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Story Hour
Dear Mom - Mishap Adventures of a Mommy's Elf
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<blockquote data-quote="Lwaxy" data-source="post: 6163096" data-attributes="member: 53286"><p>Back to updating. thanks to cancer surgery and other annoyances, we had a long break. There might be some time between updates still, but i doubt anyone is still following this <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /> But maybe we get a few new readers. Ut will be finished eventually. </p><p></p><p>-------------------------------------------------------</p><p></p><p></p><p>The rain was coming down in torrents, drenching the bedraggled group of survivors they had rescued out of the tomb of the supposed pirate captain in the volcano foothills. All of them looked exhausted to the point of passing out, despite the whole exercise having been, as the paladin had put it “a standard rescue-and-kill-the-undead expedition. </p><p></p><p>For several days they had been following the bandits around, found their old abandoned lair in the ruins of a hamlet and finally caught up to them at a tomb where, for some reason, the orcish leader of the gang had been able to control the undead inside - which seemed to have been recently created - with a triangular shaped pendant made of platinum, as far as they could say, with many jewels in it. Lhess had never seen the like of it, and when the bandit leader finally succumbed to her sword, she secured it to study it later. </p><p></p><p>The orc leading the gang had turned out to be the disgruntled son of a noble from Freeport. Lhess didn’t kill him, as opposed to the other riff raff, because he was the only one not detecting as evil, despite his control of the undead. She wasn’t sure if the young man would spend even one day in jail – it was Freeport, after all, and she had already heard a lot about how justice worked there depending on if you had money or not. But she had taken care he would not be able to harm anyone anytime soon – thanks to the short sword she hardly ever used and normally just carried in her bag of holding. Her sword of righteousness. All she had to do was touch him with it and speak the command word. The next time the orc would think about doing something that could be remotely considered evil, even if it was just stealing some extra money from his father, he would be facing pains all over his body relevant to the crime he planned to commit. It would last for a lifetime – or until the sword touched him again. The latter was unlikely to happen. </p><p></p><p>They were back on their way to Freeport, but at the current speed, in an open ox cart and with some donkeys as pack animals taken from the robbers, they would take quite a few days. The only horses in the group, owned by Lhess and her orc friend, were getting impatient at the slow speed and the weather. There was no doubt some of them, if not all, would get sick if they would not find shelter soon. </p><p></p><p>She was just about to suggest making shelter with the little they had when a small figure appeared out of seemingly nowhere in the middle of the road. The slight swoosh from pushed away air indicated a teleport. Before the paladin could tell anyone to stop the cart, the ox stopped on his own, seemingly happy with not having to move again. The figure came closer, and they could now recognize it as an old, female halfling in the robes and clothes of an Oracle of the God of Knowledge. </p><p></p><p>With a heavy sigh, the paladin jumped off the horse and went to greet the old crone. The orc mercenary’s eyebrows went up in understanding. To anyone who had some experience adventuring or just cruising the lands, it was clear what this meant. There had been a vision of sorts, and they, at least the paladin and her friend, considering the state of the others, had been in it. With any luck, it also pertained to their missing friends and would save them some time. If not... well, time was not of the essence, except maybe to find this Flip guy. It also meant, Thalla was sure, that there was some quest or the other in it for them to really gain the help of the oracle. Even if it would only be mentioned in passing, it would be expected of them to return a favor. It was all the same to Thalla, but obviously not to Lhess. </p><p></p><p>The paladin and the oracle talked for a moment, then the oracle started humming, her voice going up and down the scale, while she was jumping around their trek. Lhess returned to her horse and got on, waving for the others to stay put. “She knows some sort of teleport ritual that will get us to shelter.” A look thrown at the orc confirmed what Thalla already suspected. There was more info for them about their friends. </p><p></p><p>Before anyone could comment or ask questions, the world seemed to flicker out and then on again, unlike any teleport the two of them had ever seen. The animals were strangely calm during the process while the merchants and their prisoner shouted in surprise and badly disguised fear. </p><p></p><p>The place they had come out at was not scary at all, though. High trees covered a central place of what in turn looked to be the center of a small village. No rain came through the canopy, and the houses around the place – halfling holes, a wooden town hall with roof high windows, gnome huts and, at the side of the trees, elven homes – were all dry, too. </p><p></p><p>“Welcome to Sirlon’s Hamlet,” the old crone said, surprisingly in the voice of a much younger woman. “You’ll all be given rooms, food, and a chance to relax in warm water. I’ll talk with you two...” she pointed at Lhess and Thalla, “...at a convenient time tomorrow. Your animals will be well cared for, too.” With that, the little oracle vanished into one of the halfling burrows and left it to the suddenly appearing hamlet inhabitants to take care of business. </p><p></p><p>Lhess and Thalla found themselves in a large room together, with several foods already waiting. The room had a door to a hall with several hot pools inside, and both of them made use of those extensively. Lhess almost forgot she was in need to find her friends, and Thalla totally forgot she was worried about Uthas. The whole place had the feel of a holiday resort, and the few locals at the pool at that time confirmed this. “But our main attraction is gone. Some 11 years back or so, and since then, we only get rich people from Freeport every now and then. Which is still fine,” an older gnome explained. “But nothing like Sirlon’s Spooky Mansion.” </p><p></p><p>Sirlon, founder of the Hamlet, was an old wizard who had died about the same time his “spooky house” stopped functioning, they were told. Knowing about the commoner’s desire for adventure, he had build a mansion next to his small wizard tower and filled it with mismatched illusions of whatever people thought scary. Visitors could just enjoy the show or pretend to be adventurers fighting the monsters and other hostiles. But keeping up illusions as elaborate as these was hard, and no one else was able to fully maintain them after Sirlon’s death. So eventually, there were no more paying visitors, and their hot springs and nice landscape was all the hamlet had going for itself now. </p><p></p><p>Lhess had the feeling there was more to the story, but none of the locals seemed to want to talk about it. Not feeling it was her place to dig for probably irrelevant information, the paladin decided to forget about it and just enjoy the water. Later that night, when she fell into a soft, cosy bed, she wondered for a moment where Flip was now, and why he had not bothered to find her yet. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The halfling in question was, at this late hour, climbing off his donkey in the harbor area of Freeport, rubbing his behind as soon as he touched the ground. “My ass isn’t made to ride asses,” he grumbled. </p><p></p><p>From over the back of her own mount, Elga looked at him in confusion. “What?” </p><p></p><p>“Oh... donkeys are also called asses around here. I do not know why, maybe because they are asses to handle at times,” Flip explained with a grin. “Weird how I remember all that but don’t have any idea who I am, still.”</p><p></p><p>“I see. And, well, if what we were told was right, this Zordak wizard guy should be able to help us.”</p><p></p><p>Flip stared at the door to the self-styled “palace of entertainment” they had come to find. It was in bad need of new color. The current red painting was beginning to chip off and reveal an equally bad looking coat of yellow color under it. The stairs leading up to the door were squeaking under Elga’s light weight, and all the windows he could see didn’t appear as if they were still clean enough to see through. He could imagine what type of entertainment one would find in a place like this one. What a wizard renowned as a scholar regarding the mind and soul would want in such a place was a riddle to him, but he had a feeling he had seen stranger things before. </p><p></p><p>Elga was pushing open the door, which seemed to be able to swing inward and outward, and released a thick cloud of smoke, not entirely created by normal tobacco if Flip’s nose was right. Sniffing in disgust, the young woman went in anyway, looking around as she did so. Flip hopped up right behind her, not intending to let her out of his sight. She might be a demon fighter, but that, in his view, said nothing about how she could handle a bad situation in a place like this one. </p><p></p><p>And what a place it was. Held in reddish and yellow colors, including the few lights, they could see a large room filled with tables, a small bar and most noticeable a stage on which, right now, a group of humans and elves was performing some weird looking body bending tricks. Left from the stage, they could see a door going to a kitchen as full of smoke and steam as the room itself. The small corridor in which they were standing was to the right of the room and opened up to it, so it felt more like a room extension. 5 steps were leading down to the room to their left, and as far as they could tell, no one had even noticed them yet. </p><p></p><p>“Maybe his trade isn’t much in demand and this is how he has to make a living,” Flip guessed, looking around carefully and while doing so noticing two more doors. One, back to the right of the room, seemed to lead to the privies, judging by the comings and goings. The other, a few meters left to the kitchen door, held a barely readable sign declaring what was behind private. “What about we get some drink and food first? I’m starving.”