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Diary Entry #15
Posted: 27 Feb 2007 05:49 PM |
Diar Entry #15
Dear Diary:
It has been some two weeks since I’ve made an entry, and in the intervening time, a few matters of note have transpired. Firstly, the orcs of M’Gok Tukar have been enslaved by the deep dwarves, allies to the Atalan. Secondly, a warning, seemingly directed foremost to Syluné and myself, though clearly to others as well, has been posted in Icy Vale, in the form of a bird frozen in a block of perpetual ice that is engraved with a short verse. The warning is that travelling beyond the Icy Sea will be deadly dangerous. Thirdly, the town of Icy Vale has ostensibly come under closer watch by servants of Helkris, with the addition of a hatchling dragon at its eastern entrance.
In addition, my sister and I have apparently run afoul of both Helkris and Naruth on a few occasions now, and largely avoid their realms, though avoiding the Icy Lands is a pretty difficult proposition, given how vast they are. Although on one occasion I managed to convince Fabius to fly directly there, I generally have no choice but to travel through Icy Vale to get to Asashi, anyway.
Some time back, Sir Talion asked me what could be done to assist in the current troubles, a request I sent onwards to Sir Markus. The manufacture of arms and armour for the orcs of M’Gok Tukar, should a way be found to engineer a revolt, was the answer. I offered to lend a hand to the fabrication of leather armour, but have for some time been unable to meet up with Sir Vrodo, who had agreed to procure the necessary tanning oils and acids for me.
Over a week back, amidst a great deal of Hrothgar-related insanity, and over-reaction thereto by Valethrion and others, I found myself on the fringe of a discussion between Sir Cedrych, Sir Markus, and Lady Elvalia. Sir Cedrych and Sir Markus had been speaking to one another for most of the evening about largely military matters, a discussion which, consciously or unconsciously, did not invite input from the remainder of those in the tavern. Later, though, after Lady Elvalia showed up, they moved their discussion to the place she had taken up near the bar, and seemed to encourage her to share her views. Like a child at her father’s arm, I rather boldly invited myself along for a meeting in Ferein that the two seemed to be arranging with the elven military leader. Reminiscent of so many other adventurers, I sought to understand a little of what was going on, of what was being planned, possibly to have some input into the response.
In the aftermath, I felt a bit like a third wheel, with Rosen’s words echoing in my mind. I was an outsider, who’d had to bite back her dignity and essentially beg for a seat at the table. After my painstaking experience of trying to coordinate food delivery with the Novus Aristi stationed at Port Royale, I was again clawing for purchase so that I might be “allowed” to lend my assistance. I don’t know why it is that doing something, that being a part of the solution to the world’s ills, has to involve such emotionally draining hurdles.
Mentioning that evening is like picking at a dried scab. The wound had healed, my embarrassment abated. As far as I’m aware, the meeting never happened anyway.
I suppose Sir Talion’s statement a few days ago, made shortly before he announced that he had shepherded the necromancer Bel to safety, allowing her to avoid my wrath and my inquisition (more on that in my next entry, dear diary), brought it all back to me. His words were not directed toward examining the psychology of exclusion; I suspect they were more aimed at suggesting that my 'pedantic and narrow-minded' view of Bel's actions put me on a highway to the Hells. “I’ve had this exact discussion with Rosen”, he said.
There are, of course, other things he may have been meaning to imply, each one a patronizing insult, but I shan’t see his words in that light. The woman had been a paladin for a long time, (at least compared to my own short time as a student of Asashi) had probably held similar views, and had probably fought tooth and nail to see righteousness prevail. Something took her off that course, and I doubt it is merely that Syn showed her ‘truth’, as she tells me. If she’d felt a sense of belonging among the righteous, I don’t believe she would have chosen that path.
Therein lies the danger of fracturing an already dwindling array of adventurers into tiny clicques. Though my recent experience with the gnome Bel acts largely to confuse the message, and I may yet look schizophrenic by the time I write about my thoughts on that incident, I believe the righteous need to work at building a consensus toward an inclusive response, not at secretly planning a rejoinder to ‘sell to the masses’. Of course there are some secrets that need to be kept, but there is a fine line between keeping secrets and pushing away those who genuinely wish to assist in the defense of the realms. Too much merely instils in others the feeling that their swords are welcome, but their minds aren’t.
In faith, love, and hope,
Emma |
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Writer's Block
Posted: 01 Mar 2007 05:49 PM |
Emma had sat with the graphite stick in hand for some time, staring at the blank page. She had wanted to write about the happenings that succeeded the foray into Whipsnade's tomb, the assassination of the elven princess, and even the odd wind of the previous evening.
She could bring herself to write nothing, however. Every time she laid the graphite to the straw-coloured parchment, it simply rested, motionless, at the top left-hand corner of the page, as if waiting for a nudge that would turn the small sea of emptiness into logical prose.
Finally, she gave up and snapped the diary shut, stowing her graphite stick in a belt-pouch and her diary in the small leather satchel that she carried over her right shoulder. Emma then removed her boots and socks, hiked up her dress, and waded into the stream, looking down at the clear, flowing water sweeping silt and pebbles over and around her small feet.
She allowed her mind, and conscious thought, to meander, abandoning any effort to shepherd it. In gaining that freedom, her synapses began to expose her to her fears and insecurities.
The first vision to bloom was of Tristian lying on the floor of the temple at the gates to Nethar'u, coolly telling Emma that the reason ‘he'd’ fallen was that 'her' combat strategy was mistaken. She had pushed his accusation aside at the time, but now found herself seeing her father's face on Tristian's broken body. He made a different accusation, a single word: Ferein. Whose decision had that truly been? Who would be blamed?
As thoughts of her father eddied and swirled into a dissipating vortex, a new image found purchase in Emma’s mind: the Buckshire Golem, maintaining its solitary vigil outside the Buckshire woods. It blocked passage in both directions, and nothing could get into or out of those woods without defeating that construct. The metal beast held a poisoned chalice, those sheltering behind it squinting past its great shining body with incurable myopia.
Again her mind wandered, and the Emma inside the Emma standing mid-stream suddenly sprouted wings and flew to the cold lands, soaring above yet another Emma facing off against a crimson-eyed gnome.
In that vision, she was at the vanguard of a group of five, and in that vision the gnome did not stutter. In that vision, the gnome stood confidently, and began to speak clearly, seeming to give orders in a resonant voice. Too late, the ground-born Emma looked behind her and saw that the other four figures had their swords drawn, and were about to plunge them into her back.
The young woman blinked down at the flowing water. As she distilled the vivid daydreams into a more rational framework, she allowed herself a single wry thought.
‘I shan’t be drinking so much of Magister Bereil’s tea,’ she said quietly. |
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Diary Entry #16: Pandora's Door, Part Two
Posted: 05 Mar 2007 01:50 PM |
((I had debated placing about eight links at the beginning of this post, and I still might. For what looks to be at least three years, this story has been unfolding. Desthades has been an equal-opportunity villain, and has tormented a great number of PCs, a few of whom are now *cough* deceased.
My log of what happened that night ran to 76 pages, and I finally just threw it out and wrote from memory. What appears below is Emma's spin on things, and it is fair to say she rarely sees things from the prism of anyone's eyes but her own. I thought everyone's rp that night and in subsequent discussions was great, and I the player saw her lose a lot of arguments that she the character felt she'd won. I hope y'all have had as much fun with this as me,
-Snooty))
Diary Entry #16: Pandora's Door
Dear Diary:
Yet again I have left my writing for too long. Much of consequence has transpired, and I feel something of a duty that it be documented.
I shall start with the happenings of a half-score of days back. In retrospect, I suppose all of us are lucky that we don’t sit as statues in some Helkrisian temple; time will tell whether the world would be a better place if we had all been frozen, given that –something- bad happened to the gnome Bel in there.
I had met up with Isania in Icy Vale, and, as is often the case, I wished to update my maps and my knowledge. There is a door in the Icy Lands, beyond some ferocious defenders who likely know little of what they defend. It was locked, and the lock was far beyond the limited skills I have picked up at Asashi. We made plans to find out what was beyond that door.
The gnome Bel soon came upon us, and we invited her to join. She is, after all, a magistress of some repute, and we felt that she might be able to provide enchantments to aid Isania with the lock. In the end, her enchantments proved unnecessary. Would that I had known that prior to inviting her along.
In any event, prior to setting out, we met up with the orc Ophelia and Isania’s friend Evanna, both of whom also joined us. We five made for the door, beating back its unwitting guardians with cool efficiency.
Isania had little difficulty with the lock, and, if the door was trapped, the trap. Soon we were inside a frosty crypt, guarded by an array of walking dead. We bludgeoned the abominations into twitching masses of chalky dust before proceeding to a marked tomb; my map is now complete – it was the tomb of a man named Whipsnade. He was ostensibly an explorer of sorts, and his resting place was probably best left undisturbed, for so many reasons.
Once reaching the tomb, there was nothing left to see, and I turned back, expecting the others to follow. None did. I made my way to Icy Vale, struck up a conversation with Talion, and still nobody returned, so the self-described smith and I hastily retraced my steps to the tomb. A furious melee was underway, as hordes of zombies were attacking those that remained. Talion and I quickly joined the battle, and, soon enough, the zombies lay in small, rotten pieces, most having been cleaved by Ophelia’s sword.
Bel lay on her back, and over-large maggots were coming forth from her. The affliction she had once named Dagga’s Maggots had once more manifested, this time in a tomb in the Icy Lands. This I did not blame her for. Though she never explained how she came to have the affliction, I long back dropped my queries. I believe at one point she may have said she didn’t know. That is probably bollocks, but more immediate concerns had since dislodged the undead-spewing magistress from my mind.
Clearly, however, greater beings had not forgotten her. The final maggot that crawled from the gnome’s throat, near-choking her as it made its way out, transformed into a large, rotting semi-humanoid pile of festering disease. This one, I believe, began to communicate with the gnome. She regained her feet, her misshapen, unsynchronized eyes resting on the sentient rot. As I stood at her side, holy water in hand, she nodded to an unseen and unheard speaker that could only be the humanoid decay or its puppeteer.
Bile rose in my throat when the abomination turned its hateful eyes first to me, then back to Bel, and she nodded, stating that she’d do ‘what had to be done’. It then took a swipe at Ophelia, a melee ensued, and, after knocking many to their knees with a nausea-inducing sickness, the thing was finally shredded by swords. A single over-large maggot ran from it, but was crushed under the heel of Ophelia’s metallic footwear.
It was then that the group fractured.
Ophelia began to question Bel, began to threaten her, and demanded answers. I lined up on Ophelia’s side. Evanna and Isania either came to Bel’s defense then, or a bit later. Much was happening and my memory eludes me. Suffice it to say that eventually they did. Talion stood aloof from this dispute, seemingly taking no stand.
The gnome said little, answering no questions, merely stating the obvious when she told me, in that stuttering way of hers, that I ‘shouldn’t have come there’. That much was bloody obvious.
All the while, something more was revealed to us. A grate, half hidden beneath Whipsnade’s tomb, looked to hide a deeper truth. None opened it, and the evening progressed not with exploration but with a murderous standoff and flight. I can’t help but wonder if the forces of light face a race to that secret against those that would ally with Bel.
The standoff in the tomb ended when Bel summoned into existence a number of walking dead similar to those that ravage the Aquinas Coast. I ignored them and ran for the crypt’s entrance, letting Ophelia deal with the zombies.
A great deal of argument and battle ensued, and Bel managed to make her way beyond the door to the tomb, but I was able to run to the gates that marked the exit from the valley before the gnome could. Arguments broke out, with only Ophelia and I intent on finding the invisible necromancer. When her dweomers eventually wore off and I spotted her, I attacked. My intent was to subdue, but I must admit I didn’t expect her to be so frail. She was near to death after I struck her with four blows, and Isania, Evanna, and Talion looked at me, aghast, as I propped Bel on her knees, the gnome spitting a tooth from her mouth in a spray of crimson that stained the pristine white of the snow.
The interrogation never progressed very far. At one point, Bel told me that my threats were meaningless (I had threatened to kill her and immerse her body in acid, though it was largely an idle threat aimed at gaining at least a twinkling of knowledge of what was going on). Ophelia joined in the inquisition, while Isania and Evanna implored us to stop and, though perhaps unstated, Talion finally took a side – theirs.
Once Ophelia saw that Bel wore an obsidian ring on one hand, she too stopped threatening her. The necromancer was in thrall to the arch lich Desthades, Ophelia asserted, and my rebuttal that coming in thrall to such a creature must involve some modicum of free will was rejected. At that point, it became me against four regarding the fate of the gnome. All argued to let her leave, and she managed to teleport away from me and once more become invisible. I was left standing at the gate, shivering, holding five prisoners in a freezing land, prisoners who clearly outmatched me in arms and ability.
Another abomination appeared on the snow, speaking to Ophelia now. Unlike Bel, Ophelia argued with it, and eventually battled with it and destroyed it. It was another messenger of the arch-lich, I seem to recall her saying. There was much I was to learn after that standoff, but at the time, I held to a few simple premises: the gnome was a necromancer, she quite possibly had been given a mission, and she could not be allowed to escape to carry it out.
