholar where she’d gone.<span style=""> </span>Time to move again.<span style=""> </span>She stood up and stepped into the countess’s shadow and out of a Monkey’s shadow.<span style=""> </span>Unfortunately this left her adjacent to the countess, and a dead Monkey.<span style=""> </span>The countess recovered her senses just as Zura’s cloud of darkness dissipated and tried to grab the box back.<span style=""> </span>With Zura and the box little more than shadows, her hands closed on nothing.<span style=""> </span>Zura smiled at the countess, and wished she hadn’t when the woman began bellowing for her guard.<span style=""> </span>She made room for him on the stair above Zura and he swung his ridiculous axe at her.<span style=""> </span>If she hadn’t been in shadow form, that blow would have taken her out instantly.<span style=""> </span>As it was, she was panting for breath and barely able to move or think.<span style=""> </span>She had to get out of here.<span style=""> </span>She teleported again, but could only make it to the opposite side of the monkey.<span style=""> </span>She tried to run, but the battle-crazed Monkey managed to bite her before she could.<span style=""> </span>It was barely a scratch compared to the axe or the crossbow, but she’d had next to nothing left.<span style=""> </span>The world went black around her.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">The next thing she knew, there was a vile taste in her mouth, and Belhrys was standing over her.<span style=""> </span>Her ears were oddly sore, so he’d probably used a flash-bang while she was unconscious.<span style=""> </span>Presumably the vile taste had been a healing potion.<span style=""> </span>“Belhrys?<span style=""> </span>What are you doing here?<span style=""> </span>What’s going on?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Belhrys gestured down the stairs.<span style=""> </span>“There are some guards down there who insist we all accompany them to help fight some Monkeys who are causing problems downstairs, or else,” he sighed, “they will arrest all of us.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Zura nodded vaguely and looked up the stairs.<span style=""> </span>The deva with his damnable crossbow had pushed past the countess and her pet goliath.<span style=""> </span>He seemed uncertain whether to point the thing at Zura or Belhrys.<span style=""> </span>Zura resisted the urge to tell him exactly what he could do with it.<span style=""> </span>She tried to whisper another question to Belhrys, but the potion had made her voice hoarse.<span style=""> </span>“What do we do now?” she asked her contact, ignoring the deva’s glare.</p> <p class="MsoBodyTextIndent">Belhrys’s smile didn’t reach his eyes.<span style=""> </span>“We follow the nice guards down the stairs, fight some monkeys, and show what good, honest citizens we are.”<span style=""> </span>As he helped her stand up, he winked, and Zura had to hide a smile.<span style=""> </span>She was still weak, though, and decided now might be a good time to use some of her own healing magic.<span style=""> </span>The energy rushed through her, undoing some of the damage the treacherous deva had done.<span style=""> </span>She was still badly hurt, but at least she didn’t feel ready to fall over at the slightest twinge.<span style=""> </span>She cast a baleful eye up at the scholar and the goliath, but they seemed equally willing to go along with the guards’ request.<span style=""> </span>Even so, she didn’t like having them at her back as they traipsed down the stairs, but she put them from her mind as she beheld the chaos that the duke’s ball had become.</p> <p class="MsoBodyTextIndent">A dozen or so Monkeys like the ones on the stairs were busy decimating the buffet table.<span style=""> </span>Larger ones were attacking a line of noble guests.<span style=""> </span>It looked like most of the non-noble guests had managed to get out, though some of their corpses littered the dance floor.<span style=""> </span>The duke led a contingent of guardsmen against the larger Monkeys as best he could, aided by a handsome elf wielding a fiddle.<span style=""> </span>Zura braced herself, but the elf didn’t even bat an eye when he caught sight of her.<span style=""> </span>Of course, he was busy trying to charm a Monkey with his fiddle at the time.<span style=""> </span>Zura drew her sword and attacked one of the smaller Monkeys as it tried to break off from the buffet, and worked to put some distance between her position and the elf’s.<span style=""> </span>There were a few elf guests in the room as well, but they seemed to be too busy screaming and running to pay a lone drow much mind.<span style=""> </span>While Zura fought, she tired to keep Belhrys in sight.<span style=""> </span>It wasn’t too difficult.<span style=""> </span>All she had to do was follow the line of smoke clouds and listen for the flash-bangs.<span style=""> </span>He threw the canisters left and right as if he had an unlimited supply.<span style=""> </span>Then Zura saw him use the cover of one of the smoke bombs to dash behind the stage.<span style=""> </span>Curious, she followed.<span style=""> </span>He looked up as if he’d been expecting her.</p> <p class="MsoBodyTextIndent">“I need to get out of here before I have to answer too many questions,” he told her, “but I’ll contact you in 48 hours.”<span style=""> </span>Zura nodded, and asked if he happened to have any more of his alchemical toys to share.<span style=""> </span>Grinning, he handed her two of each before rushing out a side door.<span style=""> </span>Zura hurriedly stuffed them into her backpack before rejoining the battle.<span style=""> </span>At the duke’s request, they knocked most of the Monkeys out rather than killing them, though apparently some larger one with magical ability had already gotten away.<span style=""> </span>Despite the apparent chaos, it was mostly a mop-up operation at this point, and it didn’t take long to incapacitate the remaining Monkeys.<span style=""> </span>Zura looked around, wondering if anyone would notice if she, too, simply wandered off, but then she saw the countess and the duke disappear into a room with the box.<span style=""> </span>At the very least, she would like to tell Belhrys who had wound up with the thing.<span style=""> </span>She certainly wasn’t going to make another try for it until her wounds healed from this attempt.<span style=""> </span>It seemed an eternity before the duke and the countess emerged again, but the duke now held the box and the countess seemed quite pleased with herself.<span style=""> </span>Presumably the duke had paid her well for it.<span style=""> </span>Zura sighed.<span style=""> </span>It would probably be even more difficult to take the thing now that the duke had it.<span style=""> </span>Instead of one goliath to get past, there would probably be an entire regiment of soldiers.</p> <p class="MsoBodyTextIndent">Before Zura could slip away, the duke called out for all those who had helped fight the Monkeys to stay a moment.<span style=""> </span>Zura winced.<span style=""> </span>She should have gotten out while he was distracted with the countess.<span style=""> </span>The fiddling elf seemed no happier, oddly enough, though the goliath and the deva seemed merely curious.<span style=""> </span>Zura glared at the deva but he didn’t seem to notice.<span style=""> </span>When the four of them had gathered ‘round the duke to his satisfaction, he sent the rest of his guards away.<span style=""> </span>“Most of you have heard by now that I am seeking magic users.<span style=""> </span>You four have proven yourself tonight, and I would like to meet with all of you in a few days time to discuss employing you as a team.”<span style=""> </span>Zura wondered what the duke’s guards had told him about the scene in the staircase.<span style=""> </span>For that matter, she wondered what the countess had told him.<span style=""> </span>“I will give you full details then, but I can tell you now that I pay very well.”<span style=""> </span>That caught Zura’s attention.<span style=""> </span>She certainly wouldn’t be receiving the rest of her commission from Belhrys, and she’d need to find <i>some</i> source of income before the rest of the advance ran out.<span style=""> </span>It was certainly worth her while to show up at the meeting and see if the duke’s job interested her.<span style=""> </span>Even if it didn’t, it would certainly be easier to steal the artifact back from him if she were in his employ and able to move freely around the palace.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Thinking about the artifact brought her mind back to the battle.<span style=""> </span>The box holding the artifact had been open, and a strange sort of chain had gone out from it.<span style=""> </span>Zura wasn’t sure of its nature, but it seemed to be more difficult to hit a target who was part of that chain.<span style=""> </span>She didn’t know if it made the target stronger or weakened the attack, or something else entirely.<span style=""> </span>The deva scholar might know, but Zura wasn’t about to ask <i>him</i>.<span style=""> </span>By all accounts, deva were supposed to be good, honest creatures, yet this one had shot her in the back without so much as a warning. <i>That</i> was treachery worthy of a drow, and Zura did not mean it as a compliment.<span style=""> </span><i>She </i>would have fired a warning shot first, or at least tried to talk.<span style=""> </span>The deva clearly had his own agenda with regard to the artifact and could not be trusted.<span style=""> </span>She kept a close eye on him when it was clear the duke’s speech was over.<span style=""> </span>He seemed to be negotiating payment from the duke, for what wasn’t clear.<span style=""> </span>While they were occupied, Zura slipped out one of the side doors and headed back to her room at a nearby inn.</p><br /></span>Qalmleahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17131154882107531113noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13641190.post-8665968848442801812010-06-05T14:48:00.008-06:002010-06-05T15:28:04.634-06:00Vaszura Do'Ar, Chapter 1We've started Fibonacci's new campaign. It's been interesting. My account is a bit long to put into one post, so I'm going to break it up into several. Parts of this were worked out long before the campaign itself started. Really, the campaign starts with the second installment.<br /><br />My character is a drow assassin, Vaszura Do'Ar. Vaszura means something like "blood exile", and Do'Ar translates to "Walkers in Poison." I actually generated the name "Zura" first then decided I wanted it to correspond to an actual drow name. I really like playing this character. She is in fact a good drow, but she's one who has had to live and work within the main drow society, so she has to be used to thinking like the more common drow do. This results in some curious notions and attitudes. Note: none of the other player characters are present in this part. Here's Chapter 1:<br /><br /><br /><br />It was with some trepidation that Zura stepped off the boat onto the dock. Monkey Island was about as far from the Underdark as it was possible to get, and she felt a wave of homesickness pass over her. Gone were the dark spires and caverns of her homeland, perhaps never to be seen again. The sky above her was not nearly solid enough, and the light of the cursed sun made it seem more ephemeral still. Though it was certainly warm enough to go without her cloak and headdress, she kept them on. Both helped hide the ebon blackness of her skin. Her face was still visible through the veil, but she hoped the veil’s mottled colors would keep casual onlookers from noticing the color of the skin underneath it. If nothing else, it gave her eyes some additional protection from the cursedly bright sun. Her fellow travelers didn’t seem to mind the brightness, though Zura noticed she wasn’t the only one wearing more clothes than the weather really called for. Everyone has something to hide, she reminded herself.<br /><span id="fullpost"><br /><br />Most travelers were burdened with various chests and satchels, but Zura had only what she’d been able to fit into her backpack. She could have taken more, only that would have required taking one of her family’s riding lizards to help carry it, and that would only have drawn attention when the beast was reported missing. Her family had been in enough trouble already, and not just because of Zura’s carelessness. She remembered the horrible sinking feeling when she’d had to report to her mother that she had been seen. In a noble family, Xullin’bryn Do’ar would have been considered the matriarch, but it was dangerous for a merchant family to use such a title where others might hear, particularly where the priestesses of Lolth might hear. If Zura had only waited for the signal before moving, her face would not have been seen, and she might still be back with her family in the blessed dark under the earth. But Zura, fresh from her training at the assassins’ school where nearly half the females in her clan had been educated, had been too impatient, too eager to prove herself, and she had moved too soon. Perhaps if nothing else had gone wrong that night, they might have been able to simply silence the two junior priestesses who had seen her, but there had been no time. They’d been lucky to escape with no one killed or, worse, captured. Zura still didn’t know the full extent of what had gone wrong, as she’d had to leave before hearing the full story. Now, she probably never would.