INTERLUDE: SYNGAARD'S STORY
PC Roster:
Game Session Date: 20 June 2018
- - -
"You mind telling me just what the Hell that was all about?" demanded Galen, grabbing Syngaard by the shoulder as they exited the Halls of Redemption and returned to Anuja, the wagon, and the horses.
"Matter of fact, I do," snarled back Syngaard, shrugging the paladin's hand off his shoulder.
"I think we have a right to know the meaning behind that red-headed woman," Orion said. "Was she your sister?"
"You'll get your answers," promised Syngaard as he climbed up into the back of the wagon, where Daleth and Kaspar were already sitting in anticipation of the day-and-a-half trip back to their headquarters in Durnhill. "But not until we get back to Skevros. I'm only tellin' the story once." And that was all the bald fighter would say about the matter, despite further prompting. In fact, he kept his own counsel for the duration of the next day and a half, staring silently off into space for most of the trip; Orion found she didn't miss his snide comments about halflings one bit.
But after Anuja pulled the wagon up beside the Enchanted Flagon and everyone piled out, Syngaard merely walked into the inn and ordered a tankard of ale from Karen, the permanent spell effect Skevros had set up as a bartender. He sat at the table and drank his drink silently, waiting for everyone to settle in around him.
"What's going on?" asked Skevros, looking at the rest of the group eyeing Syngaard expectantly.
"Did you see what happened in the Halls of Redemption?" Galen asked.
"As a matter of fact, I did not," replied the king's adviser. "My scrying blacked out during the time you entered the Halls until you exited again. Were you successful?" Galen filled the king's adviser in on what had transpired inside the Halls of Redemption, including Syngaard's strange behavior. "I see," he said. "Syngaard? Do you wish to fill us in?"
The scarred fighter took a swig of his ale before answering. "I got a question first."
Skevros sighed. "Of course you do."
"You got any wizard spells you could cast on everyone here, so that if they repeat anything I'm about to tell them outside this room, like...their tongues'll turn black and fall off, or something?"
"You refer to the mark of justice," Skevros answered. "Like the one inscribed upon my own forehead, which will slay me if I ever step outside the boundaries of the kingdom of Durnhill."
"Yeah, okay," agreed Syngaard. "Like that."
"I refuse to submit to such a spell under general principles!" fumed Galen. "I will not wear such a mark upon my brow!"
"That does seem a bit excessive," pointed out Kaspar.
"Okay, then," replied Syngaard. He pointed at Galen's enchanted longsword the paladin wore at his hip. "That sword of yours, it's got the ghost of a dead paladin in it, right?" Galen disagreed with the term "ghost" but admitted the basic concept was true. "Then I want everyone to swear on Galen's sword that what I tell you don't leave this room. That's my terms."
Galen took a deep breath to calm his anger - he didn't like the assumption that his word wasn't good enough, the word of a paladin of Hieroneous! - but it seemed the easiest way to get the story out of the stubborn fighter. "Very well," he agreed, unsheathing the sword of Zehkar and holding it out horizontally before his chest. Placing his left hand upon the blade, he said, "I swear by this sword that I will not willingly repeat what Syngaard is about to tell us." He added "willingly" to the oath to cover the possibility of some future enemy dragging the tale out of him via enchantment magic or some similar means. Syngaard accepted the modification and ordered another ale while the rest of the group, Skevros included, each swore the oath with hand on sword.
"Okay then," Syngaard said, looking down at the tabletop before him - the focus he kept his eyes gazed upon as he told his tale.
"I never knew my father," the bald fighter began. "My mother, she never worked in no brothel, but she was in the same line of work - only a private businesswoman, if you will. Anyway, money was always tight, and I spent most of my time in the streets, scroungin' for a living. I got caught up in some gangs, got into a bunch of scraps - Hell, I got most of these scars before I was eighteen years old.