Evanna’s bow trained on my head and Isania’s hand on my shoulder, combined with plunging temperatures, finally turned me from my post at the gate. We would all die if we stayed much longer, and only I had a taste for stopping the gnome. Heartsick and hypothermic, I went with the others back to the Icy Vale Inn. Once there, Ophelia would lecture me on how everything isn’t ‘black and white’, Isania would tell me that she’d seen a ‘frightening’ side of me, and Talion would tell me that he’d let Bel go.
In the intervening time, I’ve made peace of sorts with Evanna, Isania, and Talion (making peace with Ophelia is more difficult, given that she is currently entombed in a slab of ice somewhere, but that is another story). All seemed to feel a certain empathy with Bel’s ‘situation’, and felt she acted out of fear. They also all stated, to varying degrees, that I looked like a bloodthirsty fiend, and felt that acting pre-emptively against the gnome was wrong. I believe otherwise, but I don’t need enemies. Serving the forces of light means winning hearts and minds, not just shedding the blood of one’s foes. Clearly I lost that battle on that evening, and losing that battle meant the necromancer escaped.
Though my diary remains hopelessly out-of-date, my hand grows cramped and I need to buy another stick of graphite. It is a depressing note on which to leave things, dear diary, but I assure you not all is bleak. Until I gain an opportunity to make a further update, however, I must leave you.
In faith, love and hope,
Emma |
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Diary Entry #17
Posted: 06 Mar 2007 03:20 PM |
Diary Entry #17
Dear Diary:
I find myself waxing philosophically on the essence of religion as I write this entry: I have of late begun to wonder at the nature of the very Gods. The Fair Sister has never given me cause to doubt my faith in Her, but I have certainly seen other Gods act in a manner that makes one doubt their 'divinity', blasphemous as that may sound.
Some days back, my sister compared the actions of the elven deity Aros to the actions of Midoran. Such a comparison is extremely unflattering to Aros, and may in fact not be deserved, His recent actions notwithstanding. Time will tell. What I saw the day of the princess's assassination, however, was a God's ego overshadowing His concern for the well-being of His people. In that, I believe the analogy was apt.
In fact, with both Aros and Midoran, I must secretly admit that I wonder whether the deities are anything more than mortals who found a secret to immortality. Do they keep a count of their followers, a scorecard to show to their peers that determines the winner for the past year, decade, millenium?
And how does an arrogant deity reconcile the divine powers of the Aristi with His assertion that He provides protection, power, and miracles? Markus's powers seem to be drawn from nothing more that the kindness in his heart and his confidence in the valour of his mission. Such powers, if they are truly acknowledged for what they are, rather than merely brushed off, must be immensely disquieting to asolutist faiths.
This long and rambling introduction results, I suppose, from seeing the actions of the elven deity Aros, the only God I have ever looked upon, if one can truly be said to look upon a God.
Six days back, the elven princess Sairalinde Nenharma was to be crowned Queen of Ferein, and all of goodly intent were invited to her coronation. I had never seen a queen or a princess up close before, so I must admit I went as much for the spectacle and romance of the whole notion as anything.
My sister mercifully also went, and translated the goings-on for me. It was a beautiful, meaningful ceremony, up until the point when the princess suddenly fell and began to die from a fast-acting poison, a poison that I was later to learn was delivered by a crossbow bolt of Midoran origin.
After the princess's death, an event that in itself must be a cause of immense turmoil to the elven people, the God Aros showed Himself and chastised those elves present at the coronation for not properly showing their faith in Him. He then gave an additional ultimatum - that His true followers were to join Him and leave Ferein a fortnight hence.
It is difficult to see His actions as anything more than callous, selfish, arrogance. Many see Ferein as the last bastion of resistance to the Atalan. Ferein, with its long memory, is quite possibly the only realm that can find the chinks in the Atalan armour, and at a time when the world depended as much as it ever had on the unity of the elves, Aros fractured that unity.
I am certain that He broke many a heart that day; I only hope, for the benefit of Vives, that few heed His call.
In faith, love, and hope,
Emma |
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Diary Entry #18
Posted: 07 Mar 2007 12:15 PM |
Diary Entry #18
Dear Diary:
A 'door ghost' has taken to haunting me, and perhaps others, recently. The hauntings, insofar as they involve me, began perhaps a week back at Doc McGillicuddy's tavern in Buckshire.
They began innocuously enough. The front door of the tavern was blowing open, and each time I closed it, the wind would seemingly open it again. Sylune, Timik, and I went outside to investigate, and found the gate that separates Fiirkrag from Buckshire was behaving the same way. A woman's voice could be heard on the wind, as well. We delved further into Fiirkrag, but by then the voice had disappeared.
A few days later, Isiolia, Markus, and I were beating back walking dead under Port Royale, a dangerous gambit we left unfinished when we found they were surrounding us at the exact time Markus's divine protections began wearing off. On the way back up to the city, a door began opening and closing behind us, with no apparent cause. Again, the 'door ghost' did not seem to be particularly malevolent, though having those doors come open when and where they did certainly stopped my heart in my throat.
The last occurrence, if related, did not cause any harm, but was far more frightening. Isiolia, Dante, and I were travelling through Maldovia, perhaps an inadvisable trip at the best of times, but one that served two purposes for me. I wished to meet with the fallen paladin Rosen Vimes to discuss certain theological matters, and travelling to Maldovia always involves destroying servants of evil.
In the ruin of an ancient mansion, however, we came upon some locked grates which at first would not open no matter what we did, then which suddenly opened on their own. Though Isiolia and I thought better of walking beyond what would become a prison cell if the grate closed behind us, Dante had no such compunctions, and the result was predictable. He ended up imprisoned, with Isiolia and I at a loss as to how to remove him.
As we exhausted what avenues of action came to us, everything went dark and suddenly Isiolia and I found ourselves on the trapped side of the grate, and Dante found himself on the free side. He ran off for help (help which never came, making me worry for his fate now), while Isiolia and I did the only thing we could - look about our prison for a way out.
There was no way out, but again barriers opened and closed, this time accompanied by the darkly laughing voice of a man, rather than the keening of a woman. After some time in this prison, the grate holding us opened, and we left, unmolested, allowing us to make our way carefully and warily to the Sunbringers' base on the island.
The poltergeist is an enigma. It has yet to cause any harm to myself or those I've traveled with, but the last occurrence showed it to have greater powers than the simple ability to open and close doors. I assume the three events are related, but that may be mistaken. I do find myself being a bit wary about passing through portals right now.
In faith, love, and hope,
Emma |
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Diary Entry #19
Posted: 09 Mar 2007 03:08 PM |
Diary Entry #19
Dear Diary:
I suppose today is the day I write all that I need write to get this small book up-to-date, insofar as the wider world affects me, in any event.
Nearly a week back I joined with a small group that aimed to ascertain whether there were survivors of the Atalan assault on the Aristi stronghold of Haven, and, if so, to rescue them.
There were, in the end, few of us: Talion, Markus, myself, Garrak, Shard, and Salt. Markus was leading the mission, and had initially organized the party into a group with forward and rear scouts, and something of a rudimentary plan.
Once we reached Haven, however, the plan largely went out the window. Atalan and grey dwarves were everywhere, and they ferociously assaulted us. Although Markus held his shield high and punched past the hails of arrows, there was a certain futility in fighting the dark dwarf warriors and magisters, and the Atalan archers. There were so many, and they were so deadly. As we rounded the mountain and found the coordinates for the landing pad for Fabius, more of the evil dwarves and evil elves attacked.
I foolishly charged, taking grievous wounds from the archers' arrows and the dwarves' swords and axes; though I tried to run, I cannot outrun an arrow, or, in this case, five to ten arrows. I felt the exquisite pain of metal and wood lodging in bone, liver, and lung before collapsing.
My next sight, some time later, was of a beautiful face looking down on me with gleaming, golden locks framing it, and clear blue eyes showing first concern and then relief. I suppose I am free to interpret Markus's concern for my well being however I want, dear diary, and I suppose I shall. Many a fanciful romantic tale ends with the fair maiden coming miraculously to life after her knight braves unrelenting evil to bring her to safety. Those tales also tend to finish with his lips meeting hers and the two of them riding off into the sunset, but I'll take what I get. My imagination does a fine job of filling in the missing details.
It turned out that I was not the only one to fall at the hands of the combined might of the Atalan and dark dwarves. Talion, Shard, and Garrak also met the same fate, and Markus fought his way up the mountain again, rescuing the rest of the party with the assistance of the old magister. The Sunbringer Corona managed to breathe life into all our lungs, and I'm told the mission was a qualified success. We were never intended to defeat an army, just find a place where Fabius could land, and find the survivors, if there were any.
We did manage to find his landing platform, though it would seem suicide for him to attempt to fly there right now, with Haven over-run by the enemy. We didn't find survivors, not while I was conscious, anyway, so it would seem another journey, harrowing as the first was, is probably in order, manned with perhaps a more robust, better armoured party with a greater ability to riposte the assaults of our foes. This might allow us to find the survivors, or their bodies, if we move quickly, and then to secure the landing pad.
I've not spoken to Markus in a few days, so I don't know if such plans are in place. I do know he was negotiating with a Frost Witch for the release of Tristian, Ophelia, and Vrodo. He serves as a shining example for all. He leads through action, not empty words. He is not given to cynicism and hopeless introspection; nor is he a pedantic fool who would refuse to negotiate with Helkris's minions because of their unmitigated evil (as I would). I've also not seen him waltz among the populace bragging of the secrets he holds and the good deeds he's done, effectively alienating those who would otherwise be allies.
Perhaps he is what Vives has been waiting for: the beacon around which the response to the Atalan coalesces. Though I've not discussed it with her, it would surprise me if my sister did not share the same opinion. On a related note, the meeting finally did take place, the meeting between the senior member of Ferein's military and the most public face of the Novus Aristi. For me, that meeting built hope: there are a few chinks in the Atalan armour, they are not super-beings, and their numbers are not limitless. The time is coming for all of us to move our disparate efforts toward convergence.
In faith, love, and hope,
Emma |
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Orcs and Ghosts
Posted: 12 Mar 2007 02:28 PM |
Emma sat on her bedroll in the musty cavern under Blackstone Swamp, tossing a heavy stone up in the air and catching it in the dark, electricity sizzling each time it landed in her hand. The shock that accompanied each collision was slightly jarring, causing her to feel an odd taste on her tongue and causing her to clench her teeth, but she found that small sampling of her Goddess's power comforting. The rhythmic repetition calmed her as well. Though she had shown considerable patience this evening, she had been anything but beneath the outward veneer.
It would be best just to avoid the orc, she decided. It was clear from the faith she placed in Sir Markus and Lord Byron that Ophelia wished to walk in the light; it was also quite clear she didn't value Emma's opinion. After a long and frustrating evening of trying to shed some light on exactly what was causing the opening and closing doors and the voices on the wind, Emma had determined with resounding clarity the one thing that she supposed mattered most. The 'entity' was Ophelia's problem.
One fact Emma had realized in her short adventuring career was that two types of quandary ever came along: those of concern to all Vives, and those that attach themselves to a specific person. The Atalan situation was an example of the first, whereas the matter of the Sugar Man's appearance was an example of the second.
Although Ophelia had called the Sugar Man's daughter, the demon Seil, to Vives, the Sugar Man had become Salt's problem, as it was he the demon wished to talk to. The magister had decided to deal with this problem first by committing suicide, then by organizing an assault that depended on the participation of two individuals who ultimately refused to join in.
The happenings on the Aquinas Coast had become Bel's problem. Her obfuscation meant nobody Emma was aware of understood what was going on there. Emma's attempted inquiries resulted in a trip to the Seven Sisters at the hands of Valethrion on the first occasion she tried to garner information, and came close to causing her to freeze to death on the second. Meanwhile, leaving the 'problem' to the gnome meant that it was now being 'solved' by a necromancer in service to the arch-lich Desthades.
The bullet rose and fell, rose and fell, casting a bobbing whitish-blue sphere of light a short radius around it.
On her release from captivity in the ice, Ophelia had seemed to almost immediately decide her mission was to 'save' the necromancer Bel, a matter causing Emma no small amount of disgust. At a time when attention should be focused on defeating the Atalan, or perhaps even on thwarting the designs of the necromancer and her master, the orc was going to 'aid' the 'poor, defenseless gnome'. Bile rose in Emma's throat at the memory.
She had left the Four Winds Inn just as Markus agreed to help Ophelia, the orc having made a rude gesture with one hand and shown utter maturity by pushing a tongue out of her fanged mouth as Emma voiced her incredulity. The farmer's daughter went about some business in Port Royale and the Seven Sisters, but when she once more found herself in the forest by the Four Winds Inn, an unnatural darkness had come over the land.
A storm soon overlaid the darkness, and those that remained in the Inn - Fennigan, Talion, Ophelia, and Markus - soon came outside to see. They speculated the storm was the creation of and a prelude to the appearance of Desthades, and a disembodied skull did in fact appear to a few of them, though not to Emma.
What did appear to Emma was a small ball of light seeming to beckon the adventurers onward toward Lynaeum. After Fennigan closed the gates leading there, they locked. After the small woman unlocked them, they locked again. As those behind her talked among themselves, Emma made her way to Lynaeum, a voice now and then whispering in her ear.