<br /><br />The wooden dock beneath her feet creaked and shifted with every footfall on it. The planks were in sore need of repair. The smell of fish and salt grew stronger the closer Zura got to the island proper, which seemed backwards to her, but she’d noticed the same thing boarding the ship from the mainland: the smell was worst just up from the water. She looked around at the hustle and bustle of the port town whose name she’d forgotten and sighed. There was no mud in the streets of the Underdark, as there was no weather there. She’d heard that a wizard of Menzoberranzan had once summoned a storm over the city to put out a fire that burned the stones themselves, and perhaps then there would have been mud, but there was certainly nothing like the oozing mess now masquerading as the street nearest the docks. There were some inns along that street, but Zura hoped to find one on a street that did not suck at her feet as she tried to walk through it. <br /><br />The streets did dry out as she got further from the docks, much to Zura’s relief. She found an inn three streets in that seemed to fit her needs. She had seen similar places in the Underdark, though there the inn would be carved out of rock rather than built. Patrons carefully avoided looking too closely at one another, lest they themselves be examined closely, so no one paid any mind when a small lithe figure wrapped from head to toe despite the sunny island climate came in to ask for a room. The innkeeper did give her one quick startled look, but he recovered quickly and went back to looking bored and uninterested as he handed her a key. When Zura got to the door, she wondered why he bothered with keys. The lock seemed ready to fall apart with a gentle tap. She had her own ways of protecting the room, of course, but she wondered if the innkeeper would be grateful or annoyed if she did some work to repair the lock. <br /><br />She pulled G’eld’s cage out of her backpack before doing anything else. The little spider, barely larger than one of Zura’s hands, had been locked up in it for the whole voyage from the mainland. She skittered out, eager to stretch her legs and hunt down some prey. Zura had learned quickly that surface dwellers feared even a tiny spider such as G’eld, and hadn’t wanted to risk letting her out to hunt on a ship where she did not have private accommodations. She often wondered what surface dwellers would make of the mid-sized spiders that roamed the streets of most drow cities. They ranged in size from a foot across to larger than a house, and she’d even heard stories of some spiders larger than mansions that had created an entire drow city from their calcified webbing. She hadn’t seen it before it burned, but even she found the idea hard to credit.<br /><br />While G’eld hunted, Zura drew the curtains on the room’s one window, grimacing when that didn’t block out all the accursed light. She pulled the blanket off of the bed to help and nodded in satisfaction. There were still lines of brightness around the very edges, but it was no worse than the light-clocks used to keep track of time in most drow cities. That done, she settled into reverie to pass the time until darkness fell. When the room had darkened noticeably, she came out of reverie, carefully pulled the blanket off the window and opened the curtains. The sky bore the breathtaking mix of colors that meant the sun was not quite gone yet. Zura could think of nothing in the Underdark to match the play of colors in the sky at dawn and dusk, though she thought having to deal with the horrible yellow orb was too steep a price to pay for them. She waited, watching the colors fade into near-blackness. The stars made much better companions than the sun. Now she could go out without feeling like her eyes were going to burn off. After a moment’s hesitation, she left her longsword behind. She hadn’t seen anyone wearing swords in the streets, so wearing hers would probably draw attention. Her hand crossbow was small enough to hide on her back under her cloak, though, and she had four daggers that she was never without. She was more hesitant about the backpack, but finally decided to put G’eld’s cage on it and leave it as well. There was nothing of real value in it, and G’eld’s presence would likely discourage most casual thieves anyway.<br /><br /><br />Zura headed back to the inn just as she noticed the sky growing light again. She’d spent most of the night just learning the ins and outs of the town, but she’d decided that there were far too many elves in it for her peace of mind. From what she’d gathered, the island was mostly populated by humans and elves, and she’d managed to land in a concentration of her lighter-skinned cousins. Thankfully, between the night and the natural variation in skin tones amongst the islanders, from a distance no one seemed to think Zura’s skin color particularly remarkable. Still, it would take only one elf getting close enough to see both her skin and her ears for Zura to find herself in real trouble. She sighed. Surface elves had driven her people underground and into Lolth’s arms. The first was forgivable, the second decidedly not. Neither side was entirely blameless, though, and unlike most of her kind, Zura held no particular grudge against surface elves, but she certainly didn’t trust them, either. Better to avoid them in case they took it in their head to attack her for being drow. To avoid them, though, she would need to get out of this town, and that meant deciding where to go next.<br /><br />After spending half the day in reverie and the rest practicing with her knives and sword, Zura headed out into the island night again, hoping to learn of a nearby town that was not overrun by elves. Unfortunately, from what the human residents told her, most of the surrounding area seemed to be elf-territory. Up the river a ways, there was apparently a Capitol city run by some human duke who answered to a king on the mainland, and it had a larger concentration of humans than elves, which would still be an improvement. So far, only two elves had seen Zura for what she really was. The first one’s eyes had widened, but when Zura did nothing more threatening than keep sipping her drink, he’d simply backed away quietly and left her alone. The second had given her a rather nasty glare, to which Zura had responded by letting her face go completely neutral. It was a gamble, as some would see that look as a challenge, but the elf only wheeled around and stalked away, glaring back over his shoulder occasionally. <br /><br />The bartender, a portly human with a neat mustache, had smiled faintly, probably relieved there wouldn’t be a fight. “If you went to the Banana Festival,” he told her, “No one would think twice if you covered your face. Monkey masks, banana masks, I’ve even seen some people dressing up like bits of the jungle.”<br /><br />“What makes you think I need to hide my face?” Zura asked. She didn’t wear the veil at night, though she did wear the part of the headdress that hid her ears. Anyone seeing black skin and elven features would draw the obvious conclusion. Mostly people had either not noticed or not cared.<br /><br />The bartender just winked at her. Zura took another sip and asked him to tell her more about the festival. It was apparently a celebration of Monkey culture, only it was apparently a celebration by humans and for humans, which seemed odd. “Do the Monkeys participate?” Zura asked. <br /><br />“Oh, some do. The ones that live in towns, anyways. I hear the wilder ones won’t come in t’town until it’s over, though. Not that t’wild ones come in much anyways. Biggest celebration’ll be up in ‘e Capitol, o’course. People go plum wild there.” He continued describing the festivities while Zura listened bemusedly. The more she heard, the more she thought it sounded like a celebration based on what people thought Monkey culture was like, rather than on actual Monkey culture. No wonder Monkeys preferred to avoid it. Still, she was curious about the Monkeys, and seeing what people generally thought about Monkey culture could be a useful first step to learning about them. She could have chosen any small enough island to avoid the Underdark, but she’d chosen this one specifically because the stories of Monkeys had intrigued her. She hadn’t seen any in the streets here, but the bartender assured here there were more in the Capitol. “Not too fond o’port towns,” he explained. “Too far from ‘e jungle.” Zura nodded, thinking it sounded rather like drow and the caverns of the Underdark. The bartender kept regaling her with stories, both of the Monkeys and the Festival, until she’d finished her drink and was ready to go. She doubted any of them were entirely true, though she suspected that the most repeated themes were probably accurate.<br /><br />She stepped out of the bar back into a narrow, poorly lit street. The best kind, in her opinion. There weren’t many others about, as it was getting late by surface reckoning. Silly surface folk and their fear of the dark. As she walked, debating where to head next, a small wiry figure in a dark cloak fell in beside her. “Vendui,” the man said in horribly accented drow as he pressed two fingers to his lips. Zura barely stopped herself from running. Had Lolth’s priestesses managed to track her even to this island? But, no. He’d clearly only seen the word written down, or he would have known how to pronounce it. “Vendui,” she responded, carefully overemphasizing the correct pronunciation. Though there was no need to make it a formal greeting, she also touched her lips and waited to see what he would do next. She mentally checked the location of her daggers, knowing she wouldn’t have time to get to the crossbow on her back. <br /><br />“I've been watching you,” he said after a moment, “and I've been reading about the Drow. This is a long way from the Underdark.”<br /><br />“Yes,” Zura agreed, “It is. That’s sort of the point.” One of her hands moved nearer a dagger, but she didn’t try to grab it just yet.<br /><br />The wiry man nodded. “If you’re staying on the island for a while, you'll want employment. It's easy enough to find work as a dock hand, but I might have something more...interesting.”<br /><br />Zura blinked for a moment, trying to figure out why a human would reveal he knew she was drow in order to offer her a job. Either he thought a drow’s abilities might be useful, or he thought he could blackmail her. She responded cautiously. “Indeed? I had hoped to find work as a guard, not a dockhand. Does your job involve guarding ... something?”<br /><br />“Guarding? Not at the moment, although good body guards are hard to find. What I want is someone who can move discretely, gather information, and then obtain a certain item. Preferably without killing anyone who will be missed.”<br /><br />“Interesting,” Zura said, but mention of killing raised her adrenalin level still higher. Had he also identified her as an Assassin, trained in the ways of manipulating Shadow? She kept her worries carefully hidden. “I take it you don't want the other Houses finding out about your operation. Do you work for a House or are you also in exile?” He carried himself with the easy grace of a noble, and having information to use against him would be useful. Strangely, though, the question seemed to amuse him.<br /><br />“I'd have to say neither,” he said, not quite grinning.<br /><br />Once again, Zura blinked at him. Though her family were merchants and mainly dealt in poisons, there were those in the great Houses who knew that many of the Do’Ar family were trained as assassins and sought them out for those talents. Any who learned too much were summarily eliminated, of course. But it was rare, very rare, for someone not connected to one of the great Houses to seek such talents, rarer still to do it in the open air like this. “In drow society, those are the only possibilities,” she said, not quite truthfully, but close enough. “Is surface culture really so different, then?”<br /><br />“There's no one surface culture. On this island, things are very much clan-based if that's what you mean. But I was just being cryptic. It's better for both of us if you don't know who I'm working for.”<br /><br />“Ah. This I understand.” It still seemed odd to deny connection to any House, but refusing to identify which House was a common part of the Game. If this human were more skilled in the Game, he would have given her the name of a rival House to try and cause trouble for it rather than denying any connection outright. “Very well, what are the risks and benefits to myself if I agree to work for you?”<br /> “The benefits are that I pay well, and if you execute the job successfully it may lead to other jobs. The risk is that if you are caught trying to steal from the Countess De l'Hôpital...well, you aren't important enough to warrant a trial.”<br /><br />“Trial?” Zura said, surprised again. “What is a trial? Do the heads of houses not simply execute intruders when they are caught?”<br /><br />“That's precisely what they do...unofficially.” He seemed to be hiding a grin. “I think I like Drow society. It sounds so much more honest.”<br /><br />“In some respects, perhaps,” Zura said carefully. Honest? Drow? She wondered what he could possibly have been reading to get that impression. No one told the truth unless it was to her advantage or she didn’t expect to be believed. “Your job offer does intrigue me, but before accepting I must ask whether you have any connection to the Spider Queen.” Given his naiveté in certain matters, it seemed unlikely, but she watched his reaction carefully.<br /><br />“Spider Queen?” he said, sounding genuinely surprised. “I’ve met the Monkey King, but he likely does not remember me.”<br /><br />“Lolth is the name she takes for herself, and she insinuates herself into every nook of drow society. She would stifle us and have us be nothing more than sophisticated barbarians.”