</p><p></p><p>“Works for me.” His new friend jumped down the stairs to the room and placed herself at a free table in the back. As Flip joined her, the crew on stage was just done with their performance and applause set in. A moment later, an old gnome with an eye patch announced “Lalee, the Whipping Wonder,” and an orc woman with an assortment of whips appeared while a few stage hands placed targets and other contraptions on the stage. </p><p></p><p>They ordered steak, potatoes, pies and red wine for Flip and beer, baked fish, mashed potatoes and carrots for Elga. The food came in no time, and they watched the amazing performance of the orc while eating in silence. None of them had noticed how hungry they had truly been. </p><p></p><p>With an unladylike belch, Elga finished her meal and frowned. “So, what now? Do we just ask for the guy?”</p><p></p><p>The scent of luckweed, holloweed, dreamsmoke and other things mixed in the smoke made Flip dizzy, and he wondered why it was not affecting Elga until he remembered that she had, over time, developed an immunity to all sorts of poisons thanks to her demon hunting. “I’d say that’s the best option,” he agreed. When the servant girl came to ask if they needed anything else, he did so, trying to make it sound as if they knew Zordak already. </p><p></p><p>The servant nodded and pointed to the door labeled as private. “If you have business with the owner, I will let him know.”</p><p></p><p>“Please do so,” Elga said quickly, then as she left looked at Flip. “Owner. That explains a lot.”</p><p></p><p>“Yeah, must have saved up to buy this joint to make a living just in case,” Flip grinned. “That’s what I plan do do one day.”</p><p></p><p>“Good plan,” his friend chuckled. “Probably have to save up for a while though, it looks like an expensive thing to run, despite the run down look.”</p><p></p><p>The servant came back and led them through the door with the “private” sign, down a long corridor that kept bending and rounding corners. “An illusion,” Elga said happily. “Good one, too, but it is obvious the building isn’t that big.”</p><p></p><p>“How come you can see that?” Flip wondered. Even being told, he could not see through the scam. </p><p></p><p>“I can’t,” she grinned back at him. “But as I said, the building isn’t that big and someone running a place like this is likely to be a master of illusion.”</p><p></p><p>She had a point, Flip thought. As he was just about to ask their guide how much longer they had to pretend walking a long corridor, they arrived at a door that seemed to change colors every moment. “A prismatic trap,” Flip recognized, wondering once again how he could remember such stuff but not his life, and what such knowledge was telling about him. </p><p></p><p>The door opened on its own, and they found themselves facing a rather small dwarf in an equally color changing robe. “Master Zordak, I presume?” Elga said with a eloquent bow. Flip just raised his eyebrows.</p><p></p><p>“Indeed, indeed.” The wizard stared at Flip for a moment, then he offered them seats on chairs fit for their size – everything in here but one table and two chairs, supposedly needed for bigger visitors, was sized for smaller folk. That in itself was not a surprise, it just looked kind of funny because the interior design of the room was so gayishly colorful it was neither dwarf nor halfling style. It appeared to be more gnomish in design. </p><p></p><p>“What can I do for you?” the wizard interrupted their pondering of his office. </p><p></p><p>“My friend here has lost his memory,” Elga came right to the point. “We don’t know why, he can remember everything but personal stuff, as it seems. His name is all he has of himself, and we aren’t even sure it is his real one. We were hoping you could determine what kind of trauma or spell has hit him, and possibly help to remedy the situation.”</p><p></p><p>“We can pay,” Flip added, not wanting to appear like a charity case. The comfortable chair made him relax slowly, but he was intend on keeping his guard up. </p><p></p><p>Zordak’s interest was obvious. “Such things can happen for several reasons. I am guessing this occurred at least a week ago, or you would not yet seek out help?” When they nodded, he continued. “Was there any injury to your head? Headaches, dizziness, maybe a bad feeling in your stomach? Or have you felt weak as if being sick with fever for a while?”</p><p></p><p>“No,” Flip frowned. “I thought at first I had hit my head when waking up next to the road, fallen off a horse or something, but there was not so much as a bump on my head. And I didn’t feel weak at all, just hungry.”</p><p></p><p>“Then,” the wizard concluded, “it was most likely something magical, or possibly a psionic attack. Let’s see.” The dwarf got up behind his table and stood next to the halfling. “I will cast a few spells to see what is most likely going on, and maybe access your lost memory already. Most of the time, there is a spell residue from a spell that’s usually quite harmless. Like a confusion, or a memory hole that would usually last a few hours. At times, with people receptible to such things, a residue is left which can keep the effects in place. I once had an elf who kept forgetting who he was every few days for a few hours. I got him all cured just fine.”</p><p></p><p>Flip held very still while Elga was watching closely as the mage put a hand on her friend’s head and started mumbling a spell while holding a white glass marble in the other hand. After a while, he took a step back and looked at the white marble. “Hasn’t changed color,” he said. “No spell residue found, but you have been hit with a Mind Blank, I could determine that much. Hardly ever lasts more than a day, so with no residue present, something else must cause your problem.”</p><p></p><p>Mumbling to himself, the wizard went over to a shelf full with weird items between clearly magical objects – like wands and staffs – and opened a simple wooden box to get a handfull of what looked to be white sand out. He also took a small piece of red yarn before he stepped back next to Flip. The halflings knew about spell components, of course, but it still felt strange to think Flip’s chances of remembering were tied to such simple things. </p><p></p><p>Zordak dispersed the sand over Flip’s head, where it hovered for a moment before disappearing. The red yarn was hanging over his head and appeared to be tied to his hair. The dwarf made a pulling motion with the yarn, but it just tore and vanished. “Curious,” he said, scratching his beard. “There is another spell of some power blocking your memory. I have no idea what spell, though. Much like a protection, actually. Might have been triggered by the Mind Blank, probably would be triggered by any attempt to manipulate your mind in some form. I have not seen this before.”</p><p></p><p>Flip thought about it for a second. “Can it be fixed? I really need my memory back.”</p><p></p><p>“The one who cast this spell, or at least someone who knew how it works, could definitely fix it. Me, I’m not so sure.” Again, he stared at Flip and seemed to consider saying something. “I will need to put some research into this. Come back in 3 days’ time and I may have a solution.” </p><p></p><p>That was clearly a dismissal, and while the halflings still said their thanks and goodbyes, the wizard was already up on a ladder going for the top shelf of his library, mumbling about rare spells. He seemed to be really into the matter, which was not too strange for a wizard of his reputation. Only when they were with their donkeys again did Flip consider that the wizard had not asked for any payment, nor even mentioned a sum. “I’m sure he isn’t doing this for free, though,” he explained his thoughts to the woman. </p><p></p><p>“No, I would not assume he would hand out his service free,” Elga nodded. “And there is something else. He knows you, if not personally, then from descriptions or from far. And he is not the only one. I was pretty sure the guards at the city gates also knew you. The way they looked at you and nodded to you, and the way Zordak stared at you – they know who you are, and maybe by asking around we can find out who you are.”</p><p></p><p>“If he knows me, why hasn’t he said so?” The confusion on the thief’s face was obvious. “It would probably give us a good start to my recovery.”</p><p></p><p>They led their donkeys out of the harbor area after Flip refused to get up again, his behind still sore. “ Many possible reasons. The most likely one is him hoping to be able to get a lot of coin for this, which makes me think he thinks you are rich, or know someone who is. He may also not want to get in trouble with whoever put that supposed protection spell on you. Or...”</p><p></p><p>“I get it.” Flip sighed. “So, am I supposed to just ask a random person who I am? Or maybe ask the guard?”</p><p></p><p>“Too risky,” Elga decided in her matter-of-fact voice. “Best not to show weakness by admitting you have no clue, and also we have no idea who might possibly be after you now. That spell on you, it sounds like it would be expensive to cast. We don’t want someone to come after you to protect some unknown interest. I am thinking, you know, maybe you know things you are not to tell anyone so someone placed a spell on you preventing you from telling if someone messed with your mind.”</p><p></p><p>“Yes, that seems logical.” Flip’s frown of worry was not seen by Elga, who was walking ahead of him. “So I am some sort of important person to someone then, I guess. But how do we find out if we can’t ask people?”</p><p></p><p>“You can’t.” Elga clarified. “I can. Just wait. Walk a bit ahead and pretend to be interested in the wares of that peddler, maybe even buy something, then walk along and wait at that tavern over there.”</p><p></p><p>By now somewhat used to doing what she was telling him, Flip followed her orders. He bought a small luck charm from the peddler, who seemed to be more eager than expected to sell him something. Arriving at the tavern, he watched Elga talk to the peddler, too, also buying some small thing. Then she was laughing and slapping her forehead. Soon after, she approached his position. </p><p></p><p>“It seems,” she said with a wide grin on her face, “that you are one of the heroes of Freeport. Together with some elves and an orcish type. Does that ring any bell?”</p><p></p><p>“Hero? Me? Elves? No not at all! What did we do to be called heroes?”</p><p></p><p>“You supposedly saved the city, more than once,” Elga answered, making it sound as if that was a daily thing to do where she came from. “You’ve acted heroic in the mountain, so I easily believe that. Come on now, don’t stand there staring at the air so open mouthed. Let’s have a few drinks and see if there is a bard or other storyteller who can relay the whole tale to us. And put your cloak up so people don’t recognize you or they would wonder.” </p><p></p><p>Again, Flip did as asked, and he didn’t feel heroic at all as he followed her into the “Broken Bow” tavern. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>24th of Peli</p><p></p><p>Hi Mom</p><p></p><p>We now know that Flip is in Freeport, an oracle found it out for us after we helped her village solve bit of a weird problem. You won’t believe it, but I found someone had used summoning magic and somehow managed to not let the summons expire until the summoned creatures die!