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Oddly enough, some of the summary quotes are going in this out of order.
The summoner's house had stuff in it. And it had markings on the walls. They were magical writings, sort of, but not maps or anything. Just scribblings. Like Adosar's notes, I guess. The ink had blood in it. It was sort of weird-feeling, but it was also slightly scorched and blasted, so we didn't think there was going to be any real problem with people coming across it and making monsters happen by accident. (That would be bad.)
We thought about leaving a message there with Karas's magic, in case someone was following us, but we decided against it, mostly because we couldn't think of anything really clever to say. We packed up some of his stones and bits of metal and things and took them with us when we left. And we decided not to burn the place down, partly 'cause the smoke column would be easy to see and might get people looking for us faster.
I brought us back towards Lord Kynnan's lands carefully. We didn't follow the track the monster had left, but we sort of went alongside it, skipping from copse to copse so people wouldn't see us. We saw a patrol once, and just went back into the trees for a bit. We didn't see anyone along the path trying to track us. I didn't find any tracks that said where people had approached the summoner from either, which bothers me. I like knowing things more than I like not knowing things.
It took us a bit longer to get back than it had taken us to get there, but we were being careful. Karas went and spent the evening with the girl he's courting there, and talked to her parents. (Session quote: The rest of us have acquired animals of some sort. You either need an animal or a wife. --Adosar) When he came back he was asking Renn and me if we knew anything about how to cook. And we talked about it a little. He's thinking that he's had dinner with their family, he should introduce them to his family, and since the clan's so far away, it's just cousins.
When we get home we'll have to talk to our various and respective parents about cooking things. And about the girl. (She's not so bad. Not useless like the girls in Lord Stashen's tribe, all tied up with ribbons and things.)
I asked Adosar if he still had the bracelet and collar we got from when we killed the owlbear, and he said yes. I asked him to give me the big piece and hide the little piece somewhere in the room, and I'd be back in a bit. And that he could be as clever as he wanted. He told me I gave him too long, and I went for a short walk instead of a long one, and came back. I thought I'd figured something out, so I put down the big collar, and thought about the magic a bit, and worked at it, and studied it, and I could see the tracks of the magic between the two of them. And Adosar had gone and put it behind the fire, so I used one of my little charms to be sure I didn't burn myself and took it out again. He asked me if he thought I could find him if I had his friend with me, or the other way around, and I thought it was probably possible, but I didn't know how hard it would be. It's tracking things, it's just tracking magic things, and they leave different sorts of tracks.
We got a little news, and then pressed on up to Wave's Rest. Renn was a little distracted. She found a nice place to camp one night, though. Wave's Rest was quiet. I mean, not quiet quiet, but enough quieter that it was a little spooky. And come to think of it, Lord Kynnan's place was louder. A few caravans were staying there, and that probably makes sense. We caught up on some of the news; the hobgoblin raids were getting this far regularly, now. Renn said, "We need orcs," and I agreed. Of course I agreed, it was my idea. (Session quote: Is this the first time an adventuring party has actually been wishing for an orc invasion? --Shane)
We need to get home. Get home and talk to mothers about cooking for Karas's girl. And go talk to orcs about the wide, empty plains full of things to fight. I wonder if orcs have a council or meetings or things. There are lots of hobgoblins, after all, we'll want lots of orcs. Home is through the Dark Road, again, though, and that has its own problems.
We went to the forge with the craftsman who was making our armour. It was easy to tell Renn's apart from mine, because he did the buckles and things with iron for me and something else for her, because of her magics. And her studs were nicely shined up hickory. It's nice armour, too. It fits really well. The craftsman seemed really pleased with his work, but being a dwarf, he just nodded and said, "Well," a lot. And fiddled with buckles.
We were going to be there for a while. Karas and Adosar were selling some of the stuff we got from the summoner, because people here would buy such things and all. And so they were doing that. And Renn went up to the Elf-wood a lot to see how it was doing and to kill some of the nasty things there. Sometimes she'd get me to help, and sometimes I went to help anyway.
And I went to talk to the herbalist to see if she had healing magics around, and I noticed that she had some feathers in her back shelves, and they glowed a little when I looked at them with the band Semtek gave me. So I asked her about them. All of them had a story -- one had the spirit of the oak tree that was struck by lightning in it, and was given to her by the owl whose nest was destroyed when it fell. And one was from a bird that spends all its time flying over the ocean (which is like a lake only lots more so -- I want to go to Isen and see what it's like for myself someday). And one was an eagle she helped and everything.