It spoke to Emma in riddles, but when Ophelia arrived, she seemed to carry on an entire conversation with the entity. In spite of, or perhaps, because of Emma's requests, the orc would not share the details of that conversation, instead turning her back to Emma and listening as Talion expounded on the appearance of the bucket-heads in Port Royale, disappearing chests, and unlocking and locking doors, weaving it all together into an elaborate theory that depended not a whit on finding out what the entity was saying to Ophelia.
In retrospect, Emma thought, now rolling the bullet across the backs of her bare knuckles, the die was probably cast when Ophelia decided to go to the Seven Sisters. Exactly what wisdom that group of women would be able to impart regarding a glowing ball of light that claimed to be inside the orc had been lost on the monk, but Ophelia seemed to believe that 'something' had been placed inside her by the mortician that had begun working on her when she showed up lifeless on the streets of Port Royale a day or two back. Once more, sharing what it had said was of no concern.
Finally, after Sister Mina had fully examined Ophelia, and found nothing, the orc shared what she would. It seemed that the entity was somehow linked to her, that it somehow fed on her feelings, and that it was 'inside' her. Its whisperings to both Markus and Emma seemed to confirm this. When Sister Mina suggested that Ophelia visit a 'seer' who might know more about such hauntings, Emma had to resist the urge to laugh.
Seer, in Vives, was double-speak for Magister Salt. Aside from perhaps Sir Markus and Lord Byron, Ophelia trusted nobody more than he. A map had been laid at the feet of the orc by the healer, and Emma was sure she would follow it. Things would then play out as follows: Magister Salt would receive a vision; if the vision was clear and unambiguous, he and Ophelia, and whomever they invited along, would act on it; if it was laced with symbolism and riddles, then...
Thus far the entity had proven itself to be capricious but not malevolent. Its words and actions at the Seven Sisters seemingly showed it to be concerned with negative feelings: whether it aimed at alleviating the feelings or feeding off them was unclear, though its final words about finding someone who -wanted- it, coming so soon after Ophelia professed a desire to pursue a more enlightened and less murderous life, gave the monk pause, albeit short-lived. If the entity was evil, and if it haunted the orc, she'd deal with the haunting her own way, and do so with those she trusted.
If not, and if it continued to haunt Vives, Emma would no doubt hear about it. That was a bridge to cross if she came upon it, but not if she didn't.
Emma finally took the bullet from the back of her hand and returned it to the belt pouch at her hip. Later that evening she'd had a game of chess with Markus, and a long discussion with both he and Serai. At the end of that discussion, it had been agreed that they would try to arrange a meeting regarding the Atalan. So much brainstorming was happening in groups of three or four, and so little was being decided. Emma knew a large meeting would likely be chaotic, but it might be more effective than the passing of letters and happenstance gatherings that built inertia toward...well, Emma thought, thus far toward nothing more than the plan concerning the enslaved orcs.
The diminutive woman once more let her mind encapsulate the vision of the orc and the ball of light. She'd seen similar light balls before: a benign and a wicked variety in Maldovia, and a malicious, magical variety between Ferein and the Great River. Though the one they'd seen sometimes took on a purple shade and winked into and out of sight, which marked it as different than all of them, Emma thought of the abrupt Sunbringer who'd breathed life into her lungs a scant week prior. She lived among the benign variety and likely knew a great deal about the dangerous ones that resided in Maldovia proper. If Emma had more time...
She rubbed her temples, shook her head, and pulled out a few yellowed pieces of parchment. She was tired, and she had a notice to post. She'd not seen her parents since the elven princess's death, and it had been even longer since she'd seen Marie in Asashi. She needed a couple days of rest, away, and she probably needed some admonition from Marie about the virtues of patience and acceptance. She would write her notices, post them, and then give her soul a respite. It needed one.
She managed to write a page-and-a-half before her body slumped sideways and sleep took her. |
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Asashi: Respite
Posted: 13 Mar 2007 01:25 PM |
Emma took a break from the tome she was reading, shifting her behind uncomfortably in the solid wooden chair. She did her best to fit in at the monastery; she largely maintained her silence, and she eschewed her modified combat dress in favour of a large, plain robe that dragged on the floor and had sleeves that were far too long.
Most of those around her, though, wore a look of practiced serenity that Emma simply couldn't achieve. Nor could she pretend it didn't hurt to kneel on cobblestones in bare legs for hours at a time or, as was the case right now, that it didn't eventually become uncomfortable to sit on an un-padded chair for similarly lengthy periods.The fact that the expert seamstress didn't do anything to make the robe fit was probably as indicative of certain immutable facts as anything.
The smiles Emma offered to young men she passed in the cloisters were often returned, but they were smiles that fit well with the word used to address her there: sister. Though Asashi was a peaceful place to rest and allow one's soul to regenerate, there was an egalitarian aloofness therein that the young woman didn't enjoy. Aside from a few unwanted and uninvited incidents, Emma had never found herself to be the object of men's attention; however, some of her adventuring companions did at least offer her a modicum of chivalry.
None of the men here would open doors for her or offer the sweeping bows that, no matter how badly she felt, always brought a smile to Emma's lips. Being addressed by a man as sister, rather than Lady Emma, Miss Emma, or simply Emma felt like a step down from the feminine heights of the young woman's post-Paws adventuring life. The men she knew did not swoon over her like they did Sylune, but they didn't ignore the fact that her biology was different either.
*****************************************************************************
Emma sighed and looked back down at the book she was reading. Though she'd come to Asashi for instruction, Marie had offered her little. The old woman smoked her pipe and had Emma relate all she knew about the Atalan (all she was able to tell, anyway), about the assault on Haven, about the assassination of the elven princess, about Aros' ultimatum, about Desthades, and about the curious entity that the young monk had recently encountered.
As she rolled up the sleeves of her robe for about the tenth time of the day, Emma finally asked Marie if she had any lessons or exercises she should do.
Marie chuckled and looked at her curiously. "What bothers you, child?"
That reply left Emma a bit flustered, but after a time she spoke of the encounter in Whipsnade's Tomb, of the comments Talion had made, of her recent discussions with Rosen, and of Ophelia and Bel.
"How many people do you know that aren't cynics?" Marie asked, smoke exiting her nostrils. "That swordsman, for instance. He suggested you assaulted a tribe of barbarians in search of gems. Why do you suppose he did that?"
The young woman shrugged, eyes downcast.
"Obviously he's been there before. Obviously he's done the same thing, the difference being that he knew exactly what he faced and the treasure he'd take. You perceive that he holds you to a much higher standard than he holds himself to. You have a firm belief structure, and people like him will always be trying to tear it down. Much like the orc says everything isn't always black and white, a man...boy...like him will make more...subtle...comments. They are probably more hurtful, yes?"
The small monk nodded.
Clear blue eyes looked sidelong to the woman seated on the bench beside her. "I'm probably not the right person to give you a pep talk, sister, but I'll offer you an observation, and a suggestion."
Another nod.
"Few thinking creatures want to believe they serve the 'wrong' path, the destructive path, the road to ruination and torment. It sounds like even this fallen paladin doesn't want to believe that. Your path involves little compromise; you refuse to countenance using evil means to serve good ends."
A turn of a head, hazel eyes meeting blue.
The old woman shrugged as she approached her conclusion. "Most people disagree with you, sister, and it sometimes manifests itself in ways you don't expect. If you wish to convert others to your way of thinking, you are unlikely to be successful. All I can suggest is that you live -your- life honourably, and recognize there are times you are going to feel terribly alone. Even though they might not voice it, some will look up to you for having done so."
"You haven't really told me anything," Emma replied, a bit boldly.
Marie merely smiled back. "I know. D*mned hard to figure out what to say in reply. How about I teach you how to turn an opponent's invisibility against him? It is comparatively easier." Her eyes crinkled in a smile.
Emma shook her head and smiled wistfully, reverie having made her forget about her sore behind. While Dragons and Serpents went through calisthenics in the courtyard, Marie wrote out a series of barely legible instructions for some exercises for her protege to practice on her own, then made Emma describe, in a certain exaggerated detail that bordered on fabrication, her rescue at Haven. By the end of the story, both women were giggling uncontrollably and making comments about the erstwhile knight in shining armour that might have been more at home amongst tipsy patrons in the Black Pearl.
*****************************************************************************
The words on the book in front of her swam before her eyes. Balls of light, poltergeists, and strange spirits had been the focus of her studies, but her last book had been a small tome on Elven deities. The comparison of Aros to Tarik once more tugged at her, as it had during the rambling discussion she'd had with Rosen. Recorded histories spoke of the appearance of Aros, but not of Tarik, only of His chosen, Daeron. Aros and Tarik both have a certain arrogance, believing elves to be the pinnacle of intelligent life. Aros sees the other races as lesser beings to be protected. Tarik sees them as lesser beings to be hunted. Shepherd and Hunter.
Tarik's followers don't kill the children. They ensure the species survives, much as a responsible ranger manages the population of deer: too many blight the land and too few mean the wolves starve. How far apart are they really, the monk pondered, thinking back on the aftermath of the assassination. She had postulated that the pantheon of Gods fractured into Lesser Gods, who were mortals that had somehow ascended, and Greater Gods, whose origins were unknown. Emma had pretty strong suspicions about which group Aros belonged in, but had Rosen asked which camp she believed Vilyave was in? Had Emma asked which camp Rosen believed Syn was in? She couldn't recall, though, in retrospect, Emma was far more certain Syn was one of the 'Greater Gods' than she was that Vilyave was. She found that revelation neither disquieting nor blasphemous, merely curious.
Finally, her finger tracing an artist's rendering of Aros that was somehow more 'divine' than the God she'd seen, Emma abandoned her reading. Marie had invited her student to join her for dinner, a much more enticing prospect than spending more time on a hard seat flipping through books. |
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Diary Entry #20
Posted: 14 Mar 2007 11:14 AM |
Diary Entry #20
Dear Diary:
Yesterday was a mixed day, and a day that really wasn't supposed to happen. I was supposed to be in Ferein. Yes, Ferein. I believe Rosen has lost her appetite for threatening my family, and for much related to broader matters in the world, so I might as well record for posterity their whereabouts.
I stopped in Port Royale on my way, though, and ended up arranging to play a game of chess with Serai, then ended up talking to Talion, a curious discussion wherein he suggested I should be truthful about my opinions, where my own experiences of late, with him and others, has been that they aren't always welcome.
I then ended up watching Serai defeat Ophelia at chess, and then was myself defeated. Unlike Miss Ophelia, she marries skill at the game of kings to a keen intellect, and it pleases me greatly that she will be partaking of the Atalan meeting. Our short discussions concerning strategy proved she is nothing short of brilliant in that regard.
At the end of the match between Ophelia and Serai, a shifty gnome showed up and whispered to Ophelia. After he finished, Ophelia looked at Serai and I and asked if we were 'coming'? Coming where? For what? With whom? We didn't know the gnome, didn't know what he'd said to her, and didn't truly know anything about this proposed trip, but here we were with that bastion of good judgement asking if we were 'coming'. I declined, as did Serai, and Tristian, who'd showed up to watch. The gnome had apparently mentioned something to her about rescuing a friend named 'Krinkel' from Karkus the Mountain King in the depths of Fiirkrag.
After our match, the gnome returned, this time talking to Fennigan (yes, there is a theme here - the gnome approaches those with less skepticism, it seems). Just as I had arranged to meet over coffee with Sir Markus (Coffee, that's right -coffee! He was coming on a DATE with me to put together an agenda for the Atalan meeting), Fennigan began suggesting that we had to go to the depths of Fiirkrag because Ophelia had been 'injured' down there.
To me it smelled like a trap. To Sir Markus, it smelled like a trap. Sir Markus declined to go, opting to join me at the cafe instead, but, when Fennigan decided to go alone, we decided, against our better judgement, that we best accompany him. Suffice it to say that I am now developing an unhealthy antipathy toward red-haired hins.
We didn't find Ophelia. Instead we found giants. Then we found more giants. Then we found some ferocious trolls that hammered me so hard that I awoke in Sir Markus' arms with my face nuzzled against his neck.
Hmm.
I should scratch that last line about red-haired hins, one of them anyway.
Beyond the ferocious trolls, slain by Sir Markus and Fennigan, was -the- troll. It glowed, and, in the multitude of blows that we rained on it, one hit. One. Sir Markus yelled to run, and we did.
Though we were able to outrun what Sir Markus later explained was a 'pseudo-natural troll', it kept following our trail. We only managed to lose it when we we reached the caverns of the multi-headed dragons, and squeezed through a small hole in the side.
Amazingly, after all this, Sir Markus, -still- wanted to go for coffee with me.
Then, the second red-haired hin showed up.
I should have just begged off and told him I was tired, which I was, but Sir Markus was there, and the prospect of going to the cafe still hung like one of those carrots dangled on a stick in front of a donkey pulling an ox-cart.
Instead, after being difficult for a time, I answered Alton's questions. He had shown up to pass on the Ice Priestess Aurelya's displeasure at the depradations of myself and Sylune in the Icy Lands, since the inspired poetry, frozen bird, frozen adventurers, and my own absence from those lands for weeks was apparently not enough. Sir Markus left, Hie'Vie and Dorian (who had been on the other side of the hole) left, and I was stuck alone with him giving the hin exactly what he wanted. He was later to say that his admonishment for my time spent in the Icy Lands in the winnowing past was secondary to his desire to find out what had happened in Whipsnade's tomb. Talion had apparently told him something of the occurrences there, but hadn't given a full accounting. I did, to the best of my ability, anyway.