</p><p></p><p>But I should start at the beginning. There was a wizard in this village who made some sort of theme park for wannabe adventurers out of a mansion full with illusions. Was a great success but the man died and everything started to break apart. Then a few weeks ago, the illusions seemed to be working again, just that they were no illusions. The groups of monsters and other threats coming from the mansion were real, and from one barbaric orc they killed with some difficulty, they found the dead body vanished immediately, just like they knew a summon would. Their local wizard confirmed it was summoning magic. </p><p></p><p>So someone was summoning things and somehow kept them there, while still being able to command them. One goblin captured last week kept saying he had to follow orders and kept attacking, and they finally had to kill it, too. </p><p></p><p>We agreed to check it out, as the village was definitely in peril over this, and I was also curious. We went up to the mansion this morning to see what was going on and I immediately had this feeling like when I was a child and you showed me the magical spider in our dream forest. Someone was doing magic, sitting in the middle of it all and holding the strings. Someone had moved in after the old illusionist had died. </p><p></p><p>The way up to the mansion had some weird, old illusions, they were barely functional and suggested monsters attacking from behind bushes and some such. I have to say that wizard's’ idea about how a minotaur looks like was faulty, to put it mildly. Not much better for the centaur and the 2 dragonets which had goblins, of all beings, placed on them. I can hazard a guess this man has never seen much of the world, but one would think he had seen such creatures in books, after all. </p><p></p><p>Equally strange was the stone bridge leading across a dry moat to the mansion, and yet stranger the stairs leading up to it, which were shrouded in fading illusions of blood dripping. It reminded me of the cheap horror stories some bards tell when they want to capture a drunken audience. Those stairs were long – I counted 317 steps, quite a strange number. The doors at the end were easy to open, albeit squeaky, which was probably a wanted effect. The room behind it was dusty, filled with real cobwebs and broken furniture and weapons. It was clearly not meant to be this way, because the illusions of a magic mirror and a speaking portrait were still on the wall – while the mirror and the painting they had been cast on were broken on the ground. This in itself was atypical, from what I know illusions are supposed to stick to objects, not places. My orcish friend had little patience for investigating this, though, and as you know, mom, I’m not that good with magic so I would have probably wasted time for nothing, anyway. </p><p></p><p>From that first room, 2 exits were visible; a door opposite the entrance and a set of stairs to the left, leading down. Naturally, as high up as the entrance stairs went, there were bound to be some downsides, pardon my pun. We could see several tracks of different creatures, including different sized boots. There was a sign above the door which read “do not enter” but it was obvious some of the creatures had done so, anyway. We carefully opened it and found a simple room with a chest in the middle, and tar and feathers in a mess everywhere. It seemed someone had reset the simple trap, but forgotten to clean up which made a successful next catch much less likely. </p><p></p><p>This reminded me of the stories in the village how some farmers had found their chickens without feathers one morning, the birds themselves not being harmed. They had thought of a curse, yet there was no sign of a curse according to the priest of the sun god. I considered it much more likely someone had removed the feathers with a spell. Otherwise, the chickens would have made lots of noise. Turned out later that I was right. </p><p></p><p>We ignored the room and carefully made for the stairs, treating this somewhat like a real ruin or a dungeon. This proved to be a good idea, because no sooner had we entered a dimly lit hallway – the windows to outside were really dirty – 3 goblins jumped down on us from a ledge to our right. Yes, there was really a ledge in a hallway! Talk of weird spook house designs, so off from reality. Thalla, unfortunately, killed them before I could stop her, I’d have preferred to talk to them first, even if killing them was the only way to send them home. Their bodies indeed disappeared in the way summoned creatures disappear. </p><p></p><p>The rest of the place was as ridiculous. We found more goblins, a naga, a bunch of orcs looking really lost and begging to be killed while they attacked us, skeletons and some very badly designed traps. And finally, in one small room covered with an expensive looking carpet, we found the culprit of the weird summonings. A yellow pseudodragon named Alsursar, former familiar of the dead wizard, hovered over the place in some sort of flying tent. He had been away on a mission and got “stuck in a bad situation” whatever that means, he didn’t tell, so only returned home long after his master’s dead. The little annoyance is close to immortal thanks to a spell of his master gone wrong – I am thinking the spell was supposed to help the master, not his familiar. In any case, the pseudodragon decided to revive the place as he thought his master must have wanted. </p><p></p><p>As Alsursar tried to lure us into the room, we were both aware that he was probably trying to trick us. Sure enough, we found the whole room to be a large pit trap, leading to a slide ut to what once was a water filled moat. The poor thing was so disappointed we didn’t, literally, fall for it, it was a sad sight. He really was pitiful and quite lost, so all alone. </p><p></p><p>He admitted to stealing the feathers, among some other things, and it became obvious he had nothing left in life but this run down place. He could not, however, explain how come his summons stayed around. He said “I just summoned them and willed them to stick here, just like master did with his illusions.”</p><p></p><p>As this is a very curious thing, and he really could not stay here and keep this up otherwise, we convinced Alsursar to seek out a new life, and in starting so, travel to the Realm, to be seen by you and your court mages to figure out how he does it. It would help our armies tremendously if we could just summon the soldiers to the field, without any danger they would die for real. As there is a battle with the Eastern Alliance brewing, last I heard before I left, anyway, I hope you can make use of this little ex-familiar’s abilities at least and give him some purpose in life. </p><p></p><p>Tomorrow we will continue to Freeport to pick up Flip, and then meet with your time specialists. I have this nagging feeling that something is awfully amiss with my brother and cousin. </p><p></p><p>Have you had any luck sending missives to Flip yet?</p><p></p><p>Your tired daughter</p><p></p><p>Lhess</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Nev and Orlath had been sitting at the shore, carefully exploring the area, for 9 days before they decided they had enough supplies – dried fish and strange but edible fruits mostly – to go inward and check for a better fresh water supply and materials to make snares and bows and arrows. In all the time, they had seen no sign of intelligent life.</p><p></p><p>First, they had followed the shore to find an easier entrance into the jungle. Once they had found the trail of one of the heavy beasts they had dubbed bicorns for their two horns on their nose, they turned north into the jungle, which was much lighter there. </p><p></p><p>Nothing bothered them, the inhabitants of the jungle likely being as afraid of them as the other way around. After an uneasy sleep in the jungle – despite magical wards, they couldn’t fully fall asleep – they kept on the path the next day. The trail went upward now and bent slightly back towards the coast. Around mid-morning, they heard the sound of water in a shallow bed and quickened their steps. The jungle ended where a clear spring bubbled from a rocky pool halfway down a cliff they remembered seeing in the distance before they had entered the jungle.</p><p></p><p>After filling their small water flasks and drinking a lot from the water, they slowly made their way to the top of the cliff, both for better orientation and to check out the view. And they were in for a surprise!</p><p></p><p>Below them was not the shore, but the ruins of an old city, partly reclaimed by the marshland around it. It must have been a big city once, because as they kept looking their eyes could make out more and more rubble which once belonged to buildings, halfway up the cliff and far into the marsh, yet only a few ruined buildings remained at the foot of the cliff. And there were, finally, signs of civilization – or at least, they could see smoke rising from some ruins. How civilized those beings were, they couldn’t tell. But going by the city ruins, a big culture must have been here once, and that was reason for some hope. </p><p></p><p>After a short discussion, they decided to go down and check the situation out. However, to do that, they would first have to find a way down. That was when Orlath, blushing slightly when telling, mentioned he had actually learned the Fly spell recently. </p><p></p><p>“And you didn’t tell me that before why?” Nev was not sure if to be amused or angry. That spell would have made things a lot easier a few times before. </p><p></p><p>“Well, I learned it, I didn’t master it yet. There are still some... side effects.”</p><p></p><p>“With the spell function, or with you?” Nev inquired, knowing that his cousin had, in the past, managed to cast spells on others perfectly fine while, for whatever reasons, mess them up on himself.</p><p></p><p>“Naturally, I didn’t get a chance to test that out,” Orlath growled. “I was hoping...”</p><p></p><p>“Naturally,” Nev interrupted him with a sigh. “Well, test it on me, then, I can levitate down if all else fails.”</p><p></p><p>“Or if all else falls,” Orlath grinned. “Very well, then.” He made a few waving gestures and mumbled his spell in the way that was his signature, the way that made lots of other wizards, including Nev, wonder how the magic even knew what he wanted. But it worked. A moment later, Nev felt incredibly light, and with a thought, he could direct himself up and around. No side effects he could tell. </p><p></p><p>“Seems fine.” The prince breathed a sigh of relief. “Go on ahead... I mean, down, I’ll follow in a moment.”