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Shortish session today. Headache now.
We pulled the bandit-brigand people out of the forest and bandaged them up and tied them up and I went and stomped out fires in the copse. And I went and talked to a hill for a while. It didn't have anything to say to me. I wonder if they have to grow up to be mountains before they have anything to say, like babies.
Oh well.
In the morning, Karas asked the bandit-brigand-people who wanted to talk first. They didn't answer. He asked them if they spoke the human languages, and they didn't answer that either. So he asked Adosar and me if we'd carry one of them -- I think he picked at random -- around the edge of the copse to talk to him privately. I guess that probably worried the other two, but he'd told us that he wanted to try a trick that his master'd shown him.
He talked for a while, and started telling a story, and generally being charming and engaging and everything, all so earnest that I had to go back around the edge of the trees to giggle out of sight so it wouldn't ruin the show. He found out that the fellow'd been in one of those places that's fallen on hard times and just run out, and he'd gone off on his own to beat his chest and be upset, and couldn't manage on his own so well, nor could any of the other people he hooked up with, and they started stealing things from villages. And eventually this guy came up and hired them to cause trouble. He was the guy with the bracelet that controlled the owlbear.
He wasn't there to ask questions because one of Adosar's lightning bolts went right through him. Which makes it hard to ask questions.
We brought him back to the camp -- he wanted to be untied but Karas explained quite seriously that he was worried about controlling the dwarf, and you know how dwarves are, it wouldn't be safe -- and Karas talked to the other two. One at a time. Sort of the same sort of thing, really, though one of them went to be a bandit on his own, not because he ran out of life elsewhere. I don't think the first one was all that much older than me.
After we talked to all of them, we started walking for Lord Kynnan's town, and brought them, and handed them over to his guards, and he came by to see us and talked to us about what had been going on here and where we'd been. There was nearly open war now, between Lord Dass to the south and his ally and Lord Stashen, the old stick. And we told him about World Peak and he was sort of impressed.
We went off and did things. Karas went to go talk to the girl he's been courting, and Renn and I didn't do anything. But we giggled. And teased him when he got back.
We met with Lord Kynnan again in the morning. And we found out that the bards had been kicked out of Lord Dass's territory. He said they were spies. Adosar wanted to know what they might be hiding, if they were worried about spies. We wanted to go find out; the bard who brought the news was boiling over. There were rumours that they had beasts and nasty animals helping them patrol, and there were beasts and even wolf packs still harrying the smaller villages on the edges.
We were going to go look, but we took some time to wait on things because Adosar wanted new boots, and so he had to make those. And Lord Kynnan gave me a new shield. I had to pick between a wooden one (which was familiar) and a metal one (which is heavier, but exotic, and it would tweak Renn). I picked the metal one.
Karas asked me what I was thinking about. I told him I was upset about stuff. About having to fight other people. Human people, I mean. I'd fought orcs before, but that's normal. Orcs fight orcs. Everyone fights orcs. And I still wish I'd been able to shoot the wyvern. Maybe if I could've shot it it wouldn't have killed the dwarf on the caravan. We knew him. Karas played dice with him, even. And Karas talked with me about it a lot, and we finally sort of figured out that sometimes when there's a sickness the good flesh gets cut out too, but we really wanted to be better surgeons than that. It still bothers me. But . . .
When Adosar had his boots made, he was walking like a rabbit. It looked funny.
We walked towards Lord Dass's territory. We decided not to cross the boundary that day, and made camp instead, rather than worry about camping in areas where we might run into patrols. I took one of the dark watches because I'm trying to teach Shae how to help keep watch.
Sometime on Renn's watch, I woke up. Just like that. There was shouting and noise and stuff, and when I got up, Renn was sort of squashed under a big black thing. Hethian was kicking it to try to make it get off, and it was getting hit, but it wasn't enough. I got up and started fighting with the other one. Big cat-shaped things with two tentacles. And I kept hitting it, but it wasn't actually there.