Now, I truly need to go visit my family. I've not seen them since the Elven princess's assassination.
In faith, love, and hope,
Emma
[Edit appears below]
Postscript: I don't actually know what happened to the orc, nor do I know for sure whether the trip to Fiirkrag's depths was in fact a trap, though it certainly did seem like the gnome had sent us there to be dinner for the glowing beast. Hopefully Ophelia shows up safe and sound in Port Royale in the next day or two. I'm not sure I have it in me to rally folks together for her rescue, nor am I sure I know of anyone capable of defeating the troll. I would have thought Sir Markus was the best bet. |
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Diary Entry #21
Posted: 20 Mar 2007 03:01 AM |
Diary Entry #21
Dear Diary:
I've now made my way back to my mother, father, and nephews, and feel the call of destiny. I left a home in Paws three months back to make my way in the world, to see if I could do good, to see if I could honor the sacrifice my sister made.
Somewhere along the way, I found the wrong path. I can't say exactly when it happened, but, in retrospect, the happenings at Whipsnade's Tomb sowed in me the seeds of suspicion: suspicion of nearly everyone.
Though my friendships came back, they returned with a certain jaded bitterness. I find myself now often lapsing into the gallows humour that Sir Fennigan finds so amusing, yet finding truth rather than enjoyment from it.
Then came the meeting. When I posted an advertisement inviting concerned adventurers to share their thoughts about the Atalan, it was met from many corners with derision and scorn. Talion Deraith, a swordsman with some magical skill as well, certainly let his views be known. After I made the mistake of circulating a draft agenda, it also became clear that many people felt the response to the Atalan should crystallize around him, himself included.
So I was in the odd position of having a man who thought the meeting 'silly' setting himself up to consolidate the entire response to the Atalan in his hands by the end of it. Principles of democracy don't exactly apply, but people will choose to follow who they wish. Whether by vote or not, the 'man with the plan' would be the one to grasp destiny.
Why was I opposed to that? I distrusted him, plain and simple. I suppose I still do, though I'm sure his commitment to defeating the Atalan is as resolute as any, and at the meeting, it was clear he'd worked diligently on his plans.
My mistake was to get involved in politics at all, not that I'd originally viewed this meeting as a political exercise. I spent far too much time between when the meeting was called and when the meeting happened trying to ensure the response to the Atalan wasn't singularly led by a man who I found to be immensely arrogant, unkind, and Machiavellian. In doing so, I ended up making a secret deal with a Naruthian to betray Sir Markus' trust, I ended up wasting a lot of time digging into Talion's past (nobody seems to really care that he was once the right hand man to a necromancer; Alton commended Talion's judgement for having been a part of the 'Magistry' movement), and I ended up achieving, essentially, nothing. Though I don't think I had been arrogant, I had most certainly been underhanded.
The meeting came and went. Talion presented a plan and Sir Markus presented a plan, and the elven and dwarven generals gave their conditional support to both. Rather than crowning a leader, the meeting created a champion for the Gladden plan, in Talion, and a champion for the Undraeth plan, in Sir Markus.
In all honesty, Talion presented himself very well, and his hitherto unmentioned plan was well accosted. One thing nobody, certainly not Sir Markus, will ever point out is that freeing the slaves of M'Gok Tukar was, a long time back, Sir Markus' idea, not Talion's. Talion took it, added to it, and made something of it, but it's genesis lay in the man that he and the rest of his friends like to paint as not having the intellect to lead.
My very biased opinion comes across with every word I write, and I would truly like to be balanced. Alyssa, the Naruthian Priestess, is, in some ways, right. It is hard for me not to look at Sir Markus and drift off into a daydream where I'm the cursed princess who will only awake from the kiss of one that's pure of heart; however, I do have legitimate opinions that are not biased by my silly crushes.
Talion will, I'm sure, be a great leader. He will have all details planned out to the letter, and will have people he trusts assigned to each task. I doubt he will offer an open invitation for adventurers to accompany him: his way is to be exclusive and secretive. Some will feel left out, but so be it. What he does will be effective.
The only problem I've noticed with him is that he doesn't often listen. Not to those he has little respect for, anyway. Those in power, the rude, long-gone magister, Alton: he listens to them. However, he seemed to have missed nearly every detail of what happened in Whipsnade's Tomb, and it seemed that when Ophelia was possessed by the entity, Talion wanted to drive to his theories before she'd passed on all that she'd experienced.
And again, I equivocate. At the heart of it, I dislike being treated disdainfully and rudely. Would I dwell on such points if Talion bowed, called me Good Lady, and hung on my every word? I shall leave that unanswered, dear diary. I have enough dark matters on my conscience not to dwell on that.
One of them concerns the elf Ana. It is incorrect to say that what happened with her wears on my conscience, though, I suppose. It is best to say that I had considered leaving her for dead, but that my decision was pre-empted by the appearance of a vampire who restored her health before I'd actually made that decision.
It was midway through a trip with the elf that I was to see her for what she is: an elf who worships Tarik. I don't know why she would brazenly pull out an acid-tipped spear when she knew I hailed from Paws. I pulled enough of those from the chests of my dead countrymen, some of whom had been nailed to trees by such spears, to know a Tarikian spear when I saw it. After she fell and was burned badly by a trap as we fled Hounds of Syn and the dread vampire Mortifer, I stood, seethed, and mused. Why bring such a woman back to healers? Her kind had slaughtered my kind, and would do so again.
Some might call that evil. I call it quiet justice. Unfortunately, the vampire returned breath to her lungs and took her back to his warehouse for tea.
What does wear on my conscience is what happened in Gladden. Isania, Evanna, and I were passing through the farmlands to make an assault on the mines, and were spotted by a grey dwarf slaver there. When she yelled “Intruder”, we were attacked not only by her, but by the slaves as well. I’ve not slept since it happened. The sight of their crumpled forms on the tilled earth appears before me each time I close my eyes. They were compelled to attack us, but it was not an even fight. They had only farm implements and no armour. For those that fell to my fists and feet, it was as a hot knife to butter. There was little difference with those felled by Isania and Evanna.
Their large bodies, strewn at odd angles, overlapping in a strange, hypnotizing pattern that might border on geometric if one looked at it long enough, haunt my thoughts. I’ve committed evil, and I’m not the same woman I was three months back.
I’ve avoided writing about Sir Markus until the end of this entry because of the shame I feel when I think of him. I doubted him. I doubted he would put forth something convincing enough that the forces of light would have some hand in deciding the outcome of the wider war with the Atalan. I was wrong, and my soul will forever be stained by both my doubts and the betrayal plotted with Alyssa that never saw the light of day.
He presented his plan as well, at the meeting, and also accosted himself well. He stood as a different kind of leader than Talion. A polite and thoughtful man, one who would not ruthlessly beat down opposition, nor find a way to tell those whose opinions he didn’t value that they were stupid or worse. It was only right that Talion’s plan involved pinpoint execution, and Markus’ plan involved interviews and negotiation: different kinds of men suited to different missions.
I sit here now still pondering taking more cheap shots at people. It turns out Alton knew about the slave that now lives in exile in Ferein for longer than Markus and I have, but he did nothing with that information. He didn’t think to turn it into a plan to find another entrance to Undraeth; he didn’t turn it into a plan to get the slaves to join in the battle; had he even thought to ask about the relative size of the Atalan forces?
I can’t know. All I do know is that he parroted the rude magister’s words that ‘nobody was doing anything’ a few nights back. Hopefully he included himself in that group of people that were doing nothing. After all, I do recall him walking around Buckshire weeks before we met the slave bragging that he and Salt had a ‘secret’ that would allow us to prosecute the war successfully. I can only guess at the secret he was so proud of, but the hin isn’t that hard to read.
And so I sit here, a bitter, jaded woman lamenting the bullies who have come to reclaim the beach, while commending one of them begrudgingly. I no longer see Sylune, Sir Cedrych, or Sir Alexi, three kind souls whose company kept me so grounded. The only man I can truly look upon as a beacon is Sir Markus, and the things I’ve done of late make me unable to meet those ice-blue eyes.
Noah and Levi, touched by the tension of all that is happening in Ferein, now look to me to answer questions. My parents expect me to answer their questions, and it was like sticking a dagger in my mother’s heart when I had to tell her that I couldn’t, that I was sworn to secrecy. I hope that the one thing I truly have – confidence that the Atalan will be defeated – rubs off on them. I needn’t voice it for them to know it.
I go to bed now, sleeping under the same roof as my family for the first time in weeks. The exodus from Ferein freed up some lodgings, and my parents were moved to something less cramped. I know that I will end up laying here, eyes open, staring at the ceiling. I long to cry on my father’s shoulder until the tears stop, but I’ll break his heart and my mother’s if I tell him why. It is my grief, and mine alone, grief at being untrue, unwise, and unfaithful; grief at being one step away from murderess.
In f-
Emma |
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Diary Entry #22
Posted: 26 Mar 2007 11:39 AM |
Diary Entry #22
Dear Diary:
I have in the past week traveled about exploring various parts of Vives with whoever happened to be around, be they people whose company I enjoy or those whose company I don't. It truly didn't matter that much to me, as I simply haven't wished to be alone.
Being alone means contemplation, and contemplation means seeing the faces of the orc slaves.
A new Aristi Herald has arrived in Port Royale, a tall drink of water with a limp by the name of Sir Adrian. I do look so forward to speaking with him again.
A seemingly insane man named Elgenn has begun preaching about getting Jessup out of the slums, and about how the 'nobles' (read adventurers) should be doing more for the poor. He might be right, but what he preaches is seditious. The legitimate ruler of Port Royale is the Queen, and Sir Jessup was knighted by her. Though I tried at length to speak to him, he has no coherent ideas other than a feeling that unfairness pervades, and that the yoke of the established order should be shed.
I obtained some assistance from Magister Salt a few days back in order to make a brief trip to the woods north of Buckshire that are held by the Atalan. They continue to patrol, though maybe not in as great a number as they once did. Perhaps the war truly does stretch them thin. I found another way in, and went back again with Ophelia and Sir Markus. We explored the strange tower there, and left largely unmolested.
The second half of the rescue mission to Haven finally happened, though I was unable to assist. I'm told the Atalan and Grey Dwarves were gone, dead perhaps, and that a strange entity brought out the worst fears of the adventurers there, a Syn-spawned creeper of greater size and wickedness than any most had ever encountered.
Thirteen refugees were saved, which seems so terribly few. They flew out on Rocs, Vilyave's blessed birds, though Ophelia and Kalid fell, fracturing the elve's ribs. A half-elve named Kriayna and I fixed up Kalid as best we could the next day; it seems Kalid lives on this odd edge between 'trying to do good' and not having the best internal definition of what that means. That is also a problem faced by the orc Ophelia, I've noticed, though magnified a thousand-fold.
Apparently the dread lich Vestlat has now banned some frequent visitors from returning to Lynaeum, and extracted a price from them for their past transgressions. The quest for ever dwindling resources causes people to take ever greater risks, and make ever more dangerous deals. Half of Vives seemed intent on cutting a deal with the Naruthian priestess Alyssa to bring back holy water from Midor. The irony that they would do their crafting using water blessed by a God they despised was not lost to me.
The odd entities I have come to call the Numbered Order have assembled a group of 'knights' to battle 'It which is That'. 'It which is That' seems to be the strange spirit that was opening and closing doors and which ingratiated itself inside Ophelia briefly. I've taken it upon myself to document the happenings in greater detail in a tome I am writing. Though it doesn't help the war effort, I don't truly find myself doing much for the war effort right now anyway.
I'm sure there are many things I should have written and missed, but sleep and nightmares beckon. I search for atonement, but the one person most would seek to gain such, a priest of their faith, is lost to me. If Alton would betray the secret of the slave Evayne to Ophelia, enemy of Ferein, it seems he is about the last person I should be going to about matters of my own soul, in confidence. The two of us have ever mixed like oil and water, in any event.
I try desperately to keep my faith, and to love my fellow man, and I hope for a better future for Vives,
Emma |
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The Vampiress
Posted: 27 Mar 2007 03:33 AM |
((OOC What's written here is not known to any PCs but Emma, as far as I know. Please rp accordingly.))
The young woman had cried enough. A priest of her faith had just blandly agreed to having tea with a vampiress, and it was impossible for her to reconcile. She'd cried on Markus' shoulder, badgered him about his decision to leave Midoran, and fought, and fought, and fought from Mirghul to Buckshire.
Markus' words would ring in her ears for days and weeks after. "If it offers any consolation, you would make a great Herald."
Emma had replied with a sad smile. "It offers consolation."
Then, as she prepared to bid her farewells, a soft whisper tickled her ear, causing her neck to break out into gooseflesh. "My... he's a handsome one... and you, you're obviously too smart to even consider explaining a voice in your ear to him."
Emma froze momentarily, then quickly pulled her hair back behind her ears, hoping nobody noticed. She looked up at Markus with a forced smile.
I have to get away from here...I have to get her away from -him-, she thought to herself, panic causing a cold sweat to appear on her chest. She'd called him a good friend, and had she seen...disappointment...on his face...in hearing her words? Had he hoped for more? Could she hope for that? A voice in her ear was making a veiled threat to his safety, and the young monk heeded, as best she could.