</p><p></p><p>Nev considered waiting to see what his cousin would be doing, but he knew that, with this being a new spell not practiced well, it would have a rather limited duration. So he flew out over the cliff and, with the elegance of someone having done this before – which he had, just never learned the spell itself – he flew down and towards the ruins of the second nearest nearest building, which showed no smoke and still had some structure. He didn’t want them to be left out in the open. </p><p></p><p>Shortly before he flew down into the building he turned to check on Orlath. His eyes widened as he saw the prince come down all in the nude, his clothes in his hands. He could not help but chuckle, lost control of his flight and landed on his behind. He could see the “side effect” in his mind – the prince flying but his clothes refusing to come along. </p><p></p><p>Orlath landed with his “don’t comment” face, so Nev decided to rather check the ruins while the prince got back into his clothes. The building seemed to have been a library, with the books all made of bound together clay tablets, now mostly smashed to pieces. He didn’t recognize the language. The runes seemed to be all mashed together in a way making the writing look like vines. He had never even seen anything close to it. </p><p></p><p>“We could try to puzzle some back together and use magic to read it,” Orlath offered. </p><p></p><p>“Not much point, but we can try to find something not smashed. Maybe we are lucky and even find something on time travel.” Nev started searching, very carefully. </p><p></p><p>“Doubt that, it doesn’t look like it was an arcane library, but then, what do we know how those people designed their arcane libraries.” The prince eyed the stone shelves reaching up to the highest parts of the walls still standing. </p><p></p><p>After hours of searching, they found a part of the library with books surviving under a ledge that had broken off and fallen in a way so the writings were protected. Casting a Know Language” ritual took another hour, but at least affected both of them for a few days. Then they started reading, fascinated by the word types, weird grammar, flowery descriptions and metaphors they could not easily figure out. </p><p></p><p>They were able to puzzle some information together. The name of the city was Thalanth, it had been the capital of an empire called Khedor. How long ago, they could not tell as the year count the books used told them nothing. The founding of the city by halflings, humans and elves and their mixed offspring was detailed, the rise to an empire from there and the abundant use of slaves from what they called “beast races” was abundant to a degree where they couldn’t have existed without them. They mostly venerated a sun god called Aphos and a moon goddess named Rhia, who were regularly called by those names – unlike in modern days where the gods were not officially called by their names anymore. Sometimes, those gods seemed to switch gender. Eventually, while digging deep into the cliff, expanding the place underground, a new god, son or daughter – not quite clear from the writings – of the ruling deities gained more followers – the deity of death and transformation. The book detailing this was obviously written by a priest of said god and was overflowing with praise and worship and was thus not a good piece to judge the true importance of this new religion. Everything else they found were short works on business and politics, which held little relevance now. </p><p></p><p>“Well, that was interesting.” Orlath finally grabbed their meager provisions for a break. “But we need to resupply, and then there is the matter of the fires we saw earlier. Do you think we should make contact first, or try to hunt for some food and water?”</p><p></p><p>“It would probably be more polite to introduce ourselves first. We might still not understand them without more magic. I doubt they speak this very language, even if they are the descendants of this culture. It’s been a long time.”</p><p></p><p>“Right. No hunting in their territory without saying hello. Agreed.” Orlath started packing everything together again and mockingly bowed to Nev. “After you.” </p><p></p><p>“The smoke came from over there.” Nev pointed across the overgrown road to the east, facing away from the cliff. “And there is another building where there is... is that steam instead of smoke?”</p><p></p><p>Orlath nodded. “Looks like it.” The building Nev was pointing out was much closer, just north-east of their position. “Check that one out first?” </p><p></p><p>“Yes, I’d say so, saves us running back and forth, plus, I hate having an unknown force in my back.” </p><p></p><p>“I wish we had our magic equipment,” the prince sighed, not for the first time since they had time traveled. But almost everything had been left in the camp when they had gone to the temple ruins before their time jump. </p><p></p><p>There were some brambles and hip high grass, but they could move around easily enough. Tracks were easy to find – barefooted reptilian ones, a race walking on 2 legs so probably intelligent, and different sorts of boots one could not tell who might have worn them. Neither of them was especially good at tracking anyway, so they could not read anything else from the signs, like how much time had passed since those people had come by, or even how many had been there. Both of them had spent their “tracking 101” lessons they had gotten as young elf scouts – something required for everyone of high birth as to not “lose contacts to one’s roots,” whatever that meant exactly – plotting mischief and playing jokes on people. Both of them somewhat regretted this now, something neither of them would care to admit. </p><p></p><p>They slowly neared what looked to be an old bath house, trying to make no noise. The attempt at being silent didn’t work out that well; twice Nev stepped on twigs with dry leaves on, and Orlath once stubbed his toe and cursed audibly. Lucky for them, no one seemed to notice or care. </p><p></p><p>There was an entrance with a partly broken statue of what looked to be a god of water next to it, judging by the fish one hand still held and the drop of water crown barely visible on a head overgrown with moss and vines. Peering in they could make out large, circular pools of hot water, which was where the steam was rising from. 6 lizardfolk people looking very similar to the ones they had met in their own time were relaxing in the pools, talking in a clicking language. Nev cast a Tongues spell immediately. And good thing he did, because from what they gathered, they were not the kind of people the 2 elves would want to meet. </p><p></p><p>Talks of finding more “ape-people” slaves, making a good impression for the “non-apes” in the caverns to rise in status. Apparently, being a slave hunter was mostly a low status job, or at least this group was new enough at it not to be very much accepted in society. The listeners gleaned quickly that “ape-people” referred to regular humanoids, like elves. And considering the equipment the 6 lizards had at the edge of the pools, it would be a good idea not to mess with them. </p><p></p><p>Unless...</p><p></p><p></p><p>Nev saw the sparkle in Orlath’s eyes and tried to stop him, but it was too late. The prince grabbed a bit of ash from his component pouch, thew it up and moved his fingers while uttering a short command. He pointed at the big pile of equipment. Immediately everything burnable burst into flames, and the few metallic parts, like blades and chains, melted in an enormous magical heat. “Ha!” Orlath spat. “So much for them.”</p><p></p><p>“Not really.” In the commotion emerging from the pools, Nev grabbed his friend’s arm and pulled him back to the direction of the library. “We are still outnumbered by a bunch of lizards much stronger than us, who could probably resupply somewhere close while we are still just 2 strangers in a strange place and obviously their prey!” </p><p></p><p>“We have our swords,” Orlath replied confidently. </p><p></p><p>“Yes, the swords Uthas always warns us not to hack off our own limbs with it. Remember the last time we tried to fight that monster in that warehouse?” Nev dragged the prince into the ruins and pushed his head down. “Hopefully, they will not search here.”</p><p></p><p>“You have a point,” Orlath whispered, paling somewhat.</p><p></p><p>They didn’t search at all, they didn’t even try to track them. Instead, from what they could here from their shouts, they were blaming each other for having put something taboo magic stuff too dangerous for hunters into their belongings. They in fact almost fought each other over who to blame and while doing so wandered off south. </p><p></p><p>“Follow?” Orlath whispered, despite them being too far off to hear anything now. </p><p></p><p>Nev nodded. With their lack of tracking skills, it was the only way to find out where they were going. As stealthy as they could, which was probably not much, they followed after the slave hunters to a building close to the foot of the cliff. It was clearly an old temple, with several statues lying scattered and the great domed roof broken in. As the lizards approached the building, laughing and taunting – in yet another language - could be heard from some trees, and a bunch of gnolls dropped out of the branches. It was obvious they were guarding the place, and it was obvious why. Within the broken down building, a cave entrance, decorated but damaged, could be seen. This was, no doubt, an entrance to the underground part of the city. </p><p></p><p>They had seen enough. While the guards, who they would not have noticed if not for them betraying themselves, were still harassing the hissing lizards, the elves nodded to each other and retreated. There was no need to take any more risks. </p><p></p><p>“Are we still going to check the house with the smoke out?” the prince asked. </p><p></p><p>“We’ll have to. We need to know everything that’s around us. Lest we decide to abandon the area altogether.”</p><p></p><p>“No way! There may be no other sign of civilization all around, and this place probably has hidden libraries and temples giving us a chance to learn how to get back to our own time.”</p><p></p><p>Grunting his agreement, Nev took the lead. “We should ready some defensive spells, just in case.”</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“I must say, nice place you and your unknown friends have here. There is a magical balcony of sorts on the roof, and lots of stuff stored there and elsewhere. Some of it, like a large mirror, clearly magical. I am not good with magical auras, well, unless they are evil, but even I can tell.” Elga was babbling away while admiring the city house they had been told about. When they had arrived last night, it turned out Flip indeed had the key for it. Only two private rooms were magically locked; the room of one Uthas, judging by some letters he had gotten from someone he called High Lady Theka. A bodyguard of sorts, so they both thought. Flip’s room had shown no correspondence – Flip would have never left any evidence lying around – but gave the appearance that he was seen as a servant of sorts. It was more like the two elves they had heard about in the bard’s tales were the true rich and probably noble people here. </p><p></p><p>“Yeah,” Flip answered absentmindedly. The halfling was looking at some of his things, sitting in one of the small sized seats in the living room. He had found very few hints as to who he was in any of it, but the little he had found – a lot of knives and a spare set of thieves' tools and the lack of evidence of his past life – made him think that his friend Gurt had been right assuming he was a thief, if not an assassin, too. Flip was not sure how to feel about this at all. It felt all wrong, yet right at the same time. There must be more to it, he was sure. Especially with this spell locking his mind away. Who was he working for? Maybe this Lady Theka person? And where were the folks supposedly living with him here?