Karas made this great roaring scream instead of chanting and charged at the one I was fighting. He was hitting it where it actually was, and kept hitting it.
Adosar went running by, and he looked like a beetle. He shouted that Renn had been knocked down and wasn't getting up. The one Karas and I were trying to hit ran away, and he ran after it, growling at it. I was going to go hit the other one, but Renn wasn't looking too good, so I stopped and tried to get her to stop bleeding. It wasn't working at all. The other thing ran away, and Adosar went chasing after it in his rabbit boots, and a few moments later Karas came up, looking like he'd been washed and pounded on rocks in a river, and did a healing magic, which helped. And Renn got up and healed Hethian and then herself, and Adosar came charging back to make sure that she was all right, and said he'd managed to kill the other one. With a sword. Because he talks to the sword-spirits.
I remember that.
It was getting light, then, so Adosar and I went to look at the dead cat-thing. Karas had said why they were so hard to hit was that they weren't always where they looked like they were. That's a pretty useful magic. But irritating. We cut some bits off it, for making magical things with.
Adosar had looked like a beetle because the stone-spirits apparently talk with him too, and he had a sort of armour made up of stone that moved around with him. And it looked heavy.
We got people about as healed as they were going to get that day, and tried going south again. There was a village, but we avoided it because of thinking villages might have guards, and that was to be worried over.
We went a little further, and there was something sitting on a hill a little way away. Sort of golden-brownish coloured, like a lion. It started wandering off, and then a patrol comes up over the hill and comes up to us.
Karas started talking to them, spinning them a tale about trying to trade with back home, the usual thing. They didn't want to listen. He sounded plausible enough, and a lot of what he said was even true, but they finally said "You're going to have to come with us, and give us your weapons."
Karas said we were happy to come with, but given that we'd been attacked by nasty illusion-making cats the last night, we really would rather not give them our weapons. Renn said they were taking her bow over her dead body, and she said in in dwarfish. Adosar said he'd be happy to give them his weapons, but he had something he had to do first.
He took off his big sword, and made magics. (I don't know which ones.) Then he marched up to the captain, carefully put the sword down, and made a sweeping arc with his hand that blew fire in their faces (and the horses' faces). The horses were unimpressed, mostly.
I made a spark at them, but then the lion came charging at me and ripped up my horse. So I slid off as the horse started running away. I don't blame the poor thing. And then I started fighting the lion, which is much, much better than fighting the people. Though the people mobbed Karas and Adosar. Karas started to chant, but the lion roared and I couldn't hear anything for a while. I kept fighting it, and it kept hitting me, and there was other fighting going on.
I think Renn made the tangle-spell around some of the people, and there were people running every which way, and Adosar got bad hurt and pulled out and started shooting things with his crossbow, and I kept hitting the cat, and finally it jumped up in the air and started to fly. I shot at it, and I still can't shoot anything. Renn shot at it too. It came down, and people fought it some more. I tried to make a magic at it, but I think I said the words wrong because I couldn't hear it, and it didn't work right. Eventually it jumped up in the air again. And I shot at it again with the bow, and missed, but Renn brought it down.
When we killed the flying lion-thing, the rest of the patrol ran away. Adosar and I were hurt bad. Renn went to get our horses back, and Karas borrowed Adosar's boots to look around for things. Adosar took them back when he got back, though.
We decided that being really really bad hurt was the better part of valor, and went back. But not before we took another gold bracelet off the flying lion, a controller bracelet. Adosar looked at it next to the two we got from controlling the owlbear, and he thinks that they're the same things, made the same way.
I asked him if I could look at them. So I've been studying them. It's like . . . I can see the way the magics go. There has to be something I can do with this, somehow, if I just look hard enough. So I keep looking.
We went back to Lord Kynnan's place. They were surprised to see us back so soon, and surprised to hear we'd killed a flying lion-thing, because they hadn't been able to at all. And we talked to him, and I kept studying the bracelets.
There's a trick to it. I know it.
- 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!