I decided that Renn needed to talk to her, so I introduced them. Renn would appreciate knowing people with magic feathers all gotten from birds they helped. And I was right -- it was like they knew each other from somewhere. I guessed that this was probably a druid thing, so I looked at the plants at the other end of the shop and let them talk. Renn was explaining there was a place that needed a tree, and the shop-woman out and gave her a feather with a tree-spirit in it and had her promise to plant it. (She did, too, at year-turning. Or at least she went out to do it.)
The day after Renn went out to plant the tree, a trading boat came down the river. This was pretty big news, since it was so late in the season and since things have been sort of harsh on traders. Apparently there was only one dwarf there as trade goods, or something. He came to the Merry Rose, where we were staying again, and asked for Adosar. (I wasn't there. I got there after Renn got back, and while Karas and Adosar were sorting out that they needed to go down and talk to him. So I went down and gave the new dwarf a little bow and stayed out of the way until Karas went and got everyone together.)
He was here from the dwarven city we'd visited, to give us the message from the City Council. He said they were thinking about it, and they thought they needed more time to think and study. Adosar said that was about what he'd expected, thanked the dwarf, and stomped off. We talked with him for a bit. I asked him if the council was going to be keeping an eye on us, or if he was intended to accompany us for a bit so as to give them a full report back about what was going on so they could make a better decision. He sort of hmmmed at that.
I think I won that round. And I didn't even start with the dice.
Eventually Adosar had finished all the work that he was going to do and everything, and we were getting ready to go. Karas thought that the messenger might not be coming with us as a matter of etiquette, without a formal invitation, so he invited the fellow to join us formally. And the next day he shows up in this shirt made out of metal rings and with an axe -- he'd been talking to the smith, so he was all ready to go.
We decided that the plan would be to go back to Lord Kynnan's, see how things were doing there, sweep back through Lord Stashen's and see how things were doing there, and then up into the foothills to visit the Elven Court. Which should be interesting. (And our new friend was really, really impressed with the idea. The Council hadn't told him that the elves had already said they were going to help.) And then . . . well, and then we're probably going into the Dark Road again, unless something else comes up. I'm not sure whether or not I'm hoping that something else will come up just now.
We were travelling slowly, because Adosar's still working on the sword he's making for Renn. He's getting really close to being done with it, and so we stop at the half-day and he works. We had to explain this to our friend, but he understood. I was spending the time getting used to fighting in the new armour. I asked our friend if he wanted to do some training with me, to keep in practice, and he accepted. He seems pretty good, though he's not as fast as I am. Might be all that metal getting in the way.
We got to Lord Kynnan's, and we introduced the messenger, and he got the full diplomatic hoo-hah and everything. (I think they wanted to be sure to impress him a little with the human lands, so he'd bring back a good report.) We asked if there was anything immediate that he needed help with, and he basically said that he'd love to have our help, but he didn't really need it, he didn't think. So we didn't stay there long, we just got news and started out again.
There weren't any patrols along Dass's borders, not even the men with the beasts in collars. That's sort of worrisome; we think he might be pulling his patrols together into big groups of people for serious fighting. Eventually we got into Lord Stashen's territory, and met up with one of his patrols, and they sort of remembered us and escorted us into the capital. And Karas was happy that this patrol were so nice about it and didn't try to take anything away from us, because that would have been messy again.
They remembered us, though they were a little perplexed. Mostly by our new friend. And by Hethian, but they were perplexed by Hethian last time we were here, and it didn't hurt them any. We waited for Lord Stashen to finish one of his military meetings and talked with him. We gave him news, and said we were here to help him for a bit and then go deal with his western flank.
He was all happy to try putting us in one of his armies, and was a little disappointed when we pointed out we weren't staying. Firmly. We told him about the beasts being controlled by people with bracelets, usually the people in charge of squads, and he said that that would help him, at least. I hope so. I don't really like him, but he's not doing things that help the Dark Alar or breaking the customs of his tribes, like kicking out all their bards.
We talked to Lord Volen, who remembered us well, and looked at us a little funny anyway. We told him what his dreams were all about, and what had happened while we were away, and what was going on in general, and he (and our new friend) were staring at us and not really looking like they believed any of it. And then Karas showed up, and we did bits of it again, and eventually Lord Volen left and the messenger started asking Adosar questions really fast in dwarvish. Fast enough that I could mostly follow the conversation, but only if I thought about it. He was checking it against history and stories he knew, and all that sort of thing, and Adosar was pointing out where all the things connected up and how it all worked together.
We also talked a bit with Lord Stashen's tattooed-man advisor. He said that the amulet with the markings on it looked like it was probably a sort of signature rune for the guy who had it. And since there were similar markings on the collar and bracelet, we think he made them or had a hand in making them. Which means that maybe there won't be any more of them, at least. Unless he had an apprentice or someone who knew how to make them.