"Anyway, this crime boss, Mr. Karlo Maladucci, he saw me and hired me on the spot as one of his personal bodyguards - liked the way I looked all fearsome and such, I guess. My job was to travel with him and look all intimidating-like, with my morningstar on prominent display. That usually did the trick, although I did end up doing a fair bit of fighting on his behalf as his bodyguard.
"Anyway, after a couple of years of that I messed up my knee pretty bad in this one fight, and I couldn't travel with Mr. Maladucci no more - I'd've slowed 'im down. So he set me up as a bouncer in this tavern he owned, the Black Wyvern - kinda like this place, only in the low part of town, and it was at least twice the size, with plenty of private rooms where all sorts of criminal activity was planned. And it was there...it was there I met Mezz.
"Messalina Maladucci was the boss's daughter - and she was the most beautiful woman I ever seen in my life. She was a bartender at the Black Wyvern, and one look at her and I was in love. Didn't do nothin' about it, though - Hell, she was way out of my league, what with my scarred-up face and all. Plus, you know, the boss's daughter. Wouldn't've been a smart idea to go down that path."
Syngaard took a sip of his ale; Orion resisted the impulse to add, "That never stopped you before" - she was actually interested in seeing how this story would play out.
"Anyway, after awhile, Mr. Maladucci got caught up in a big gang war, a bigger one than the little skirmishes that was always goin' on. This got big real quick, and nasty - they stopped abidin' by all the normal rules, like keepin' family out of it. Mr. Maladucci, he was worried somebody'd take Mezz down to get at him, either hold her for ransom or kill her just to mess up his day. So he told me to keep her safe, no matter what. I think...I think he knew, even then, how I felt about her, and he knew I'd keep her safe or die trying.
"So I had this log cabin I'd made out in the woods. I ain't no craftsman or nothin', but it had four walls and a roof and it kept the inside mostly dry in the rain, so that was all I'd been lookin' for at the time - a place to get away by myself when I got tired of all the fearful stares and pitying looks. I took Mezz there and we hid out while the gang war went on in the city and the surrounding areas. There was a stream and a pond nearby for water, and plenty of game for me to take down with my sling - a deer every now and then, but mostly squirrels and rabbits and the occasional quail. And Mezz started up a vegetable garden there by the cabin - it gave her something to do with her time.
"All in all, we spent nearly a year out there. That was...that was the best year of my life, right up until the end."
Syngaard stopped there and took another swig of his ale, thinking back on his time with Mezz in the little cabin. Nobody else spoke; they sensed this was difficult for the gruff fighter to get through.
Finally, he continued his tale. "After the first couple of weeks, Mezz told me she'd always known how I felt about her, and she said she was startin' to feel the same way about me. And a couple of weeks after that, she said she wanted us to get married. She was all for sneakin' into town and gettin' hitched, but I knew that was likely to be too dangerous - so we compromised. I knew this blind druid, name of Herbert, used to swing by the cabin every once in a while - we had him perform the ceremony, right there outside the cabin, there in the sunlight by her little garden.
"A couple of months after that, and she was pregnant. Herbert swung by at least once a month, and promised he'd swing by weekly once she got to the eight-month mark, until he felt it was close to time for her to deliver, and then he'd stay with us until the baby was born. That was the plan....
"...Only it didn't work out that way. 'Bout halfway through her seventh month, she got these real bad pains, and she said there was somethin' wrong with the baby. I didn't know what to do...I went outside and called for Herbert, but he wasn't within earshot, and I didn't dare leave Mezz by herself...so I stayed with her, and we ended up deliverin' the baby all by ourselves. She was an itty-bitty little thing, with red hair like her mama...."
Syngaard's voice broke just a bit at the memory. "And Mezz...she didn't stop bleeding. There wasn't nothin' I could do for her - I know how to bind up a wound and all, but somethin' internal like that...there was nothin' I could do. Mezz held our little daughter, and she said she wanted her to be named Hope, and she told me to take good care of her...
"...And then, she just...died."