We pulled the bandit-brigand people out of the forest and bandaged them up and tied them up and I went and stomped out fires in the copse. And I went and talked to a hill for a while. It didn't have anything to say to me. I wonder if they have to grow up to be mountains before they have anything to say, like babies.
Oh well.
In the morning, Karas asked the bandit-brigand-people who wanted to talk first. They didn't answer. He asked them if they spoke the human languages, and they didn't answer that either. So he asked Adosar and me if we'd carry one of them -- I think he picked at random -- around the edge of the copse to talk to him privately. I guess that probably worried the other two, but he'd told us that he wanted to try a trick that his master'd shown him.
He talked for a while, and started telling a story, and generally being charming and engaging and everything, all so earnest that I had to go back around the edge of the trees to giggle out of sight so it wouldn't ruin the show. He found out that the fellow'd been in one of those places that's fallen on hard times and just run out, and he'd gone off on his own to beat his chest and be upset, and couldn't manage on his own so well, nor could any of the other people he hooked up with, and they started stealing things from villages. And eventually this guy came up and hired them to cause trouble. He was the guy with the bracelet that controlled the owlbear.
He wasn't there to ask questions because one of Adosar's lightning bolts went right through him. Which makes it hard to ask questions.
We brought him back to the camp -- he wanted to be untied but Karas explained quite seriously that he was worried about controlling the dwarf, and you know how dwarves are, it wouldn't be safe -- and Karas talked to the other two. One at a time. Sort of the same sort of thing, really, though one of them went to be a bandit on his own, not because he ran out of life elsewhere. I don't think the first one was all that much older than me.
After we talked to all of them, we started walking for Lord Kynnan's town, and brought them, and handed them over to his guards, and he came by to see us and talked to us about what had been going on here and where we'd been. There was nearly open war now, between Lord Dass to the south and his ally and Lord Stashen, the old stick. And we told him about World Peak and he was sort of impressed.
We went off and did things. Karas went to go talk to the girl he's been courting, and Renn and I didn't do anything. But we giggled. And teased him when he got back.
We met with Lord Kynnan again in the morning. And we found out that the bards had been kicked out of Lord Dass's territory. He said they were spies. Adosar wanted to know what they might be hiding, if they were worried about spies. We wanted to go find out; the bard who brought the news was boiling over. There were rumours that they had beasts and nasty animals helping them patrol, and there were beasts and even wolf packs still harrying the smaller villages on the edges.
We were going to go look, but we took some time to wait on things because Adosar wanted new boots, and so he had to make those. And Lord Kynnan gave me a new shield. I had to pick between a wooden one (which was familiar) and a metal one (which is heavier, but exotic, and it would tweak Renn). I picked the metal one.
Karas asked me what I was thinking about. I told him I was upset about stuff. About having to fight other people. Human people, I mean. I'd fought orcs before, but that's normal. Orcs fight orcs. Everyone fights orcs. And I still wish I'd been able to shoot the wyvern. Maybe if I could've shot it it wouldn't have killed the dwarf on the caravan. We knew him. Karas played dice with him, even. And Karas talked with me about it a lot, and we finally sort of figured out that sometimes when there's a sickness the good flesh gets cut out too, but we really wanted to be better surgeons than that. It still bothers me. But . . .
When Adosar had his boots made, he was walking like a rabbit. It looked funny.
We walked towards Lord Dass's territory. We decided not to cross the boundary that day, and made camp instead, rather than worry about camping in areas where we might run into patrols. I took one of the dark watches because I'm trying to teach Shae how to help keep watch.
Sometime on Renn's watch, I woke up. Just like that. There was shouting and noise and stuff, and when I got up, Renn was sort of squashed under a big black thing. Hethian was kicking it to try to make it get off, and it was getting hit, but it wasn't enough. I got up and started fighting with the other one. Big cat-shaped things with two tentacles. And I kept hitting it, but it wasn't actually there.
Karas made this great roaring scream instead of chanting and charged at the one I was fighting. He was hitting it where it actually was, and kept hitting it.