I studied the building. I had wanted to look at it when we got back anyway, so I sat down and talked to it for a bit. And then I got up and went for a walk, exploring around it, and found a dinner party full of Alar. They were talking about things they'd done since the last time they were here, like exploring rivers back to their sources and finding huge waterfalls, or spending a day as a fly, and that sort of thing. And they were all people I knew, somehow, but I couldn't call their names, it was just a recognition of people known. And then I turned around, and I opened my eyes and I was sitting in the bedroom. And Adosar said I'd been in a trance, and asked me about it, and I said I was at an Alar dinner party.
Buildings are interesting to talk to.
He said that this bit of building wouldn't have been at the dinner party, but it's all the same building, it's like asking him about what his boots are like. His head probably doesn't know, but his feet do, and it's all the same Adosar. Maybe that explanation would make more sense than the one I gave him before.
It was like the building was soaking up energy, not just built with it, but like there's been so much magic done here that it's all soaked through, and magic fits it like an old shirt that's been worn just right. Renn says it's got roots in a big pool of energy, and she and Adosar had a long conversation about what magic was that I didn't really pay much attention to because I was studying the walls.
Shae is big enough to catch mice now. He's really pleased with himself. I think he's upsetting the barn cats, though; they look at him funny. And the grooms look at me funny. Oh well.
Adosar wanted to explore the building. And we weren't being guarded this time, so we could, even though the Lord said we couldn't. He wanted to know if anyone knew where the basement was, and nobody did, only I thought about it for a bit and showed him how to get there. And the basement was a room full of boxes, and we were looking around, and I saw an arch. It wasn't not-glowing, it was like it wicked up a different amount of magic, so it showed up easily. And I asked Adosar if he saw it, and he didn't really, but then he looked and poked at it and found . . . something. And the wall slid back, and then to the side, and there was a big room behind it with a statue.
The statue glowed different from the room. I told him. Karas ran to get Renn, and we thought about the statue. Adosar said he thought that the statue might move and try to hurt us if we went in. That's not so good, really.
Karas went in. And sure enough, the statue swung its fists at him and knocked him to one side. And Adosar went in, and the statue hit him the other way. And Renn went in fast so it didn't have a chance to get her. And then our friend the dwarf went in, and he got smacked straight back at me, and he really didn't look so good, so I gave him one of the healing potions I got at Wave's Rest. I shot at the statue a little, but it didn't hurt it, so I just stayed there and kept our friend from trying to go back in.
Renn was distracting it a lot, and Adosar was at the back of the room back past where I could see him, but I guess Karas went to look at the back of the room too, and they got into a fight, and eventually everyone came out, and the statue went back to where it started from and stood still, and Adosar closed the door.
And Karas and Adosar were all shouting at each other, and Renn was mad. She did a healing magic, which has to touch someone to work right, and then she smacked Karas across the cheek with it and stomped off. Which was sort of funny, but it seemed like a bad idea to laugh. I finally got in between them fighting and pointed out to Karas that our friend was really looking badly hurt and he has healing magics so maybe he ought to do something about it, and he finally stopped being quite so bullheaded at Adosar. And Adosar and the other dwarf talked about what was going on, again with the rapid-fire questions and all.
And they were all really, really angry with each other, and Adosar was trying to explain how we couldn't deal with that now, but we could probably deal with it in the morning, and couldn't Karas listen, and everything, and Karas was trying to explain everything, and they were going back and forth, and finally they started going back and forth back up the back stairs so that all the shouting wouldn't bring guards down on our heads, and I followed them all.
We found a couple of guards on the top floor, and they wanted to know what had happened, because all the boys were all messed up. And Adosar just sort of snarled at them, and crossed his hands and uncrossed them and blam blew a lightning-bolt right up into the ceiling. The ceiling wasn't hurt any, but it was sort of scorched. The guards ran away lots. And he went into his room, and Karas went off, and I decided to go out with Shae and catch more mice and see how Renn was doing, but I couldn't find her.
Eventually I went to bed. (I found out later that Lord Volen had gone to ask Adosar what was going on, and Adosar shut the door in his face.)
Adosar came and knocked on the door the next morning, and asked how Renn was, and I said as far as I knew, she was all right, and he asked how Karas was, and I said as far as I knew, he was all right, and he asked me if they'd spent the night there, and I said no. And he sort of made faces at me and went away again. I went out with Shae, and found Renn in the stables. She went looking for Karas.
She found him in a clothes shop. All his nice clothes had gotten a little smashed up by being hit by a statue, and he wanted new ones. Renn got herself a new shirt. (And Karas got her a fancy shirt too, but he didn't tell her, and had them all delivered together the next day, which confused her.)
