Makel Troutman died to bridge the Uncrossable Sea, but I thought I remembered Snokas dying as well...
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Sagiro's Story Hour: The FINAL Adventures of Abernathy's Company (FINISHED 7/3/14)
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Makel Troutman died to bridge the Uncrossable Sea, but I thought I remembered Snokas dying as well...
MorningstarofEll
First Post
Snokas went off to study or something didn't he? At some point we decided that we wanted to trim the number of NPCs in our battles 
I always thought the devoted defender class was quite cool, and Snokas inspired me to play a bodyguard as my first character in Piratecat's campaign.
Thanks for the write up Sagiro..and for making Morningstar look so badass in it. Being named Ell's Champion was an extremely cool moment for me!
Thank goodness for all those spells that buffed me up and weakened Octesian. That final wish would be my second favorite of Kibbe's wishes. My favorite one you won't read about till the very last battle of the campaign.
I always thought the devoted defender class was quite cool, and Snokas inspired me to play a bodyguard as my first character in Piratecat's campaign. Thanks for the write up Sagiro..and for making Morningstar look so badass in it. Being named Ell's Champion was an extremely cool moment for me!
Thank goodness for all those spells that buffed me up and weakened Octesian. That final wish would be my second favorite of Kibbe's wishes. My favorite one you won't read about till the very last battle of the campaign.
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Sagiro
Rodent of Uncertain Parentage
Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 360
Lions and Rhinos and Djinn
After a time her halo dims, and her wings fade, and her eyes and teeth return to normal, but the authority within Morningstar remains. The avatars fade gently away, leaving the surviving sisters to crowd around their leader, open-mouthed.
Morningstar speaks to them. “I said before that it didn’t matter what has been said about me. But I misspoke. It mattered in that it hurt, but what is important is that you stood by me when the need was greatest. You have done that in a way I could never have imagined. Thank you. I could not have done this without you.”
“Look over there,” whispers Fautish. A short ways away, amidst a moonlit patch of purple flowers, are a half-dozen marble gravestones, each carved with the name of a fallen sister. Molly, Belle, Raven, Sable, Previa and Corinne have all found their final resting place in this Ellish sanctuary.
And there is one more miracle, that takes everyone a few more minutes to notice. Scola is still standing, and looking very much alive, though she had been animated only through the grace of a revenance spell for much of the battle against Octesian. Now she is at full health, though is at a loss to explain how this came to be.
“Ell still has plans for you,” Evenstar tells her with a smile. Morningstar approaches her and gives her a gift: the weapon, blessed by Ell, that Morningstar carried before receiving Ell’s Will.
“Are you sure?” Scola breathes. “Shouldn’t this be in a display case in the temple of Kallor?”
“No,” says Morningstar. “It should continue to be used in Her service.”
Scola takes it, swings it around a couple of times, and spots a small bush as a practice target. With a deft strike she uproots the shrub and sends it soaring away.
“I’ll clean it after every battle,” she promises, picking out leaves from the weapon’s spikes.
“Morningstar,” says Evenstar, touching her on the shoulder. “What is Yulan’s Barrier?”
“The next place we have to go,” says Morningstar with a sigh.
“When we leave the world to go beneath,” Dranko adds, “we will probably never return.”
Evenstar laughs nervously. “I don’t have to believe that, do I?”
“No,” says Morningstar, “But that’s what we’ve been told, and the source seemed extremely trustworthy.”
“Hmph,” says Evenstar. “It sounds like one of those overblown dire warnings that simply means that no one ever has come back. Not that no one ever will."
/*/
Morningstar returns the dreamers to the Greenhouse, and they are met with a grisly sight as they wake. There are many Ellish sisters there wide-eyed with shock, and some are sobbing. All are covered in blood, and indeed the entire Greenhouse living room looks like a slaughterhouse.
One of the acolytes, who cannot be more than sixteen years old, looks at Morningstar helplessly. “They… just exploded. We had no time. They just… burst into pieces, and there’s nothing left. We had no time…”
Morningstar does her best to explain what happened, and about how time passed differently in Octesian’s demiplane. She assures her sisters there was nothing they could have done. The news that Octesian is dead fills them with a surge of emotion; the young priestess breaks into fresh tears and throws her arms around Morningstar.
“What do we do now?” asks another of the healers.
“Honor the dead,” says Dranko. He looks around. “And clean the living room,” he adds.
“Your sisters died bravely,” Morningstar tells them. “We would not have been victorious without them. Octesian is dead, and no one else will die by his hand.”
Dranko wrinkles his nose. Even stronger than the iron tang of blood in the Greenhouse is the putrid stench of rotten fish wafting up from the harbor. “We’re running out of time,” he observes.
The young acolyte looks up at Morningstar. “Time until what?” she asks.
Morningstar lets out a long breath. “What is your name, child?”
“Anna.”