</p><p></p><p>“You are not listening,” Elga chided. “It’s ok, you must have a lot on your mind. I say we wait here and don’t do much else until it is time to see the wizard again.” </p><p></p><p>“Yeah,” Flip answered again. What she said made sense, yet... he had the impression he had never been someone to wait something out, and he would probably not do so now, either. </p><p></p><p>TBC</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lwaxy, post: 6163096, member: 53286"] Back to updating. thanks to cancer surgery and other annoyances, we had a long break. There might be some time between updates still, but i doubt anyone is still following this ;) But maybe we get a few new readers. Ut will be finished eventually. ------------------------------------------------------- The rain was coming down in torrents, drenching the bedraggled group of survivors they had rescued out of the tomb of the supposed pirate captain in the volcano foothills. All of them looked exhausted to the point of passing out, despite the whole exercise having been, as the paladin had put it “a standard rescue-and-kill-the-undead expedition. For several days they had been following the bandits around, found their old abandoned lair in the ruins of a hamlet and finally caught up to them at a tomb where, for some reason, the orcish leader of the gang had been able to control the undead inside - which seemed to have been recently created - with a triangular shaped pendant made of platinum, as far as they could say, with many jewels in it. Lhess had never seen the like of it, and when the bandit leader finally succumbed to her sword, she secured it to study it later. The orc leading the gang had turned out to be the disgruntled son of a noble from Freeport. Lhess didn’t kill him, as opposed to the other riff raff, because he was the only one not detecting as evil, despite his control of the undead. She wasn’t sure if the young man would spend even one day in jail – it was Freeport, after all, and she had already heard a lot about how justice worked there depending on if you had money or not. But she had taken care he would not be able to harm anyone anytime soon – thanks to the short sword she hardly ever used and normally just carried in her bag of holding. Her sword of righteousness. All she had to do was touch him with it and speak the command word. The next time the orc would think about doing something that could be remotely considered evil, even if it was just stealing some extra money from his father, he would be facing pains all over his body relevant to the crime he planned to commit. It would last for a lifetime – or until the sword touched him again. The latter was unlikely to happen. They were back on their way to Freeport, but at the current speed, in an open ox cart and with some donkeys as pack animals taken from the robbers, they would take quite a few days. The only horses in the group, owned by Lhess and her orc friend, were getting impatient at the slow speed and the weather. There was no doubt some of them, if not all, would get sick if they would not find shelter soon. She was just about to suggest making shelter with the little they had when a small figure appeared out of seemingly nowhere in the middle of the road. The slight swoosh from pushed away air indicated a teleport. Before the paladin could tell anyone to stop the cart, the ox stopped on his own, seemingly happy with not having to move again. The figure came closer, and they could now recognize it as an old, female halfling in the robes and clothes of an Oracle of the God of Knowledge. With a heavy sigh, the paladin jumped off the horse and went to greet the old crone. The orc mercenary’s eyebrows went up in understanding. To anyone who had some experience adventuring or just cruising the lands, it was clear what this meant. There had been a vision of sorts, and they, at least the paladin and her friend, considering the state of the others, had been in it. With any luck, it also pertained to their missing friends and would save them some time. If not... well, time was not of the essence, except maybe to find this Flip guy. It also meant, Thalla was sure, that there was some quest or the other in it for them to really gain the help of the oracle. Even if it would only be mentioned in passing, it would be expected of them to return a favor. It was all the same to Thalla, but obviously not to Lhess. The paladin and the oracle talked for a moment, then the oracle started humming, her voice going up and down the scale, while she was jumping around their trek. Lhess returned to her horse and got on, waving for the others to stay put. “She knows some sort of teleport ritual that will get us to shelter.” A look thrown at the orc confirmed what Thalla already suspected. There was more info for them about their friends. Before anyone could comment or ask questions, the world seemed to flicker out and then on again, unlike any teleport the two of them had ever seen. The animals were strangely calm during the process while the merchants and their prisoner shouted in surprise and badly disguised fear. The place they had come out at was not scary at all, though. High trees covered a central place of what in turn looked to be the center of a small village. No rain came through the canopy, and the houses around the place – halfling holes, a wooden town hall with roof high windows, gnome huts and, at the side of the trees, elven homes – were all dry, too. “Welcome to Sirlon’s Hamlet,” the old crone said, surprisingly in the voice of a much younger woman. “You’ll all be given rooms, food, and a chance to relax in warm water. I’ll talk with you two...” she pointed at Lhess and Thalla, “...at a convenient time tomorrow. Your animals will be well cared for, too.” With that, the little oracle vanished into one of the halfling burrows and left it to the suddenly appearing hamlet inhabitants to take care of business. Lhess and Thalla found themselves in a large room together, with several foods already waiting. The room had a door to a hall with several hot pools inside, and both of them made use of those extensively. Lhess almost forgot she was in need to find her friends, and Thalla totally forgot she was worried about Uthas. The whole place had the feel of a holiday resort, and the few locals at the pool at that time confirmed this. “But our main attraction is gone. Some 11 years back or so, and since then, we only get rich people from Freeport every now and then. Which is still fine,” an older gnome explained. “But nothing like Sirlon’s Spooky Mansion.” Sirlon, founder of the Hamlet, was an old wizard who had died about the same time his “spooky house” stopped functioning, they were told. Knowing about the commoner’s desire for adventure, he had build a mansion next to his small wizard tower and filled it with mismatched illusions of whatever people thought scary. Visitors could just enjoy the show or pretend to be adventurers fighting the monsters and other hostiles. But keeping up illusions as elaborate as these was hard, and no one else was able to fully maintain them after Sirlon’s death. So eventually, there were no more paying visitors, and their hot springs and nice landscape was all the hamlet had going for itself now. Lhess had the feeling there was more to the story, but none of the locals seemed to want to talk about it. Not feeling it was her place to dig for probably irrelevant information, the paladin decided to forget about it and just enjoy the water. Later that night, when she fell into a soft, cosy bed, she wondered for a moment where Flip was now, and why he had not bothered to find her yet. The halfling in question was, at this late hour, climbing off his donkey in the harbor area of Freeport, rubbing his behind as soon as he touched the ground. “My ass isn’t made to ride asses,” he grumbled. From over the back of her own mount, Elga looked at him in confusion. “What?” “Oh... donkeys are also called asses around here. I do not know why, maybe because they are asses to handle at times,” Flip explained with a grin. “Weird how I remember all that but don’t have any idea who I am, still.” “I see. And, well, if what we were told was right, this Zordak wizard guy should be able to help us.” Flip stared at the door to the self-styled “palace of entertainment” they had come to find. It was in bad need of new color. The current red painting was beginning to chip off and reveal an equally bad looking coat of yellow color under it. The stairs leading up to the door were squeaking under Elga’s light weight, and all the windows he could see didn’t appear as if they were still clean enough to see through. He could imagine what type of entertainment one would find in a place like this one. What a wizard renowned as a scholar regarding the mind and soul would want in such a place was a riddle to him, but he had a feeling he had seen stranger things before. Elga was pushing open the door, which seemed to be able to swing inward and outward, and released a thick cloud of smoke, not entirely created by normal tobacco if Flip’s nose was right. Sniffing in disgust, the young woman went in anyway, looking around as she did so. Flip hopped up right behind her, not intending to let her out of his sight. She might be a demon fighter, but that, in his view, said nothing about how she could handle a bad situation in a place like this one. And what a place it was. Held in reddish and yellow colors, including the few lights, they could see a large room filled with tables, a small bar and most noticeable a stage on which, right now, a group of humans and elves was performing some weird looking body bending tricks. Left from the stage, they could see a door going to a kitchen as full of smoke and steam as the room itself. The small corridor in which they were standing was to the right of the room and opened up to it, so it felt more like a room extension. 