Adosar went running by, and he looked like a beetle. He shouted that Renn had been knocked down and wasn't getting up. The one Karas and I were trying to hit ran away, and he ran after it, growling at it. I was going to go hit the other one, but Renn wasn't looking too good, so I stopped and tried to get her to stop bleeding. It wasn't working at all. The other thing ran away, and Adosar went chasing after it in his rabbit boots, and a few moments later Karas came up, looking like he'd been washed and pounded on rocks in a river, and did a healing magic, which helped. And Renn got up and healed Hethian and then herself, and Adosar came charging back to make sure that she was all right, and said he'd managed to kill the other one. With a sword. Because he talks to the sword-spirits.
I remember that.
It was getting light, then, so Adosar and I went to look at the dead cat-thing. Karas had said why they were so hard to hit was that they weren't always where they looked like they were. That's a pretty useful magic. But irritating. We cut some bits off it, for making magical things with.
Adosar had looked like a beetle because the stone-spirits apparently talk with him too, and he had a sort of armour made up of stone that moved around with him. And it looked heavy.
We got people about as healed as they were going to get that day, and tried going south again. There was a village, but we avoided it because of thinking villages might have guards, and that was to be worried over.
We went a little further, and there was something sitting on a hill a little way away. Sort of golden-brownish coloured, like a lion. It started wandering off, and then a patrol comes up over the hill and comes up to us.
Karas started talking to them, spinning them a tale about trying to trade with back home, the usual thing. They didn't want to listen. He sounded plausible enough, and a lot of what he said was even true, but they finally said "You're going to have to come with us, and give us your weapons."
Karas said we were happy to come with, but given that we'd been attacked by nasty illusion-making cats the last night, we really would rather not give them our weapons. Renn said they were taking her bow over her dead body, and she said in in dwarfish. Adosar said he'd be happy to give them his weapons, but he had something he had to do first.
He took off his big sword, and made magics. (I don't know which ones.) Then he marched up to the captain, carefully put the sword down, and made a sweeping arc with his hand that blew fire in their faces (and the horses' faces). The horses were unimpressed, mostly.
- "Well. There goes subtlety."
"I should name my horse subtlety."
"Are you expecting it to go running off?" --Thiara, Karas
I made a spark at them, but then the lion came charging at me and ripped up my horse. So I slid off as the horse started running away. I don't blame the poor thing. And then I started fighting the lion, which is much, much better than fighting the people. Though the people mobbed Karas and Adosar. Karas started to chant, but the lion roared and I couldn't hear anything for a while. I kept fighting it, and it kept hitting me, and there was other fighting going on.
I think Renn made the tangle-spell around some of the people, and there were people running every which way, and Adosar got bad hurt and pulled out and started shooting things with his crossbow, and I kept hitting the cat, and finally it jumped up in the air and started to fly. I shot at it, and I still can't shoot anything. Renn shot at it too. It came down, and people fought it some more. I tried to make a magic at it, but I think I said the words wrong because I couldn't hear it, and it didn't work right. Eventually it jumped up in the air again. And I shot at it again with the bow, and missed, but Renn brought it down.
When we killed the flying lion-thing, the rest of the patrol ran away. Adosar and I were hurt bad. Renn went to get our horses back, and Karas borrowed Adosar's boots to look around for things. Adosar took them back when he got back, though.
We decided that being really really bad hurt was the better part of valor, and went back. But not before we took another gold bracelet off the flying lion, a controller bracelet. Adosar looked at it next to the two we got from controlling the owlbear, and he thinks that they're the same things, made the same way.
I asked him if I could look at them. So I've been studying them. It's like . . . I can see the way the magics go. There has to be something I can do with this, somehow, if I just look hard enough. So I keep looking.
We went back to Lord Kynnan's place. They were surprised to see us back so soon, and surprised to hear we'd killed a flying lion-thing, because they hadn't been able to at all. And we talked to him, and I kept studying the bracelets.
There's a trick to it. I know it.
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