“Anna,” says Dranko. “You know all about religion, right? Well, the Adversary is trying to return, and we’re going to stop him. Morningstar is going to stop him.”
Anna looks confused. “What adversary are you talking about? I though you said Octesian was dead.”
“Do you know how Ell came to Abernia?” Dranko asks her. He instinctively thinks about his peek at the Adversary in Octesian’s vision, and hot pain shoots through his head.
“Of course. She came here with the other Travelers when they fled from… from… oh.”
“Is that why the fish are dying?” asks another priestess. “Is the Adversary killing the fish?”
“Yes,” says Aravis. “That’s also why luck has been having wild swings recently.”
Over the mind-link, Aravis adds for his party’s benefit: Though there’s a big difference between fish dying because the Adversary is coming near, and wimpy-ass Gods fleeing because they’re scared of him. I think if you ask Ell, she’d agree with me.
/*/
As a group, the collected priestesses leave the Greenhouse, covering their noses with their sleeves to filter out the reek of dead fish. While the wizards use clean cantrips to fix up the Greenhouse, Morningstar issues a sending to her mother in Kynder Hold.
Dear Mom: Octesian dead, six sisters fell, bravely. I wanted you to hear from me: Ell made me Her Shadow, Her champion on Abernia. Yikes!
The reply: Does being the Champion’s Mom give me powers? I’m so happy and proud of you, Morningstar. Visit soon!
Up next for Morningstar is a visit to High Priestess Rhiavonne in Kallor. Grey Wolf agrees to teleport her there. Dranko just wants to stay in the Greenhouse and get as drunk as possible, and the others think that sounds like an excellent idea. The death of Octesian seems like an fine occasion for a party. Scola and Evenstar decide to stay as well.
In the Twilight City, Morningstar is granted an immediate audience with the High Priestess, and the first words from Rhiavonne are, “I suppose it’s a good sign that I’m seeing you in person.”
Morningstar casts her eyes downward. “I lost six.”
“Six?” says Rhiavonne. “I feared it would be worse.”
“Including Previa,” Morningstar adds.
“I’m so sorry. I know she was close to you.”
Morningstar looks up again. “And… Ell made me her Shadow.”
Rhiavonne smiles wanly. “I know. And I’m very pleased for you. But I’m also extremely worried, that Ell needs a Shadow. I’m not surprised, though. I’ve heard about the fish, and the earthquakes, and… there have been disturbing rumors about the town of Sentinel recently, reports of a strange attack or something similar. Nothing solid. We have a small church in that city, but we cannot contact anyone there. I suspect it’s all related to the threat posed by the Great Enemy.”
Grey Wolf, standing respectfully at the back of the room, raises an eyebrow at the mention of Sentinel. That’s where Farazil was investigating the strange murders committed by two of the deep miners.
“Ell also told me that we’d be leaving soon,” says Morningstar.
“Yes, it’s ironic,” says Rhiavonne, “that we get the first Champion of Ell in centuries, and now you’re going to leave, never to return. Though I hope that’s apocryphal, of course.”
For just a second, Morningstar considers confronting the High Priestess with the images she was shown by Octesian in his demiplane, but decides there’s nothing to be gained by it. Instead she gives a little laugh.
“I don’t think it’s a job with a long life expectancy.”
“Perhaps,” says Rhiavonne. “But if anyone was going to come through it alive, I’d put my money on you. You’ve survived… a lot of things that most would not have weathered, in just a few short years. But I’ll sleep easier tonight, as will every priestess of Ell who’s aware of what was at stake… not to mention every citizen of Charagan, whether they know it or not.”
“My sisters were incredibly brave,” says Morningstar. “They went in knowing they probably wouldn’t survive, helping me attack Octesian. And half of them didn’t.”
“We will certainly afford them every honor the church can bestow,” says Rhiavonne gravely. “Do you have the bodies? They should be interred here at Kallor.”
Morningstar explains the odd circumstances of the sisters’ deaths, and the unusual locale of their collective burial site. Hearing that Morningstar can take two hundred people there for a service, Rhiavonne promises to make arrangements.
“I don’t know what else to say,” says Rhiavonne, finally. “’Congratulations’ seems insufficient.”
“We saw a bit of what happened to Octesian when he went looking for the Adversary,” says Morningstar. “He was projecting his memories into his demiplane. And the Adversary is feeling very… confident.”
“You’ll just have to prove that his confidence is misplaced.”
“Indeed,” says Morningstar. “Octesian was also confident of victory.”
“Overconfidence is a common flaw in the villainous,” says Rhiavonne. “Now, go, rejoin your friends. You deserve to celebrate.”
As Morningstar and Grey Wolf leave, the High Priestess calls out, “Oh, Morningstar, one more thing!”
Morningstar knows what Rhiavonne has remembered: her promised holy writings. “Yes,” she calls back. “It’ll be done before I leave.”
“… good. Thank you.”