<br /><br />The man paused for a moment. “Lolth… isn’t that a goddess?” Zura nodded. “If so, I assure you I have no connections to her. Or any deity.”<br /><br />“Ah, good,” Zura said, letting out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “Nor have I. I do respect Corellon for taking in the drow who wished no longer to be drow, but that was never an option for me.” While Zura understood all too well the desire to be out from under Lolth’s watchful webs, she could not comprehend why any of her kind would leave behind their heritage and birthright: their place in the Underdark. She had had no choice in the matter, but these no-longer-drow did have a choice. It made no sense to her. She looked up when she realized the human was still speaking.<br /><br />“Religion isn't very widely practiced around here,” he told her, and paused. “Except by the Monkeys, but they worship the spirits of their ancestors.”<br /><br />Zura tried to picture this. “Do the spirits actually appear?”<br /><br />He shrugged. “I’ve heard stories about what happens deep in the jungles that make the blood run cold. And the Monkeys don't let outsiders into their temples, so who knows. Also, there are Monkeys and then there are Monkeys. They don't all wear clothing and run fruit stands.”<br /><br />Zura nodded vaguely. “I’m afraid I’ve drifted from your job proposal. I would like more details before I decide. How much more can you tell me?”<br /><br />“The Countess will go to the Capitol for the Banana Festival. All the heads of houses are there, and much business is conducted, both openly and behind closed doors. I have information, very privileged information, that the L'Hôpital estate has been suffering financially for some time, and the Countess is desperate for money. I have heard that she intends to sell an object of great value. I want to know who she's selling it to, why it's such a secret, and I want the object.”<br /><br />“I take it that I will not know what this object is beforehand... How much time will I have to study the household and its habits?”<br /><br />“The festival starts in eight days and goes on for a week. I don't yet know when or where the transaction is to take place, but I will contact you as soon as I do.”<br /><br />Zura hid an eager smile. This was the kind of job she’d trained for. Normally she’d be expected to assassinate someone in the process, but it was still a chance to put her hard-won skills to use. “Very well,” she said, pretending indifference. “This job intrigues me, and I was interested to see more of Monkey culture anyway. I will agree to aid you in this for suitable compensation.”<br /><br />It was instantly clear that neither of them was much good at haggling. The human offered her 200 gold. She considered a moment and asked for 400 instead. Shrugging indifferently, the human suggested 360, and Zura accepted. “With 90 in advance. I’ll need a few more supplies.” He handed over the coins without argument. Zura looked at him thoughtfully. “You give me this money with no specific instructions for contacting you again, beyond travel to the Capitol?” It was a strangely trusting thing to do. If he’d really been reading about the drow, his source had to be woefully inaccurate in many respects.<br /><br />“If I've misjudged your interest in the job, the loss is my own fault. I'll look for you in the marketplace, at this time of night.”<br /><br />“Curious,” Zura said, “But acceptable.” She looked at him a moment longer before saying, “Vedaust,” and bowing slightly. “I will look for you in the Capitol.”<br /><br />“Vedaust,” he responded, pronouncing the farewell marginally better than he had the greeting, and then he turned and headed towards the docks. For a moment she considered trying to follow him, but there were rooftops and alleys all around her, and it seemed unlikely he would have approached her without someone keeping a close eye on things, likely someone with a crossbow. There were other ways of finding more information, especially here near the taverns. After waiting a few moments to make it clear to any unseen watchers that she was not trying to follow, she headed the same way towards a more disreputable tavern she’d passed on the way to this one. Thankfully it, too, was frequented mostly by humans. The reputable one was a better place for acquiring aboveboard, easily available information. Disreputable ones, however, were better if you needed underhanded, hard to come by information. <br /><br />This place was about as disreputable as a place could get and still run something resembling a genuine, legal business. It was dim, smoky, and crowded inside. It was not as loud as might be expected for the crowd, likely because most of the discussions were about things not meant for other ears. Zura wasn’t interested in any of the groups. Instead she found a quiet, shadowed alcove and began looking around. In most places like this one, there would be a watcher sitting on the edges, where he could see all the comings and goings. She spotted a likely candidate sitting by himself in a dark corner, much like the alcove Zura had chosen. He seemed slightly out of place here, as he was older than most of the crowd. At first glance, Zura thought him frail due to his skeletal appearance, but then she noticed that he sat with his back ramrod straight and that he held himself with an air of confidence and strength. His red cloak pooled around his chair, probably picking up every bit of muck and dust on the floor. A simple silver brooch held the cloak in place. The clothing visible underneath the cloak was fine and in very good repair. Though he seemed lost in thought, Zura could tell that he was keeping a close eye on the other patrons, as if watching for anyone who might be paying attention to him. So far as Zura could tell, he hadn’t noticed her yet. She watched him for a few more moments. When no one else approached him, she cautiously moved out of the shadows and walked toward his table. His eyes were on her almost instantly. She couldn’t read his expression, but she thought he was waiting for her to speak. “I’m trying to find information about a human who approached me tonight,” she said. “Shall I continue or leave you in peace?” <br /><br />“Continue,” he said, giving her a disdainful look. “I am unconscionably bored.”<br /><br />“He is short and wiry with grey hair, and a curious sense of humor, and tonight he was dressed entirely in black, but I suspect this is common for him.”<br /><br />“I can think of someone who might fit that description. He buys and sells information.”<br /><br />“Curious. Where do his loyalties lie?”<br /><br />“I’ve no idea, except to say that the word ‘confidential’ to him means ‘worth a higher price.’” Zura opened her mouth to respond, but then she caught an almost familiar gleam in the man’s eye. He was playing her, manipulating the conversation to some end of his own. Well, two could play that game. First to find out if he really knew her mysterious man-in-black.<br /><br />Zura nodded. “Sounds like my kind of person. What can you tell me about his pronounced limp?”<br /><br />For a moment, the man in red seemed inordinately puzzled, then he stood abruptly. “I've really never seen him that close. But I must be going. Affairs of, ah, things to do. Good day.” He began hurrying through the crowd to the door, looking back frequently to see if Zura was following. She gave him enough of a head start that the crowd might be able to hide her and did just that. He seemed to notice her anyway and quickened his pace. As she exited the tavern, she caught a glimpse of him turning down an alley and raced to follow, but she was too late. There was no visible sign of him as she rounded the corner. She hid herself in a shadow and waited for a few more minutes before deciding she’d well and truly lost him. She muttered drow curses under her breath and headed back out of the alley. She had no idea who the man in red had been, but the name Rhyl’mur’ss, “shadow spy,” suited him. His reaction suggested he did know the man in black, but Zura didn’t think she could trust anything the man had actually said.<br /><br />The encounter made Zura even more anxious to get out of the port city. Something about the man in the red cloak unsettled her. She first put her advance to good use procuring lockpicks, footpads and camouflaged clothing, and then began looking for the best way to get to the Capitol. Naturally, the boats that carried passengers up the river only ran during the day. She found one that had cabins, at least, so she could spend the day in Reverie, away from the horrible brightness. It was slightly more expensive, but worth it she decided, especially for a journey that would take a full week. The Banana Festival would already be in full swing when she arrived. There were hints of the festivities even on the boat, and Zura watched curiously as otherwise sane-seeming people walked around in an odd gait apparently supposed to resemble the way monkeys walked and called to each other using strange whoops and howls. By comparison, the few actual Monkeys Zura saw on the riverbank seemed calm and serene.<br /><br />That impression was only magnified when she saw the actual Festival in progress in the Capitol. People walked around dressed as bananas, trees, monkeys, and a few in costumes made to look like the statue Zura had glimpsed from the ship that had brought her to the island. It was probably supposed to look like a Monkey, but everything had been made with sharp angles, so it was hard to tell. On its stomach had been a curious shape. She hadn’t sensed anything magical about it, but that sort of magic wasn’t really her strong suit anyway. The costumes didn’t quite manage to get the angles right, but they were at least recognizable, which was more than Zura could say for many of the costumes. It was clearer when they wore only a fake monkey tail and ears, but somehow that seemed even less dignified to Zura’s sensibilities, perhaps because the wearer’s face was clearly visible. After walking around for a while, Zura realized she wasn’t the only one eyeing the reveler’s antics askance. When no one was watching, so did many of the Monkey residents. They smiled genially when they knew someone was watching but they didn’t always notice Zura standing in the shadows, and then she often saw weariness when they dropped their genial façade. She supposed she’d feel the same way about a Drow Festival where surface-dwellers painted their skin black and dressed up like spiders.<br /><br />She’d been in the Capitol only one night when her contact approached her again. On a dark side street, he suddenly fell in beside her as she walked. It startled her less this time, though she still made sure she could reach all her daggers. “I know where the transaction is to take place,” he said by way of greeting. Zura nodded and listened. “The duke is having a ball two nights from now. The Countess De l'Hôpital will attend, and she plans to meet with her buyer in a tower bedroom. I happen to know that there’s a secret passage leading out of this room down to the servants’ halls.” Zura was curious but knew better than to ask where he’d gotten this information. She asked for more information about the layout, but that seemed to be it. One public staircase and one secret staircase, and a window, barred of course. <br /><br />“If I’m up there alone, I’m going to need some way to create a distraction,” Zura said. <br /><br />Her contact grinned. “Oh, there will be plenty of distraction later on. I’ll see to that. But it may or may not spread to the upper floors.”<br /><br />“No, I mean up in the room. Something like… a noisemaker to draw people’s attention or a smokescreen to cover my escape.” As a drow, she could cast a cloud of darkness around her, but it didn’t last very long. She thought she might need more than that to pull this off.<br /><br />If anything his grin grew wider. “Oh? I think I have just the things.” He pulled out some strange looking canisters. Four of them were black cylinders. Two were double red cylinders. All had a curious metal ring at the top, and were small enough to fit comfortably in one of Zura’s hands. “This,” he said, gesturing toward the black canisters, “is a smoke bomb. It blocks line of sight and will spread out to cover an area 35 square feet in about 24 seconds. After that it begins to dissipate. Be careful that you don’t breathe in the smoke, though. This one,” he gestured with the hand holding the red canisters, “is called a flash-bang, and it does just that. It will blind and deafen most opponents for a good long while. Both work the same way. Just pull the pin and throw it where you want to go.” He handed the canisters to her. Zura wondered what other interesting devices he might just happen to have with him, but decided not to ask. He hadn’t told her his name, but she decided Belhrys, fire-starter, suited him, and she told him so. The name seemed to amuse him. “Anything else you might need to know?”<br /><br />“Is it possible for me to get into this duke’s palace and scout the area beforehand?”<br /><br />“Yes. During the festival there are so many comings and goings that you shouldn’t have any problems.”<br /><br />Zura nodded. “And once I have the object, how do I find you again?”<br /><br />“Oh, you don’t need to worry about that. I’ll find you. I might find you more quickly if you head straight out from the servants entrance when you’re done.”