Lwaxy
Cute but dangerous
6th of Rhune
Dear Mom,
Whatever you may have heard from our embassy – to which we have had no contact whatsoever, I can assure you, so they can't know a thing – is totally distorted. We did not cause mayhem. We prevented it.
Here is what really happened. We got to the lighthouse – and yes, we still had the rings, whoever told you that – and used the floating disc spell Nev so incompletely manages to get in through some large, open archways some feet off the ground. Stupid construction if you ask me, and we were lucky the spell flopped once we were inside. Thanks to the noise we made when doing so, Uthas and Flip – I suspect it was them and no participation in the slaughter from Nev – dispatched the 4 guards posted on that level. I felt a bit sick, yes, there is something eerie about dead bodies being dragged off by seemingly no one. Then we made up the stairs, where either Uthas or Nev bumped into me. Yes, we had forgotten we couldn't see each other either and that there was no way we could communicate by touch. So when we came into the room where some of the lower tier cultist did some creepy ritual, I had no idea what to do. There was a funny smell in the air, and I guess I sniffed because the next moment, Flip whispered "rotten pillows." At least I'm pretty sure that is what he had said. I was close to panicked and before I know it, the room was burning like before. I have no recollection of even casting any spell, least of all one I am not completely capable off, but it must have been extremely powerful as it reeked of burned flesh and other stuff, and there was no one left in sight. That didn't help my panic so I ran on, not looking where the others were, and fell over Flip. Small people can be such a pain.
Nev was somewhere cursing the cultists out for desecrating the shrine of the sea god. When I got up, we had all calmed down a bit and checked out the other two rooms. Flip is really clever with such things, he figured out what to move on either statue in the shrine rooms to make the next doors open. I did not get the details I fear, as I was a bit distracted by the dead body of a woman, a thief perhaps, which was floating in the Sea God's water shrine. Flip was indecent enough to search her and take some things. Somehow we ended up in a small hidden room, Nev who had somehow found me pushed me along to a staircase leading upwards.
I was just about to take charge again when the trap door at the top was pushed open and we were greeted with a terrible smell. I was pushed into the room with the others, finding myself in a square room filling the whole level, as it seemed, and full of dead bodies. Flip said something about the missing workers but i sure didn't want to look that closely. Something was slurping and launched at us. I am not sure what it was, mom. It was definitely hostile, and this time it was Nev and me throwing the fireballs. Uthas cursed something vile and knocked us back down the stairs, not sure if accidentally or if he had judged where the spells came from. We barely caught ourselves. Flip says it was good that way or the fire would have caught. I told him that this was not true, that there had been enough space for us to avoid the blast. He said something about straw and old bedding, and then we smelled and heard that the fire was still going on. Dead bodies smell really awful when burning; at least the cultists below had had the decency to stop burning once they were dead.
I guess Nev went up and did something with a cold spell, because we heard him bump something, probably his head judging from the gash on his face we saw much later. When we came back up, it was now smelling like freshly burned bodies in cold water. You don't really want to know how that smells, mom.
Flip was angry at us because of some tracks he has supposedly seen in the mess on the floor before we had destroyed all evidence. He said to wait and went off. We saw him splashing through the remaining water towards the pillows. Turned out one of them was hollow and contained a stairway to the levels up.
Up was where we reached another trap door. There were muffled voices behind it. Now, we were invisible but they would clearly see and hear the trap door opening. Nev and me discussed the situation. Yes, we somewhat ignored both Flip and Uthas in the process but neither of them has leadership experience. We decided to jump right in and for best defense and attack in one, use all ice or slippery spells we still had, which was probably not much but we thought would to.