Just before they close the door, they hear Rhiavonne mutter to herself, “Well, thank Ell for that.” Does she refer to the writing? Or to Morningstar’s ascension to Shadow? Or to the fact that the church will finally be rid of Morningstar’s tumultuous political influence, as she leaves on her one-way journey?
“Grey Wolf, let’s go home.”
/*/
Back at the Greenhouse, Morningstar and Grey Wolf find Dranko lounging on a sofa with a mug of beer in his hand. His feet are comfortably propped up on a recumbent rhinoceros.
“His name is Pokey,” Dranko explains. There’s a chicken leg skewered on Pokey’s horn, but the rhino, who’s lapping at a large mixing bowl filled with Kibi’s finest ale, doesn’t seem to mind. Flicker reaches up, grabs the chicken, takes a bite, and returns it to the horn. “These things are useful!”
“I dunno,” says Aravis. “I think your chicken might be undercooked.” He sears it with a jet of flame which, even inebriated, he’s skillful enough to deliver without singing the rhino.
“You’ll be gone in less than ten minutes, little fellow,” says Dranko, his speech ever-so-slightly slurred. “Always remember this. It’ll be the best ten minutes of your life.”
Eddings walks in, wearing a guardedly neutral expression and carrying a platter of cheese.
“As you requested,” he says. “Now, will you or the rhino need anything else? More beer?” He peers suspiciously at the huge beast. “A diaper?”
Kibi comes up from the basement and looks aghast at the drinking rhinoceros. “You’ve been feeding my hand-crafted brew to a rhino?”
Dranko looks incredulous. “You’d have had us feed it inferior beer?”
“Where did that even come from?” asks the Dwarf.
The answer is Dranko’s bag of tricks, but Flicker waves his hand. “Ooh, ooh, I know! It comes from the Elemental Plane of Rhi… Rhinoc… Rhinoceroseses.”
“Rhinos aren’t an element,” says Aravis.
“They’re like an elephant, though,” says Flicker. “Doesn’t that count?”
“So,” says Morningstar, and the revelers finally notice her at the door. Evenstar, Scola and Snokas are talking together in a corner, sipping drinks and laughing. Evenstar raises her mug in a silent toast, then looks over at Dranko and smiles.
Morningstar walks to where her sisters and Snokas are gathered. “Rhiavonne is taking care of the guest list for the funeral.”
“Better her than you,” says Scola. “You have more important things to do.” Morningstar agrees.
The rhino vanishes. Dranko pouts, pulls out the bag of tricks again, and produces a lion. He instructs his new pet to continue drinking from the bowl of beer.
“Hey, you know who would love this party?” exclaims Flicker. “Al Tarqoz!”
Aravis is reluctant and first, but between Dranko and Flicker’s cajoling, and the beer he has already consumed, the wizard is convinced to rub the ring on his fingers and summon the Djinn. Al Tarqoz appears on the floor, dressed in purple silken pajamas, lying peacefully on his back, eyes closed. But quickly the eyes snap open, and he sits bolt upright. His nose crinkles.
“Is that… dead fish?”
“Welcome to the Greenhouse!” exclaims Flicker.
“I was sleeping,” says Al Tarqoz.
“Well, you’re not sleeping now!” says Dranko. “So have a beer!”
Al Tarqoz turns to Aravis, then back to Dranko. “Are you commanding me to have a beer?”
“No, I’m offering it to you.”
The Djinn turns again to Aravis, who nods. “I see that it would please you,” says Al Tarqoz, “and you are the master of the ring.” He accepts the proffered mug and takes a sip. “Unusually high quality,” he says, with the tiniest lift of a well-manicured eyebrow. “Who’s responsible for it? You, Master Dwarf? Well done.”
To Aravis he then says, “Now, what else. Or did you simply summon me to drink a beer?”
“I summoned you to enjoy yourself!” says Aravis.
“I was sleeping. And I was enjoying sleeping. And I…”
He finally notices the lion.
“You prime material beings are crazy, you realize this, yes?”
Aravis grins. “The lion is technically one of my worshippers.”
Al Tarqoz blinks. “Your what?”
“I’m a God,” says Aravis.
“No you’re not,” says Al Tarqoz.”
“Yes I am.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes I am.”
“No you’re not.”
“He is of a sort,” says Morningstar.
“Fine,” says Aravis. “I’m a Divine Being. I’m not entirely sure what the distinction is.”
“You can’t grant spells to your followers,” says Dranko.
“True,” Aravis admits. He looks crestfallen for a moment. “Though I haven’t really tried granting spells to cats. Only to Flicker, and that didn’t work out.”
“I stopped worshipping you months ago,” says Flicker. He pauses to draw a long gulp of Kibi’s finest. “No offense, Aravis, but you were kind of second rate. You couldn’t even grant me one measly orison!”
Aravis grins wickedly. “How about I turn you into a cat, and see what I can grant you then?”
“No thanks!”
“Then watch the blasphemy.”