"Good girl" A barely felt pressure released it's grip on Emma's back. A hold applied with so much skill and care, it had escaped her notice until removed.
The silky voice continued. "I simply wanted to say thank you."
Emma's heart froze in her chest. Whatever had transpired in Maldovia had released this one, a vampiress perhaps. She doubted the vampiress was "It which is That", but she could discount nothing.
This one thanked her, which was as good as blaming her. Emma would have to consider what she'd done differently than the others that had warranted the whispers in her ear, but for now she just needed to get those whispers away from the others, away from Markus.
Emma's stuttering speech and nervous demeanor earned a concerned look from Markus and reproach from the vampiress. "Careful dear... you're about to slip." The voice was followed by an airy laugh, filled with mocking confidence.
Saana gave Emma the opportunity to leave, and she took it. Into the desert they went, followed by the vampiress... |
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Diary Entry #23
Posted: 28 Mar 2007 12:41 PM |
Diary Entry #23
Dear Diary:
The happenings in life swing often as a pendulum, dear diary. One day's despondency is the next day's silliness, and happiness can be fleeting. My meeting with the priestess Saana, and the desert man Alban (Alkan?), after the events in Maldovia, had not truly gifted me a great deal of clarity, but then I suppose I'd not described my specific situation to them. My mother, on the other hand, put certain matters to me in black and white.
What exactly did happen in Maldovia? The short answer is that I'm not sure. I'd sought out Sir Markus in the Sunbringers' cave, in order to find out if his meeting with the elven prisoner had happened, and if so, what news he had of it (it hasn't, as of yet). As we spoke, three others trudged into the cave: Tristian, Ophelia, and Kalid. It turned out they were headed to Maldovia in search of fine Maldovian wheat.
At some time in the midst of a discussion with these three, Alton showed up. I could be mistaken, but I believe someone suggested that, in light of the happenings at Haven, maybe a trip to Maldovia wasn't the wisest idea. I was there to chat with Sir Markus, not enjoin that debate one way or another, but when the three continued on, Alton and Sir Markus decided to follow, lest something bad happen, which meant I did as well.
At the end of the rickety piers that gain one entrance to the outskirts of Maldovia, the queer door ghost appeared to manifest. The gate there began to open and close on its own, lock and unlock on its own. Three decided this was sign enough to leave, and three stood at the gate. Tristian, Miss Ophelia, and I stood at the gate, myself because of my continuing curiosity with this entity, Tristian ostensibly because of his wheat, and I'm not sure of Ophelia's reasons.
Finally, Tristian tired of the antics of the entity and crossed the threshold. I'd seen Sir Dante do the same thing in Maldovia perhaps a month back, and Tristian's actions made me wince. Sure enough, the gate closed behind him almost immediately, which made him draw his sword and beat it down. Then, the vampires came, en masse.
Somehow, we all made it out of there alive, but -something- came with us: a darkness that followed as we walked. When we entered the Sunbringer cave, the woman Corona was concentrating on combatting something, mentally, it seemed. My memory may fog here, but I believe she asked what it was we'd released, and told us to get out of that cave.
We went back to the cliffs with the horrid singing half-women and stood about trying to figure out what to do, the blackness following us. I don't recall all the options discussed, but there was general agreement that returning to civilization was unwise. Some thought taking it to Midor would be brilliant, some thought Paws. Mercifully, that was one debate I did not come out on the losing side of.
In any event, we left the cliffs for forest, and whatever followed turned the forest red. We stopped, and returned to the cliffs, having encountered Talion in the woods. He joined us (my memory is not completely clear on when he arrived, but I believe that's when). As we spoke on the cliffs, the prospect of trying to arrange a chat with the Syn-cursed Queen of Maldovia was raised. I don't believe a conclusion one way or another was drawn, but Talion slit his hand, bloodied a dagger, and stuck it in the ground, apparently calling this Natika.
I immediately left, dumbstruck, as did Sir Markus, and I was mortified that Alton supported Talion's move, disapproval I clearly voiced then but probably wouldn't voice now. Saana and the desert man enunciated a certain free-spirited moral vacuousness in defining our faith; though I appreciated the history lesson they gave, I am left with this feeling that worshipping Vilyave is a bit like walking up to a buffet at the Midsummer ball: pick what you want, leave what you don't.
Perhaps it's heresy to say that, I truly don't know. When I left Paws, I defined Vilyave as love, kindness, and all that is good. Opposing evil and opposing Her Sisters was right, I thought; I've already filled this diary with each and every situation where I ended up at loggerheads with Alton over questions of right and wrong, so I shan't bother reiterating them here. As my mother so painfully pointed out, he's the priest and I'm not.
I've also allowed hypocrisy to creep into my own dealings: Rosen and Alyssa come to mind. Why would I talk to them? Travel with them? Confide in them? And the slaves I killed? Was my life worth more than theirs? Right and wrong blur at times, and you don't know whether you've crossed a dividing line until after its been crossed.
And I've digressed. Later that night, a vampiress came to me to offer her thanks. It was a taunt, of course, a hook in the belly to let me know that the actions we, the party, or I, the individual had taken in Maldovia had resulted in -her- aims being furthered. Tristian came to me the next day, very much on edge, telling me he felt something had been following him ever since the Maldovian expedition, asking if I'd seen anything.
I felt it unwise to tell him who or what I'd seen; nor did I tell Alton. I was, and am, morbidly curious as to what we did that could not have been achieved without us. After a long discussion about various matters I finally asked Alton the question that burned in my mind after this vampiress gave her thanks: why do we rarely see vampires outside Maldovia? I had thought we'd done something to release this one, and perhaps that was what earned her thanks, but Alton said nothing holds them in, they just choose not to leave.
So, what was released? What haunts Tristian? I suppose I shall dedicate more ink to that question in future.
Yesterday, I experienced a glowing, dancing ball on the coast outside Port Royale, one that I initially assumed was another manifestation of the door ghost. I followed it for a time as night fell, and I beat back the increasingly tiresome zombies that haunt the area. Then it winked out of sight.
I probably should have left it at that, but I went to Askwith to retrieve Alton and Talion. Yes, dear diary, I can appreciate how that must sound in light of my previous twenty-two entries, but, as I've already said herein, I've little choice in my dealings with Alton now, and he did express a desire to see or experience the entity.
Nothing was on the coast when we returned, and Alton and Talion sent out multiple lights of their own. It seemed that whatever I'd seen was probably the work of a priest or magister, not the 'entity'. I continue to believe the entity, 'It which is That', perhaps, is tied up with the happenings in Maldovia, but the more I write, the more insane I feel I must sound.
In faith, such as it is, and love, and hope,
Emma |
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Re: Diary Entry #23
Posted: 28 Mar 2007 08:51 PM |
(( It took me a while to catch up on all the reading the board has to offer as I was gone for a while, but I have to say your thread is one of my favorites. You really weave the words well, a pleasure to read. Keep 'em coming )) |
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A Dark Alley
Posted: 29 Mar 2007 12:00 PM |
((Thanks for your encouraging words, Johe, from a guy who's had a great and very focused storyline going for a lot longer than I've been around.))
Emma knelt near the shoreline in her loose kimono, grinding her combat dress between the hard soap in her right hand and the rippled glass of the borrowed washboard, a dull pain throbbing in the working muscles of her right forearm. I should wear red, she thought, a weary smile painting itself on her thin lips and briefly touching her eyes. It would be so much more practical.
As the brick-red bubbles of soap, dried blood, and dirt dripped from the enchanted weave of the battle dress, the spray of Bel's blood danced in front of Emma's mind's eye. Sir Markus had done the right thing: he'd attempted to apprehend the necromancer for being a necromancer. At some level though, the blood...oh, the blood...
She and Markus had come upon Bel leaving the slums. A few words had been exchanged. Markus had drawn that massive sword. Markus had given Bel the option of a merciful death, as befits those who practice necromancy.
Desthades was not there for Bel that day, and she tried to rely on the magic in her staff to get past Markus and Emma. Attacking a paladin or a monk with such dweomers was unwise, and Emma suspected Bel would long rue the painful lesson learned. Markus marched up to her with his sword, and raised it to the heavens, a holy glow radiating from his person, then the sword seemingly took a life of its own, slashing through Bel's midsection like a hot knife through butter. There was a spray of blood, and it was red, still red.
She now knew what it must have looked like when she'd assaulted Bel outside Icy Vale: horrifying. Emma stood at Markus' side though, supported his decision. Desthades' servant deserved no mercy. Ana, the woman who in the less than pristine vocabulary of Emma's mind was 'that b*tch Tarikian', slunk from the shadows behind Emma. One of Jessup's 'guards' slunk from the shadows near Markus.
As the gnome lay on the cobblestones in a slowly-expanding pool of black-crimson illuminated slightly by torchlight, a battle of wills was enjoined for her broken corpus. She and Markus were the criminals in this scene, the dying gnome their victim, but Jessup's 'constable' didn't truly seem to care much about the crime: Bel merely represented the spoils of that crime. She had things which could be sold and ostensibly her life could be bought with extortion. Emma didn't know what machinery worked in the man's wolfen mind, but it seemed the gnome represented a prize for him, and offering to trade a valued prize of her own didn't sway him into allowing Markus to take her to face justice.
If ever faced with such a situation again, Emma swore that she'd have -something- of value on her person. A pair of boots just didn't sway the man.
Shadows seemed to part and more of Jessup's men appeared, Markus standing calmly and confidently in the center of it all asserting that they had no authority, the thug arguing otherwise, and Ana coolly layering verbal thorns of support over the thug's words. Markus showed no fear, calmly picking Bel up like a sack of salt, and making to leave. The red-haired elf moved to stop him, eliciting in Emma a brief fantasy involving Ana and Markus' sword foremost.
The gnome's raspy breath was now on the verge of morphing into death throes, at which point murder would be added to the crime of assault and 'not sharing the spoils of a fallen gnome', so Emma asked Markus to set the gnome down, and then bandaged her wound as best she could. Still, Markus refused to countenance the authority of Jessup's men. More of them appeared surrounding the two, and a vision of Markus falling to a sword, a shiv or an acid-tipped spear in his back began to overwhelm the young monk.
She asked him to give up.
In a mirror to what her friend Isania had done so long back, Emma asked the paladin to leave the gnome, asked him to put safety ahead of the single-minded pursuit of justice for a necromancer. She wanted to say sorry to Isania. At that moment, she wanted to say she...understood. Emma had unequivocally supported Markus to this point, despite the seeming brutality (the blood, the blood), but things now hovered at a precipice, and it was time to retreat. The world needed Markus alive more than the world needed Bel dead.
Emma needed Mar....
She shook her head, her mother's painful words shunting the thought aside.
Emma blinked down at the washboard. Reverie had worked its magic. The soap bubbles were a pristine white, and half the bar of the cleansing substance was gone. She hung her dress on the squatter's clothesline she'd hastily erected and offered a short prayer for sunlight and a warm wind. It was a prayer to the Goddess of the Four Winds.
In the end, it was Her priest whose arrival presaged the end of the conflict, the climb-down, his healing spell that got the gnome on her feet, his shoulder, and that of the strange shapeshifter Mering, that guided Bel away. Emma was silent when Alton said he'd speak to 'his friend' Jessup.
It had seemed to her as though on the same day her mother had torn a strip from her for openly challenging a priest of her faith, the woman had marched across Vives and asked that same priest to 'play nice'. Alton had been oddly diplomatic ever since the Maldovian incident, and, in this tense situation, shrill words from her were the last thing anyone needed.
Emma stared at, and through, the cloak Markus had given her as it dried on the line, a hard smile on her face, one that would not have been at home 3 months earlier.
She had one ally as uncompromising as she. She'd seen herself mirrored in him. It was frightening, it was consuming, and it was feral on a level that aroused in Emma something much more than the quaint warmth that accompanies the fantasy of being rescued from from a locked tower.
Still staring at, and through, the cloak, she mouthed a reply to her mother's words. "What if it's the same goal, mother? What then?"
At that, her smile widened slightly, and she carried the oversized bucket of dirty water to the seashore, and dumped it in. |
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Diary Entry #24
Posted: 30 Mar 2007 10:46 AM |
((If someone who knows her Midoran calendar happens to read this, could she let me know whether I have the date right, as a conversion from today's date? Thx., Snooty))
Diary Entry #24, 2nd Binardi of Luminarre, 1003 SD
Dear Diary:
Yes I know that the meeting is with a man many consider a nefarious crime lord and with the most prominent follower of the usurper Desthades.
Yes I know it is likely to put Sir Markus in a terrible situation.
So why am I beaming and giddy as I write this? Why can't I seem to see the evil in it, the danger?
Because it's my first real date with Sir Markus! It's a dinner!
I need a new dress, new shoes, and a quick lesson from -someone- as to which fork to use when three of them get placed to the left of a plate. So much to do, so little time.
In faith, love, and hope,
Emma |
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Gordon's Gown
Posted: 02 Apr 2007 06:46 PM |
Gordon’s Gown
Emma did not look upon her quest to retrieve Gordon’s Gown as the sating of suppressed vanity; she had a need, she’d heard a legend, and, in her mind, she was ‘killing two birds with one stone’. She needed a dress and she despised necromancers.