5 steps were leading down to the room to their left, and as far as they could tell, no one had even noticed them yet. “Maybe his trade isn’t much in demand and this is how he has to make a living,” Flip guessed, looking around carefully and while doing so noticing two more doors. One, back to the right of the room, seemed to lead to the privies, judging by the comings and goings. The other, a few meters left to the kitchen door, held a barely readable sign declaring what was behind private. “What about we get some drink and food first? I’m starving.” “Works for me.” His new friend jumped down the stairs to the room and placed herself at a free table in the back. As Flip joined her, the crew on stage was just done with their performance and applause set in. A moment later, an old gnome with an eye patch announced “Lalee, the Whipping Wonder,” and an orc woman with an assortment of whips appeared while a few stage hands placed targets and other contraptions on the stage. They ordered steak, potatoes, pies and red wine for Flip and beer, baked fish, mashed potatoes and carrots for Elga. The food came in no time, and they watched the amazing performance of the orc while eating in silence. None of them had noticed how hungry they had truly been. With an unladylike belch, Elga finished her meal and frowned. “So, what now? Do we just ask for the guy?” The scent of luckweed, holloweed, dreamsmoke and other things mixed in the smoke made Flip dizzy, and he wondered why it was not affecting Elga until he remembered that she had, over time, developed an immunity to all sorts of poisons thanks to her demon hunting. “I’d say that’s the best option,” he agreed. When the servant girl came to ask if they needed anything else, he did so, trying to make it sound as if they knew Zordak already. The servant nodded and pointed to the door labeled as private. “If you have business with the owner, I will let him know.” “Please do so,” Elga said quickly, then as she left looked at Flip. “Owner. That explains a lot.” “Yeah, must have saved up to buy this joint to make a living just in case,” Flip grinned. “That’s what I plan do do one day.” “Good plan,” his friend chuckled. “Probably have to save up for a while though, it looks like an expensive thing to run, despite the run down look.” The servant came back and led them through the door with the “private” sign, down a long corridor that kept bending and rounding corners. “An illusion,” Elga said happily. “Good one, too, but it is obvious the building isn’t that big.” “How come you can see that?” Flip wondered. Even being told, he could not see through the scam. “I can’t,” she grinned back at him. “But as I said, the building isn’t that big and someone running a place like this is likely to be a master of illusion.” She had a point, Flip thought. As he was just about to ask their guide how much longer they had to pretend walking a long corridor, they arrived at a door that seemed to change colors every moment. “A prismatic trap,” Flip recognized, wondering once again how he could remember such stuff but not his life, and what such knowledge was telling about him. The door opened on its own, and they found themselves facing a rather small dwarf in an equally color changing robe. “Master Zordak, I presume?” Elga said with a eloquent bow. Flip just raised his eyebrows. “Indeed, indeed.” The wizard stared at Flip for a moment, then he offered them seats on chairs fit for their size – everything in here but one table and two chairs, supposedly needed for bigger visitors, was sized for smaller folk. That in itself was not a surprise, it just looked kind of funny because the interior design of the room was so gayishly colorful it was neither dwarf nor halfling style. It appeared to be more gnomish in design. “What can I do for you?” the wizard interrupted their pondering of his office. “My friend here has lost his memory,” Elga came right to the point. “We don’t know why, he can remember everything but personal stuff, as it seems. His name is all he has of himself, and we aren’t even sure it is his real one. We were hoping you could determine what kind of trauma or spell has hit him, and possibly help to remedy the situation.” “We can pay,” Flip added, not wanting to appear like a charity case. The comfortable chair made him relax slowly, but he was intend on keeping his guard up. Zordak’s interest was obvious. “Such things can happen for several reasons. I am guessing this occurred at least a week ago, or you would not yet seek out help?” When they nodded, he continued. “Was there any injury to your head? Headaches, dizziness, maybe a bad feeling in your stomach? Or have you felt weak as if being sick with fever for a while?” “No,” Flip frowned. “I thought at first I had hit my head when waking up next to the road, fallen off a horse or something, but there was not so much as a bump on my head. And I didn’t feel weak at all, just hungry.” “Then,” the wizard concluded, “it was most likely something magical, or possibly a psionic attack. Let’s see.” The dwarf got up behind his table and stood next to the halfling. “I will cast a few spells to see what is most likely going on, and maybe access your lost memory already. Most of the time, there is a spell residue from a spell that’s usually quite harmless. Like a confusion, or a memory hole that would usually last a few hours. At times, with people receptible to such things, a residue is left which can keep the effects in place. I once had an elf who kept forgetting who he was every few days for a few hours. I got him all cured just fine.” Flip held very still while Elga was watching closely as the mage put a hand on her friend’s head and started mumbling a spell while holding a white glass marble in the other hand. After a while, he took a step back and looked at the white marble. “Hasn’t changed color,” he said. “No spell residue found, but you have been hit with a Mind Blank, I could determine that much. Hardly ever lasts more than a day, so with no residue present, something else must cause your problem.” Mumbling to himself, the wizard went over to a shelf full with weird items between clearly magical objects – like wands and staffs – and opened a simple wooden box to get a handfull of what looked to be white sand out. He also took a small piece of red yarn before he stepped back next to Flip. The halflings knew about spell components, of course, but it still felt strange to think Flip’s chances of remembering were tied to such simple things. Zordak dispersed the sand over Flip’s head, where it hovered for a moment before disappearing. The red yarn was hanging over his head and appeared to be tied to his hair. The dwarf made a pulling motion with the yarn, but it just tore and vanished. “Curious,” he said, scratching his beard. “There is another spell of some power blocking your memory. I have no idea what spell, though. Much like a protection, actually. Might have been triggered by the Mind Blank, probably would be triggered by any attempt to manipulate your mind in some form. I have not seen this before.” Flip thought about it for a second. “Can it be fixed? I really need my memory back.” “The one who cast this spell, or at least someone who knew how it works, could definitely fix it. Me, I’m not so sure.” Again, he stared at Flip and seemed to consider saying something. “I will need to put some research into this. Come back in 3 days’ time and I may have a solution.” That was clearly a dismissal, and while the halflings still said their thanks and goodbyes, the wizard was already up on a ladder going for the top shelf of his library, mumbling about rare spells. He seemed to be really into the matter, which was not too strange for a wizard of his reputation. Only when they were with their donkeys again did Flip consider that the wizard had not asked for any payment, nor even mentioned a sum. “I’m sure he isn’t doing this for free, though,” he explained his thoughts to the woman. “No, I would not assume he would hand out his service free,” Elga nodded. “And there is something else. He knows you, if not personally, then from descriptions or from far. And he is not the only one. I was pretty sure the guards at the city gates also knew you. The way they looked at you and nodded to you, and the way Zordak stared at you – they know who you are, and maybe by asking around we can find out who you are.” “If he knows me, why hasn’t he said so?” The confusion on the thief’s face was obvious. “It would probably give us a good start to my recovery.” They led their donkeys out of the harbor area after Flip refused to get up again, his behind still sore. “ Many possible reasons. The most likely one is him hoping to be able to get a lot of coin for this, which makes me think he thinks you are rich, or know someone who is. He may also not want to get in trouble with whoever put that supposed protection spell on you. Or...” “I get it.” Flip sighed. “So, am I supposed to just ask a random person who I am? Or maybe ask the guard?” “Too risky,” Elga decided in her matter-of-fact voice. “Best not to show weakness by admitting you have no clue, and also we have no idea who might possibly be after you now. That spell on you, it sounds like it would be expensive to cast. We don’t want someone to come after you to protect some unknown interest. I am thinking, you know, maybe you know things you are not to tell anyone so someone placed a spell on you preventing you from telling if someone messed with your mind.” “Yes, that seems logical.” Flip’s frown of worry was not seen by Elga, who was walking ahead of him. “So I am some sort of important person to someone then, I guess. But how do we find out if we can’t ask people?” “You can’t.” Elga clarified. “I can. Just wait. Walk a bit ahead and pretend to be interested in the wares of that peddler, maybe even buy something, then walk along and wait at that tavern over there.” By now somewhat used to doing what she was telling him, Flip followed her orders. He bought a small luck charm from the peddler, who seemed to be more eager than expected to sell him something. Arriving at the tavern, he watched Elga talk to the peddler, too, also buying some small thing. Then she was laughing and slapping her forehead. Soon after, she approached his position. “It seems,” she said with a wide grin on her face, “that you are one of the heroes of Freeport. Together with some elves and an orcish type. Does that ring any bell?” “Hero? Me? Elves? No not at all! What did we do to be called heroes?” “You supposedly saved the city, more than once,” Elga answered, making it sound as if that was a daily thing to do where she came from. “You’ve acted heroic in the mountain, so I easily believe that. Come on now, don’t stand there staring at the air so open mouthed. Let’s have a few drinks and see if there is a bard or other storyteller who can relay the whole tale to us. And put your cloak up so people don’t recognize you or they would wonder.” Again, Flip did as asked, and he didn’t feel heroic at all as he followed her into the “Broken Bow” tavern. 