“What blasphemy? Did you grant me a spell and I missed it? Hey, Kibi, is there more beer?”
Al Tarqoz shakes his head, but does take another sip from his mug.
“Hey, hold on,” says Dranko. “Flicker, come help me with something.” The two of them bound down to the basement, and drag up a large, empty barrel.
“Hey Al Tarqoz,” says Dranko. “You can create wine, right? Can you make it in this barrel?”
Aravis nods, so the Djinn grants Dranko’s request.
“The lion’s going to love it!” says Dranko, and he decants some of the wine into bowl, now empty of beer.
“So, Al Tarqoz,” says Dranko, watching the lion sample the wine. “Tell us about your home life!”
The Djinn keeps his answer brief. “I live in the City of Brass, and make my living as a silk merchant.”
“Then how’d you end up in a ring?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Hey!” says Dranko. “Sometime we’ll travel to the City of Brass and we can all have dinner together. And buy silks!”
“Please,” says Al Tarqoz, turning an odd shade of aquamarine. “Please never visit me in my home.”
“We can go back to your place after dinner,” continues Dranko, unmindful of the Djinn’s request. “We can summon you in your own house. You’ll just go from one side of the room to the other!”
“He’s not a toy,” Aravis admonishes. “Nor a parlor trick.”
“I’ve been summoned before,” adds Kibi. “It’s annoying.”
Aravis becomes grave. “Al Tarqoz, in a few days, we’ll being going on the last quest of our lives, to stop an enemy who’s going to destroy the world.”
“That’s terrible,” says Al Tarqoz, with the straightest face he can manage.
“We might summon you while on that quest,” adds Aravis.
“Oh. Then I will be happy, as always, to serve my most benevolent master.”
The party is interrupted by the whining summons of the crystal ball in the secret room. Dranko races to get there first, but Aravis teleports there ahead of him. Ozilinsh’s face appears in the crystal sphere.
“Sorry to wake you,” he begins. (It’s well after midnight, and a reasonable supposition.)
“No, no,” Dranko assures him. “We were just feeding wine to the lion.” In a roundabout fashion, they explain everything that’s happened recently, along with some of the details of their post-victory festivities.
“I see,” says Ozilinsh, when Aravis and Drano have finished explaining. “Can you have the place cleaned up by the day after tomorrow? The King wants a meeting of the Spire at the Greenhouse. He considers it an emergency.”
“It’s probably worse than he thinks,” says Dranko. “The Adversary is coming. I’ve seen him.”
Ozilinsh perks right up. “Oh? What does he look like?”
“Pretty horrible. It makes my brain burn to think about.”
“Oh, that’s okay,” says Ozilinsh. “Describe him!”
“No, sorry, not tonight.”
Morningstar has joined them by this time. “Octesian was made of tentacles,” she offers.
“Really? All of him? What percent of his body mass would you say was tentacles?”
Eventually they mollify Ozilinsh enough that he lets them return to their merrymaking. They have promised to clean themselves and the Greenhouse in plenty of time for a Spire confab.
And in the wee hours they go to sleep, and all of their dreams are good ones.
…to be continued…
A quick note about this run: for what I think is the only place in the Story Hour, I've made up something that happened differently in the game. That's because we collectively made a mistake about Scola. In the first part of the big battle, Scola was killed and re-animated via the revenance spell. But in the second part, which was over a month later, we mistakenly thought that she had been saved via revivify. So she was left alive and well after Octesian was killed, even though by rights she should have keeled over dead when the revenance timed out. The bit about the "Miracle of Ell" that left her alive was really a miracle of us forgetting what spell was used.
Oh, and MorningstarofEll: the write-up made Morningstar look like a bad-ass because she was one. The tape doesn't lie.
Lions and Rhinos and Djinn
After a time her halo dims, and her wings fade, and her eyes and teeth return to normal, but the authority within Morningstar remains. The avatars fade gently away, leaving the surviving sisters to crowd around their leader, open-mouthed.
Morningstar speaks to them. “I said before that it didn’t matter what has been said about me. But I misspoke. It mattered in that it hurt, but what is important is that you stood by me when the need was greatest. You have done that in a way I could never have imagined. Thank you. I could not have done this without you.”
“Look over there,” whispers Fautish. A short ways away, amidst a moonlit patch of purple flowers, are a half-dozen marble gravestones, each carved with the name of a fallen sister. Molly, Belle, Raven, Sable, Previa and Corinne have all found their final resting place in this Ellish sanctuary.
And there is one more miracle, that takes everyone a few more minutes to notice. Scola is still standing, and looking very much alive, though she had been animated only through the grace of a revenance spell for much of the battle against Octesian. Now she is at full health, though is at a loss to explain how this came to be.
“Ell still has plans for you,” Evenstar tells her with a smile. Morningstar approaches her and gives her a gift: the weapon, blessed by Ell, that Morningstar carried before receiving Ell’s Will.