The idea had come to her at some point on her trip to the Icy Vale Inn. It was so ruddy hard to find a decent dress now, and she so wanted to look good on her first formal, arranged, and planned date with Markus. She then remembered a tale told outside Menmuir’s stall perhaps a dozen and two years back; she and her mother had stopped and joined a group of villagers to listen, her mother adding a loaf of bread and a radiant smile to the bard’s reward at the end of the tale.
The bard looked impishly from one attractive woman to the next as he began his tale, his eyes widening and eyebrows rising in exaggerated emotion as he told the assemblage how the tale was instructive of the dangers of unearthly beauty, often trying, never successfully, to catch Selena Robinson's gaze.
The set-up complete, the roguish man's favoured audience members chosen, the tale began.
Tales abound about a haunted keep to the east, and I won't bore you with a common one, for I've made it my business to bring the uncommon tales to all, the ones you've never heard, the ones -they- don't want you to hear! I can't say for sure when these events happened, maybe a century back, maybe nine, such is the uncertainty of histories too charged to be put on paper.
A badger tamer named Esperanto had just finished making a small village safe from the cunning creatures when he chanced upon a beautiful woman in a fine pink dress who floated across the plains with the divine beauty of a street-corner trollop.
“Mommy, what’s a ‘street-corner trollop’?”
“A beautiful elven maiden, dear.”
When he called out to the woman, she giggled in reply and threw back her hair, a wind catching both it and her short dress, windblown hair illuminated in the crimson-gold of the horizon-bound sun, surreal light casting inviting shadows on her briefly exposed thighs. Mocking pouty lips beckoned him before she turned on her toes and ran from the sunset.
With a small army of badgers following a respectful distance behind, the man dashed after the woman in the beautiful dress, always nearly catching her before she fled his presence again, her speed such that she would only be caught when she –wanted- to be caught. Neither despondency nor good sense stopped him from following. She would ever turn and blow him a kiss, bat her eyelashes, or place a hand on each knee, wink at him, and pretend to regard something on the ground, the plunging neckline of her dress plunging even more dangerously in the process.
The chase continued all the way to Gor-
Emma had one finger in her ear and another in her nose, and was watching a bee fly by. The bard had just used an unfamiliar name, and Emma was trying to puzzle it out. Her eyes lost focus on the bee and took in Stewart Gordon, the boy who’d eaten two huge sausages in rapid succession on her eighth birthday and then threw them up even more rapidly. She couldn’t really look at him without seeing that image, or without remembering his first words to his mother when she picked him up an hour later.
“I’m hungry.”
-don’s Bluff, a hill atop which a large mansion sat. The woman made her way up the hill in her long, pink stiletto boots with surprising grace, though Esperanto gained on her, such that he was perhaps ten yards behind when she reached the twin wooden front doors of the mansion. She ran in without looking back, and he followed her without pause, despite the rumours he’d heard of the place.
He made his way down a wide, airy hallway and came to a door opening into a large room. The woman stood, laughing playfully, hands on hips, as Esperanto made his way toward his quarry, his exquisite goal within reach, his prize nearly claimed.
He stepped right into the middle of a pentagram, one which held him fast. Shock registered on his face before it reached his mind, and the woman slowly approached him and urged, in a silky voice, that he call his badgers to join them, her gloved hands caressing the sides of her sumptuous dress hypnotically. A shrill whistle from Esperanto’s lips brought them there, and a brief incantation from the woman laid every one of them, numbering in excess of two-score, to waste.
The master of the house then walked down the marble checkerboard floor of the expansive room, his bootheels echoing eerily. He smiled at the woman, whose fangs, now clearly visible to the trapped animal-tamer, marked her as a fiendish servant.
“Mommy, what’s a fiendish servant?”
“A wife, my child.”
Gordon asked her but one question: “how do you like the dress?”
The fiend smiled and placed her thumb in the air, then giggled and looked back to the badger tamer playfully, as though assuring him that the tiresome formality of the dead badgers, necromancer, and pentagram would soon enough be over, whence he'd be completely free to shower her with praise and attention.
The dread necromancer, meanwhile, knelt and weaved blasphemies to his foul God as Esperanto looked on in horror. After a time, the dead badgers floated into the air, all the rage their tamer had subdued being released for eternity, imbuing them with a desire to curse and destroy all they would come into contact with.
After that, Gordon looked upon the trapped animal tamer and began to muse about how he needed a doorman, then stopped, appraised him, and shook his head, murmuring to his female compatriot about how proper doormen were always hunchbacks. “Food for the ghouls,” he finally concluded.
The woman looked back, upset. “I did what you asked, now you can at least let me have –my- fun. Do what you wish with him after, or let me.”
“Fun? What game were they going to play, mommy?”
“Chess, dear.”
“Fine, do what you want. I want my dress back.”
“Your dress? I thought it was a gift. What do you need a dress for?”
“Nothing.” A bit too defensive, and a bit too quick.
“Anyway, this dress was incomplete until I took a needle and thread to it. It was far too wide at the waist and really didn’t take into account the shape of my bust. And those boots. Huge.”
Centuries of undeath tend to prevent a necromancer from blushing, but not from stammering.
“L-l-listen t-to your m-master!” Gordon stuttered. “It w-was a loan. I’ve –many- o-other servants wh-who might n-need it.
“I believe I’m the only female among them, not counting Ellie the wraith, but she’s something of a tomboy. Anyway, can the incorporeal actually wear clothing?”
As Gordon and his servant argued, the pentagram wavered and winked out of existence. Esperanto wordlessly backed out of the room, the receding memories of the animated beasts still partially intact, intact enough to prevent them from assaulting their former master on behalf of their new one.
He made his escape and told his tale, after which history lost track of him.
It was this dress that Emma sought; she wanted to make a good impression, to achieve a reasonable conclusion to the meeting with Jessup. This gown, with its mythical qualities, might earn that which her fists and Markus’ sword had not: the destruction of the necomancer Bel. Beating back another necromancer during the search would simply ice the cake.
Alton, oddly, was as supportive of the journey as any, after Emma had given the rudimentary details to those adventurers sitting in the Icy Vale Inn. She offered no invitation to the pasty ladies, however. They might, after all, want it for themselves, whereas Emma had a great deal more trust in Kalid, despite the fact the dress was apparently made for an elf.
Dorian and Dara expressed little interest, and didn’t join them, so the trip included only Tristian, Kalid, Alton, and Emma. For the bulk of the journey there, Tristian kept trying to get the party to assault some chap named Gorlath, which made Emma angry. She had a mission, yet he was trying to derail it for nearly the entire trip, to get everyone to change their destination, even as they closed on the dread necromancer.
There was really little time to talk to Gordon when they arrived. Emma’s battle cry of ‘I’m coming for your dress!’ was lost in the sounds of melee, as Tristian hacked at the foul fellow. When nothing but a malodorous mass of musty mortification remained, Emma, Tristian, and Alton descended on the necromancer’s chests.
Empty.
Alton, however, seemed divinely inspired, and led the party to Gordon’s bedchamber in the cellar. Emma wondered why the fellow would build a mansion on a bluff with a beautiful view, then choose to live in the basement, but she quickly dropped her musing when the glorious question came from Alton’s mouth.
“Is this it?”
It was, and she immediately tried it on. As in the story from so many years back, the dress needed to be taken in at the waist, though it only needed to be brought in slightly for Emma’s chest and hips. There were two sets of leg-length boots with the dress: a disused and dust-covered pair which was maybe a size too large for Emma, and another which was perhaps twice her size and made for much longer and wider legs. She dusted off the smaller pair and donned them, pinned the dress pending future modifications, and then eased her body into it.
She immediately felt, like, so cute. It was totally great to walk around and get whistled at, since Emma was such a fine looking babe anyway and had earned it by taking such good care of herself, and, really, like, now Tristian had even forgotten about that Gorlath fellow, and understood just how –important- her totally important trip had been, but, oh no, had she broken a nail? By the Winds, she had, so she looked around for Alton to cast some healing spell, but he was busy talking to some plain-looking woman. And when had Miss Saana showed up? And why was Tristian gone, even after she’d positioned herself on the updraft of an opening door, giving him a brief view of her best nickers?
What exactly was Saana saying, anyway? Something about how she thought Markus would want her to take the dress off? Now that’s what we’re –really- looking for, sugar, yummm-me. You bet he will. A wink, unreturned. Jealousy, yep. It happens. She remembered overhearing her mother telling her sister about how to deal with a woman being envious of her beauty. The lesson just lingered on the edge of her memory, a lesson never taught to Emma, but one she was –sure- she needed right now.
“Nice dress!” Emma near shouted, motioning to Saana’s shapeless black cloak, eliciting raised eyebrows and a bemused smile.
That was the lesson. Say nice stuff about her clothes, even if they are, like, totally lacking in taste and shape. Luckily Alton was the only man around, so it didn’t make Saana feel totally bad to have to walk in the shadow of Emma’s hot-ness. Now to make some crib-notes about forks and I’m, like, totally ready… |
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Diary Entry #25
Posted: 04 Apr 2007 06:39 PM |
Diary Entry #25, 3rd Justicadi of Luminarre, 1003 SD
Dear Diary,
A few things of note have happened of late; most of what I transcribe herein is a result of my discussions with others, so I can't really know how close my accounts come to reality, but I will, as ever, do my best to encapsulate fact.
First of all, I blacked out a few days back and awoke an orcess. I can't really be anything but sanguine about it as I write my diary entry now. I was back to 'normal' within a day, so I had little time to bemoan how living in such a body might impact my larger life plans. I told nobody other than Markus of my true identity, though a plan for aiding the M'Gok Tukar slaves did take root while I was an orc. Sadly, it has gone up in smoke, though perhaps Miss Ophelia could execute the plan on her own, if her tribe can be made to stop thinking of her as being dead to them. Ferein wouldn’t like her involvement, but the Gladden part of the plan didn’t involve Ferein anyway.
It seems I was rather attractive, as far as orcs go. I certainly ended up in a more curvaceous body than the one I currently inhabit, though I must say I found having fangs, a snout, and facial hair a bit difficult to get used to. I also very nearly ended up being added to Harold’s harem. Luckily I could run as fast in an orc body as I can in this human one. The chap seemed a bit delusional, I must say. Though I am no sage in matters of the Port Royale underworld, I rather doubt that Harold’s financial means exceed those of Sir Jessup, who he claimed to have ‘mentored’. Had I found the idea of marrying Harold agreeable (I’m not getting any younger, and suitors are hardly beating down the doors), his claim, if true, made him unappealing, and, if false, marked him a liar.
Vrodo and Ophelia, and perhaps some others, were attacked by what Vrodo called ‘desert men’ a few days back. They sound like undead worshippers, rather than Vilyavians, from what Vrodo related. Apparently, they took offense to the archaeological dig in the desert, assaulting the gnomes and perhaps even attacking the polygamist desert merchant Ender.
Yesterday, there was a big to-do at the Mirghul Rangers’ Lodge. Spiders had apparently seized Alton, Tristian, and Mering and transported them to the Slyvian, as an offering to a ‘mother’ spider there. The mother spider bit them, but I guess didn’t like the taste, because they made their way back to Mirghul, poisoned but alive. A hin ranger said the mother spider hunts for a mate. I rather doubt –he- will live happily ever after, but if the spawn of this ‘devastation’ spider, as Alton calls it, ravages the Slyvian, I can’t help but see that as a good thing. Any foe for the forest’s notorious elven residents is a good thing.
The clue that brought Alton, Markus, Tristian, and a few others (Dorian, Dara and Mering, as well?) to the Slyvian in the first place has been neither affirmed nor disproved, though my own opinion is that the appearance of so many spiders indicates that, in the words of the child’s game, ‘they were getting warmer’.
In faith, love, and hope,
Emma |
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Re: Diary Entry #25
Posted: 05 Apr 2007 12:43 AM |
((
Be careful what you wish for.
#vives (IRC), 15 Mar 07
[14:34] SpaciousQ: Emma is fat
[14:34] Emma10: rofl.
[14:35] Emma10: Emma's barely 90 lbs. She's a waif.
[14:35] * Henesua doesn't understand
[14:35] SpaciousQ: oh, but she will be fat
[14:35] Emma10: A fat curse?
[14:35] Starry_Ice: Yes, yes, stamp the approval for that so PDW can make it so.
[14:35] SpaciousQ: we've already discussed how we're going to forcefee- yyyyea.... a curse.
[14:35] * SpaciousQ stamps Emma
[14:35] Emma10: Geya...blech.
[14:36] SpaciousQ: you've been approved.
[14:36] SpaciousQ: Emma is fat.
[14:36] Emma10: Give here an ogre voice-set, and she and Cedrych can become like shrek and his woman.
[14:36] * SpaciousQ draws in an extra 0
[14:36] Emma10: *her
[14:36] Starry_Ice: Very well. If you insist.
[14:36] SpaciousQ: a 900lbs. waif
[14:36] Emma10: Don't you dare...
[14:37] Emma10: I will simply avoid Vives on the week commencing April 1
)) |
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Crimson skies
Posted: 09 Apr 2007 12:45 AM |
((Points to the last post. I'm still trying to figure out how I wished for that :).
Now, regarding the post below...I've needed to take a bit of a break from Vives for some time, and it's not a comment on anything to do with the world or my experience in it, simply a matter of me needing to spend more time in real life for a bit, and, to be honest, recharge my batteries after experiencing a bit of Vives burnout.