<br /><br />Zura nodded and smiled inwardly. She found she was looking forward to the challenge. Belhrys took off into the crowd again, vanishing as quickly as he’d appeared. She let the smile appear on her face once he was gone. There was something comforting about his presence. Just as she’d felt an instant dislike for Rhyl’mur’ss, she felt an instant liking for Belhrys. She wasn’t foolish enough to trust him, of course, and she wondered how far he really trusted her. She could try to keep the object for herself. If it was worth paying to steal, it would probably sell for a fairly high price. Unfortunately, Belhrys was her only contact on the island and he had demonstrated twice that he had no trouble whatsoever locating her whenever he felt like it. Besides, he had done nothing to earn such a betrayal. Unlike most drow, the Do’Ar clan preferred to have a reason to betray someone.<br /></span>Qalmleahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17131154882107531113noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13641190.post-28245420220142844762010-06-05T14:03:00.004-06:002010-06-05T14:30:47.551-06:00Dissolution and CondemnationI finished the next two books in the War of the Spider Queen series. As far as I can remember, this is the first series I've read with multiple authors. It can be a bit jarring to go from one book to the next. Each separate author has so far done a good job, but there tends to be a slight feel of discontinuity between books.<br /><span id="fullpost"><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dissolution-Forgotten-Realms-R-Salvatores/dp/0786929448/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275768325&sr=8-1">Dissolution</a> is written by Thomas M. Reid. Overall, his writing style is much better than Richard Lee Byers', author of the first book, with one glaring exception. Plotting, awesome. Description, very good. Characterization? Eh... That was one place where Byers excelled: creating vivid characters. In Reid's book they feel flatter and less interesting; the vibrancy is gone. Still, the skillful plotting and writing nearly makes up the difference.<br /><br />Here we find our dark elf "heroes" on a journey to neighboring Ched Nesad, another drow city, to find out if Lolth has singled out Menzoberranzan or if she's abandoned all of her drow children. It's something of a pity that the city is destroyed by the end of the book, as I found the description quite interesting. Giant spiders, the size of mansions or larger, created a web in this large cavern, and some magical process was used to strengthen and harden the web so it could be walked on and built upon. Buildings there look like egg-sacs attached to the webbing. Not surprisingly, the lowest levels of the web house the poorest residents, and the nobles all reside in the highest tiers. Or, well, they did. Turns out that people who live on hardened webbing shouldn't throw stone-burning chemicals. <br /><br />As far as the plot of the series goes, the important detail is that not only has Lolth abandoned all drow, she has also abandoned other races who worship her. So our anti-heroes now need to find out why. Their attempt to find a way to do so leads into the third book.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Condemnation-Forgotten-Realms-R-Salvatores/dp/0786932023/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_c">Condemnation</a>, by Richard Baker.<br />Baker is good both at plotting and at characterization, though he didn't quite keep Pharaun's flavor the same as when Byers first established it (Byers' character was the better version, imo). My biggest complaint about Baker is that there are several places where he completely glosses over battle scene because the outcome is a foregone conclusion. Sometimes I agreed with this and didn't object overly much, but there was at least one situation where I was not convinced this was the case. I started to wonder if he was just incompetent at describing battle scenes, but those he did include were fairly well done. I think the omission would bother me less if there were a few sentences indicating roughly how things went. Blow-by-blow would probably be overkill. It just annoyed me when he just jumped to the next scene. It felt very much like a made-for-tv thing, where the commercials would fit into those gaps.<br /><br />I won't go into too much detail about what they learn, save to say that it's a bad idea to bring a priest of a rival god into your goddess's inner sanctum. Admittedly, they had no way to <em>get</em> to said sanctum without help from the priest, but it was still a bad idea.<br /><br />We also meet a scion of Elistraee in this book, who tries unsuccessfully to convert Halisstra (rescued from Ched Nasad in the second book) and pays a high price for it. Elistraee is a daughter of Lolth and tends to be the goddess of choice for non-evil drow. Or, well, did prior to this series. My impression is that either this series or its successor (Lady Penitent) will change that in a big way.<br /><br /><br />I now have the last three books in the series, but haven't started on them. I'm rather curious to see how it goes. Reviews of the fourth book on Amazon variously claim it to be the best or the worst book of the series. * shrugs * Likewise, several reviews say the series was good until the fourth book and then went downhill while others claim it keeps getting better until the end. I'll state an opinion when I've read them. :-)<br /></span>Qalmleahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17131154882107531113noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13641190.post-15810897824879495822010-05-24T08:06:00.003-06:002010-05-24T08:37:55.741-06:00DissolutionWow, long time without posting. Basically, taking over as DM used up most of my creative energy that had been going into this blog. However, my scenario should end this week, and Fibonacci's begin, and I have nearly all the details worked out. A few still need polishing. I'll probably post something on that once I get back into the habit of posting. This post, though, is about a book I just finished reading. It's called <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dissolution-Forgotten-Realms-R-Salvatores/dp/0786929448/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274704397&sr=8-1">Dissolution</a>, and is set in the drow city of Menzoberranzan. I wanted to refamiliarize myself with the drow mindset, as in Fibonacci's next campaign I'm playing a drow assassin. She is not a typical drow, in that she's good-aligned, but she's also not going to be a whiny, angsty "can't we all just get along" drow. She's part of a merchant family dealing in poisons. They travel around the Underdark, and act as a sort of underground railroad for drow misfits. They would like to make drow society more cohesive, and less chaotic (meaning they don't serve Lolth), but mostly do what they can for drow who don't fit into the extant society. Anyway, that has nothing to do with the book other than my motivation for reading it.<br /><br />The book is not perfect. There were places where I wanted to slap the author for sloppy writing and general pretentiousness. Nonetheless, the book is quite enjoyable for its characters and plot. We have Pharaun, a wizard outcast from his family but now tolerated for his high position in the wizards' school. He's something of a fop. Imagine James Bond as a drow wizard with little concern for bystanders. Then there's Ryld. He's a commoner who's risen about as high as a commoner can in drow society: he trains the city's males as fighters. He could be guard-captain of a noble house, but, as he points out, this would put him under the thumb of a matron mother and her retinue. Then we have Quenthel and Gromph. Quenthel is the high priestess in Menzoberranzan and Gromph is the high wizard. They're also siblings, and Gromph is plotting to kill his sister. This is not particularly noteworthy, other than the rank, as drow take "sibling rivalry" to the extreme; Pharaun's sister is also plotting to kill him, for instance. A few others become prominent later in the book, but it looks like they won't be truly major players until the second book of the series.<br /><br />The cornerstone of the plot is that the priestesses of Lolth in Menzoberranzan have lost contact with their goddess, and no one knows why. <span id="fullpost">As soon as some of the drow malcontents realize this, they set about taking advantage of the situation. Pharaun and Ryld are called in to track the malcontents, knowing only that they've disappeared. Gromph decides it would be a good time to try and kill Quenthel, since her powers will be diminished. Without giving too much away, all this eventually leads to a slave uprising in the city itself. All the goblins, bugbears, orcs, kobolds, and other "lower races" decide it would be a good time to rise up against their oppressors. There's more to it, but that would be giving away too much.<br /><br />Now, I'd read some Forgotten Realms books before, but this is the first I've read since actually playing D&D. Certain details about the combat made more sense. I would find myself thinking things like "Nope, rolled too low," or "Must have made a saving throw." This didn't fit everywhere, as there were weapons being broken and heads being chopped off and knees being shattered, which is more specificity than usually allowed by game mechanics, but I was amused by the places where I could see it as fitting perfectly within game mechanics. I was even more amused when the book ended with a group of five drow being sent on a quest to find out what was going on with Lolth. Five adventurers, eh? Two priestesses, one wizard, and two fighters (one of whom may be a rogue; he only made three appearances, so it's hard to say).<br /><br />Anyway, it isn't necessary to play D&D to appreciate this book, but it certainly gives some insight into the structure. If you want a story about scheming backstabbers whose sense of loyalty lasts until they see an advantage in betrayal, this is an enjoyable book. I'm hoping the next ones in the series will be as well. Oddly, all the books in this series seem to be by different authors. This one was by Richard Lee Byers. When he isn't being overly pretentious, he has a decent writing style, and he is <em>very</em> good at writing memorable characters. <br /><br />Oh yes. One other detail that I found rather interesting. Drow "friendships" are more matters of convenience and familiarity than anything else. There is a place in the book where one friend betrays another, but the more I think about it, the more I think that a set of <em>good</em> characters would have wound up doing the exact same thing. The biggest difference is that the good character would have said "sorry," first, or, possibly, there would have been some conferring and they would have mutually decided that doing things that way would give them the best chance of saving the city. However, since there was a betrayal involved with <em>these</em> characters, it will be interesting to see if it changes the overall dynamic of character interaction in the next book. <br /></span>Qalmleahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17131154882107531113noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13641190.post-53649361734636988302010-02-24T06:27:00.002-07:002010-02-24T06:44:59.199-07:00Mystery SprainI somehow managed to sprain, or maybe just strain, something in my thumb. It's not the joint that connects the thumb to the hand. I think it may be the muscles/tendons connecting the two other joints. I'm not really sure <em>how</em> I managed to injure it, but I have a few guesses.<br /><br />It started on Saturday. My shoulder had been twinging, and at roughly the same time, I felt some tingling in the tip of the left thumb. At the time, I figured something in my shoulder was just pinching a nerve. Then Sunday evening, the area between the two outer joints was very sore and tender. By Monday morning, it was noticeable swollen. I made a makeshift splint out of a chopstick (broken down closer to lenght) and the tape from my desk. This was a trifle odd-looking, but it kept the sore part from moving and reminded me not to use that thumb. After I got done teaching, I stopped at the dollar store. No real thumb splints there, but there was some self-sticking wrap (the kind often used when people donate blood) and a package of tongue depressors. From that, I was able to construct a splint that looked a bit more professional, and kept the thumb immobilized for most of the day, and most of Tuesday. <br /><br />It's quite a bit better this morning, though I'll probably immobilize it before heading to work, and I think I've figured out part of the cause. I'm still missing a piece, though. On Saturday afternoon, I went to Westwood Discount (they get damaged/clearance/overstock goods, mainly, plus some stuff like you'd find at a dollar store) and didn't bother to get a basket. I was holding my items awkwardly, and my shoulder was complaining from it. I suspect I was using the left thumb to put pressure on something to keep it from falling and either overworked or overstretched something along the back of the thumb. As it wasn't swollen the next morning, it wasn't actually injured yet. That morning, I printed out some D&D tiles and spent some time cutting them out with an Exacto knife and a straight edge (tip: get a straight edge with cork backing; they don't slide nearly as much), and probably used that thumb to keep the ruler from sliding. As the pain didn't start until evening, either there was some final thing that sent it from "overused" to "sprained" or it was just very slow coming on. My bet is on the former, but I have no idea what the final trigger might have been. <br /><br />Ah well. It wasn't a major sprain, since one of the described symptoms is "unable to pinch thumb and forefinger together." I <em>could</em> pinch, it was just painful to do so for very long. <br /><br />I've discovered a list of things that are much easier to do with a functioning left thumb, now. "Putting contacts in" is at the top of the list. "Putting ice trays in the freezer" is next; I'm much less proficient at that with my right hand and spill a lot more water. "Adjusting the left strap of a backpack." "Wearing gloves." "Buttoning trousers." I'm sure there'd be even more if it were my right hand, however. <br /><br />And I keep meaning to post some of my self-made dungeon tiles here... I've borrowed freely from stuff I've found, so I might as well add to the available resources with the ones I've <em>made</em>.Qalmleahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17131154882107531113noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13641190.post-29966477942419940772010-02-09T06:30:00.004-07:002010-02-09T14:27:21.689-07:00My First Stint as DMWe finished up Jeremiah's scenario last week. I put in a very brief segue to lead into my scenario, and this week we actually got started on my scenario. Everyone knew there would be shopping opportunities, so we took care of those mostly by e-mail, and, to make things simpler, I had a fair going on outside the town we'd be getting to. Among other things, it gave my character an opportunity to stock up on things before she gets disappeared for a while.