“Are you sure?” Scola breathes. “Shouldn’t this be in a display case in the temple of Kallor?”
“No,” says Morningstar. “It should continue to be used in Her service.”
Scola takes it, swings it around a couple of times, and spots a small bush as a practice target. With a deft strike she uproots the shrub and sends it soaring away.
“I’ll clean it after every battle,” she promises, picking out leaves from the weapon’s spikes.
“Morningstar,” says Evenstar, touching her on the shoulder. “What is Yulan’s Barrier?”
“The next place we have to go,” says Morningstar with a sigh.
“When we leave the world to go beneath,” Dranko adds, “we will probably never return.”
Evenstar laughs nervously. “I don’t have to believe that, do I?”
“No,” says Morningstar, “But that’s what we’ve been told, and the source seemed extremely trustworthy.”
“Hmph,” says Evenstar. “It sounds like one of those overblown dire warnings that simply means that no one ever has come back. Not that no one ever will."
/*/
Morningstar returns the dreamers to the Greenhouse, and they are met with a grisly sight as they wake. There are many Ellish sisters there wide-eyed with shock, and some are sobbing. All are covered in blood, and indeed the entire Greenhouse living room looks like a slaughterhouse.
One of the acolytes, who cannot be more than sixteen years old, looks at Morningstar helplessly. “They… just exploded. We had no time. They just… burst into pieces, and there’s nothing left. We had no time…”
Morningstar does her best to explain what happened, and about how time passed differently in Octesian’s demiplane. She assures her sisters there was nothing they could have done. The news that Octesian is dead fills them with a surge of emotion; the young priestess breaks into fresh tears and throws her arms around Morningstar.
“What do we do now?” asks another of the healers.
“Honor the dead,” says Dranko. He looks around. “And clean the living room,” he adds.
“Your sisters died bravely,” Morningstar tells them. “We would not have been victorious without them. Octesian is dead, and no one else will die by his hand.”
Dranko wrinkles his nose. Even stronger than the iron tang of blood in the Greenhouse is the putrid stench of rotten fish wafting up from the harbor. “We’re running out of time,” he observes.
The young acolyte looks up at Morningstar. “Time until what?” she asks.
Morningstar lets out a long breath. “What is your name, child?”
“Anna.”
“Anna,” says Dranko. “You know all about religion, right? Well, the Adversary is trying to return, and we’re going to stop him. Morningstar is going to stop him.”
Anna looks confused. “What adversary are you talking about? I though you said Octesian was dead.”
“Do you know how Ell came to Abernia?” Dranko asks her. He instinctively thinks about his peek at the Adversary in Octesian’s vision, and hot pain shoots through his head.
“Of course. She came here with the other Travelers when they fled from… from… oh.”
“Is that why the fish are dying?” asks another priestess. “Is the Adversary killing the fish?”
“Yes,” says Aravis. “That’s also why luck has been having wild swings recently.”
Over the mind-link, Aravis adds for his party’s benefit: Though there’s a big difference between fish dying because the Adversary is coming near, and wimpy-ass Gods fleeing because they’re scared of him. I think if you ask Ell, she’d agree with me.
/*/
As a group, the collected priestesses leave the Greenhouse, covering their noses with their sleeves to filter out the reek of dead fish. While the wizards use clean cantrips to fix up the Greenhouse, Morningstar issues a sending to her mother in Kynder Hold.
Dear Mom: Octesian dead, six sisters fell, bravely. I wanted you to hear from me: Ell made me Her Shadow, Her champion on Abernia. Yikes!
The reply: Does being the Champion’s Mom give me powers? I’m so happy and proud of you, Morningstar. Visit soon!
Up next for Morningstar is a visit to High Priestess Rhiavonne in Kallor. Grey Wolf agrees to teleport her there. Dranko just wants to stay in the Greenhouse and get as drunk as possible, and the others think that sounds like an excellent idea. The death of Octesian seems like an fine occasion for a party. Scola and Evenstar decide to stay as well.
In the Twilight City, Morningstar is granted an immediate audience with the High Priestess, and the first words from Rhiavonne are, “I suppose it’s a good sign that I’m seeing you in person.”
Morningstar casts her eyes downward. “I lost six.”
“Six?” says Rhiavonne. “I feared it would be worse.”
“Including Previa,” Morningstar adds.
“I’m so sorry. I know she was close to you.”
Morningstar looks up again. “And… Ell made me her Shadow.”
Rhiavonne smiles wanly. “I know. And I’m very pleased for you. But I’m also extremely worried, that Ell needs a Shadow. I’m not surprised, though. I’ve heard about the fish, and the earthquakes, and… there have been disturbing rumors about the town of Sentinel recently, reports of a strange attack or something similar. Nothing solid. We have a small church in that city, but we cannot contact anyone there. I suspect it’s all related to the threat posed by the Great Enemy.”