Syngaard went to take another sip of his ale and was surprised to see his mug was empty. Without a word, Kaspar set another beside him. The fighter took a sip, nodded wordlessly in gratitude, and continued on with his story. "I took the symbol of Pelor that Mezz always wore around her neck, and I put it on - and I ain't never taken it off since. I wrapped her in a blanket and left her there on the bed, and I wrapped Hope up tight in a smaller blanket, and I took her outside...and I set fire to the cabin. And we watched it burn for awhile. I knew I couldn't never go back there anyway, not to where Mezz had died. But then Hope started cryin', and I figured she was probably hungry, so we left the burning cabin and we headed back to the city. It took close to an hour to get back, and little Hope had cried herself to sleep by then. I went straight to the Temple of Pelor, and I told Father Rupert, the guy who runs the orphanage there, that I found this baby in the forest - which wasn't no lie - and that there was a note pinned to her sayin' her name was Hope - which was a lie but close enough to the truth - and he took her in. And ever since, I been takin' part of what I make on our adventures and I give it to Father Rupert so he can raise them orphans right."
For the first time since starting his tale, Syngaard looked up at the group of people around him. "I can't be raisin' no kid," he said, hoping for understanding. "Anybody finds out little Hope is the granddaughter of Mr. Maladucci the crime lord, and she becomes just as big a target to his enemies as Mezz was. And anybody who knows me who finds out I got a kid is gonna wonder who the mother was, and how come they don't see Mezz around no more? And then we got the same deal: Hope's got a target pinned on her head. This way is better.
"As for Mr. Maladucci, he was a hard man to track down, but I found him and I told him his daughter was dead. He didn't seem too concerned about it, though - he didn't really care for her much as a daughter, just as a pawn in his crime wars. Didn't want no enemy gettin' the upper hand by killin' her, like. But if she died during childbirth? No big deal. He asked me if the baby was a boy or a girl and whether it lived, and he was disappointed she didn't have a son. But when I told him she'd lost her daughter - which again was technically true - he didn't seem upset about it so much. Guess it would have been different if he'd have lost a grandson. But he could see by the pain in my eyes that I was tellin' him the truth, and he told me not to worry about it - not to worry about it! But I guess he just figured I thought he'd be upset about Mezz dyin' on my watch.
"So, anyway, in the Halls of Redemption back there - yeah, I knew that wasn't Mezz, I knew that was my 'inner demon' or whatever and that I'd have to kill it - I just wasn't ready to do it all that quick, you know? I mean, it wasn't her, but it looked just like her - just like the real Mezz. And even with it stabbin' me in the back a coupla times, once I got it by the wrist and it couldn't do me no harm anymore - I just wanted to look at my dead wife for a little bit, even if I knew it wasn't really her. That's all that was. Just me lookin', and rememberin' them good months back in the cabin.
"So now you know. And you can't go sayin' nothin' to nobody, 'cause Hope's life's on the line here. And not just from Mr. Maladucci's enemies, either, although they're a definite concern. But I can't help noticin' that pit fiend who hunted down the Mithral Mage all them years ago, and who popped up in that summoning circle when we took down that circle of cultists up there in the Ashfall mines - his name's 'the Hope Ender.' And I don't think that's just an unlucky coincidence.
"And now I'll tell you why I decided to tell you all this in the first place.
"That Mithral Mage skull we was talkin' to, with the osteovox and all? It called us all by a bunch of nicknames, and everybody thought 'The Dimwit' was me. Only now we know that's Daleth over there. So, what with everybody else accounted for, that makes me 'the Father of Hirek's Key.' And that makes Hope the Key - whatever that means. I'll leave that for you smart types to figure out. But I'll throw a couple of other possibilities on the table.
"That dream I had, when we all had them prophetic dreams or whatever? Mine was Mezz talkin' to me, about drops of blood drippin' down a tree and whatnot. But it split into two at the end, and Mezz said I had to protect them both. I gotta figure Hope's one of the ones I gotta protect, but who's the other? I'm guessin' it might be none other than Maria Quillbender, the granddaughter of Ashfall Dave the Potionmaker and part-time orphan kidnapper. Maybe she and Mezz were cousins or somethin', I dunno. But it's a possibility. And Maria's got that same red hair that Mezz had, and that little Hope's got. So, like I said: a possibility.
