Alea Iacta Story Hour: A Mythic Rome Campaign (Baby Announcement: 8/17)

[Mortepierre]

Orichalcum, were you aware of this?

Seems someone over there read your SH and decided to make a profit..

 

[Orichalcum]

Alea Iacta IX: An Easy Descent Chp. 10: We Grope Together and Avoid Speech

Thanks, Mortepierre! I'll have to check that out when it gets published.
***

This time, we find ourselves standing in a grassy, sunny mountain meadow, birds chirping all around us and the sweet perfume of flowers wafting in the breeze.

Out of a grove of trees, to our astonishment, comes Meloch, wearing only a small golden loincloth (Cornelia blushes and looks away; the male members of the party try not to develop inferiority complexes); he is also carrying a small gold-inlaid bow and a quiver full of arrows. I, of course, can immediately tell that something odd is up, as I have no mental connection whatsoever to this Meloch.

"The time has come, " the loincloth-clad Meloch intones in a sweet countertenor, "for you to choose, young master. Who is the most beautiful?" He holds out a brightly shining golden apple to Metellus, and gestures to a another grove of rowan trees nearby. Nepa and Lupina Silvanilla walk out from the grove and stand by Cornelia, each dressed in diaphanous gowns and glittering jewelry. Meloch waves his hand and with another gesture Cornelia is suddenly similarly dressed in a scanty, translucent tunic which shows off her long legs and trim figure rather well, if indecorously.

All of us except for Metellus look around at each other, extremely confused, and Cornelia tries desperately to hide her legs, all the while gazing anxiously at Metellus.

Metellus, however, looks oddly relieved, and stops Meloch before he can speak again. "I choose Lupina Silvanilla. Done!" he says quickly, and hands her the apple.

As the fog curls up around us again, Cornelia glares, anguished, at the young Tribune.

 

[Meloch the Pygmy]

the male members of the party try not to develop inferiority complexes

If this was a deliberate pun, Chalky, you deserve to be strung up.

 

[Orichalcum]

Alea Iacta IX: An Easy Descent Chp. 11: Eyes I dare not meet in dreams

By now, we have all more or less realized that we are being thrown into each other's worst nightmares, and we all tense as the fog seeps away under our feet, ready for the next horror. But at first, all seems calm. We are standing in the tablinum, or study, of Cornelia's mother's house in Roma, and all seems peaceful. We look around at each other, and everyone seems fairly normal, until our gazes alight upon Cornelia herself. She is dressed in layers upon layers of the finest white muslin tunics, stretching in gradations from the floor up to her waist, with a golden and copper girdle encircling her hips. Her hair is piled elaborately in six symmetrical rolls on top of her head, forming a cone-like headdress, from which was draped a translucent flame-colored veil that stretched down her back to her ankles and matched the color of her new red leather sandals. Her eyes are gently rimmed with kohl and malachite.

"Cornelia," Lucretius murmured, "You look stunning."

"She looks," Metellus announced in startlement, "like a bride." The non-Romans turned to stare at him in surprise, while Cornelia glared again, and Lucretius, realizing, nodded in agreement.

At that moment, we heard the voice of Licinia Luculla, calling from outside the front door,in the street. "Cornelia, darling, come and meet your groom! He is waiting for you, and all is ready."

Cornelia smiled at all of us, wistfully, and, carefully picking up the edge of her veil in one hand, started for the door. At this point, we all panicked.

"Cornelia, I really think you shouldn't go outside," Metellus blurted.

"Why not?" she snapped. "My groom, you know, the one who loves me, is out there."

Wena tried to intervene. "Don't you think we should, ah, pray to the Celtic deities first? For good fortune?"

"That's right!" Heilyn added. "Lugh tells me this won't be a good idea. Not unless we, ah, pray, and some of us go out there first just to check."

Lucretius, also worried, agrees. "And to Minerva! We can also pray to Minerva! I mean, how much do you know about this groom? And besides, we have a quest, remember, to stop the Black Chain Philosopher!"

Cornelia stands proud, and a little hurt at her friends' reluctance on this joyous occasion. "We can do that afterwards. And I know that he loves me, and I love him. Can you give me any good reason why I shouldn't step out there right now and live happily ever after with him?" She starts firmly for the door, determined and highly irritated.

At this point, desperate, Llyr leaps in front of her, blocking her path. "Yes! Because I love you!"

Dead silence falls. We all turn to stare at Llyr and the suddenly pale Cornelia. I make careful notes for Meloch, who had suspected this a little.

"You...what?" she says finally, very quietly.

"I love you! I have, ever since I saw your courage and daring in Britannia! I know I'm not good enough for you - I'm only an auxiliary - but don't go out there and marry this stranger!" Llyr confesses, passion for once evident in his eyes. No one else is sure whether he's just telling a convenient lie or honestly baring his heart.

"Llyr..." Cornelia reaches out a hand gently, then drops it to her side. "Llyr, I...I have to go meet my groom now. Then, um, we'll see." And she steps out the front door.

 

[Dæmon]

Cursed clifhangers!

Thank you for sharing this engrosing tale with us Orichalcum.

 

[Orichalcum]

Alea Iacta IX: An Easy Descent Chp. 12: The Stuffed Men

Outside, in the street, Cornelia finds a gathering of her family, neighbors, and household slaves, who part to reveal a toga-clad figure with one end of the toga draped over his face in religiously appropriate fashion. She is followed quickly by all the rest of us, pushing our way out of the door in combined fear and curiosity. As we pass, the slaves throw candied almonds in Cornelia's path and the crowd marvels at her beauty.