Then Renn and Karas came looking for me in the stables, because Karas wanted some of the tea I made that makes his head not hurt so much or his stomach so upset when he's been out all night drinking in the drinking-houses. And he asked me if I was upset at him. (I don't know why he'd think I was upset at him; I hadn't seen him all day!)
And then he went to go see Adosar and see if Adosar was still mad at him, and maybe hit each other a little and see if that helped if he was.
And we sorted out that we mostly weren't upset with each other after all, and that we were all all right, and made the hurt people better, and Karas made upset noises about the quality of the lord's physician, but it was all all right, mostly. (Session quote: "I think I threw up peas. I haven't had peas in months." --Karas) It's good to have family. And Karas hadn't seen the other end any better than Adosar had, he said he got to the box and looked at it and it grew a beard. And Adosar laughed. So it was all better.
And we went to talk and try to decide if there was something we could do about the statue. And Adosar said he had an idea, and we had to explain it all to the Lord anyway, and so we were planning on taking some time to do lots of Adosar's magic to prepare things. And he made some spells, and made all of my arrows and Renn's arrows magic. And he said if that didn't work, he'd get ready and go in and distract it and we could maybe hit it. But if that didn't work, we probably couldn't get past it, and it would be a bad idea to stay there.
So we all went down after he'd had time to get all his magics ready, and the Lord was there waiting for us, and there were guards guarding the wall where the hole was. And we opened it up, and Adosar started making his magics. And everyone sort of stared, because he was calling up all of his protections: the one that makes a whirlwind around him, the one that brings the stone of the ground up and over him and makes him look like a beetle, all of it. And Renn and I sat there with our bows, and we shot at the statue for a good long while.
Eventually the head fell off, and I could see the magic in it die. So we didn't need all that magic that Adosar had prepared in case after all, but better to have it just in case.
There were two doors at the other end, and a big stone box. It took everyone to get the lid off, it was heavy. Inside, there were two throwing-sticks, a very shiny club, and a huge lot of metal, even more metal than the messenger's wearing, all in big plates like a turtle. I could see all of it was magical. And the doors were locked. (Adosar said he could open them tomorrow. When he did, we discovered there wasn't anything back there anyway. Oh well.)
And the Lord said we'd get paid for our efforts once he figured out what all that stuff was worth. And he gave us the javelins. And Renn was mumbling a lot and quite irritated. Adosar wanted to look at the other things, after the tattooed man had had a chance to see them. He got some information about what they were like, and got permission to look at them closely himself.
So at one point he did, and played with the club. It had buttons on it, and when he pushed them it turned into a bunch of different things, like an axe and a sword and a pole and everything, and he said that some of them were stronger magic than others. (Session quote: "Sometimes you feel like an axe. Sometimes you don't." --![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
teinedreugan)
Adosar figured out more or less what the things were worth, and he and Karas went to negotiate for money for them. And we got money and jewelry and stones and more than I have any idea what to do with. Adosar had ideas for what to do with his share, and bought every bit of magical herb or chemical or everything in the entire town, though. It's just as well; I can trade these rocks and things for something useful, and Lord Stashen has a war to fight where he might want to wrap himself up in pieces of loud, clanky metal.
Maybe there are people in the elven lands who make things and like rocks. We're going there next, after all.
Renn's awfully confused by something. She's been sort of peering at things a lot lately and making funny faces, but she said she's forgotten something and is frustrated because nobody else can tell her what any of it is. So she's been looking really perplexed a lot. And she's saying things like she doesn't know where her boots are, and the fact that she's wearing them right now doesn't seem to help her figure it out.
Maybe getting away from all these people will help her get less confused. Out into the trees where things mostly make sense.
- Session 1: The wind and the dust go 'round and 'round
- Session 2: Oh no. . . I just realised I named my horse 'Charlie'. . .
- Session 3: Look, you got beaten up by a RICH ogre.
- Session 4: Chief.
- Session 5: Roight, Brain, but next time you're wearing the dress.
- Session 6: Today was a very ranger day.
- Session 7: God is dead. Long live God.
- Session 8: More gaming.
- Session 9: Stick 'em up! Put all your arithmetical operators in the bag!
- Session 10: An Interlude Full of Irritating Cats
- Session 11: Psycho Killer Cybermuppets and Other Magical Explosions
The summoner's house had stuff in it. And it had markings on the walls. They were magical writings, sort of, but not maps or anything. Just scribblings. Like Adosar's notes, I guess. The ink had blood in it. It was sort of weird-feeling, but it was also slightly scorched and blasted, so we didn't think there was going to be any real problem with people coming across it and making monsters happen by accident. (That would be bad.)