"And here's one more I thought up on the ride back from the Halls. We got 'Dimwit' and 'Father of Hirek's Key' mixed up - maybe we got more than that mixed up, too. Outta the bunch of us, Skevros is the only one besides me who's been a father. I know his daughter's dead and all, but maybe 'Hirek's Key' is that creepy-ass doll-thing he made for his daughter way back when. Probably not, but you never know. And here's the thing: if Skevros is 'the Father of Hirek's Key,' then that leaves me as 'the Traitor.' Again, not likely, but it's at least a possibility, and one you ought to consider."
Syngaard gulped down the rest of his ale before finishing his speech. "Because I'll tell you this right now: there ain't a person in this room I wouldn't kill in a heartbeat if it meant bringin' Mezz back to life again."
- - -
I decided to write this up as a standalone entry in the Story Hour because it really has nothing to do with the adventure we went through last Wednesday. I spent the first ten minutes or so of the session going through Syngaard's back-story and it explained some of his past behavior - not only of dealing with his "inner demon" mirror reflection in the Halls of Redemption, but his panic over the kidnapping of the orphans out of the Temple of Pelor; that was, after all, his daughter in amongst the rest of the stolen children. It also explained his anger at the bandit leader desecrating the Temple of Pelor in that farming village in Ashfall; Syngaard associates Pelor with his dead wife, so that didn't sit well with him either. So everyone was impressed not only with the level of detail I'd put into my character's creation, but more importantly what all Logan had done with my inputs to enhance the campaign. (We're all pretty sure at this point that the Hope Ender is destined to try to kill Syngaard's little daughter at some point.)
Of course, after having seen Logan's impressive DMing skills in our Skylanders campaign experiment, I had expected no less.
PC Roster:
Daleth Stormsea, elf wizard 4
Galen Thorne, human paladin 7
Kaspar Hardstrike, elf monk 7
Orion Nightsky, halfling rogue 6
Syngaard, human fighter 7
Galen Thorne, human paladin 7
Kaspar Hardstrike, elf monk 7
Orion Nightsky, halfling rogue 6
Syngaard, human fighter 7
Game Session Date: 20 June 2018
- - -
"You mind telling me just what the Hell that was all about?" demanded Galen, grabbing Syngaard by the shoulder as they exited the Halls of Redemption and returned to Anuja, the wagon, and the horses.
"Matter of fact, I do," snarled back Syngaard, shrugging the paladin's hand off his shoulder.
"I think we have a right to know the meaning behind that red-headed woman," Orion said. "Was she your sister?"
"You'll get your answers," promised Syngaard as he climbed up into the back of the wagon, where Daleth and Kaspar were already sitting in anticipation of the day-and-a-half trip back to their headquarters in Durnhill. "But not until we get back to Skevros. I'm only tellin' the story once." And that was all the bald fighter would say about the matter, despite further prompting. In fact, he kept his own counsel for the duration of the next day and a half, staring silently off into space for most of the trip; Orion found she didn't miss his snide comments about halflings one bit.
But after Anuja pulled the wagon up beside the Enchanted Flagon and everyone piled out, Syngaard merely walked into the inn and ordered a tankard of ale from Karen, the permanent spell effect Skevros had set up as a bartender. He sat at the table and drank his drink silently, waiting for everyone to settle in around him.
"What's going on?" asked Skevros, looking at the rest of the group eyeing Syngaard expectantly.
"Did you see what happened in the Halls of Redemption?" Galen asked.
"As a matter of fact, I did not," replied the king's adviser. "My scrying blacked out during the time you entered the Halls until you exited again. Were you successful?" Galen filled the king's adviser in on what had transpired inside the Halls of Redemption, including Syngaard's strange behavior. "I see," he said. "Syngaard? Do you wish to fill us in?"
The scarred fighter took a swig of his ale before answering. "I got a question first."
Skevros sighed. "Of course you do."