Grey Wolf, standing respectfully at the back of the room, raises an eyebrow at the mention of Sentinel. That’s where Farazil was investigating the strange murders committed by two of the deep miners.
“Ell also told me that we’d be leaving soon,” says Morningstar.
“Yes, it’s ironic,” says Rhiavonne, “that we get the first Champion of Ell in centuries, and now you’re going to leave, never to return. Though I hope that’s apocryphal, of course.”
For just a second, Morningstar considers confronting the High Priestess with the images she was shown by Octesian in his demiplane, but decides there’s nothing to be gained by it. Instead she gives a little laugh.
“I don’t think it’s a job with a long life expectancy.”
“Perhaps,” says Rhiavonne. “But if anyone was going to come through it alive, I’d put my money on you. You’ve survived… a lot of things that most would not have weathered, in just a few short years. But I’ll sleep easier tonight, as will every priestess of Ell who’s aware of what was at stake… not to mention every citizen of Charagan, whether they know it or not.”
“My sisters were incredibly brave,” says Morningstar. “They went in knowing they probably wouldn’t survive, helping me attack Octesian. And half of them didn’t.”
“We will certainly afford them every honor the church can bestow,” says Rhiavonne gravely. “Do you have the bodies? They should be interred here at Kallor.”
Morningstar explains the odd circumstances of the sisters’ deaths, and the unusual locale of their collective burial site. Hearing that Morningstar can take two hundred people there for a service, Rhiavonne promises to make arrangements.
“I don’t know what else to say,” says Rhiavonne, finally. “’Congratulations’ seems insufficient.”
“We saw a bit of what happened to Octesian when he went looking for the Adversary,” says Morningstar. “He was projecting his memories into his demiplane. And the Adversary is feeling very… confident.”
“You’ll just have to prove that his confidence is misplaced.”
“Indeed,” says Morningstar. “Octesian was also confident of victory.”
“Overconfidence is a common flaw in the villainous,” says Rhiavonne. “Now, go, rejoin your friends. You deserve to celebrate.”
As Morningstar and Grey Wolf leave, the High Priestess calls out, “Oh, Morningstar, one more thing!”
Morningstar knows what Rhiavonne has remembered: her promised holy writings. “Yes,” she calls back. “It’ll be done before I leave.”
“… good. Thank you.”
Just before they close the door, they hear Rhiavonne mutter to herself, “Well, thank Ell for that.” Does she refer to the writing? Or to Morningstar’s ascension to Shadow? Or to the fact that the church will finally be rid of Morningstar’s tumultuous political influence, as she leaves on her one-way journey?
“Grey Wolf, let’s go home.”
/*/
Back at the Greenhouse, Morningstar and Grey Wolf find Dranko lounging on a sofa with a mug of beer in his hand. His feet are comfortably propped up on a recumbent rhinoceros.
“His name is Pokey,” Dranko explains. There’s a chicken leg skewered on Pokey’s horn, but the rhino, who’s lapping at a large mixing bowl filled with Kibi’s finest ale, doesn’t seem to mind. Flicker reaches up, grabs the chicken, takes a bite, and returns it to the horn. “These things are useful!”
“I dunno,” says Aravis. “I think your chicken might be undercooked.” He sears it with a jet of flame which, even inebriated, he’s skillful enough to deliver without singing the rhino.
“You’ll be gone in less than ten minutes, little fellow,” says Dranko, his speech ever-so-slightly slurred. “Always remember this. It’ll be the best ten minutes of your life.”
Eddings walks in, wearing a guardedly neutral expression and carrying a platter of cheese.
“As you requested,” he says. “Now, will you or the rhino need anything else? More beer?” He peers suspiciously at the huge beast. “A diaper?”
Kibi comes up from the basement and looks aghast at the drinking rhinoceros. “You’ve been feeding my hand-crafted brew to a rhino?”
Dranko looks incredulous. “You’d have had us feed it inferior beer?”
“Where did that even come from?” asks the Dwarf.
The answer is Dranko’s bag of tricks, but Flicker waves his hand. “Ooh, ooh, I know! It comes from the Elemental Plane of Rhi… Rhinoc… Rhinoceroseses.”
“Rhinos aren’t an element,” says Aravis.
“They’re like an elephant, though,” says Flicker. “Doesn’t that count?”
“So,” says Morningstar, and the revelers finally notice her at the door. Evenstar, Scola and Snokas are talking together in a corner, sipping drinks and laughing. Evenstar raises her mug in a silent toast, then looks over at Dranko and smiles.
Morningstar walks to where her sisters and Snokas are gathered. “Rhiavonne is taking care of the guest list for the funeral.”
“Better her than you,” says Scola. “You have more important things to do.” Morningstar agrees.
The rhino vanishes. Dranko pouts, pulls out the bag of tricks again, and produces a lion. He instructs his new pet to continue drinking from the bowl of beer.
“Hey, you know who would love this party?” exclaims Flicker. “Al Tarqoz!”