<br /><br />The story so far:<br />As the heroes ran from the halfling wizard's tower, it exploded. Most likely the fire (from the fire-elemental-in-a-stone) caught up to the odd randomizing device (among other things, used to switch John Theta's head with that of a goblin ... and back ... twice). They were far enough away that we were not in any danger. As it was cold and snowy outside, they took shelter in a cave. Inside the cave were some blue veins of stone called <em>isildiril</em>. They learned that this stone had teleportation properties, and was likely the source of many of the halfling wizard's powers, and Dovra found that when she cast her light spell on it, the stone would absorb the light and then emit it all at once. <br /><br />As the sun began to rise, they heard whuffling and pawing outside the cave, and connected it to the wolf-sign they were suddenly noticing. Four gray wolves, two vicious dire wolves and two wolfogriffs (basically flying wolves) attacked. Dovra, keen to try out some new powers she had, cast a Zone of Avarice and used it to keep pulling the wolves away from the cave, and through the attack area of a Fire Pillar that she cast. The wolves were eventually slain, and skinned, and the heroes journeyed on down a path that led through a coniferous forest and to a water hole. Near the water hole was another cave, a sort of crack in the mountainside, and all the visible stone this time was <em>isildiril</em>. Rather tentatively, the heroes scouted through it and found that it was a tunnel going under the mountain to another forest clearing on the other side. When the scouts were convinced it was safe, they waved for everyone else to come through. As soon as everyone was inside, a magical light began rolling through the <em>isilidiril</em>. It teleported people as it caught up with them, taking them to a rather similar tunnel in a different mountain, but this time there was a village visible through the exit, and a fair going on outside the village.<br /><br />And, yea, the heroes did go about their shopping with much gusto*, and learned that the volcano visible in the town appeared at the same time as a warlock disappeared, and that an evil warlock was controlling the elf who ran the magic-item-shop. They also met up with a dwarf blacksmith and his eladrin, artificer daughter**, whose experiments with area burst grenades greatly impressed them. The sun was going down as they made their way into the city, and the Captain of the Guard simply assumed they were yet another batch of heroes come to rescue Ridol from its curse*** and made them fill out paperwork indicating their preferred burial arrangements. <br /><br />Next time, we begin in the cursed city with the sun down. ^!^<br /><br />*I find it inordinately amusing that the only female character was happy to buy exactly two items, and otherwise stock up on necessities like food and alchemical reagents, and learn a few new rituals, whereas most of the males have gone overboard to get as much as they possibly can, particularly of magical items.<br /><br />**No one seemed to find this odd, which I find extremely odd.<br /><br />***The captain was designed to be as uncooperative as possible, but they finally managed to convince him that they really didn't know all about the curse already, and got more useful information out of him than I had planned on. So far they haven't drawn the correct conclusions from it, however, so it will probably still work out.<br /><br />Final thought: I need to get Dovra out of the scenario as soon as possible. There's an exit planned for her, but I think I may activate it a bit sooner than originally planned. It was a bit disconcerting to be half-cheering at how well the pillar/zone combination worked and half-cursing at it for killing off all my beautiful wolves. Also, I think the group can handle rougher encounters than the one I used last night, so I've got a bit more leeway to ramp things up (heh-heh-heh).Qalmleahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17131154882107531113noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13641190.post-31813968528196713682010-01-30T19:44:00.002-07:002010-01-30T19:50:06.553-07:00Blue!<p style="font-family: arial;" align="center"><a href="http://www.wizards.com/magic/playmagic/whatcolorareyou.asp" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.wizards.com/magic/images/whatcolor_isblue.jpg" border="0" /><br /><b>Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.</b></a></p><br /><br />Found this on a D&D board. I don't think I've taken it before, but back when I was still fiddling with Magic The Gathering, I found I usually liked the blue cards better than the others, but I also remember that they required ridiculous amounts of mana even to play them.Qalmleahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17131154882107531113noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13641190.post-73770745107570691922010-01-27T07:25:00.002-07:002010-01-27T09:21:41.181-07:00Poison and Spiders and Bombs, Oh My!Really weird dream this morning.<br /><br />It started out with me lecturing to a class (oddly all the students were male), and the classroom was in the old engineering/physics wing at CSU. I started hearing an odd noise, and eventually realized it was coming from the ceiling at the back of the room. It was a strange sort of ticking. I listened to it for a moment, and the more I listened, the more I became convinced that it was a bomb. I yelled for everyone to get out of the room, <em>now</em>. The door was stuck. <br /><br />After enough of us slammed into it, it finally opened, and I saw that someone wedged a cloth under the door. I wondered if the device would have released poison gas rather than exploding. Then I noticed a very short, slight woman, with dark hair cut in a bob just past chin length. Her face reminded me of Ro Laren from ST:TNG, but she was much thinner and smaller, with angry red eyes and vaguely Asian features. She glared at me, and I knew that she was behind the ticking device. Before I could do anything about it, a missile crashed through the ceiling and into the corridor, exploding maybe 20 feet from where I was standing. <br /><br />When I woke up, a female doctor was treating my wounds, which seemed to be mostly healed. There was a strange, x-shaped scar on my belly. For a moment I thought the missile had hit me directly, but then I realized I wouldn't be waking up if it had. The doctor would alternate looking at my wounds with petting a large spider in a jar. When she stuck her hand into the jar, the spider would act as if it was going to bite her, but then she would reach her fingers around to scratch the back of its abdomen, and it would act very happy. The doctor seemed obsessively interested in the spider, and there was something in her eyes that reminded me of the presumed bomber. I was convinced the doctor was under her influence.<br /><br />*flicker*<br /><br />The bomber-woman now tries to put a spell on Greg Dean (of Real Life Comics). It will make him obsessed with something (I think it was a black MP3 player) and allow her to control him. If he manages to pick up the object, he will have no chance to resist. For some reason, this is out in a grassy yard, and the object is sitting on a picnic table. I grab Greg and keep him from going for the object, trying to save him from the spell. The further I get him from the table, the easier he finds it to resist the urge to go back, but he still looks like an addict in need of a fix. We're going into the house to warn Liz when the bomber-woman appears.<br /><br />That's when my alarm went off.<br /><br />A few of the elements I can trace back. The spider looked a lot like a plastic spider I got to use as a D&D prop, and yesterday at Fred Meyer I came across a larger toy spider that supposedly "felt alive." Now, they were using the rubbery squishy material that does feel vaguely like "flesh," but spiders <em>do not have flesh</em>. They <em>do</em> have exoskeletons, but the only way you could feel the soft bits inside is if the exoskeleton were cracked, and the spider were either dead or dying. Claiming that a squishy spider "feels alive" is completely ridiculous. <br /><br />I'm not sure about the sorceress/bomber lady. If you take Ro Laren and cross her with a professor at ISU (Gironella), you might get someone who looks like she did. Why she wanted to attack me and use mind control on everyone else, I don't know.<br /><br /> but then a missile crashed through the ceiling and into the corridor maybe twenty feet from me. It exploded and I blacked out, and woke up to find a doctor treating my wounds, which were mostly healed. There was a strange x-shaped scar on my belly that made me wonder if it had been put there to mark me as a target for the missile. <br /><br /><span id="fullpost"><br /><br /></span>Qalmleahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17131154882107531113noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13641190.post-30287419564553449402010-01-23T06:10:00.003-07:002010-01-23T06:13:27.686-07:00Ring DreamLast night I dreamed that I was working with Gandalf to hide the one ring and construct a character for a decoy to run a fake ring into Mordor. The real ring, we recoated in a dark grey metal and, I think, stuck inside a skull with a bunch of other similar looking rings. Then we started working on the character sheet for the decoy. All I remember for sure was that it wasn't a halfling, and he had lots of "hide" abilities.<br /><br />I think that in this version, it wasn't possible to destroy the ring at all, so concealing it was the best bet. *shrugs*Qalmleahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17131154882107531113noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13641190.post-6809359220808238422010-01-13T17:22:00.002-07:002010-01-13T17:27:04.523-07:00Inner CharacterAccording to <a href="http://www.dungeonmastering.com/gaming-life/whats-your-inner-dd-4th-edition-character">this site</a>, my inner character is an <b>Evil Eladrin Wizard</b>. Not sure why I wound up with evil, but I'm rather fond of the eladrin race, and the arcane classes in general. ^!^ Actually, I may have wound up with "evil" because I picked the "lifedrinker" sword. Ah well.Qalmleahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17131154882107531113noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13641190.post-79418931682378619162010-01-11T10:27:00.002-07:002010-01-11T10:45:23.471-07:00MistbornHmmm... I never bothered to post a Happy New Year. Oh well. Consider this a belated one.<br /><br />Between reading and cleaning and helping with things, I've had less interest in blogging lately. I suspect part of it is that I've finally come out of a cycle of depression and would rather be doing things than writing about them (unless the doing is also the writing). <br /><br />Anyway, reading Mistborn took up a large chunk of that time. Here's the whole <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mistborn-Trilogy-Boxed-Brandon-Sanderson/dp/076536543X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263230936&sr=8-1">trilogy in one package</a>. Depending on local discounts, this is probably cheaper than buying each book separately. Either way, they're well worth the price. I finished the first book and I'm about halfway through the second.<br /><br />Mistborn is an incredibly intricate and well-plotted story. It asks the question, what happens if the prophesied hero <em>fails</em>? We find a society with an immortal, godlike "Lord Ruler." The common people are treated worse than slaves. The uncommon people tend to be hunted down and/or strictly controlled. The world is mostly brown due to ashfalls and the ash seems to be so pervasive that the sun always appears to be red. <br /><br />Enter Kelsier and his merry band of misfits. They manage to do mostly as they like, despite being uncommon, and have decided that, for the ultimate heist, they're going to go after the Lord Ruler's stash of atium (an incredibly valuable metal, used by allomancers to see possible futures). Anything else I might say on that would quickly turn into a spoiler.