Since Emma had her little chat with Zarathustra in December, I'd say Vives has been more immersive than any PW I've ever been involved in. The DMs and builders are throwing out so many problems needing to be solved, and so many great roleplayers are doing their best to do just that. Some days it's zany, some days it's scary, some days it's just fun without qualifiers.
I bow (curtsey?) very deeply to those who volunteer their time as builder, DM, and player here.
However, until my yen to play returns, I'm hanging up my dice and quill for a little vacation. You've all been a blast to play with.
Take care,
-Snooty))
Splorch.
It was the last sound Emma heard before her body was completely encapsulated with jelly.
I should have knocked.
The thought came weakly as she danced with consciousness.
If she’d had time to make a self-admission, it would have been that Oswin’s home was not the true destination. Creatures of Helkris lay beyond, yet at the fringe of Her domain. It was like thumbing one’s nose at a childhood enemy but being in range to run to your parent should he pursue. Emma had wanted to try her luck against those foes with Ophelia, having fared rather poorly on her own some time back.
Still, Tristian, Alton, and Mering were poisoned, and the party was right at Oswin’s house. Would it hurt to peek her head in and see if the man was around?
The answer, with no drumroll, was unequivocally yes. It would hurt.
As Emma’s world turned green and Ophelia frantically threw a rope and hook through the door, she knew the orcess would not retrieve her, not this time. She hoped Kalid would get out. This time, what had happened was Emma’s fault more than any.
The last images that flashed before Emma’s eyes were bittersweet. The previous evening spent in the warmth of the Brandibuck Inn, sipping wine, she and Markus seemingly saying the same things at the same time, yet there was what there always was between them – restraint. They could slay a fiend from the Hells together, but could they ever cross other barriers? Emma had come to doubt it.
As she floated in the ooze, her mother’s last words to her swam in her ears. “Paladins are blinkered to all but their cause, Emma, and fairer than you have had their hearts broken when the cause trumped the woman.”
Flashes of memory danced as the paralysis ate into her. She and Alyssa, Vilyavian and Naruthian, working together to get Tristian and Timik safely out of Fenghuul after Tristian made a decision that could have nearly been as devastating as the one she had just taken. Crimson skies had loomed overhead.
Spider chasing her to the Great River, no way out, sick from the trap in the mage tower, no notes on Balthor’s abomination, now the Sugar Man’s son. No gold. A trip purchased at the cost of a ring she greatly treasured. Sickness cured by a potion from Talion. How should she feel…did he tot that up to use in a future argument? Crimson skies had loomed overhead.
Spiders in the sewers. Just wanting to do good, just wanting to burn the webs, quietly protect Port Royale from a threat they didn’t know of. Men, cutting bodies into pieces, dumping them in the sewers. Markus telling them to stop. Cedrych telling them to stop. Ophelia yelling not to get involved. Swords swinging. Four dead. The dank air hung about them, palpable and red. Not red, crimson.
As Emma’s blood mixed with the greenish jelly in front of her open eyes, she didn’t bother praying for a miracle. She had walked into that shack a woman who likely already had a death warrant from Jessup, a woman estranged from her family after a bitter argument with her mother, and a woman who had none of the cheerful optimism she’d been overflowing with the day she left Paws. She had planned to spend some time at Asashi to clear her mind, to try to forgive her mother, and to try to figure out whether she liked who she had become. And, of course, she had resolved to resolve her feelings for Markus.
The crimson was getting darker now; the sun must be setting on the horizon, Emma’s irrational and distant mind thought. Then focus came, full circle.
I should have knocked. |
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Awakening
Posted: 13 Apr 2007 10:22 PM |
Acrid, sticky fluid dribbles from nostrils, from small, open mouth.
How long? Seconds, minutes, hours?
Breathing stopped, forebrain fading, hindbrain ascendant.
Must breathe out to breathe in.
Rolls over. Face down now.
Limp hand, weak wrist, shoulder muscles contract, elbow arcs slowly from side, ending journey when upper arm is perpendicular to torso.
Wrist tightens. Shaking fingers violate mouth, work their way deeper, pushing apart tight, stiff jaw.
Digits search for elusive uvula, disgorging greenish-yellow jelly from open orifice.
A tickling.
A frantic thrust, deeper.
Violent contraction of diaphragm.
Bilious, bitter juice viciously exits through mouth and nostrils.
Pale yellow, syrupy, warmed by throat and lungs.
A cough. Air pushing past dissolving ichor.
Inhalation…
.
.
.
…Ecstasy. |
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The Unified Test: Prelude
Posted: 17 Apr 2007 03:26 PM |
((I write this little OOC note as much to be a placemarker for me as anything else: this would have happened 8 days ago real-time and in-game))
What happened next was a blur. After retching until her midsection burned with exertion and her throat burned with acidic bile, Emma somehow managed to put fawn's legs underfoot, wobbling precariously at the edge of a red pentagram.
The room was empty. Whatever force or being had brought the oozes and jellies that had nearly killed the diminutive monk had perhaps shepherded them away. Finding out, however, was the furthest thing from Emma's thoughts at that point. A different vision focused her cloudy mind.
Asashi.
Those three syllables gave purpose, and one foot began to plod unsteadily after another. She sought direction, meaning, balance, and a few days alone. Too long had she gone without Marie's low-key tutelage, and far too long without a refuge from the verbal sparring and point-scoring that seemed to infect many of her relationships. Emma had spent far too much time doing and talking, and far too little listening and thinking.
She tried vainly to make her escape under the cover of shadow, but the dark elves and twisted wood sprites would have none of it. Potions, bandages, and inertia drove her forward until, bleeding, breathless, and barely conscious, she found respite at the Rangers' Lodge in Mirghul.
A few hours of sleep, a hasty meal, and wrappings of gauze over brownish-smeared scabs had her back on her feet, her walk less leaden and her head less overwhelmed by murky fog. Unseen and unheard by all but the fat man-like marsh guardian, she slunk to the monastery, hopefully avoiding the notice of Jessup's functionaries and definitely escaping the notice of slaves and slave-master.
The tranquility of Asashi was as unbroken as ever. Roses were in the full bloom of ripening Lumenox, and blue, red, and yellow petals of of the dying tulips wafted through the courtyard. Lilacs bloomed, giving a fragrant scent to the enclosed park. It was idyllic, a world away from war and strife, a world away from what troubled the young woman.
Sitting in the middle of it all, a pipe hanging from her mouth, an easy smile on her wrinkled face, blue eyes settled on Emma, was Marie. In that look, Emma just knew all would be well, that the frayed edges of her life would be mended.
Marie would talk her through the argument that had split her from her mother and family four weeks back (on the Midoran calendar), she would help her find perspective on her faith, and she would help Emma come to grips with her seemingly unrequitted feelings for Markus. Maybe she would offer some outlet for the lingering guilt she felt over the deaths of the orc slaves, as well.
Emma’s belief that talking to the old woman would be the panacea for all that ailed her soul had been naïve in the extreme.
Further, though, she had not been at all prepared for the stark choices her mentor would lay in front of her. |
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Done but not forgotten
Posted: 18 Apr 2007 01:11 PM |
((the italicized piece was written a long time ago, but I'd never come across a point where posting it made sense, until now))
"It hurt," Emma said, looking down at the grass in front of her.
Marie's hand was on her shoulder. "You love your mother very much. Do you suppose an enemy's words can ever hurt as much as those of a loved one?"
The question foreshadowed discussions to come. Unbeknowst to her pupil, Marie was laying a foundation, cataloguing her pupil's answers so that they could be pointed out to her later. Success with Emma would become one of her greater accomplishments, perhaps the last.
"Never," Emma said, eyes still downcast. "A foe, even an acquaintance I feel antipathy toward, could never hurt me with words. They carry less meaning coming from a hostile mouth."
Her mother's remarks had rung in her ears many times since that day. She had followed her orders to the letter ever since, biting back her opinions on a few occasions and avoiding the priest on a few others. If her mother had stopped there, there might have been shame, even lingering resentment for not seeing her side, but it would have abated.
As Marie smiled reassuringly to Emma, the young monk related the conversation. The older woman's blue eyes were a mask. Somewhere, empathy lingered, but purpose had overtaken it, and Emma's rift with her mother gave her exactly what she needed.
*****************************************************************************
Emma felt heat rising in her cheeks, ears and neck as her mother finally finished. The kind words and near-relativistic agnosticism that Saana and the desert man had preached the previous evening had left -her- feeling the empty vessel, as though others were trying to pour -their- faith into her.
Her mother, on the other hand, clearly delineated right from wrong, drew a line in the sand. Ephraim Vosteph's punch to her jaw could never have hurt as much as her mother's words.
"No daughter of mine should -ever- challenge a priest of our faith!" Her mother's face, ears and neck were as red as Emma's would become. The one-inch height advantage she claimed over her daughter seemed to balloon to four hands in that moment, and Emma looked at the ground, speechless.
Her mother's words thundered in her ears, but Emma could already see what the climax to this discussion would be. She would meet it with acceptance. Defiantly, though, her inner self added a caveat. She would also meet it with dignity. She would not cry.
"When did my daughter get it into her head that her life was about being a soldier? About hitting over helping? About ignoring those with a great deal more accumulated wisdom than she? Your actions shame me," Selena Robinson near-shouted, before her voice levelled off to a cool whisper. "And they shame you too."
I will not cry
Her mother did not stop there. Few are immune to anger, and anger stopped her from choosing her words with care, something she had always tried to do with the younger of her two daughters.
"Don't think I don't see the puppy-love in your eyes when you speak of the paladin," the woman continued, layering embarrassment of a different kind over Emma's shame. "Paladins are blinkered to all but their cause, and fairer than you have had their hearts broken when the cause trumped the woman."
The monk's jaw slackened. She was stunned. In all her twenty-two years, Emma had never heard such words. She knew she wasn't as pretty as her mother, or her deceased sister, but the woman had always been careful to avoid pointing it out, had always been careful to compliment her daughter on her other strengths, had always confidently asserted that Emma would one day find her true love.
I will not cry.
Emma bit her cheek and backed out of the room, while a horrified look crossed her mother's face. She quickly made her way to the door, taking her small satchel down from the hanging peg in a jerky movement.
I will not cry.
As Emma opened the door and began to walk out, her mother said something, but she didn't hear it. Emma could hear her heart beating in her ears, could feel the warmth of her blood in her cheeks. Moisture threatened to leak from her eyes, so she willed them to stay open, and repeated the mantra in her head.
On the boat trip from Ferein to Buckshire, she did not cry.
*****************************************************************************
Marie chose her words carefully after Emma finished. "It wasn't what she said, it was how she said it?"
Emma answered with an allegory. "When my sister was in her fourteenth year, my mother had a long talk with her. About love, and about how to avoid ending up with child if you lay with a man. I hid in a closet and listened." Clear but regretful hazel eyes turned to the older woman. "She never had that discussion with me."
"You cannot hold on to this forever. You must by now recognize that you have gifts of your own. Would you trade them for your sister's beauty?"
Emma did not flinch at the mention of her dead sister. After leaving Paws and mixing with so many men whose knowledge extended beyond soil, crops, rain and domesticated animals, it was a question she had often asked herself, but one she had always pushed away unanswered.
"My mother expects me to act the consummate Vilyavian, to use my powers of...persuasion...to achieve noble ends, rather than the skills I've honed here." Emma would not answer the question now. She didn't -have- to answer it, either. She was who she was, and musing about changing it achieved nothing.
In the end, the answer Emma gave pleased Marie more than a simple yes or no ever could. |
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Diary Entry #26
Posted: 19 Apr 2007 06:48 PM |
Diary Entry 26, 5th Tetradi of Luminarre, 1003 SD
Dear Diary,
There is a great deal about my final test at the monastery that I would like to write, but I just can't seem to get a handle on my feelings about it, so I will return to that subject another day. Instead, I write about the events of the last two days.
The day before yesterday, I met two adventurers I'd never come across before, a stunningly beautiful elve named A'mael and a tall man of the Nihillan tribes named Sehran. Both, it appeared, were blood-mages. I shan't use the term 'magister' to refer to such people anymore, as many acquaintances, from Magister Bereil to the mages themselves, seem to believe the moniker is inaccurate.
Anyway, we took a short trip through the archaeological dig in the desert, at the behest of a gnome who barely acknowledged the effort, and A'mael took some inscriptions of the runes we came across; the gnome had little insight into what evils they heralded, so A'mael took her renderings back to Tel'Elena for further study.
I had one curious observation about the elve: she appears to have a metal arm, her left.
After that, I came upon Ophelia, Tristian, Talion, Magister Salt, and Sir Markus just beyond the south gates to Buckshire. Ophelia was apparently trying to teach Magister Salt how to battle some bounty hunter, while Magister Salt was showing her that there are over a hundred ways to skilfully (and inexpertly) flee.
After Magister Salt didn't return from his final flight, Sir Markus and I sparred for a time, something Ophelia interpreted as a mating ritual. I must admit that when he took my legs out from under me with the flat of his sword and then stood over me and looked down with concern, sweat dripping from his blond locks, Ophelia yelling for him to 'drag me back to a cave', I was very much in the mood to be drug back to a cave, improper as that no doubt sounds.