Aravis is reluctant and first, but between Dranko and Flicker’s cajoling, and the beer he has already consumed, the wizard is convinced to rub the ring on his fingers and summon the Djinn. Al Tarqoz appears on the floor, dressed in purple silken pajamas, lying peacefully on his back, eyes closed. But quickly the eyes snap open, and he sits bolt upright. His nose crinkles.
“Is that… dead fish?”
“Welcome to the Greenhouse!” exclaims Flicker.
“I was sleeping,” says Al Tarqoz.
“Well, you’re not sleeping now!” says Dranko. “So have a beer!”
Al Tarqoz turns to Aravis, then back to Dranko. “Are you commanding me to have a beer?”
“No, I’m offering it to you.”
The Djinn turns again to Aravis, who nods. “I see that it would please you,” says Al Tarqoz, “and you are the master of the ring.” He accepts the proffered mug and takes a sip. “Unusually high quality,” he says, with the tiniest lift of a well-manicured eyebrow. “Who’s responsible for it? You, Master Dwarf? Well done.”
To Aravis he then says, “Now, what else. Or did you simply summon me to drink a beer?”
“I summoned you to enjoy yourself!” says Aravis.
“I was sleeping. And I was enjoying sleeping. And I…”
He finally notices the lion.
“You prime material beings are crazy, you realize this, yes?”
Aravis grins. “The lion is technically one of my worshippers.”
Al Tarqoz blinks. “Your what?”
“I’m a God,” says Aravis.
“No you’re not,” says Al Tarqoz.”
“Yes I am.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes I am.”
“No you’re not.”
“He is of a sort,” says Morningstar.
“Fine,” says Aravis. “I’m a Divine Being. I’m not entirely sure what the distinction is.”
“You can’t grant spells to your followers,” says Dranko.
“True,” Aravis admits. He looks crestfallen for a moment. “Though I haven’t really tried granting spells to cats. Only to Flicker, and that didn’t work out.”
“I stopped worshipping you months ago,” says Flicker. He pauses to draw a long gulp of Kibi’s finest. “No offense, Aravis, but you were kind of second rate. You couldn’t even grant me one measly orison!”
Aravis grins wickedly. “How about I turn you into a cat, and see what I can grant you then?”
“No thanks!”
“Then watch the blasphemy.”
“What blasphemy? Did you grant me a spell and I missed it? Hey, Kibi, is there more beer?”
Al Tarqoz shakes his head, but does take another sip from his mug.
“Hey, hold on,” says Dranko. “Flicker, come help me with something.” The two of them bound down to the basement, and drag up a large, empty barrel.
“Hey Al Tarqoz,” says Dranko. “You can create wine, right? Can you make it in this barrel?”
Aravis nods, so the Djinn grants Dranko’s request.
“The lion’s going to love it!” says Dranko, and he decants some of the wine into bowl, now empty of beer.
“So, Al Tarqoz,” says Dranko, watching the lion sample the wine. “Tell us about your home life!”
The Djinn keeps his answer brief. “I live in the City of Brass, and make my living as a silk merchant.”
“Then how’d you end up in a ring?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Hey!” says Dranko. “Sometime we’ll travel to the City of Brass and we can all have dinner together. And buy silks!”
“Please,” says Al Tarqoz, turning an odd shade of aquamarine. “Please never visit me in my home.”
“We can go back to your place after dinner,” continues Dranko, unmindful of the Djinn’s request. “We can summon you in your own house. You’ll just go from one side of the room to the other!”
“He’s not a toy,” Aravis admonishes. “Nor a parlor trick.”
“I’ve been summoned before,” adds Kibi. “It’s annoying.”
Aravis becomes grave. “Al Tarqoz, in a few days, we’ll being going on the last quest of our lives, to stop an enemy who’s going to destroy the world.”
“That’s terrible,” says Al Tarqoz, with the straightest face he can manage.
“We might summon you while on that quest,” adds Aravis.
“Oh. Then I will be happy, as always, to serve my most benevolent master.”
The party is interrupted by the whining summons of the crystal ball in the secret room. Dranko races to get there first, but Aravis teleports there ahead of him. Ozilinsh’s face appears in the crystal sphere.
“Sorry to wake you,” he begins. (It’s well after midnight, and a reasonable supposition.)
“No, no,” Dranko assures him. “We were just feeding wine to the lion.” In a roundabout fashion, they explain everything that’s happened recently, along with some of the details of their post-victory festivities.
“I see,” says Ozilinsh, when Aravis and Drano have finished explaining. “Can you have the place cleaned up by the day after tomorrow? The King wants a meeting of the Spire at the Greenhouse. He considers it an emergency.”
“It’s probably worse than he thinks,” says Dranko. “The Adversary is coming. I’ve seen him.”
Ozilinsh perks right up. “Oh? What does he look like?”
“Pretty horrible. It makes my brain burn to think about.”