<br /><br />However, I do want to mention that magic system in Mistborn. It's fascinating, and unique. Some people have the ability to "burn" metals. Specific metals connect to specific powers. Someone who can burn only one metal (and hence having only one power) is a Misting. Someone who can burn them all is a Mistborn. So far as anyone knows, there is no in-between ... but a lot of "common knowledge" about Mistborns has turned out to be false. At the beginning of Mistborn, there were 10 known metals. Kelsier discovered a missing eleventh, and later we find that there are still others unknown, except perhaps to the Lord Ruler and his cronies. From a bit of scouting, it looks like there will be 16 total by the end (4 groups of 4), but they haven't all been found yet by the middle of the second book.<br /><br />The other thing about the second book [SPOILER]<span id="fullpost"> is that Sanderson actually takes a realistic look at what would happen <em>after</em> the evil tyrant has been deposed. It is <em>messy</em>. Everyone who had power under the tyrant is vying to keep it/get it back. The few idealists are fighting a losing battle against indifference and fear. Even if the Lord Ruler was evil, things were stable under his rule, and some people would prefer stability to freedom. I have a feeling that Sanderson was influenced by the fall of the USSR in this. ^!^ </span>Qalmleahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17131154882107531113noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13641190.post-13125719946035022442009-12-30T16:12:00.003-07:002009-12-30T16:40:50.376-07:00The Gathering StormI consider <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Gathering-Storm-Wheel-Time/dp/0765302306/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262215029&sr=1-1">this book</a> one of my Christmas presents, though my mom actually gave it to me just before Thanksgiving. I didn't actually start reading it until Christmas Eve, so I'm tying it to a tradition we used to follow of opening <em>one</em> present on Christmas Eve, and the rest on Christmas morning. I knew that if I started reading it while the semester was still on, I wouldn't get my papers written or my students' homework graded.<br /><br />I wasn't sure what to expect. Hopefully everyone knows that after Robert Jordan's passing, Brandon Sanderson took over the Wheel of Time series. It was originally slated to be one book. Sanderson wound up breaking it into <em>three</em>, and <em>Gathering Storm</em> is the first installment. I'd read Sanderson's book <em>Elantris</em>, and enjoyed it, but that was his own world; here, he had to take over the reigns of someone else's world. I was quite impressed with his handling of it. It wasn't perfect, but that's not really a surprise. I have a few specific nitpicks with handling of some characters, but nothing worth pointing out here. Sanderson has the WoT world down pat, and also <em>most</em> of the characters. That's quite an achievement for a series that was already eleven books long.<br /><br />The style, of course, is not the same as Jordan's. Sanderson is much more prone to <em>explain</em> the things a character does, rather than leave the reader to guess what's going on. This is both a plus and a minus. I miss Jordan's subtlety, but at the same time, it was often frustrating when he was <em>too</em> subtle. I think Sanderson, himself a WoT fan before being recruited, felt some of the same frustration, and decided that he would make things clearer. It's also nice to see some long-running threads resolve themselves, and to see hints to how some of the others may resolve. <br /><br />I'll mention one of those hints. I don't consider it a spoiler, exactly, as I'm mostly speculating from what was given in the book. However, it might imply a spoiler or two, so you've been warned.<br /><span id="fullpost"><br />Lews Therin comes out with a hint as to what went wrong when he and the hundred companions sealed the Bore. In order to seal it, they had to touch the Dark One directly with their power, and this is what tainted <em>saidin</em>. Also, we see an unexpected character wield the "True Power" (the Dark One's power), accidentally. How this is possible is not explained, unless it has something to do with the former taint on <em>saidin</em>. Still, since the "True Power" comes directly from the Dark One, it can't become any <em>more</em> corrupt by touching the Dark One directly, and if it can be wielded by someone trying to seal the Bore, then maybe there's a way to seal it without tainting any other forms of power. However, this solution does not really fit with the way the book ends, so it may be completely wrong. <br /><br />One minor complaint about the ending: I think the sentiments were good, but I think Jordan would have done a better job getting them written down without coming across as ridiculously maudlin or sentimental. It's a place where his subtlety was needed. Still, I don't think anyone but Jordan himself could have done a better job than Sanderson on the book as a whole, and it's a bloody relief to know that the rest of the books are <em>on their way</em>, with no illness to make the wait time drag on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on... <br /></span>Qalmleahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17131154882107531113noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13641190.post-19843924478664264492009-12-25T06:58:00.003-07:002009-12-25T07:16:46.835-07:00Merry Christmas!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://icanhascheezburger.com/2009/12/24/funny-pictures-coal-again-this-year/"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 302px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu3NZSaTmj88m0dKV7neME5vv_SHYPoXCzVsBnpe4HJkJP9FdE813JSifVhMrf6BfL3ikEei2EXlvZ6gUWMLellYF7g4xsFArr_Dg6OB4E_x0WCBIi17tpae3nqWnDrj6-WOBIXQ/s400/LOLcat+Coal.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5419175268174574066" /></a><br /><br />This is what Jilly would do were she ever to be brought to Santa Claus. According to LOLcat parlance, I guess Jilly <em>is</em> a basement cat (i.e. she's black), but all of my kitties were born in the basement, so they're <em>all</em> basement cats in imo ... except maybe the new one, Tux. She's mostly being tolerated by the other cats now, so long as no one is surprised. Jilly, predictably, is still the least tolerant. Somewhat ironic given that she's named after Charles de Lint's easygoing, supertolerant character, Jilly Coppercorn.<br /><br />Anyway, Happy Solstice Festival of Glittering Trees, Overeating, and Overspending.<br /><br />The Christmas Eve service last night was actually enjoyable, as it was about 90% music, 9% story-telling, and only 1% nonsense. Also, I was pleased that I managed to find the bass part (an octave higher) on the chorus of "O Come All Ye Faithful." It seems they finally have a pastor who understands what the Christmas Eve service is supposed to be. It should be a fulfillment of Mircia Eliade's notion of "sacred time," where the past comes alive in the present. When taken as the last word, Eliade's idea has some problems, but here I think it works perfectly. <br /><br />Also, with it 90% music, I can distract myself from the nonsense bits by trying to find non-melody parts in each song (and probably annoying my mom no end when I can't find them and start making them up).Qalmleahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17131154882107531113noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13641190.post-21406820973585807272009-12-20T18:51:00.003-07:002009-12-20T19:06:26.167-07:00One Down...As usual, I was roped into turning pages for my mom for her church choir's Christmas Cantata. The music was less objectionable this year than in years past, but the narration was absolutely horrid. The last thing you want to think of during a Christmas cantata is a "used car salesman," but that's how the narration came across: as a sales pitch. Blech. Last year Kim suggested leaving out the narration, and everyone objected. I doubt Robin would have thought of leaving it out, but it would have been vastly improved that way this year.<br /><br />As for me, I'm perfectly happy to see Christmas as a solstice celebration, with a "rebirth of the sun" theme that Christians take to a rather odd extreme. Something that still puzzles me... <em>If</em> there is only one Deity, and <em>if</em> that deity created everything, then <em>if</em> someone worships something other than said Deity, that something must have been created by the Deity ... so how can there ever be such a thing as worshiping a false deity under those premises? There's plenty more that puzzles me, but I'm not in the mood for making a list, let alone checking it twice. ^!^<br /><br />It's only "one down," btw, because I also have to help turn pages at the candlelight Christmas Eve service. I like the candles, and generally the singing, depending on the carols chosen. The rest I can do without.Qalmleahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17131154882107531113noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13641190.post-38757520733488479742009-12-18T14:25:00.003-07:002009-12-18T14:37:45.315-07:00Some Things Are Best Left LockedOkay, the major part of the IC dispute has played itself out, so it is now safe to post this. Last night, we started with the post-long-rest-plot playing itself out. We made it to another encounter after that, but we're not even halfway through it, so I'm not going to post anything on that. I will comment that, both IC and OOC, I did think things were going too far, and Dovra's actions reflect that. Her plan didn't work, but I didn't honestly expect it to. <em>I</em> was hoping to irritate the gods enough that they would actually show up; Dovra's probably just as happy this did not happen, though Fibonacci told us that they were on standby in case things went completely pear-shaped. Apparently what the rock said when it set Shenron on fire to wake him up was, "Dovra just attacked you! She must die!", but it didn't roll high enough to force Shenron to attack her. Oh, the long conversation between Dovra and Allonar was an actual IC conversation, so John/Allonar deserves credit for his own lines. I fixed one minor error (Heian is a full elf, not a half-elf), but otherwise left them as they were. Anyway, the tale is below the fold.<br /><br /><span id="fullpost"><br /><blockquote>Dovra slept uneasily after they managed to open the chest. It wasn’t the chest itself that haunted her dreams, but the screaming that had come afterwards. One scream in particular played itself over and over in her mind: the girl they had rescued from the cells below had died, and for no good cause at all. With every breath, Dovra breathed in the ashes from the fire that had killed her, had nearly killed all of them … except Shenron. No, the one who had foolishly started the fire had not been hurt at all. Naturally, he was <em>immune</em> to fire damage. But Dovra and the others, already hurt from dealing with the chest, had not been so lucky, and it had been enough to kill the poor frog-girl. It seemed strange that someone so capable in battle—Dovra still remembered the banshee cries as the grabbed the nearest monster and bashed it into the floor—would be so fragile, but the fire had killed her instantly. Shenron <em>had</em> tried to rescue her from his idiocy, but it had been too late. They had never even learned her name.<br /><br />The scene froze as Dovra stared down at the dead girl, and then the dream started over from the beginning, with Heian and Dovra just beginning to work on the chest. It had <em>seemed</em> like a good idea. Dovra had always been curious about the halfling’s ice chest and everyone else seemed to be hoping there was treasure inside. It was a challenge to her magical skills, and she always enjoyed such challenges. While she and the rogue worked on the chest, the others had to fight off the monsters it kept summoning. The monsters were semi-transparent as if they weren’t quite fully <em>there</em>, but the wounds they inflicted were real enough. For the most part, Dovra was able to trust her allies to take care of the monsters while she remained focused on the chest. The black dragon’s screech, though, had drawn her attention. Thankfully Allonar had been able to unsummon it without fighting. Dovra started paying more attention to the battle in case anything else would be too much for the group to handle with everything else around them. A while later, there was a horrid stench that nearly made her gag. “Troglodyte,” someone said and went to go fight it. That she hadn’t worried about unsummoning, but the giant blind thunder lizard, which had barely <em>fit</em> in the room, was another story. That one she had unsummoned herself before returning to the chest.<br /><br />While Heian worked his way up and down the dial, listening for whatever it was that told him when the correct number was being turned to, Dovra tried to ward the dials and gather information the only way she knew how: through magic. Sometimes the chest was able to block her, and she reeled from the backlash of its psychic attacks, but sometimes she got a tiny hint of information to make Heian’s job easier. Then, finally, she knew exactly what the first number of the combination was. The number 13 had appeared in her head, and she felt the chest’s awareness reel back, knowing it had lost the battle on that dial. As she summoned the mage hand to turn it to 13, there was almost a sizzling sound. One down, three to go, and the battle continued around them.