I shan't belabour this parchment with what happened between then and the end of the evening, because it is a bit of a blur in my mind. I ended up modelling Gordon's Gown for Sir Markus, which evolved into having a glass of wine with him at Doc McGillicuddy's, which evolved into me waking up in the morning with a splitting headache and a wine-stained piece of parchment tucked into my smallclothes that had an outlandish but utterly romantic account of the assault on Haven written on it.
Then came yesterday.
A few of us were standing around Port Royale exchanging pleasantries when a shifty gnome who I assume is in Jessup’s employ showed up. He once led Ophelia to her near-doom and then led Fennigan, Sir Markus and I to the same. He approached Ophelia again this time, asking her to take part in another ‘mission’. Tristian also did his smarmy best to ingratiate himself with the whispering gnome, asking him to ‘write a reference letter to his employer’.
I believe Tristian wants everybody to like him, within a certain hedonistic, selfish, and unprincipled framework. He seems to assume that calling upon his God to raise the dead buys him the right to call demons into existence, that goofy lust for Jessup’s friendship and acceptance will not put distance between he and those who don’t wish to ally themselves with that ‘faction’, and that kind words erase foul deeds. Those who wish to be all things to all people end up like too little anchovy paste spread on a C-A-S-P* sandwich: a league wide and a hair thick.
The mission was to retrieve an elixir from an evil magister from Naillamne who’d taken up residence in the Mazadhi jungle. Ophelia readily agreed to assist, as the task paid a hefty sum of gold. Tristian, eager to ingratiate himself into Jessup’s circle, did the same, and Kalid seemed rather tied to Tristian’s actions that day, though that may merely be my perception. I took my cue from Sir Markus. When he said he would go, I agreed to as well. We had agreed we would try to ensure no evil came of this mission, and that we would not hand over whatever was found if it served dark ends. I regret that I let Sir Markus down. I regret it terribly.
Even more so, I regret it because I know that without Markus and I (well, without Markus, for sure) the mission would have failed.
My first conflict on that trip centered on our route to the jungle. The gnome refused to countenance going through the rainforest to get there, instead crossing the Devil’s Backbone, a territory claimed by dragons blessed of Vilyave, and teeming with their spawn. Ophelia and Sir Markus were kind enough to take the alternate route with me, while Tristian happily cut down the dragonspawn alongside the gnome. I presume Kalid, ever hidden in the shadows, followed Tristian and the black-clad gnome.
I was not in a particularly happy mood once we reconnoitred in the jungle, but there was little time to chat, as we plunged headlong into a cavern apparently ordinarily claimed by the Sslissayath, but now taken over by the evil magister from Naillamne. He had constructs, archers, and apprentices guarding him, but we fought through them all. Kalid fell, but some God felt fit to answer the call of the feckless ranger when he took out a scroll and read from it. I was first to the magister’s treasure hoard, and it was me who disarmed the traps and picked the locks. I held the elixir. All had gone according to the plan Sir Markus and I had agreed on.
Unortunately, the gnome was right behind me. He saw me take the elixir, and immediately asked for it. The runes etched into the glass marked it as the essence of a Celestial Being; merely taking such an essence would be an act of great evil. The Naillamne magisters were trading in it; Jessup’s employee wanted it.
I asked what it would be used for, a question that the gnome refused to answer. He had contracted for a job to be done, he had met his side of the bargain, and he expected us to meet ours. I hesitated, and Ophelia looked on, worried, while anger and impatience began to manifest on the gnome’s face. I looked around for Sir Markus, but he was securing the perimeter. Ophelia then said that she couldn’t help us if Sir Markus and I got into trouble again. I had no appetite for further conflict with Jessup.
I gave the gnome the elixir.
It was the wrong thing to do, I guess. I should have given it to Sir Markus, should have fled with it, should have done anything but give it to him, but I didn’t relish earning Jessup’s wrath. I was either scared, applying hasty logic, or both. I let Sir Markus down, and I feel terrible about it.
The magister’s treasure hoard was substantial, and I laid out everything I found so that the party could see it all. This was my third mistake. If I had it all to do over again, I simply would have kept four scrolls I found. It would have changed nothing in the end result, aside from saving a lot of arguing with a foolish and amoral ranger.
Sadly, I didn’t.
Just as I finished laying everything out, the Sslissayath returned to reclaim their home. A heated batttle ensued, a battle that was punctuated with Tristian and Ophelia scooping up all the treasure. I inwardly groaned as Tristian took four scrolls that would allow him to call into existence fiends of the underworld. I knew it would be an epic struggle to get them back.
However, at that very point in time, the epic struggle was in front of me. Sslissayath and creatures of water were converging on us, and we faced a constant assault all the way to the cavern entrance, at which point a Sslissayath Priestess called a very powerful creature of water to her aid, one that very quickly shot water into Ophelia’s lungs, drowning her on the spot.
We made a hasty retreat, Sir Markus carrying Ophelia out of the cave, the water beast, devoid of direction from the dead priestess, not following. When we reached the seashore south of the rainforest, the exhausted knight set Ophelia down and Sir Tristian once more managed to impose on the Gods to bring wind to her lungs.
Ophelia laid out what treasure she’d picked up, and Tristian briefly did the same, but he scooped the scrolls back up again when a tiger-faced biped that Sir Markus later identified as a messenger from Nethar’u came looking for the elixir. In this case, honesty was perhaps the best policy. Sir Markus said that a gnome he didn’t know had the elixir, and the messenger left.
By that point, Tristian was holding the scrolls of fiend creation, and was refusing to give them over for destruction. It was a vast hoard of treasure, and many of the items we found would be of use only to him, but he decided that his price for giving up the power to command demons was an amulet I fancied, something of greater use to a woman unable to wear armour than anyone else.
I shrugged and blandly agreed to trade the amulet for the scrolls, with Sir Markus acting as intermediary because Tristian seems to enjoy being a prig. I secretly gave Sir Markus an amulet that appeared the same as the one Tristian desired, but was of weaker enchantment. I felt no compunction to reward his intransigence. He traded the scrolls, only noticing the difference after they were safely in Sir Markus’ hands.
I feel no regret at the deception, only at ever tempting him by laying out the scrolls as part of the treasure.
Further arguing ensued, and Tristian will perhaps now devote some energies to labeling me a cheat. I shan’t lose sleep over it. Ophelia ended up smoothing things over with him, and I went with Sir Markus to the volcano.
We dropped the scrollcases into the searing lava, watching each erupt into flame, before making our way slowly to the Icy Vale Inn. I felt terrible for not having more backbone in the face of the gnome, but Markus looked down at me and offered forgiveness, and atonement, but his blue eyes were so hard to look into.
Then he asked me out to join him for supper in two days’ time. Apparently we had discussed this the previous evening while I was under the influence of a cross-dressing lich’s gown and a few drams of wine. I stammered a hasty acceptance and stared as long as I could into his eyes, placed a hand on his shoulder, and then….
…boldness left me, for the second time that night. Though he placed a hand softly over mine, I retreated to the water closet, ostensibly to brush my teeth, but I stared at the door for a long time once I was inside, not chancing a return to the common room until I was sure Sir Markus was gone.
Fear. Marie promises the final test will cleanse me of that emotion. I wish fear had not gripped me yesterday, and yes, dear diary, I'll be honest. It is on the second occasion that I regret it more than the first.
In faith, love, and hope,
Emma
* C-A-S-P: Cucumber, Anchovy, Sardine, and Peppercorn |
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A House in Order
Posted: 24 Apr 2007 01:55 PM |
The halfling had been momentarily speechless, a respite from words that Emma appreciated. She knew a great many people that could have used that armour, but only a few who might actually -need- it. Almost from the moment she'd picked it up, it had been earmarked for the elusive hin. Markus had suggested giving it to him, and Johe had apparently intervened on behalf of she and the knight after they had killed its former owner. It had sat for too long in her pack, and she was glad to be rid of it.
She explained the gift as nothing more than karma. Johe didn't ask where the armour came from, and she didn't tell him. About the only thing she insisted on was that she aid him in dying it, so it didn't look as ridiculous as his current get-up.
It had been a day of shedding a great many things. She'd been raising gold for what seemed like weeks, in an effort to purchase a helm from the gnome at Tockticken, and after following Timik on an expedition that seemed to yield little more than rusty daggers and belly-button lint, she went through her satchel and sold off most of the items she kept and never used: combat gloves that dealt extra damage 'just in case' she traveled with a magister who could give her the magicks her best gloves did; boots that protected her from the cold; pouch after pouch of bullets.
The end result was two pounds of woven gold that fit lightly over her head and face, and acted to buttress her mind against magical attack. Perhaps she wouldn't need to go through with the trials Marie had arranged. The helm, and her own bull-headed resistance to attempts at mind-control, rendered her nearly immune anyway. Was Marie's promise really worth the sacrifice?
Emma supposed her own actions, literally and metaphorically, suggested she had already decided it was. She was shedding excess. Her things sat in neatly ordered bags in the small satchel that hung from her right shoulder: one bag for rings and amulets, one for dresses, one for extra boots and gloves, one for potions and bandages, and a few for crafting that could be removed and slung from her left shoulder if she was hunting or digging sand.
Her ordered packs were a marked contrast to those that Timik gave her when they made their way to Tockticken. A cacaphony of contents, no rhyme or reason, swords clanking against vials and flasks, and so many things that Emma suspected had long since gone moldy or spoiled. The hin ended up having to strip to his smallclothes just to swim the river, leaving Emma, hardly a paragon of might herself, to struggle across with a pack full of the mementos of a disordered life.
Markus understood what was to come, and had told the young monk that he would 'support whatever decision she made'. It wasn't exactly what she had hoped he'd say, but he'd made things easier, and she didn't regret her feelings for him. He had shown her that the knights of the fairy tales really do exist, only that in the flesh they can stir more than just a woman's heart.
Emma patted the satchel on her shoulder as she watched Johe disappear from sight, no blade of grass or tree branch marking his passing. Aside from a ring and an amulet yet to find an owner, and a few undelivered letters and books she felt might some day be of use, there was nothing left to shed.
Though the last item weighing on her shoulder had been Johe's armour, the last item weighing on her heart was still there, and, some hours later, after Emma said farewell to Alton, she boarded a boat to Ferein. Was it coincidence that Alton was the last person she spoke to before seeing her mother, a rather innoccuous discussion of how difficult it is to raise gold when one doesn't swing a pickaxe? Or was she now on the river, was her path now being set for her, with Marie waiting at the maw of the waterfall when she made her inevitable return to Asashi?
Marie had suggested, a suggestion bordering on an order, that Emma go to her mother, a reunion that was marked by tears and apology, an apology rejected.
"You only spoke what you felt was the truth, mother."
"That isn't true." A mother's love battled with honesty.
"Of course it is, and I've no reason to fault you for it, though, at the time, it hurt." Hazel eyes did not waver, nor did the high-pitched, clear voice.
"You won't accept my apology?" Red-rimmed eyes took in her daughter, and her pupils dilated in fear - the fear of a mother who hears wolves howling when she's in the kitchen and her child is playing in the backyard.
"Mother, had I been a son, my life would have been easier." Emma was surprised at how effortlessly the words came, after having waited so long to say them. "I would have been encouraged to embrace my strengths, rather than pine to be like you and Priyavel."
More tears washed down Selena Robinson's face in well worn rivulets that took with them the chalk of her lightly applied make-up. She looked down, unable to return her daughter's gaze.
"Do not blame yourself, mother. Had I remained in Paws, had war never come, the only life for me was to aspire to be like you, to be a surrogate mother to Noah and Levi, to be a surrogate wife to Ephraim." The young woman's thin lips curled downward as she hissed the last two syllables.
"Will you abandon our faith?"
"Mother, look at me. Vilyavianism is for the free-spirited, the independent-minded, for those who would talk to the birds and write poetry. I have ever looked for and clung to universal and immutable truths, looked for hard and fast laws that should never be broken, to live within a code that doesn't change with the seasons. When moral battles have come, I have always found myself siding with my 'paladin friend'. He is the beacon of light against which I weigh my actions. I will never be able to see a priest or priestess of our faith in that light, will never respect and admire one as much."
The older woman swallowed and wiped her eyes, before full lips opened and a hoarse voice sought, and found, words. "Will you join with the Aristi, then?"
Emma shook her head. "I can scarcely lift a sword, mother." She then smiled playfully, an expression that seemed to lighten her mother's mood somewhat. "I would rather forever idealize they and their order than join it and have the illusion broken."
"Then what, daughter?" The tears had stopped, and the woman was now simply treading unfamiliar territory, dealing with her daughter as a woman in her own right, an equal.
"I follow Asashi, mother, as you already know. It is a doctrine, not a faith. I now understand that all the gifts that have come with my training come from within, not from our Goddess. I am not so fickle as to walk away from a Goddess that has not rejected me, and has in fact come to my aid on more than one occasion. But I am a realist, mother. I am not one of our Goddess' chosen ones. I do not have the blessings She celebrates, and I never will. My faith is my own, and it is subservient to the laws of my order."
Selena looked at her daughter for a long time, her eyes clearing somewhat and her lower lip resting between her teeth in an expression reminiscent of one her daughter sometimes wore. Finally, she inhaled and spoke softly, in an interrogative tone. "You know that I love you very much, and am so very proud of you?"
Emma smiled back. "I do now."
After a long embrace, Emma found that her heart was now as light and as ordered as her pack. She would soon return to Marie, and to Asashi, ready. |
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