We thought about leaving a message there with Karas's magic, in case someone was following us, but we decided against it, mostly because we couldn't think of anything really clever to say. We packed up some of his stones and bits of metal and things and took them with us when we left. And we decided not to burn the place down, partly 'cause the smoke column would be easy to see and might get people looking for us faster.
- "Whether you intended to or not, a message has been sent."
"Leave us alone!"
"Or 'Send larger muppets!'"
I brought us back towards Lord Kynnan's lands carefully. We didn't follow the track the monster had left, but we sort of went alongside it, skipping from copse to copse so people wouldn't see us. We saw a patrol once, and just went back into the trees for a bit. We didn't see anyone along the path trying to track us. I didn't find any tracks that said where people had approached the summoner from either, which bothers me. I like knowing things more than I like not knowing things.
It took us a bit longer to get back than it had taken us to get there, but we were being careful. Karas went and spent the evening with the girl he's courting there, and talked to her parents. (Session quote: The rest of us have acquired animals of some sort. You either need an animal or a wife. --Adosar) When he came back he was asking Renn and me if we knew anything about how to cook. And we talked about it a little. He's thinking that he's had dinner with their family, he should introduce them to his family, and since the clan's so far away, it's just cousins.
When we get home we'll have to talk to our various and respective parents about cooking things. And about the girl. (She's not so bad. Not useless like the girls in Lord Stashen's tribe, all tied up with ribbons and things.)
I asked Adosar if he still had the bracelet and collar we got from when we killed the owlbear, and he said yes. I asked him to give me the big piece and hide the little piece somewhere in the room, and I'd be back in a bit. And that he could be as clever as he wanted. He told me I gave him too long, and I went for a short walk instead of a long one, and came back. I thought I'd figured something out, so I put down the big collar, and thought about the magic a bit, and worked at it, and studied it, and I could see the tracks of the magic between the two of them. And Adosar had gone and put it behind the fire, so I used one of my little charms to be sure I didn't burn myself and took it out again. He asked me if he thought I could find him if I had his friend with me, or the other way around, and I thought it was probably possible, but I didn't know how hard it would be. It's tracking things, it's just tracking magic things, and they leave different sorts of tracks.
We got a little news, and then pressed on up to Wave's Rest. Renn was a little distracted. She found a nice place to camp one night, though. Wave's Rest was quiet. I mean, not quiet quiet, but enough quieter that it was a little spooky. And come to think of it, Lord Kynnan's place was louder. A few caravans were staying there, and that probably makes sense. We caught up on some of the news; the hobgoblin raids were getting this far regularly, now. Renn said, "We need orcs," and I agreed. Of course I agreed, it was my idea. (Session quote: Is this the first time an adventuring party has actually been wishing for an orc invasion? --Shane)
We need to get home. Get home and talk to mothers about cooking for Karas's girl. And go talk to orcs about the wide, empty plains full of things to fight. I wonder if orcs have a council or meetings or things. There are lots of hobgoblins, after all, we'll want lots of orcs. Home is through the Dark Road, again, though, and that has its own problems.
We went to the forge with the craftsman who was making our armour. It was easy to tell Renn's apart from mine, because he did the buckles and things with iron for me and something else for her, because of her magics. And her studs were nicely shined up hickory. It's nice armour, too. It fits really well. The craftsman seemed really pleased with his work, but being a dwarf, he just nodded and said, "Well," a lot. And fiddled with buckles.
We were going to be there for a while. Karas and Adosar were selling some of the stuff we got from the summoner, because people here would buy such things and all. And so they were doing that. And Renn went up to the Elf-wood a lot to see how it was doing and to kill some of the nasty things there. Sometimes she'd get me to help, and sometimes I went to help anyway.
And I went to talk to the herbalist to see if she had healing magics around, and I noticed that she had some feathers in her back shelves, and they glowed a little when I looked at them with the band Semtek gave me. So I asked her about them. All of them had a story -- one had the spirit of the oak tree that was struck by lightning in it, and was given to her by the owl whose nest was destroyed when it fell. And one was from a bird that spends all its time flying over the ocean (which is like a lake only lots more so -- I want to go to Isen and see what it's like for myself someday). And one was an eagle she helped and everything.
I decided that Renn needed to talk to her, so I introduced them. Renn would appreciate knowing people with magic feathers all gotten from birds they helped. And I was right -- it was like they knew each other from somewhere. I guessed that this was probably a druid thing, so I looked at the plants at the other end of the shop and let them talk. Renn was explaining there was a place that needed a tree, and the shop-woman out and gave her a feather with a tree-spirit in it and had her promise to plant it. (She did, too, at year-turning. Or at least she went out to do it.)