<br /><br />They had barely started on the next dial when a strange song began flowing through Dovra’s head. It was a wondrous, beauteous song, and it drew her towards its source. The source, though was an insult to the beauty of the song. The song needed to be freed from the horrid half-woman half-bird who had stolen it. The harpy had drawn <em>every</em> one towards it, so that it was surrounded, and it was dead before Dovra could do more than think about destroying it. It hadn’t stood a chance with enemies flanking it on every side. As if coming out of a trance, Dovra realized that a summoned Shadar Kai had also been drawn towards it, and was now adjacent to <em>her</em>. She tried to unsummon it, but the chest’s hold on it was too strong. Dovra muttered a prayer to Corellon under her breath. As if in answer, the room flickered. She sensed that the chest had been weakened somehow, and tried again to unsummon the Shadar Kai. This time it went easily.<br /><br />Most of the rest of the creatures wound up in mortal combat with Shenron, with the strange new power he had picked up that forced a creature to fight him and only him. This kept them from attacking the rest of the team, so they could focus on weaker creatures or on the chest. Horgta stuck close to Dovra and Heian, pulling them away from the chest before its cold could overcome them. They almost had the second dial figured out when Dovra felt the numbers rolling in her head: the chest had overcome the ward she had placed on that lock, and she sighed, knowing it was going to change the combination now … but something strange happened. As the numbers spun in her head, they seemed to get stuck. The number 19 flashed in her consciousness and the second lock sizzled and opened. Dovra wasn’t sure what had happened. 19 had been their candidate for that lock anyway; possibly the chest’s attempt to change it had gotten stuck on that number. The last two dials went more quickly: most of the fight seemed to have gone out of the chest now that two of its locks were open. Heian thought he had the last two numbers: 14 and 16. He set the dials and tested the lid. It opened easily, and the remaining creatures vanished.<br /><br />Dovra looked into the chest and wasn’t sure what to think. There was a clear crystal chalice and some sort of rock frozen inside it. Everyone gathered round, trying to figure out what it was. Dovra sensed a presence from it, as if the rock had some rudimentary awareness. She thought that, whatever it was, it might be dangerous, and was certain she’d never even heard of anything like it. Why had Phoenix kept it locked in a frozen box? Why had he had a sentient pet rock at all? <br /><br />Shenron seemed drawn towards the rock in its chalice. “Hey! I bet my fire breath could thaw it out!”<br /><br />The dream froze. Dovra had all the time in the world to look around the room and note all of the spilled potions and acids and chemicals. She turned and grunted in her sleep, knowing now how flammable they all were. Dream-Dovra tried to shout a warning, though she’d done no such thing when it had actually happened. Heian and Allonar <em>did</em> caution the dragonborn about thawing the rock at all, let alone thawing it with fire. Shenron ignored them. The preparatory inhale seemed to take forever, and the fiery exhale moved millimeter by millimeter towards the rock, and it spread millimeter by millimeter through the entire lab. When the fire reached Dovra, setting her on fire, time started moving normally again. In reality, she had moved towards Allonar, helping douse his flames. In the dream, she moved towards the doomed girl, hoping somehow to shield her this time, but it was no use. The girl shrieked once and died.<br /><br />This time the dream didn’t start over. The shriek echoed and repeated over and over and over in Dovra’s head … and another scream from the depths of her memory rose up and joined the chorus. The new scream finally drowned out the girl’s dying shriek, but it wasn’t much of an improvement. “Moiah…” Dovra muttered in her sleep, and saw her not-quite-human friend plummeting into the chasm. There’d been nothing she could do but hope that their pursuers thought that Dovra had fallen with her. She hid and waited, trying to hold back the sobs. All of fourteen, she was only just learning how her powers worked, and she’d forgotten to warn Moiah that one of the planks in the suspension bridge was an illusion. It was her fault, her own bloody fault, that her friend had fallen to her death. One careless moment, and everything had changed. Just like Shenron’s careless flames had snuffed out a life. The dream switched back to the lab on fire. This time Moiah sat in the doomed girl’s place, and, as she burned, she stared into Dovra’s eyes.<br /><br />Something touched Dovra on the shoulder, and she barely bit back a yelp. It was just Shenron, waking her up for her watch. She glared at him. She might have gotten a friend killed, but she hadn’t set the rest of her friends on fire doing so. He didn’t seem to notice. He seemed distracted and strangely bloated as he collapsed into sleep on what was left of the halfling’s work table. She wondered if he’d found more gold to eat. Then she noticed that the rock was no longer in its chalice on the table, and was no where else in the room. Surely he wouldn’t have eaten <em>that</em>, would he? She wasn’t sure. Regardless, he needed to take responsibility for what he had done. Dovra didn’t know what she could do, but <em>something</em> needed to be done. She kept a wary eye on him, and sighed. He had defended them against everything the chest had thrown at them. Without him, they might not all have survived. But he still needed to learn some caution and respect.<br /><br />About halfway through the shift, she felt an insistent presence in her mind. The star around her neck began to give off a faint glow. She let it guide her to a bit of rubble that had somehow escaped the fire. Of their own accord, her hands began digging through it. At the bottom was a small vial. Her powers told her it was a frost grenade. It was interesting, but not obviously useful. <em>::You’re going to need it,::</em> Correllon’s voice said in her head. She was certain that, had anyone else been awake, they would not have seen the faintly glowing elf who appeared leaning against the wall across from her. <em>::And I need to point out to you that Shenron is under Bahamut’s protection. If things go too far…::</em> Correllon grimaced and made a throat-cutting gesture. <br /> <br /><br /><em>::Things? What things?::</em> Dovra tried to ask, but the image faded without responding.<br /> <br />She spent the rest of the watch trying to figure out what Corellon thought was going to happen. Just before it was time to wake Horgta, she heard a sharp, “Pst!” She looked around for Corellon again. “What?” After a moment, she figured out it was only Allonar. He motioned for her to come closer. Dovra did so bemusedly, wondering if she looked even half as confused as she felt. The deva gestured at Shenron, and Dovra grimaced. Was this what Corellon had been trying to warn her about? Surely they had to do <em>some</em>thing about the dragonborn.<br /><br />“What he did last night,” Allonar said softly, glowing eyes strangely muted, “that can’t be ignored. He almost got us all killed. I specifically told him not to use his flame on the ice, but he did it anyway.”<br /><br />“That he did,” Dovra agreed. “And he got that poor girl killed.” Dovra sighed, hearing the screams again. “We never even found out her name.”<br /><br />“Indeed. I will not needlessly injure those who claim to serve good, but I'm beginning to doubt his 'goodness'. Her death needs to be Avenged. It is my calling.”<br /><br />Dovra couldn’t read the deva’s eyes, and the rest of his face was under that strange mask they all seemed to wear. “I don’t know about the whole ‘good’ thing, but what he did wasn’t right. What did you have in mind?”<br /><br />“I'm not sure what the end result should be, but he has to be forced to listen. You are capable of causing a forced sleep, correct?”<br /><br />“Yes, but he can resist. I would prefer to have as strong a chance as possible of it working. He will only be slowed if it fails.”<br /><br />“Hmm, what if he is asleep when you use it, would that cause him to wake if it fails?”<br /><br />“No. I tried it on the Blue Dragon, and it failed, and he did not wake up right away. We just won't be certain it has worked without trying to wake him.” Dovra thought quickly. Surely Bahamut wouldn’t object to his paladin being put to sleep, but what else did Allonar have in mind?<br /><br />“Very well. We will try it, then send the rogue to remove his weapons. Once he has taken (and hidden, the weapons), he can begin to remove the paladin's armor: that is sure to wake him if he is not supernaturally held. What say you to this idea?”<br /><br />“Count me in.” Without his weapons, a violent conflict would be less likely. Hopefully Bahamut wouldn’t object to a peaceful solution.<br /><br />“What is your desired restitution against this creature?”<br /><br />Dovra thought for a moment. What <em>did</em> she want? “I wish for him to know the same pain and isolation that the girl knew. I wish for his power to diminish until he has learned his lesson and has found some way to put this right.” That seemed fair, though she had no idea how to make it happen.<br /><br />“Very well. I will speak to the Half-Orc and also wake you and the elf before the Dragonborn has wakened. If he wakes, we may yet set upon him to teach him a lesson.”<br /><br />“I will support you in this.” Yes, removing his weapons before dealing with him would be one way to avoid bloodshed. That might keep Bahamut from interfering.<br /><br />“Very good. May your rest be satisfying until our plans come to fruition.”<br /><br />“Yours as well.”<br /><br />Dovra watched as the deva went to wake Horgta for the last watch. She lay down, but kept her ears open as the deva and the half-orc continued their plotting. The more she heard of their plans, the less she liked them. Yes, disarm him, yes teach him a lesson, but Dovra would not agree to humiliate and rob him. That would do nothing to bring the girl back or to heal their wounds. This was sounding less like it was about teaching Shenron a lesson and more like it was about out and out revenge. She wasn’t sure that the half-orc and the deva wouldn’t kill him, given half a chance. As she drifted into sleep, she decided that the plan needed a few alterations. She thought she felt Corellon wince at some of the ideas she had, but she ignored it. If he had a better plan, he could just tell her.<br /><br /><p align="center">…</p><br /><br />Horgta woke her sometime later and put his finger to his lips. Dovra looked up at him and nodded, feeling strangely giddy about what was to come. Everyone was quietly gathering around Shenron. Allonar was trying to change the plan at the last minute and have Horgta knock Shenron unconscious instead. She had to act <em>now</em>. She stepped back and cast the sleep spell so that it would hit everyone but her. They’d made it easy for her by circling around the sleeping dragonborn. Allonar looked at her reproachfully and shrugged it off, but she’d half-been expecting that. It hit Horgta and Heian, but it would take a few moments before it knocked them out. Shenron was sleeping so she wouldn’t be able to tell—except as soon as the spell reached him he burst into flame. Dovra stared in disbelief. “What in Correllon’s name…?” <br /><br />The dragonborn bolted upright and stared around, realizing that he was surrounded. He gave Dovra a wide-eyed look, though she was not even adjacent to him to pose much of a threat. He seemed to be muttering to himself; more than that, he seemed to be <em>arguing</em> with himself. The only word Dovra could make out was, “No…” If he had gone insane, her plan would have even less chance of working, but it was the best one she had. Allonar and Horgta postured and made their threats. Heian slumped over, asleep. Wonderful. He would have been the most useful one to leave awake, and he was the only one the bloody thing had <em>worked</em> on. Dovra took a deep breath and began weaving the sound illusion that she hoped would end this. It began with a rumble of thunder. Then she wove in what she thought the voice of Bahamut should sound like, almost blending in with the thunder. It said “Shenron…” Her star grew cold against her skin, as if Corellon were warning her. For a moment, she thought she heard his voice again, saying, “No, don’t smite her.” She hoped she’d imagined it.<br /><br />Shenron looked around confusedly for the source of the voice. He considered for a moment, but he seemed to trace its source to Dovra. Blast. This wasn’t going to work. She tried anyway, tried to get him to swear an oath that would be bound to Bahamut that any damage he inflicted on the group would be doubly inflicted on him. Allonar would have none of it. “That was not what we agreed to, and <em>you</em> attacked us,” he told Dovra, turning his back on her. Dovra frowned. Humiliating and robbing Shenron was not what <em>she</em> had agreed to. The deva had little room to complain. Given Corellon’s warning, it seemed best not to overdo things against Shenron, and she was convinced that the deva’s plan was nothing <em>but</em> overkill.<br /><br />For no obvious reason, Shenron moved jerkily toward a wall, as if moving weren’t his idea. He inhaled and produced a larger flame than Dovra had ever seen from him. It filled the room, burning everyone but Shenron. Dovra irritably rubbed the soot from her arms. At least she hadn’t <em>caught</em> on fire this time. Allonar and Horgta moved to flank Shenron, and Allonar’s ghostly double appeared, blocking any escape for the dragonborn. They began attacking him with all they had. Dovra wasn’t going to attack anyone, but she did send her mage hand over to try and get Shenron’s sword off his belt. He reacted too quickly, and the hand wasn’t strong enough to overpower him. Maybe now would be a good time to create an illusion of the girl’s face in front of him. Was the dragonborn capable of guilt or remorse? That would be one way to find out. <br /><br />Before she could try, Shenron began coughing violently. It reminded her of the way he had acted when he’d eaten all the gold. Finally, something came out of his mouth and landed improbably in his hand. It was the rock that had been frozen inside the chest. Allonar became even more enraged. “Drop your weapons, or die,” he said. Shenron complied, dropping everything but the rock. He <em>tried</em> to drop the rock, but his fingers simply would not release it. Dovra realized it must have enhanced his flame ability, and remembered that Phoenix had kept it encased in ice… “The rock, as well,” Allonar said, deliberately refusing to recognize that Shenron had been incapable of doing so.