"You got any wizard spells you could cast on everyone here, so that if they repeat anything I'm about to tell them outside this room, like...their tongues'll turn black and fall off, or something?"
"You refer to the mark of justice," Skevros answered. "Like the one inscribed upon my own forehead, which will slay me if I ever step outside the boundaries of the kingdom of Durnhill."
"Yeah, okay," agreed Syngaard. "Like that."
"I refuse to submit to such a spell under general principles!" fumed Galen. "I will not wear such a mark upon my brow!"
"That does seem a bit excessive," pointed out Kaspar.
"Okay, then," replied Syngaard. He pointed at Galen's enchanted longsword the paladin wore at his hip. "That sword of yours, it's got the ghost of a dead paladin in it, right?" Galen disagreed with the term "ghost" but admitted the basic concept was true. "Then I want everyone to swear on Galen's sword that what I tell you don't leave this room. That's my terms."
Galen took a deep breath to calm his anger - he didn't like the assumption that his word wasn't good enough, the word of a paladin of Hieroneous! - but it seemed the easiest way to get the story out of the stubborn fighter. "Very well," he agreed, unsheathing the sword of Zehkar and holding it out horizontally before his chest. Placing his left hand upon the blade, he said, "I swear by this sword that I will not willingly repeat what Syngaard is about to tell us." He added "willingly" to the oath to cover the possibility of some future enemy dragging the tale out of him via enchantment magic or some similar means. Syngaard accepted the modification and ordered another ale while the rest of the group, Skevros included, each swore the oath with hand on sword.
"Okay then," Syngaard said, looking down at the tabletop before him - the focus he kept his eyes gazed upon as he told his tale.
"I never knew my father," the bald fighter began. "My mother, she never worked in no brothel, but she was in the same line of work - only a private businesswoman, if you will. Anyway, money was always tight, and I spent most of my time in the streets, scroungin' for a living. I got caught up in some gangs, got into a bunch of scraps - Hell, I got most of these scars before I was eighteen years old.
"Anyway, this crime boss, Mr. Karlo Maladucci, he saw me and hired me on the spot as one of his personal bodyguards - liked the way I looked all fearsome and such, I guess. My job was to travel with him and look all intimidating-like, with my morningstar on prominent display. That usually did the trick, although I did end up doing a fair bit of fighting on his behalf as his bodyguard.
"Anyway, after a couple of years of that I messed up my knee pretty bad in this one fight, and I couldn't travel with Mr. Maladucci no more - I'd've slowed 'im down. So he set me up as a bouncer in this tavern he owned, the Black Wyvern - kinda like this place, only in the low part of town, and it was at least twice the size, with plenty of private rooms where all sorts of criminal activity was planned. And it was there...it was there I met Mezz.
"Messalina Maladucci was the boss's daughter - and she was the most beautiful woman I ever seen in my life. She was a bartender at the Black Wyvern, and one look at her and I was in love. Didn't do nothin' about it, though - Hell, she was way out of my league, what with my scarred-up face and all. Plus, you know, the boss's daughter. Wouldn't've been a smart idea to go down that path."
Syngaard took a sip of his ale; Orion resisted the impulse to add, "That never stopped you before" - she was actually interested in seeing how this story would play out.
"Anyway, after awhile, Mr. Maladucci got caught up in a big gang war, a bigger one than the little skirmishes that was always goin' on. This got big real quick, and nasty - they stopped abidin' by all the normal rules, like keepin' family out of it. Mr. Maladucci, he was worried somebody'd take Mezz down to get at him, either hold her for ransom or kill her just to mess up his day. So he told me to keep her safe, no matter what. I think...I think he knew, even then, how I felt about her, and he knew I'd keep her safe or die trying.
"So I had this log cabin I'd made out in the woods. I ain't no craftsman or nothin', but it had four walls and a roof and it kept the inside mostly dry in the rain, so that was all I'd been lookin' for at the time - a place to get away by myself when I got tired of all the fearful stares and pitying looks. I took Mezz there and we hid out while the gang war went on in the city and the surrounding areas. There was a stream and a pond nearby for water, and plenty of game for me to take down with my sling - a deer every now and then, but mostly squirrels and rabbits and the occasional quail. And Mezz started up a vegetable garden there by the cabin - it gave her something to do with her time.