The day after Renn went out to plant the tree, a trading boat came down the river. This was pretty big news, since it was so late in the season and since things have been sort of harsh on traders. Apparently there was only one dwarf there as trade goods, or something. He came to the Merry Rose, where we were staying again, and asked for Adosar. (I wasn't there. I got there after Renn got back, and while Karas and Adosar were sorting out that they needed to go down and talk to him. So I went down and gave the new dwarf a little bow and stayed out of the way until Karas went and got everyone together.)
He was here from the dwarven city we'd visited, to give us the message from the City Council. He said they were thinking about it, and they thought they needed more time to think and study. Adosar said that was about what he'd expected, thanked the dwarf, and stomped off. We talked with him for a bit. I asked him if the council was going to be keeping an eye on us, or if he was intended to accompany us for a bit so as to give them a full report back about what was going on so they could make a better decision. He sort of hmmmed at that.
I think I won that round. And I didn't even start with the dice.
Eventually Adosar had finished all the work that he was going to do and everything, and we were getting ready to go. Karas thought that the messenger might not be coming with us as a matter of etiquette, without a formal invitation, so he invited the fellow to join us formally. And the next day he shows up in this shirt made out of metal rings and with an axe -- he'd been talking to the smith, so he was all ready to go.
We decided that the plan would be to go back to Lord Kynnan's, see how things were doing there, sweep back through Lord Stashen's and see how things were doing there, and then up into the foothills to visit the Elven Court. Which should be interesting. (And our new friend was really, really impressed with the idea. The Council hadn't told him that the elves had already said they were going to help.) And then . . . well, and then we're probably going into the Dark Road again, unless something else comes up. I'm not sure whether or not I'm hoping that something else will come up just now.
We were travelling slowly, because Adosar's still working on the sword he's making for Renn. He's getting really close to being done with it, and so we stop at the half-day and he works. We had to explain this to our friend, but he understood. I was spending the time getting used to fighting in the new armour. I asked our friend if he wanted to do some training with me, to keep in practice, and he accepted. He seems pretty good, though he's not as fast as I am. Might be all that metal getting in the way.
We got to Lord Kynnan's, and we introduced the messenger, and he got the full diplomatic hoo-hah and everything. (I think they wanted to be sure to impress him a little with the human lands, so he'd bring back a good report.) We asked if there was anything immediate that he needed help with, and he basically said that he'd love to have our help, but he didn't really need it, he didn't think. So we didn't stay there long, we just got news and started out again.
There weren't any patrols along Dass's borders, not even the men with the beasts in collars. That's sort of worrisome; we think he might be pulling his patrols together into big groups of people for serious fighting. Eventually we got into Lord Stashen's territory, and met up with one of his patrols, and they sort of remembered us and escorted us into the capital. And Karas was happy that this patrol were so nice about it and didn't try to take anything away from us, because that would have been messy again.
- "There's another dwarf with you. Ohkayyy."
"Didn't you know they reproduce by fission?"
"After all, there are no dwarf women!"
- -
teinedreugan, me, keshwynThey remembered us, though they were a little perplexed. Mostly by our new friend. And by Hethian, but they were perplexed by Hethian last time we were here, and it didn't hurt them any. We waited for Lord Stashen to finish one of his military meetings and talked with him. We gave him news, and said we were here to help him for a bit and then go deal with his western flank.
He was all happy to try putting us in one of his armies, and was a little disappointed when we pointed out we weren't staying. Firmly. We told him about the beasts being controlled by people with bracelets, usually the people in charge of squads, and he said that that would help him, at least. I hope so. I don't really like him, but he's not doing things that help the Dark Alar or breaking the customs of his tribes, like kicking out all their bards.
We talked to Lord Volen, who remembered us well, and looked at us a little funny anyway. We told him what his dreams were all about, and what had happened while we were away, and what was going on in general, and he (and our new friend) were staring at us and not really looking like they believed any of it. And then Karas showed up, and we did bits of it again, and eventually Lord Volen left and the messenger started asking Adosar questions really fast in dwarvish. Fast enough that I could mostly follow the conversation, but only if I thought about it. He was checking it against history and stories he knew, and all that sort of thing, and Adosar was pointing out where all the things connected up and how it all worked together.
- Tie. . . tie . . . tie . . . twang twang twang . . . tie. We have . . . a lute! I shall make a lute of the dwarven mind."
"I thought he was looting your mind."
"Well, at first he might have been trying to make a lyre of me."