<br /><br />“I may be able to help with that,” Dovra said. Everyone looked at her suspiciously, but she didn’t care. “Corellon led me to a sort of ice grenade last night, and I think <em>this</em> is why. I think if I can hit the rock with it, Shenron will be able to let go of it.” She moved in closer, ignoring the wary looks they gave her. She missed the rock, but the grenade hit Shenron instead. That was enough. His fingers slowly opened and the rock fell to the floor. Horgta started to poke at it with a sword but Allonar stopped him. Dovra summoned the mage hand once more and it grabbed the rock. As soon as it did, she felt its presence in her mind. “Let’s play!” it said. It tried to control her mind, but she was able to resist. The mage hand carried it back to the chest. As soon as it was inside the chest, Dovra dismissed the hand and gently closed the lid. “I just want to be friends!” the rock called to her faintly. Dovra shook her head. That kind of friend she did <em>not</em> need. The chest hadn’t locked again, but hopefully the rock couldn’t control anyone while it was out of sight and untouchable.<br /><br />They took a long rest, and Dovra was mostly ignored, though she finally convinced Allonar to let her help him with his filth fever. He still had a cough from it, but so far it wasn’t getting any worse. She kept him stable, but was still unable to get him all the way over it. When he thought she couldn’t hear, he would glance at her and mutter about her going against the group consensus. Dovra looked over at Shenron, seeming rather pitiful without his armor on. Horgta and Allonar had insisted that he lose his armor if he wanted to live, and had taken his sword and replaced it with a wooden toy. That would only make him more foolhardy, and lessen his value to the group, as far as Dovra could tell. There had to be balance, yes, but overdoing things did not put them back in balance. She’d worked for evil wizards and good wizards, and on the whole she preferred the evil ones: they, at least, were under no illusions about what they were actually doing. This did nothing to avenge the girl’s death. If anything, it was an insult to her memory.</blockquote><br /></span>Qalmleahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17131154882107531113noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13641190.post-433706760266034792009-12-16T20:15:00.002-07:002009-12-16T20:25:02.232-07:00All done but the GradingI was the first to finish both of my philosophy finals. Language took roughly an hour. Science took a bit over an hour. On both of them, I had reached the point where I had answered everything as best I was going to. I could have sat there and fiddled with wording for a while, but there didn't seem to be much point. I thought of <em>one</em> thing on the Science final that might have made a slight difference, but that's it, and there's no guarantee I would have thought of that if I had just stayed sitting there. I think I did decently on both of them.<br /><br />As for papers, I did not care for my Philosophy of Science paper at all. I thought it was shallow and poorly conceived. It got an A. I thought my Philosophy of Language paper was much better and stronger, and I had a lot of fun with it. It got an A-. Whether that means anything beyond "different people have different reactions to things," I don't really know.<br /><br />Since I got done early anyway, I stopped over at Galaxy to check on my laptop. I may not need a new one after all. It <em>was</em> a problem with the cable to the monitor that was causing the flickering. The cable will cost $30, which isn't bad at all. As for the random dying, they defragged the hard disc and fixed something else that I can't remember, but it was all basic maintenance. I'm still happy to have almost every file on it backed up, now. And I may spend the money I'd been expecting to spend on a new laptop on getting this blasted desktop running decently. It is ridiculously slow and the sound has never worked right. At the very least it needs more RAM. A faster processor would be nice. That might be enough to straighten out the sound if the only problem is low memory.<br /><br />Anyway, I have two sets of tests to grade, and I'll do those tomorrow morning, then submit grades and be done. I've got one mystery no-show on a final, though. A student who had been doing very well did not show up to take the final. This dropped her from an A to a D. I haven't submitted her grade yet, in the hopes that she'll contact me and we can work out an alternate time. I've also got an extra final that someone took with my 025 students. I presume he was in <em>some</em>one's 025 class, but no one has claimed him yet. Oh well.Qalmleahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17131154882107531113noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13641190.post-4324509587233575222009-12-16T06:55:00.001-07:002009-12-16T06:58:58.118-07:00Random Pre-Philosophy-Final Thoughts(1) Rereading an entire semester's worth of both Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Language in 2-3 days is an effective way to make yourself go mad.<br /><br />(2) LOLcats are an effective remedy for this sort of madness.<br /><br />(3) Slow computer is sloooooooooooowwwwwwwww.<br /><br />(4) Despite having spent less time on the material, I feel more prepared for the Language final than the Science one. I suspect this is because Pelleti's lectures are more organized, so it's very clear what he thinks the important points are. It is not so clear for Wahl.<br /><br />(5) That is all. For now.Qalmleahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17131154882107531113noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13641190.post-11033086684301355822009-12-14T06:48:00.003-07:002009-12-14T13:07:21.567-07:00'Tis the Season to Get a New Laptop...unless repair costs for this one are going to be significantly under $300. A new HP netbook is currently going for $350 at CostCo, and this one <em>also</em> needs a new battery. All in all, I'm suspecting it will be much cheaper to get a Netbook. I've already pulled most of my files off of this one and put them onto an external 500gig hard drive (I calculated the other day that I'd paid roughly 13 cents per gig for the thing). <br /><br />So what is my laptop doing? It started with the screen. When I adjust the angle, the screen will start reflecting across itself and producing overlapping duplicate images, which are completely useless as far as navigating the screen goes. There's just enough detail that I can see that it's a duplication/reflection thing, but not enough detail to use it while it's doing that. I finally found a reasonable angle to put the screen and figured out that, so long as I didn't adjust the angle <em>at all</em>, there was no problem. So no more shutting it to keep it out of the cats' way while I'm gone.<br /><br />Yesterday, it started doing something worse: randomly dying after being on for about 30 minutes. I <em>think</em> it may be overheating, but I'm not really sure. No clue if this is connected to the screen or not. The screen may just be a loose cable, and the trick is to find a position where contact is maintained in spite of this. The randomly shutting down...? The only connection I can think of is if the loose cable is resulting in excess heat, overheating it, and shutting it down. That seems a bit of a stretch, though not impossible. So it's likely there are 2 separate problems to fix, <em>plus</em> the thing needs a new battery. I strongly suspect it will cost more than $350 for all that, which will result in me getting a new netbook.<br /><br />ADDENDUM: As of late this morning, the laptop will not run at all. It tries, but never gets past the "loading your settings" screen. So it is now at Galaxy awaiting diagnosis. I'd been hoping to hold onto it until Thursday, but there's no point if it's not running at all. One caveat on the netbooks: no optical drive. For not quite twice the price, I can get a slightly bigger HP that does have an optical drive, and twice as much memory. That might be worth it, but it does up the "allowable repair cost" range. <br /><br />I may hear back from Galaxy tomorrow as to whether or not the thing is even worth trying to fix. I got all but a few downloaded pictures off of it, and those are eminently replaceable. My only concern is if there was still a hidden cache of word processing files from the last time it had to be repaired. I <em>think</em> I moved all of those to be with the regular ones, but I'm not sure. Everything else is programs that can easily be reloaded (at least, easily reloaded if there is an optical drive...).Qalmleahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17131154882107531113noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13641190.post-19683114018069996442009-12-12T07:05:00.003-07:002009-12-12T07:40:18.708-07:00Fire, Ice and a ChestI've got a start on my account of our D&D group's adventure with the chest. There's a problem, however, and I don't think I should post anything specific on it until the problem is resolved. Short version: in-character disputes. A longer version will have to wait until some resolution is reached, hopefully at the next meeting.<br /><br />ADDENDUM: Oh, yes. Two of us were at the concert last night (Philip to perform; I think I spotted him amongst the crowd of Camerata singers), and between us complaining and the current situation, the DM, aka Fibonacci, decided we needed to have everyone there for what is going to happen next. So last night John/Allonar was going to lead them in a one-time dungeon crawl, with gladiatorial overtones from what I picked up on the message board.<br /><br />RE-ADDENDUM: I seem to be posting more now that lectures are done. I think I've just been too exhausted to post much here lately.Qalmleahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17131154882107531113noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13641190.post-7122121652333958082009-12-12T06:50:00.003-07:002009-12-12T07:05:32.703-07:00Acoustic Eidolon, plus CarolsLast night was the ISU symphony's Christmas concert. It was quite enjoyable, especially since the first half featured Acoustic Eidolon. This is a husband/wife duo. The wife plays the cello (apparently one made by someone here in Pocatello) and the husband plays guitar and "guit-jo". The guit-jo is an instrument he designed that looks like a guitar with two necks. One neck is almost a standard guitar, with one extra bass string. The other neck is strung with a different kind of string that gives it a much higher, harp-like sound. He can play both necks at once.<br /><br />I thoroughly enjoyed their performance, but Marky and my mom both thought that they were toning themselves down for the orchestra, and liked the two encore pieces (with no orchestra) better. I liked it all. <br /><br />The second half featured two symphony pieces sandwiching a carol-singalong. I get rather tired of the carols when all <s>seven</s> five (seemed like seven) verses are included, but apparently the current director <em>really likes</em> the end verses of "The First Noel." I don't. I think the early verses bother me less because I can see them in a meta-mythological context that I am capable of finding inspiring, rather than nauseating. Still, the singing was fun. My preference would be for fewer verses and more carols, however.<br /><br />I would have linked to a video of Acoustic Eidolon, but I'm not finding one, so here's their newest album: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/River-Fire-Acoustic-Eidolon/dp/B001QVMCM6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1260626660&sr=8-2">River of Fire</a>. There should be an option to listen to samples there.Qalmleahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17131154882107531113noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13641190.post-39046574879575318152009-12-11T14:18:00.003-07:002009-12-11T14:24:58.059-07:00Gunnerkrigg CourtI found the comic <a href="http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/index2.php">Gunnerkrigg Court</a> through a D&D tips web-site. It took maybe a week and a half to race through the archives. It is <em>awesome</em>. It reminds me of Neil Gaiman's style of story-telling. This may have something to do with both authors being British. There are stories within stories within stories so far, but the gist of them all is trying to figure out what this world that people find themselves in actually is. There is a technological half that seems to be all city (even the seemingly outdoor parts in it are enclosed). There is a wild, magical half that seems to be all forest. Why this is still isn't clear, though there have been tantalizing hints.<br /><br />At any rate, it's well worth checking out (and has preempted Garfield Minus Garfield from occupying 'G' in the list; it is now at 'K').Qalmleahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17131154882107531113noreply@blogger.com2