"All in all, we spent nearly a year out there. That was...that was the best year of my life, right up until the end."
Syngaard stopped there and took another swig of his ale, thinking back on his time with Mezz in the little cabin. Nobody else spoke; they sensed this was difficult for the gruff fighter to get through.
Finally, he continued his tale. "After the first couple of weeks, Mezz told me she'd always known how I felt about her, and she said she was startin' to feel the same way about me. And a couple of weeks after that, she said she wanted us to get married. She was all for sneakin' into town and gettin' hitched, but I knew that was likely to be too dangerous - so we compromised. I knew this blind druid, name of Herbert, used to swing by the cabin every once in a while - we had him perform the ceremony, right there outside the cabin, there in the sunlight by her little garden.
"A couple of months after that, and she was pregnant. Herbert swung by at least once a month, and promised he'd swing by weekly once she got to the eight-month mark, until he felt it was close to time for her to deliver, and then he'd stay with us until the baby was born. That was the plan....
"...Only it didn't work out that way. 'Bout halfway through her seventh month, she got these real bad pains, and she said there was somethin' wrong with the baby. I didn't know what to do...I went outside and called for Herbert, but he wasn't within earshot, and I didn't dare leave Mezz by herself...so I stayed with her, and we ended up deliverin' the baby all by ourselves. She was an itty-bitty little thing, with red hair like her mama...."
Syngaard's voice broke just a bit at the memory. "And Mezz...she didn't stop bleeding. There wasn't nothin' I could do for her - I know how to bind up a wound and all, but somethin' internal like that...there was nothin' I could do. Mezz held our little daughter, and she said she wanted her to be named Hope, and she told me to take good care of her...
"...And then, she just...died."
Syngaard went to take another sip of his ale and was surprised to see his mug was empty. Without a word, Kaspar set another beside him. The fighter took a sip, nodded wordlessly in gratitude, and continued on with his story. "I took the symbol of Pelor that Mezz always wore around her neck, and I put it on - and I ain't never taken it off since. I wrapped her in a blanket and left her there on the bed, and I wrapped Hope up tight in a smaller blanket, and I took her outside...and I set fire to the cabin. And we watched it burn for awhile. I knew I couldn't never go back there anyway, not to where Mezz had died. But then Hope started cryin', and I figured she was probably hungry, so we left the burning cabin and we headed back to the city. It took close to an hour to get back, and little Hope had cried herself to sleep by then. I went straight to the Temple of Pelor, and I told Father Rupert, the guy who runs the orphanage there, that I found this baby in the forest - which wasn't no lie - and that there was a note pinned to her sayin' her name was Hope - which was a lie but close enough to the truth - and he took her in. And ever since, I been takin' part of what I make on our adventures and I give it to Father Rupert so he can raise them orphans right."
For the first time since starting his tale, Syngaard looked up at the group of people around him. "I can't be raisin' no kid," he said, hoping for understanding. "Anybody finds out little Hope is the granddaughter of Mr. Maladucci the crime lord, and she becomes just as big a target to his enemies as Mezz was. And anybody who knows me who finds out I got a kid is gonna wonder who the mother was, and how come they don't see Mezz around no more? And then we got the same deal: Hope's got a target pinned on her head. This way is better.
"As for Mr. Maladucci, he was a hard man to track down, but I found him and I told him his daughter was dead. He didn't seem too concerned about it, though - he didn't really care for her much as a daughter, just as a pawn in his crime wars. Didn't want no enemy gettin' the upper hand by killin' her, like. But if she died during childbirth? No big deal. He asked me if the baby was a boy or a girl and whether it lived, and he was disappointed she didn't have a son. But when I told him she'd lost her daughter - which again was technically true - he didn't seem upset about it so much. Guess it would have been different if he'd have lost a grandson. But he could see by the pain in my eyes that I was tellin' him the truth, and he told me not to worry about it - not to worry about it! But I guess he just figured I thought he'd be upset about Mezz dyin' on my watch.