When we did so, we found ourselves in a strange yellow light coming from lots of candles and the yellow signs inscribed into many bricks. The whole room pulsed with unholy energy, even we could sense that. From top of a massive staircase around the walls, 6 people looked down. We could make out Drac and more snakes. Drac gave some orders, and one of the snakes came at us. The grease spell helped bump him off the stairs, but we had ignored the possibility that our foes might be capable of magic as well. Mr. Snake came down slowly while laughing at us – or at where he thought we were which was, luckily, completely off. His fireball hit the wrong corner. Just then, Uthas stormed at him with his axe and the short sword to boot and – silly half-orc – a battle cry. Now that he knew where we were, he aimed a lot better with his spells. Flip cried out that he could not see anything and Nev was hit by some magic missiles. We heard the thud when he dropped. To the misfortune of the snake man, he had missed Uthas, who's spell resistance is, as usual, amazing. And Uthas was very very angry now. He flew into a rage. We heard his shouts and saw the body parts of our foe and two others who had come to help their friend fly into all directions. Then Uthas went up the stairs, and, with the grease spell still there, fell right down again. While we dispelled that, he went up again, although he seemed hurt. He didn't pay attention to any injuries and attacked those above as well. We could barely keep up. Running up stairs is not a sport Nev or me usually engage in, but Flip did fine. By the time we came up, it looked as if Flip was lodged on the back of Drac, at least by the way the man flung his arms trying to reach behind. There was blood on the ground, and from the way it dripped from seemingly nowhere, Uthas was clearly injured. I tried to magically hold Drac, but it did not work. He danced, with Flip on his back, around a dais in the center of this last room on the lighthouse's top. Said center held a small pillar with a magic crystal. From what the Loremaster had told us from the old writings and the high priest's journal, that was were we had to put that Jade Serpent instead. Now, try to do that with pandemonium all around you! I didn't even dare take it out of the backpack.
Then Drac managed to shake Flip off. Our halfling hit the crystal, and both rolled off of the dais and down the stairs. Well, the crystal went down, anyway, I have no idea where Flip went. With a cry of panic, Drac dashed after it and I decided to let him, instead put my sparring lessons to good use and helped Uthas with the remaining snake men. Yes, so I did not notice the magical power surge, I was too busy not to die, mom! I noticed someone, presumably Nev, tugging my shirt again and again whenever he could find me, which was a bit detrimental to my fighting stance. Only when Uthas grunted somewhere and toppled over after killing his foe and Drac came huffing and puffing up the stairs again with the crystal did I find the lighthouse was shaking and trying to crumble all around us.
Someone cried about the Jade Serpent, so I dropped the backpack as someone, probably Flip, tripped my opponent, and took the chance to place it on the dais instead of the crystal. I was hit by some rubble from the self destructing lighthouse. I noticed the Jade Serpent flying away, too.
Must have passed out for a moment, because when I came to, everything was bathed in green light and the lighthouse was all calm again. There was not as much damage as it had seemed at first. And there was dust or ash on the ground. Someone fell over my legs and cursed, and then I saw the Jade Serpent firmly tied to the column. Yes, tied, with what looked like spider silk to me. Nev was whimpering somewhere, singing about the itsy bitsy spider, which also pointed to a spider in the room somewhere. His fear of arachnides is really ridiculous. Uthas, badly hurt, cut up all over, was visible again. The ring had been taken off. Instead, someone else who was now moving him must have had it. Mom, I swear, spider silk appeared around Uthas and he was lifted up to the top opening of the lighthouse and carried away. Flip mumbled something about 'only eating him when he dies and not helping it happen' and then he took his ring off, calling for us to do 'drop the stupid invisibility already.' I did so, but we had to search for the whispering Nev and take his ring off. When I was about to guide him downstairs, I saw Flip messing up the ash on the ground, which, come to think, looked remarkably like the outlines of snakes and a human. Guess the light of Yig burned them to nothing. Flip also removed the spider silk. When asked, he said a friend had taken care of Uthas, and we would meet the barbarian at the Temple of Knowledge. Hopefully.
We had to use the rings again to leave the lighthouse. By then, Nev was somewhat fine again. I will talk to him about therapy sessions for his phobia. We did indeed find Uthas, who had little memory of it all, at the temple, but Flip still owes us an explanation. Nev does not want to be reminded of any possible spider, and Flip just looks at me and says nothing!