24th of Peli Hi Mom We now know that Flip is in Freeport, an oracle found it out for us after we helped her village solve bit of a weird problem. You won’t believe it, but I found someone had used summoning magic and somehow managed to not let the summons expire until the summoned creatures die! But I should start at the beginning. There was a wizard in this village who made some sort of theme park for wannabe adventurers out of a mansion full with illusions. Was a great success but the man died and everything started to break apart. Then a few weeks ago, the illusions seemed to be working again, just that they were no illusions. The groups of monsters and other threats coming from the mansion were real, and from one barbaric orc they killed with some difficulty, they found the dead body vanished immediately, just like they knew a summon would. Their local wizard confirmed it was summoning magic. So someone was summoning things and somehow kept them there, while still being able to command them. One goblin captured last week kept saying he had to follow orders and kept attacking, and they finally had to kill it, too. We agreed to check it out, as the village was definitely in peril over this, and I was also curious. We went up to the mansion this morning to see what was going on and I immediately had this feeling like when I was a child and you showed me the magical spider in our dream forest. Someone was doing magic, sitting in the middle of it all and holding the strings. Someone had moved in after the old illusionist had died. The way up to the mansion had some weird, old illusions, they were barely functional and suggested monsters attacking from behind bushes and some such. I have to say that wizard's’ idea about how a minotaur looks like was faulty, to put it mildly. Not much better for the centaur and the 2 dragonets which had goblins, of all beings, placed on them. I can hazard a guess this man has never seen much of the world, but one would think he had seen such creatures in books, after all. Equally strange was the stone bridge leading across a dry moat to the mansion, and yet stranger the stairs leading up to it, which were shrouded in fading illusions of blood dripping. It reminded me of the cheap horror stories some bards tell when they want to capture a drunken audience. Those stairs were long – I counted 317 steps, quite a strange number. The doors at the end were easy to open, albeit squeaky, which was probably a wanted effect. The room behind it was dusty, filled with real cobwebs and broken furniture and weapons. It was clearly not meant to be this way, because the illusions of a magic mirror and a speaking portrait were still on the wall – while the mirror and the painting they had been cast on were broken on the ground. This in itself was atypical, from what I know illusions are supposed to stick to objects, not places. My orcish friend had little patience for investigating this, though, and as you know, mom, I’m not that good with magic so I would have probably wasted time for nothing, anyway. From that first room, 2 exits were visible; a door opposite the entrance and a set of stairs to the left, leading down. Naturally, as high up as the entrance stairs went, there were bound to be some downsides, pardon my pun. We could see several tracks of different creatures, including different sized boots. There was a sign above the door which read “do not enter” but it was obvious some of the creatures had done so, anyway. We carefully opened it and found a simple room with a chest in the middle, and tar and feathers in a mess everywhere. It seemed someone had reset the simple trap, but forgotten to clean up which made a successful next catch much less likely. This reminded me of the stories in the village how some farmers had found their chickens without feathers one morning, the birds themselves not being harmed. They had thought of a curse, yet there was no sign of a curse according to the priest of the sun god. I considered it much more likely someone had removed the feathers with a spell. Otherwise, the chickens would have made lots of noise. Turned out later that I was right. We ignored the room and carefully made for the stairs, treating this somewhat like a real ruin or a dungeon. This proved to be a good idea, because no sooner had we entered a dimly lit hallway – the windows to outside were really dirty – 3 goblins jumped down on us from a ledge to our right. Yes, there was really a ledge in a hallway! Talk of weird spook house designs, so off from reality. Thalla, unfortunately, killed them before I could stop her, I’d have preferred to talk to them first, even if killing them was the only way to send them home. Their bodies indeed disappeared in the way summoned creatures disappear. The rest of the place was as ridiculous. We found more goblins, a naga, a bunch of orcs looking really lost and begging to be killed while they attacked us, skeletons and some very badly designed traps. And finally, in one small room covered with an expensive looking carpet, we found the culprit of the weird summonings. A yellow pseudodragon named Alsursar, former familiar of the dead wizard, hovered over the place in some sort of flying tent. He had been away on a mission and got “stuck in a bad situation” whatever that means, he didn’t tell, so only returned home long after his master’s dead. The little annoyance is close to immortal thanks to a spell of his master gone wrong – I am thinking the spell was supposed to help the master, not his familiar. In any case, the pseudodragon decided to revive the place as he thought his master must have wanted. As Alsursar tried to lure us into the room, we were both aware that he was probably trying to trick us. Sure enough, we found the whole room to be a large pit trap, leading to a slide ut to what once was a water filled moat. The poor thing was so disappointed we didn’t, literally, fall for it, it was a sad sight. He really was pitiful and quite lost, so all alone. He admitted to stealing the feathers, among some other things, and it became obvious he had nothing left in life but this run down place. He could not, however, explain how come his summons stayed around. He said “I just summoned them and willed them to stick here, just like master did with his illusions.” As this is a very curious thing, and he really could not stay here and keep this up otherwise, we convinced Alsursar to seek out a new life, and in starting so, travel to the Realm, to be seen by you and your court mages to figure out how he does it. It would help our armies tremendously if we could just summon the soldiers to the field, without any danger they would die for real. As there is a battle with the Eastern Alliance brewing, last I heard before I left, anyway, I hope you can make use of this little ex-familiar’s abilities at least and give him some purpose in life. Tomorrow we will continue to Freeport to pick up Flip, and then meet with your time specialists. I have this nagging feeling that something is awfully amiss with my brother and cousin. Have you had any luck sending missives to Flip yet? Your tired daughter Lhess Nev and Orlath had been sitting at the shore, carefully exploring the area, for 9 days before they decided they had enough supplies – dried fish and strange but edible fruits mostly – to go inward and check for a better fresh water supply and materials to make snares and bows and arrows. In all the time, they had seen no sign of intelligent life. First, they had followed the shore to find an easier entrance into the jungle. Once they had found the trail of one of the heavy beasts they had dubbed bicorns for their two horns on their nose, they turned north into the jungle, which was much lighter there. Nothing bothered them, the inhabitants of the jungle likely being as afraid of them as the other way around. After an uneasy sleep in the jungle – despite magical wards, they couldn’t fully fall asleep – they kept on the path the next day. The trail went upward now and bent slightly back towards the coast. Around mid-morning, they heard the sound of water in a shallow bed and quickened their steps. The jungle ended where a clear spring bubbled from a rocky pool halfway down a cliff they remembered seeing in the distance before they had entered the jungle. After filling their small water flasks and drinking a lot from the water, they slowly made their way to the top of the cliff, both for better orientation and to check out the view. And they were in for a surprise! Below them was not the shore, but the ruins of an old city, partly reclaimed by the marshland around it. It must have been a big city once, because as they kept looking their eyes could make out more and more rubble which once belonged to buildings, halfway up the cliff and far into the marsh, yet only a few ruined buildings remained at the foot of the cliff. And there were, finally, signs of civilization – or at least, they could see smoke rising from some ruins. How civilized those beings were, they couldn’t tell. But going by the city ruins, a big culture must have been here once, and that was reason for some hope. After a short discussion, they decided to go down and check the situation out. However, to do that, they would first have to find a way down. That was when Orlath, blushing slightly when telling, mentioned he had actually learned the Fly spell recently. “And you didn’t tell me that before why?” Nev was not sure if to be amused or angry. That spell would have made things a lot easier a few times before. “Well, I learned it, I didn’t master it yet. There are still some... side effects.” “With the spell function, or with you?” Nev inquired, knowing that his cousin had, in the past, managed to cast spells on others perfectly fine while, for whatever reasons, mess them up on himself. “Naturally, I didn’t get a chance to test that out,” Orlath growled. “I was hoping...” “Naturally,” Nev interrupted him with a sigh. “Well, test it on me, then, I can levitate down if all else fails.” “Or if all else falls,” Orlath grinned. “Very well, then.” He made a few waving gestures and mumbled his spell in the way that was his signature, the way that made lots of other wizards, including Nev, wonder how the magic even knew what he wanted. But it worked. A moment later, Nev felt incredibly light, and with a thought, he could direct himself up and around. No side effects he could tell. “Seems fine.” The prince breathed a sigh of relief. “Go on ahead... I mean, down, I’ll follow in a moment.” Nev considered waiting to see what his cousin would be doing, but he knew that, with this being a new spell not practiced well, it would have a rather limited duration. So he flew out over the cliff and, with the elegance of someone having done this before – which he had, just never learned the spell itself – he flew down and towards the ruins of the second nearest nearest building, which showed no smoke and still had some structure. He didn’t want them to be left out in the open. Shortly before he flew down into the building he turned to check on Orlath. His eyes widened as he saw the prince come down all in the nude, his clothes in his hands. He could not help but chuckle, lost control of his flight and landed on his behind. He could see the “side effect” in his mind – the prince flying but his clothes refusing to come along. Orlath landed with his “don’t comment” face, so Nev decided to rather check the ruins