- -
jikharra, meWe also talked a bit with Lord Stashen's tattooed-man advisor. He said that the amulet with the markings on it looked like it was probably a sort of signature rune for the guy who had it. And since there were similar markings on the collar and bracelet, we think he made them or had a hand in making them. Which means that maybe there won't be any more of them, at least. Unless he had an apprentice or someone who knew how to make them.
I studied the building. I had wanted to look at it when we got back anyway, so I sat down and talked to it for a bit. And then I got up and went for a walk, exploring around it, and found a dinner party full of Alar. They were talking about things they'd done since the last time they were here, like exploring rivers back to their sources and finding huge waterfalls, or spending a day as a fly, and that sort of thing. And they were all people I knew, somehow, but I couldn't call their names, it was just a recognition of people known. And then I turned around, and I opened my eyes and I was sitting in the bedroom. And Adosar said I'd been in a trance, and asked me about it, and I said I was at an Alar dinner party.
Buildings are interesting to talk to.
He said that this bit of building wouldn't have been at the dinner party, but it's all the same building, it's like asking him about what his boots are like. His head probably doesn't know, but his feet do, and it's all the same Adosar. Maybe that explanation would make more sense than the one I gave him before.
It was like the building was soaking up energy, not just built with it, but like there's been so much magic done here that it's all soaked through, and magic fits it like an old shirt that's been worn just right. Renn says it's got roots in a big pool of energy, and she and Adosar had a long conversation about what magic was that I didn't really pay much attention to because I was studying the walls.
Shae is big enough to catch mice now. He's really pleased with himself. I think he's upsetting the barn cats, though; they look at him funny. And the grooms look at me funny. Oh well.
Adosar wanted to explore the building. And we weren't being guarded this time, so we could, even though the Lord said we couldn't. He wanted to know if anyone knew where the basement was, and nobody did, only I thought about it for a bit and showed him how to get there. And the basement was a room full of boxes, and we were looking around, and I saw an arch. It wasn't not-glowing, it was like it wicked up a different amount of magic, so it showed up easily. And I asked Adosar if he saw it, and he didn't really, but then he looked and poked at it and found . . . something. And the wall slid back, and then to the side, and there was a big room behind it with a statue.
The statue glowed different from the room. I told him. Karas ran to get Renn, and we thought about the statue. Adosar said he thought that the statue might move and try to hurt us if we went in. That's not so good, really.
Karas went in. And sure enough, the statue swung its fists at him and knocked him to one side. And Adosar went in, and the statue hit him the other way. And Renn went in fast so it didn't have a chance to get her. And then our friend the dwarf went in, and he got smacked straight back at me, and he really didn't look so good, so I gave him one of the healing potions I got at Wave's Rest. I shot at the statue a little, but it didn't hurt it, so I just stayed there and kept our friend from trying to go back in.
Renn was distracting it a lot, and Adosar was at the back of the room back past where I could see him, but I guess Karas went to look at the back of the room too, and they got into a fight, and eventually everyone came out, and the statue went back to where it started from and stood still, and Adosar closed the door.
And Karas and Adosar were all shouting at each other, and Renn was mad. She did a healing magic, which has to touch someone to work right, and then she smacked Karas across the cheek with it and stomped off. Which was sort of funny, but it seemed like a bad idea to laugh. I finally got in between them fighting and pointed out to Karas that our friend was really looking badly hurt and he has healing magics so maybe he ought to do something about it, and he finally stopped being quite so bullheaded at Adosar. And Adosar and the other dwarf talked about what was going on, again with the rapid-fire questions and all.
And they were all really, really angry with each other, and Adosar was trying to explain how we couldn't deal with that now, but we could probably deal with it in the morning, and couldn't Karas listen, and everything, and Karas was trying to explain everything, and they were going back and forth, and finally they started going back and forth back up the back stairs so that all the shouting wouldn't bring guards down on our heads, and I followed them all.
We found a couple of guards on the top floor, and they wanted to know what had happened, because all the boys were all messed up. And Adosar just sort of snarled at them, and crossed his hands and uncrossed them and blam blew a lightning-bolt right up into the ceiling. The ceiling wasn't hurt any, but it was sort of scorched. The guards ran away lots. And he went into his room, and Karas went off, and I decided to go out with Shae and catch more mice and see how Renn was doing, but I couldn't find her.
Eventually I went to bed. (I found out later that Lord Volen had gone to ask Adosar what was going on, and Adosar shut the door in his face.)
Adosar came and knocked on the door the next morning, and asked how Renn was, and I said as far as I knew, she was all right, and he asked how Karas was, and I said as far as I knew, he was all right, and he asked me if they'd spent the night there, and I said no. And he sort of made faces at me and went away again. I went out with Shae, and found Renn in the stables. She went looking for Karas.