As it seemed, the followers of this cult died all over the city. And the onlookers thought the divine light spectacle a part of the show. All the better, no one suspects us at all, and that Milton and a few others went missing is speculated as 'the Sea Lord having this all planned to get away from it all' or other such nonsense. The damage in the lighthouse was attributed to several things, why our embassy even thinks it was us is beyond me.
There is this, though. When you sent us away, you said we need to make a name for ourselves before returning, so all our supposed misdeeds would be forgotten. Well, this can't be public, so while we truly do feel heroic now, it is nothing to make you proud of. This deeply troubles me, especially as we will probably be bored pretty soon now that this is all over. Could we at least come home to visit for a few weeks?
Your Loving son Orlath
Most High Lady Theka!
In the light of the latest magic abuse/misuse and general tendency to mess up of 2 certain wizards, may I suggest you help find them some simple jobs they can actually do without worry that there will be inferno waiting to happen? Like, clearing out tombs and old dungeons, or maybe the occasional exploration trip? With all their magic capability, they have less street smarts than a cockroach from the royal kitchen, and that's an overstatement of their skills. All the young royals learn that way, if usually under better tutelage than mine and Uthas' and just because they barely held up their bargain of their duties to learn the sword and bow they should not fail to learn what any noble of the realm able to wield a weapon needs to know.
I may be just a thief and occasional assassin in the name of the crown. But I can clearly see that they, especially your son, need to man up and stop thinking they are still 10 playing sword fight in the royal gardens. The amount of help I had to enlist, with the help of Uthas, was considerable and not always cheap. I can't keep doing this, and while this event was clearly a surprise and, I have to admit, may herald them as the heroes they might once become and need to become, I have no doubt other such perils will wait along the road. After all, they are their heirs of something bigger they do not even know of. They will need to be prepared or they will end up like all the other heirs of something bigger the Realm has had before. Just that they will get there a lot faster.
And please, send their protector, the princess, along, finally. You may be right that they may feel intimidated by her, but that is better than feeling overconfident, or feeling dead. We can manage. The princess' prophecy is there for a reason.
Forgive me my directness, Milady.
Your humble servant Flip
Dear Mom,
Whatever you may have heard from our embassy – to which we have had no contact whatsoever, I can assure you, so they can't know a thing – is totally distorted. We did not cause mayhem. We prevented it.
Here is what really happened. We got to the lighthouse – and yes, we still had the rings, whoever told you that – and used the floating disc spell Nev so incompletely manages to get in through some large, open archways some feet off the ground. Stupid construction if you ask me, and we were lucky the spell flopped once we were inside. Thanks to the noise we made when doing so, Uthas and Flip – I suspect it was them and no participation in the slaughter from Nev – dispatched the 4 guards posted on that level. I felt a bit sick, yes, there is something eerie about dead bodies being dragged off by seemingly no one. Then we made up the stairs, where either Uthas or Nev bumped into me. Yes, we had forgotten we couldn't see each other either and that there was no way we could communicate by touch. So when we came into the room where some of the lower tier cultist did some creepy ritual, I had no idea what to do. There was a funny smell in the air, and I guess I sniffed because the next moment, Flip whispered "rotten pillows." At least I'm pretty sure that is what he had said. I was close to panicked and before I know it, the room was burning like before. I have no recollection of even casting any spell, least of all one I am not completely capable off, but it must have been extremely powerful as it reeked of burned flesh and other stuff, and there was no one left in sight. That didn't help my panic so I ran on, not looking where the others were, and fell over Flip. Small people can be such a pain.
Nev was somewhere cursing the cultists out for desecrating the shrine of the sea god. When I got up, we had all calmed down a bit and checked out the other two rooms. Flip is really clever with such things, he figured out what to move on either statue in the shrine rooms to make the next doors open. I did not get the details I fear, as I was a bit distracted by the dead body of a woman, a thief perhaps, which was floating in the Sea God's water shrine. Flip was indecent enough to search her and take some things. Somehow we ended up in a small hidden room, Nev who had somehow found me pushed me along to a staircase leading upwards.