while the prince got back into his clothes. The building seemed to have been a library, with the books all made of bound together clay tablets, now mostly smashed to pieces. He didn’t recognize the language. The runes seemed to be all mashed together in a way making the writing look like vines. He had never even seen anything close to it. “We could try to puzzle some back together and use magic to read it,” Orlath offered. “Not much point, but we can try to find something not smashed. Maybe we are lucky and even find something on time travel.” Nev started searching, very carefully. “Doubt that, it doesn’t look like it was an arcane library, but then, what do we know how those people designed their arcane libraries.” The prince eyed the stone shelves reaching up to the highest parts of the walls still standing. After hours of searching, they found a part of the library with books surviving under a ledge that had broken off and fallen in a way so the writings were protected. Casting a Know Language” ritual took another hour, but at least affected both of them for a few days. Then they started reading, fascinated by the word types, weird grammar, flowery descriptions and metaphors they could not easily figure out. They were able to puzzle some information together. The name of the city was Thalanth, it had been the capital of an empire called Khedor. How long ago, they could not tell as the year count the books used told them nothing. The founding of the city by halflings, humans and elves and their mixed offspring was detailed, the rise to an empire from there and the abundant use of slaves from what they called “beast races” was abundant to a degree where they couldn’t have existed without them. They mostly venerated a sun god called Aphos and a moon goddess named Rhia, who were regularly called by those names – unlike in modern days where the gods were not officially called by their names anymore. Sometimes, those gods seemed to switch gender. Eventually, while digging deep into the cliff, expanding the place underground, a new god, son or daughter – not quite clear from the writings – of the ruling deities gained more followers – the deity of death and transformation. The book detailing this was obviously written by a priest of said god and was overflowing with praise and worship and was thus not a good piece to judge the true importance of this new religion. Everything else they found were short works on business and politics, which held little relevance now. “Well, that was interesting.” Orlath finally grabbed their meager provisions for a break. “But we need to resupply, and then there is the matter of the fires we saw earlier. Do you think we should make contact first, or try to hunt for some food and water?” “It would probably be more polite to introduce ourselves first. We might still not understand them without more magic. I doubt they speak this very language, even if they are the descendants of this culture. It’s been a long time.” “Right. No hunting in their territory without saying hello. Agreed.” Orlath started packing everything together again and mockingly bowed to Nev. “After you.” “The smoke came from over there.” Nev pointed across the overgrown road to the east, facing away from the cliff. “And there is another building where there is... is that steam instead of smoke?” Orlath nodded. “Looks like it.” The building Nev was pointing out was much closer, just north-east of their position. “Check that one out first?” “Yes, I’d say so, saves us running back and forth, plus, I hate having an unknown force in my back.” “I wish we had our magic equipment,” the prince sighed, not for the first time since they had time traveled. But almost everything had been left in the camp when they had gone to the temple ruins before their time jump. There were some brambles and hip high grass, but they could move around easily enough. Tracks were easy to find – barefooted reptilian ones, a race walking on 2 legs so probably intelligent, and different sorts of boots one could not tell who might have worn them. Neither of them was especially good at tracking anyway, so they could not read anything else from the signs, like how much time had passed since those people had come by, or even how many had been there. Both of them had spent their “tracking 101” lessons they had gotten as young elf scouts – something required for everyone of high birth as to not “lose contacts to one’s roots,” whatever that meant exactly – plotting mischief and playing jokes on people. Both of them somewhat regretted this now, something neither of them would care to admit. They slowly neared what looked to be an old bath house, trying to make no noise. The attempt at being silent didn’t work out that well; twice Nev stepped on twigs with dry leaves on, and Orlath once stubbed his toe and cursed audibly. Lucky for them, no one seemed to notice or care. There was an entrance with a partly broken statue of what looked to be a god of water next to it, judging by the fish one hand still held and the drop of water crown barely visible on a head overgrown with moss and vines. Peering in they could make out large, circular pools of hot water, which was where the steam was rising from. 6 lizardfolk people looking very similar to the ones they had met in their own time were relaxing in the pools, talking in a clicking language. Nev cast a Tongues spell immediately. And good thing he did, because from what they gathered, they were not the kind of people the 2 elves would want to meet. Talks of finding more “ape-people” slaves, making a good impression for the “non-apes” in the caverns to rise in status. Apparently, being a slave hunter was mostly a low status job, or at least this group was new enough at it not to be very much accepted in society. The listeners gleaned quickly that “ape-people” referred to regular humanoids, like elves. And considering the equipment the 6 lizards had at the edge of the pools, it would be a good idea not to mess with them. Unless... Nev saw the sparkle in Orlath’s eyes and tried to stop him, but it was too late. The prince grabbed a bit of ash from his component pouch, thew it up and moved his fingers while uttering a short command. He pointed at the big pile of equipment. Immediately everything burnable burst into flames, and the few metallic parts, like blades and chains, melted in an enormous magical heat. “Ha!” Orlath spat. “So much for them.” “Not really.” In the commotion emerging from the pools, Nev grabbed his friend’s arm and pulled him back to the direction of the library. “We are still outnumbered by a bunch of lizards much stronger than us, who could probably resupply somewhere close while we are still just 2 strangers in a strange place and obviously their prey!” “We have our swords,” Orlath replied confidently. “Yes, the swords Uthas always warns us not to hack off our own limbs with it. Remember the last time we tried to fight that monster in that warehouse?” Nev dragged the prince into the ruins and pushed his head down. “Hopefully, they will not search here.” “You have a point,” Orlath whispered, paling somewhat. They didn’t search at all, they didn’t even try to track them. Instead, from what they could here from their shouts, they were blaming each other for having put something taboo magic stuff too dangerous for hunters into their belongings. They in fact almost fought each other over who to blame and while doing so wandered off south. “Follow?” Orlath whispered, despite them being too far off to hear anything now. Nev nodded. With their lack of tracking skills, it was the only way to find out where they were going. As stealthy as they could, which was probably not much, they followed after the slave hunters to a building close to the foot of the cliff. It was clearly an old temple, with several statues lying scattered and the great domed roof broken in. As the lizards approached the building, laughing and taunting – in yet another language - could be heard from some trees, and a bunch of gnolls dropped out of the branches. It was obvious they were guarding the place, and it was obvious why. Within the broken down building, a cave entrance, decorated but damaged, could be seen. This was, no doubt, an entrance to the underground part of the city. They had seen enough. While the guards, who they would not have noticed if not for them betraying themselves, were still harassing the hissing lizards, the elves nodded to each other and retreated. There was no need to take any more risks. “Are we still going to check the house with the smoke out?” the prince asked. “We’ll have to. We need to know everything that’s around us. Lest we decide to abandon the area altogether.” “No way! There may be no other sign of civilization all around, and this place probably has hidden libraries and temples giving us a chance to learn how to get back to our own time.” Grunting his agreement, Nev took the lead. “We should ready some defensive spells, just in case.” “I must say, nice place you and your unknown friends have here. There is a magical balcony of sorts on the roof, and lots of stuff stored there and elsewhere. Some of it, like a large mirror, clearly magical. I am not good with magical auras, well, unless they are evil, but even I can tell.” Elga was babbling away while admiring the city house they had been told about. When they had arrived last night, it turned out Flip indeed had the key for it. Only two private rooms were magically locked; the room of one Uthas, judging by some letters he had gotten from someone he called High Lady Theka. A bodyguard of sorts, so they both thought. Flip’s room had shown no correspondence – Flip would have never left any evidence lying around – but gave the appearance that he was seen as a servant of sorts. It was more like the two elves they had heard about in the bard’s tales were the true rich and probably noble people here. “Yeah,” Flip answered absentmindedly. The halfling was looking at some of his things, sitting in one of the small sized seats in the living room. He had found very few hints as to who he was in any of it, but the little he had found – a lot of knives and a spare set of thieves' tools and the lack of evidence of his past life – made him think that his friend Gurt had been right assuming he was a thief, if not an assassin, too. Flip was not sure how to feel about this at all. It felt all wrong, yet right at the same time. There must be more to it, he was sure. Especially with this spell locking his mind away. Who was he working for? Maybe this Lady Theka person? And where were the folks supposedly living with him here? “You are not listening,” Elga chided. “It’s ok, you must have a lot on your mind. I say we wait here and don’t do much else until it is time to see the wizard again.” “Yeah,” Flip answered again. What she said made sense, yet... he had the impression he had never been someone to wait something out, and he would probably not do so now, either. TBC [/QUOTE]
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