“Oh, that’s okay,” says Ozilinsh. “Describe him!”
“No, sorry, not tonight.”
Morningstar has joined them by this time. “Octesian was made of tentacles,” she offers.
“Really? All of him? What percent of his body mass would you say was tentacles?”
Eventually they mollify Ozilinsh enough that he lets them return to their merrymaking. They have promised to clean themselves and the Greenhouse in plenty of time for a Spire confab.
And in the wee hours they go to sleep, and all of their dreams are good ones.
…to be continued…
A quick note about this run: for what I think is the only place in the Story Hour, I've made up something that happened differently in the game. That's because we collectively made a mistake about Scola. In the first part of the big battle, Scola was killed and re-animated via the revenance spell. But in the second part, which was over a month later, we mistakenly thought that she had been saved via revivify. So she was left alive and well after Octesian was killed, even though by rights she should have keeled over dead when the revenance timed out. The bit about the "Miracle of Ell" that left her alive was really a miracle of us forgetting what spell was used.
Oh, and MorningstarofEll: the write-up made Morningstar look like a bad-ass because she was one. The tape doesn't lie.
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WHAT?? I thought she was gonna look like that forever!! Change her back! Or have Al Tarqoz do it!
I make humbled supplication to Ell, Delioch, Yondalla...heck, even Aravis if it helps...
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE novelize this...Yes, all of it!
The action, the plots, the weaving of plots that all interact and come fruition throughout, the characters themselves and their amazingly developed individuality, the FANTASTIC "down times" and their NPC interactions. Case in point: serving animals from Dranko's bag of tricks alcohol, summoning Al Torqoz for a party (and Al Torqoz's general attitude hand character as always tickled me), the solemnity and reverence interactions -over the years- with Rhivionne and other "superiors"...the 'off screen" gold of the PC's families and other loved ones (Previa, Snokas, etc...).
It's all just gold!!!
A trilogy [or more] is just BEGGING to take up room on my book shelves.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE novelize this...Yes, all of it!
The action, the plots, the weaving of plots that all interact and come fruition throughout, the characters themselves and their amazingly developed individuality, the FANTASTIC "down times" and their NPC interactions. Case in point: serving animals from Dranko's bag of tricks alcohol, summoning Al Torqoz for a party (and Al Torqoz's general attitude hand character as always tickled me), the solemnity and reverence interactions -over the years- with Rhivionne and other "superiors"...the 'off screen" gold of the PC's families and other loved ones (Previa, Snokas, etc...).
It's all just gold!!!
A trilogy [or more] is just BEGGING to take up room on my book shelves.
MorningstarofEll
First Post
*Lol* I am not sure Dranko would agree with you..all though who knows maybe he would.
Sagiro added the pointy teeth and wings in for me. Waaay back when, when our biggest problems were pits of rats, someone..ok..probably Dranko.. had mocked Morningstar. Saying that Ellish priestesses turned into vampire bats or something didn't they. I had told Sagiro that it would be funny if there was some truth to that rumor after all.
KidCthulhu
First Post
Wasn't it a common rumor that Ellish priestesses were vampires? Because no one ever saw them in daylight?
Chronikoce
First Post
This story hour is so wonderful. Thank you for as always for continuing to write it! I especially enjoyed the Rhino and Lion bit haha
Sagiro
Rodent of Uncertain Parentage
To answer some recent questions:
On a related note, all the PC's hit 20th level immediately following Octesian's death.
It was pretty simple, really. Aravis told me his plan, and asked how many wrapped-up victims he could rescue. I asked him to make an intelligence check, and that the result would dictate a number between 0 and 3. He said he wanted to make sure Snokas was rescued, and his roll was such that I let him rescue one other person as well. Aravis had a history of "extreme teleporting" during the campaign, so I figured it was the sort of thing he'd be naturally good at.
About half of them did. There were six deaths among Morningstar's "Dream Team."Everett said:
I'm not sure I quite understand this question. The Church as a whole lost only a tiny percentage of its membership. There are hundreds of Ellish sisters all over Charagan, and only a handful perished at Octesian's tentacles.Waylander the Slayer said:
I've thought about this a great deal over the years. As I'm sure I've mentioned in the past, there are many problems with novelizing a D&D campaign: the pacing is off, there are a ton of issues with intellectual property, there would have to be many fewer combats in a novelization, etc. However, I may do some exploration into the possibility after I'm done the Story Hour. I don't think there's room in my head for two simultaneous Charagan-based writing projects. But sometimes I realize that I'll have written over a million words of Story before this is over, and there must be some way I can turn them into half-way decent fantasy novels.steeldragons said:
Nope. There are no explicitly game-mechanistic benefits to being Ell's Shadow. I told Morningstar's player that she may manifest the physical signs when exerting her authority and power, either in combat or out, but that I was purposefully leaving the tangible benefits thereof vague.Everett said:
On a related note, all the PC's hit 20th level immediately following Octesian's death.