I was just about to take charge again when the trap door at the top was pushed open and we were greeted with a terrible smell. I was pushed into the room with the others, finding myself in a square room filling the whole level, as it seemed, and full of dead bodies. Flip said something about the missing workers but i sure didn't want to look that closely. Something was slurping and launched at us. I am not sure what it was, mom. It was definitely hostile, and this time it was Nev and me throwing the fireballs. Uthas cursed something vile and knocked us back down the stairs, not sure if accidentally or if he had judged where the spells came from. We barely caught ourselves. Flip says it was good that way or the fire would have caught. I told him that this was not true, that there had been enough space for us to avoid the blast. He said something about straw and old bedding, and then we smelled and heard that the fire was still going on. Dead bodies smell really awful when burning; at least the cultists below had had the decency to stop burning once they were dead.
I guess Nev went up and did something with a cold spell, because we heard him bump something, probably his head judging from the gash on his face we saw much later. When we came back up, it was now smelling like freshly burned bodies in cold water. You don't really want to know how that smells, mom.
Flip was angry at us because of some tracks he has supposedly seen in the mess on the floor before we had destroyed all evidence. He said to wait and went off. We saw him splashing through the remaining water towards the pillows. Turned out one of them was hollow and contained a stairway to the levels up.
Up was where we reached another trap door. There were muffled voices behind it. Now, we were invisible but they would clearly see and hear the trap door opening. Nev and me discussed the situation. Yes, we somewhat ignored both Flip and Uthas in the process but neither of them has leadership experience. We decided to jump right in and for best defense and attack in one, use all ice or slippery spells we still had, which was probably not much but we thought would to.
When we did so, we found ourselves in a strange yellow light coming from lots of candles and the yellow signs inscribed into many bricks. The whole room pulsed with unholy energy, even we could sense that. From top of a massive staircase around the walls, 6 people looked down. We could make out Drac and more snakes. Drac gave some orders, and one of the snakes came at us. The grease spell helped bump him off the stairs, but we had ignored the possibility that our foes might be capable of magic as well. Mr. Snake came down slowly while laughing at us – or at where he thought we were which was, luckily, completely off. His fireball hit the wrong corner. Just then, Uthas stormed at him with his axe and the short sword to boot and – silly half-orc – a battle cry. Now that he knew where we were, he aimed a lot better with his spells. Flip cried out that he could not see anything and Nev was hit by some magic missiles. We heard the thud when he dropped. To the misfortune of the snake man, he had missed Uthas, who's spell resistance is, as usual, amazing. And Uthas was very very angry now. He flew into a rage. We heard his shouts and saw the body parts of our foe and two others who had come to help their friend fly into all directions. Then Uthas went up the stairs, and, with the grease spell still there, fell right down again. While we dispelled that, he went up again, although he seemed hurt. He didn't pay attention to any injuries and attacked those above as well. We could barely keep up. Running up stairs is not a sport Nev or me usually engage in, but Flip did fine. By the time we came up, it looked as if Flip was lodged on the back of Drac, at least by the way the man flung his arms trying to reach behind. There was blood on the ground, and from the way it dripped from seemingly nowhere, Uthas was clearly injured. I tried to magically hold Drac, but it did not work. He danced, with Flip on his back, around a dais in the center of this last room on the lighthouse's top. Said center held a small pillar with a magic crystal. From what the Loremaster had told us from the old writings and the high priest's journal, that was were we had to put that Jade Serpent instead. Now, try to do that with pandemonium all around you! I didn't even dare take it out of the backpack.
Then Drac managed to shake Flip off. Our halfling hit the crystal, and both rolled off of the dais and down the stairs. Well, the crystal went down, anyway, I have no idea where Flip went. With a cry of panic, Drac dashed after it and I decided to let him, instead put my sparring lessons to good use and helped Uthas with the remaining snake men. Yes, so I did not notice the magical power surge, I was too busy not to die, mom! I noticed someone, presumably Nev, tugging my shirt again and again whenever he could find me, which was a bit detrimental to my fighting stance. Only when Uthas grunted somewhere and toppled over after killing his foe and Drac came huffing and puffing up the stairs again with the crystal did I find the lighthouse was shaking and trying to crumble all around us.