Cornelia shyly walks forward to her groom and takes his hand, while Llyr bites back a cry. Marcus turns to Metellus and mutters, "Can we kill it yet?"
Metellus ponders this for a second, then whispers back, "Not yet! We don't know who he is. But, um, draw your sword and ready an attack."

Oblivious to all this, Cornelia is focused on her future husband. As she looks up at him, he raises his other hand to draw back the hood of his toga. She gasps in horror as her groom's face is revealed to be that of a shiny, grinning skull, which then slowly twists and reshapes itself to form the countenance of Aeduana, horribly scarred by acid burns.

“Did you ever really think you would be free of me, Cornelia?” the figure hisses at her, reaching a long, clawed hand up to her face. "You shall pay for what your foul magics did to me!"

Cornelia, for once in her life, screams. All the rest of us, who had been expecting, if not this, something else fairly horrible, run forward to attack. Llyr pulls Cornelia out of danger, passing her to Wena, who tries to calm her down. A flurry of swords, hammers, javelins, Druidic sickle, and a lightning bolt follow. At the end of it, Aeduana is once more indubitably, sincerely, dead.

"I could get used to this," Marcus comments. "It gets easier every time."

Wena speaks quietly to Cornelia, gesturing the others to gather around. "Aeduana's dead, dear, and you were right to kill her. You'll meet your groom someday - just not today. Now please, let us all focus on the real reason we're here - to save Roma and Cimbrus, and find the Cap of Twilight, and kill that manipulative lying despicable Black Chain Philosopher, Quintus Mucius Scaevola Phelan!"

Cornelia calms down, her tears drying, and she looks around at us, as the fog rolls down the street again, enveloping us all, and then, slowly, stops moving at all. Visions appear in the mist - an image of Marcus' family crying, and of Heilyn's dead mother, but they quickly fade, and at last the fog itself becomes thinner and thinner, until before us we can see stretched out a grim and dark city.

 

[Fimmtiu]

A flurry of swords, hammers, javelins, Druidic sickle, and a lightning bolt follow. At the end of it, Aeduana is once more indubitably, sincerely, dead.

"I could get used to this," Marcus comments. "It gets easier every time."

Bad ass.

 

[Orichalcum]

Alea Iacta IX: An Easy Descent Chp. 13eath's dream kingdom

First of all, a brief note to say that, as you may have guessed, Meloch's player is back safe from Afghanistan and relaxing in London with his fiancee. Yay! Hence the lack of daily posts - plus, I was visiting Llyr's player and other friends over the weekend, and then have been prepping for some gaming this weekend.

In a game design note, the whole preceding sequence of scenes was, as alert readers will have noticed, based on the dreams that the PCs had been getting for the previous several sessions, about 2 years of real time, which is when I had come up with this idea. By the time of this session, I had 3 dreams for each PC, mostly false visions. To run this sequence, I had the PCs make Will Saves and then rolled on a chart for the person who failed by the most. People who had experienced their dreams previously got bonuses to their Saves. The sequence ended more or less arbitrarily at the point when, well, it stopped being interesting.

The following chapter owes much to the 2nd century CE Greek writer Lucian of Samosata. Thankfully, his copyright expired quite some time ago.

***
As the fog finally disperses, we immediately realize that we are not in any of our own dreams. We stand in the main square of a large city, just outside the other side of the Gate of Ivory. Three other gates ring the plaza, a barred and closed one of horn and two other open gates, made out of iron and out of ceramic. Each appears to open onto an endless, featureless plain, and we decide that, interesting as they are, they are not our immediate concern. Two springs bubble up into elaborate marble fountains; a thick, black liquid the consistency of oil flows out from one and into a pool at the middle of the courtyard, where it meets the smooth white liquid, which resembles milk, coming from the other spring, and then both separately run out through channels into the city.

A low wall, broken in sections, surrounds the plaza; it is garishly painted in blues and yellows and greens. Beyond we can see a variety of exotic dwellings - the knowledgable Cornelia points out what she thinks is the onyx-walled temple of Night, on one side, and the grey-columned palace of Morpheus, god of sleep and dreams, on the other. Various figures, some more insubstantial than others, hurry through the square or flicker in and out; some seem highly familiar, but none seem aware of us.

After some brief discussion, we decide that in a place like this, intent is crucial, and so we all focus our minds on finding Cimbrus, trying to ignore the sights around us. (It seems like a better idea to try and find Cimbrus before dealing directly with the BCP.) A road leading through the painted wall appears before us, and we walk down it, alert and weapons ready.

We soon find ourselves in a thick wood, full of oaks and willow trees; the ground is covered with dark poppies and mandragora trees also dominate the landscape. Periodically, we startle a tree full of bats, which swoop down at us, but we manage to largely prevent injury.

After some time of concentrating on Cimbrus, the wood finally becomes thinner, and we hear noises up ahead, sounds of combat. We rush forward, past the edge of the trees, and find ourselves on the outskirts of an enormous battle. Giant trees are striding forward, lashing the enemy with their branches; enormous wolf packs to the left and right of us are charging forward, and above us, a stormy sky boils and bolts of lightning come hurtling down from the clouds.

Far ahead of us, through all of the chaos, we can see what look like several assembled Roman legions, largely maintaining their positions, and beyond them, in the distance, a tall, well-fortified stone wall.

Cornelia, alone among us, gasps in recognition. "This must be a dream of mine - this is the battle at Hadrian's Wall, where my father died! But I never saw it like this...wait. This isn't my nightmare. It's Cimbrus's!"

The Druids and Caledonii charge forward, and the Legions respond with a thousand hurled javelins - directly towards us.

 

[MTR]

Now I'm curious. What did Lucian of Samosata write?

 

[Mortepierre]

Now I'm curious. What did Lucian of Samosata write?

This should tell you more about him...