She found him in a clothes shop. All his nice clothes had gotten a little smashed up by being hit by a statue, and he wanted new ones. Renn got herself a new shirt. (And Karas got her a fancy shirt too, but he didn't tell her, and had them all delivered together the next day, which confused her.)
- "Why yes, we do have some green shirts, what material would you like?"
"Canvas."
". . ."
- - Clothier, Renn
Then Renn and Karas came looking for me in the stables, because Karas wanted some of the tea I made that makes his head not hurt so much or his stomach so upset when he's been out all night drinking in the drinking-houses. And he asked me if I was upset at him. (I don't know why he'd think I was upset at him; I hadn't seen him all day!)
And then he went to go see Adosar and see if Adosar was still mad at him, and maybe hit each other a little and see if that helped if he was.
- "Maybe just a little fistfight or so will make everything all better."
"Boys!"
- - Karas, Renn
And we sorted out that we mostly weren't upset with each other after all, and that we were all all right, and made the hurt people better, and Karas made upset noises about the quality of the lord's physician, but it was all all right, mostly. (Session quote: "I think I threw up peas. I haven't had peas in months." --Karas) It's good to have family. And Karas hadn't seen the other end any better than Adosar had, he said he got to the box and looked at it and it grew a beard. And Adosar laughed. So it was all better.
And we went to talk and try to decide if there was something we could do about the statue. And Adosar said he had an idea, and we had to explain it all to the Lord anyway, and so we were planning on taking some time to do lots of Adosar's magic to prepare things. And he made some spells, and made all of my arrows and Renn's arrows magic. And he said if that didn't work, he'd get ready and go in and distract it and we could maybe hit it. But if that didn't work, we probably couldn't get past it, and it would be a bad idea to stay there.
So we all went down after he'd had time to get all his magics ready, and the Lord was there waiting for us, and there were guards guarding the wall where the hole was. And we opened it up, and Adosar started making his magics. And everyone sort of stared, because he was calling up all of his protections: the one that makes a whirlwind around him, the one that brings the stone of the ground up and over him and makes him look like a beetle, all of it. And Renn and I sat there with our bows, and we shot at the statue for a good long while.
- "No matter how high level the wizard, a dagger between his shoulderblades will really cramp his style."
"Nah. For some of the dwarven wizards it'll take a longsword."
- - Shane, Darker
Eventually the head fell off, and I could see the magic in it die. So we didn't need all that magic that Adosar had prepared in case after all, but better to have it just in case.
There were two doors at the other end, and a big stone box. It took everyone to get the lid off, it was heavy. Inside, there were two throwing-sticks, a very shiny club, and a huge lot of metal, even more metal than the messenger's wearing, all in big plates like a turtle. I could see all of it was magical. And the doors were locked. (Adosar said he could open them tomorrow. When he did, we discovered there wasn't anything back there anyway. Oh well.)
And the Lord said we'd get paid for our efforts once he figured out what all that stuff was worth. And he gave us the javelins. And Renn was mumbling a lot and quite irritated. Adosar wanted to look at the other things, after the tattooed man had had a chance to see them. He got some information about what they were like, and got permission to look at them closely himself.
So at one point he did, and played with the club. It had buttons on it, and when he pushed them it turned into a bunch of different things, like an axe and a sword and a pole and everything, and he said that some of them were stronger magic than others. (Session quote: "Sometimes you feel like an axe. Sometimes you don't." --
teinedreugan)Adosar figured out more or less what the things were worth, and he and Karas went to negotiate for money for them. And we got money and jewelry and stones and more than I have any idea what to do with. Adosar had ideas for what to do with his share, and bought every bit of magical herb or chemical or everything in the entire town, though. It's just as well; I can trade these rocks and things for something useful, and Lord Stashen has a war to fight where he might want to wrap himself up in pieces of loud, clanky metal.
- "I'm sort of glad we found that. He's better equipped, and now we're better equipped."
"Well, we're certainly weighed down."
- - Adosar, Thiara
Maybe there are people in the elven lands who make things and like rocks. We're going there next, after all.
Renn's awfully confused by something. She's been sort of peering at things a lot lately and making funny faces, but she said she's forgotten something and is frustrated because nobody else can tell her what any of it is. So she's been looking really perplexed a lot. And she's saying things like she doesn't know where her boots are, and the fact that she's wearing them right now doesn't seem to help her figure it out.
- "Thiara, what do I look like?"
". . . you look sorta like my cousin."
"That doesn't help."
- - Renn, Thiara
Maybe getting away from all these people will help her get less confused. Out into the trees where things mostly make sense.
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