"So, anyway, in the Halls of Redemption back there - yeah, I knew that wasn't Mezz, I knew that was my 'inner demon' or whatever and that I'd have to kill it - I just wasn't ready to do it all that quick, you know? I mean, it wasn't her, but it looked just like her - just like the real Mezz. And even with it stabbin' me in the back a coupla times, once I got it by the wrist and it couldn't do me no harm anymore - I just wanted to look at my dead wife for a little bit, even if I knew it wasn't really her. That's all that was. Just me lookin', and rememberin' them good months back in the cabin.
"So now you know. And you can't go sayin' nothin' to nobody, 'cause Hope's life's on the line here. And not just from Mr. Maladucci's enemies, either, although they're a definite concern. But I can't help noticin' that pit fiend who hunted down the Mithral Mage all them years ago, and who popped up in that summoning circle when we took down that circle of cultists up there in the Ashfall mines - his name's 'the Hope Ender.' And I don't think that's just an unlucky coincidence.
"And now I'll tell you why I decided to tell you all this in the first place.
"That Mithral Mage skull we was talkin' to, with the osteovox and all? It called us all by a bunch of nicknames, and everybody thought 'The Dimwit' was me. Only now we know that's Daleth over there. So, what with everybody else accounted for, that makes me 'the Father of Hirek's Key.' And that makes Hope the Key - whatever that means. I'll leave that for you smart types to figure out. But I'll throw a couple of other possibilities on the table.
"That dream I had, when we all had them prophetic dreams or whatever? Mine was Mezz talkin' to me, about drops of blood drippin' down a tree and whatnot. But it split into two at the end, and Mezz said I had to protect them both. I gotta figure Hope's one of the ones I gotta protect, but who's the other? I'm guessin' it might be none other than Maria Quillbender, the granddaughter of Ashfall Dave the Potionmaker and part-time orphan kidnapper. Maybe she and Mezz were cousins or somethin', I dunno. But it's a possibility. And Maria's got that same red hair that Mezz had, and that little Hope's got. So, like I said: a possibility.
"And here's one more I thought up on the ride back from the Halls. We got 'Dimwit' and 'Father of Hirek's Key' mixed up - maybe we got more than that mixed up, too. Outta the bunch of us, Skevros is the only one besides me who's been a father. I know his daughter's dead and all, but maybe 'Hirek's Key' is that creepy-ass doll-thing he made for his daughter way back when. Probably not, but you never know. And here's the thing: if Skevros is 'the Father of Hirek's Key,' then that leaves me as 'the Traitor.' Again, not likely, but it's at least a possibility, and one you ought to consider."
Syngaard gulped down the rest of his ale before finishing his speech. "Because I'll tell you this right now: there ain't a person in this room I wouldn't kill in a heartbeat if it meant bringin' Mezz back to life again."
- - -
I decided to write this up as a standalone entry in the Story Hour because it really has nothing to do with the adventure we went through last Wednesday. I spent the first ten minutes or so of the session going through Syngaard's back-story and it explained some of his past behavior - not only of dealing with his "inner demon" mirror reflection in the Halls of Redemption, but his panic over the kidnapping of the orphans out of the Temple of Pelor; that was, after all, his daughter in amongst the rest of the stolen children. It also explained his anger at the bandit leader desecrating the Temple of Pelor in that farming village in Ashfall; Syngaard associates Pelor with his dead wife, so that didn't sit well with him either. So everyone was impressed not only with the level of detail I'd put into my character's creation, but more importantly what all Logan had done with my inputs to enhance the campaign. (We're all pretty sure at this point that the Hope Ender is destined to try to kill Syngaard's little daughter at some point.)
Of course, after having seen Logan's impressive DMing skills in our Skylanders campaign experiment, I had expected no less.
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