Someone cried about the Jade Serpent, so I dropped the backpack as someone, probably Flip, tripped my opponent, and took the chance to place it on the dais instead of the crystal. I was hit by some rubble from the self destructing lighthouse. I noticed the Jade Serpent flying away, too.
Must have passed out for a moment, because when I came to, everything was bathed in green light and the lighthouse was all calm again. There was not as much damage as it had seemed at first. And there was dust or ash on the ground. Someone fell over my legs and cursed, and then I saw the Jade Serpent firmly tied to the column. Yes, tied, with what looked like spider silk to me. Nev was whimpering somewhere, singing about the itsy bitsy spider, which also pointed to a spider in the room somewhere. His fear of arachnides is really ridiculous. Uthas, badly hurt, cut up all over, was visible again. The ring had been taken off. Instead, someone else who was now moving him must have had it. Mom, I swear, spider silk appeared around Uthas and he was lifted up to the top opening of the lighthouse and carried away. Flip mumbled something about 'only eating him when he dies and not helping it happen' and then he took his ring off, calling for us to do 'drop the stupid invisibility already.' I did so, but we had to search for the whispering Nev and take his ring off. When I was about to guide him downstairs, I saw Flip messing up the ash on the ground, which, come to think, looked remarkably like the outlines of snakes and a human. Guess the light of Yig burned them to nothing. Flip also removed the spider silk. When asked, he said a friend had taken care of Uthas, and we would meet the barbarian at the Temple of Knowledge. Hopefully.
We had to use the rings again to leave the lighthouse. By then, Nev was somewhat fine again. I will talk to him about therapy sessions for his phobia. We did indeed find Uthas, who had little memory of it all, at the temple, but Flip still owes us an explanation. Nev does not want to be reminded of any possible spider, and Flip just looks at me and says nothing!
As it seemed, the followers of this cult died all over the city. And the onlookers thought the divine light spectacle a part of the show. All the better, no one suspects us at all, and that Milton and a few others went missing is speculated as 'the Sea Lord having this all planned to get away from it all' or other such nonsense. The damage in the lighthouse was attributed to several things, why our embassy even thinks it was us is beyond me.
There is this, though. When you sent us away, you said we need to make a name for ourselves before returning, so all our supposed misdeeds would be forgotten. Well, this can't be public, so while we truly do feel heroic now, it is nothing to make you proud of. This deeply troubles me, especially as we will probably be bored pretty soon now that this is all over. Could we at least come home to visit for a few weeks?
Your Loving son Orlath
Most High Lady Theka!
In the light of the latest magic abuse/misuse and general tendency to mess up of 2 certain wizards, may I suggest you help find them some simple jobs they can actually do without worry that there will be inferno waiting to happen? Like, clearing out tombs and old dungeons, or maybe the occasional exploration trip? With all their magic capability, they have less street smarts than a cockroach from the royal kitchen, and that's an overstatement of their skills. All the young royals learn that way, if usually under better tutelage than mine and Uthas' and just because they barely held up their bargain of their duties to learn the sword and bow they should not fail to learn what any noble of the realm able to wield a weapon needs to know.
I may be just a thief and occasional assassin in the name of the crown. But I can clearly see that they, especially your son, need to man up and stop thinking they are still 10 playing sword fight in the royal gardens. The amount of help I had to enlist, with the help of Uthas, was considerable and not always cheap. I can't keep doing this, and while this event was clearly a surprise and, I have to admit, may herald them as the heroes they might once become and need to become, I have no doubt other such perils will wait along the road. After all, they are their heirs of something bigger they do not even know of. They will need to be prepared or they will end up like all the other heirs of something bigger the Realm has had before. Just that they will get there a lot faster.
And please, send their protector, the princess, along, finally. You may be right that they may feel intimidated by her, but that is better than feeling overconfident, or feeling dead. We can manage. The princess' prophecy is there for a reason.
Forgive me my directness, Milady.
Your humble servant Flip