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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sialia" data-source="post: 217168" data-attributes="member: 1025">Sigh. It really is a pity that this is where it ends.THIS is where it all started to get interesting.Bandeeto always said that the reason he stopped keeping the log was that things suddenly got too darn complicated to keep track of. Y'all will have to ask Piratecat about why that was.Since I don't know whether the next chapters ever get written or not, here are some spoilers/teasers about what came next.The necklace Cadrienne got as a consolation prize from the combat had an,  uh . . .extra gift in it.As we journeyed through the ruins of the Academy of Flamecraft, Cadrienne started hearing voices. Well, one voice actually. One persistent voice. She didn't mention it to anyone at first.She was convinced that it was the soul of the Academy Library speaking to her. (Everyone knows that magic books have intelligence sometimes, right? So why shouldn't a whole library full of them acquire a certain sentience? A lonely, abandoned library in need of students . . .) As a cleric of Morphat, god of knowledge and thought, and a prophetess accustomed to receiving visons, she welcomed the passenger in her head.Only, as was often the case with Cadrienne's dear, sweet and generous impulses, she was dead wrong. The red ruby necklace contained the soul of Mirata Du Chemith, the headmistress of the Academy. It was a sort of a soul jar. After a while, after spying on Cadrienne's mind for a while and feeling out Cadrienne's companions, Mirata simply swapped places with Cadrienne. She was a pretty convincing actress. Despite a few odd quirks, such as asking Arcade if she could browse through his spellbooks, and having a good deal more spine in dealing with foes (I recall Nolin saying something about Cadrienne finally getting the hang of the adventuring life), nobody especially noticed the change. Actaully, most people seemed to think Cadrienne a good bit improved since the tragic loss of her Holy Book and knapsack full of mathematical and astrological stuff.Someone else will have to fill you in on the plot of what happened in the Academy itself. I don't recall it well. I only recall that we located the Incabulin at last in a case with Mirata's own spellbooks and took it home.And after we got home and were relaxing back at the Manticore, "Cadrienne" said something about the set of books needing to be viewed by moonlight. She picked up the lot and walked outside.By the time Arcade twigged to the fact that there was something odd about this, there was nothing outside but the sigil of Mirata Du Chemith flaming in the snow.If Cadrienne ever found out how upset Arcade was when he figured out what had happened, she'd have been gratified to know how worried he was about her.The Defenders naturally headed straight back to the Academy to deal with Mirata and rescue Cadrienne's body.However. At this point, the jig being up and all, Piratecat wanted his NPC back.And there I was for a few weeks without a PC. No worries, I said, I'll roll up an annoying bit-part sidekick who can tag along and pester everybody for a few days. How about a little brother version of that annoying Tephis Birdhouse fellow. Ok, said Piratecat, if you're sure that's what you want.And thus Dylrath was born. Being a throwaway character, I rolled him up straight and took what stats the dice gave me. Plain vanilla human rogue, no treasure, no equipment, no levels. Piratecat tacked a very short backstory on him about Alix's guildmaster wanting to be revenged on Alix and assigning him an incompetent apprentice. And away we went.Right away, a few things happened. The first being that no matter how hard I tired to be annoying, everybody liked Dylrath. It was bizarre. Cadrienne was supposed to be very charismatic and wise, and everybody, including me, found her tedious beyond bearing. Dylrath was supposed to be a complete git, and turned out to be more clever, resilient and charismatic than I am.Then there was a messy battle and Mirata was destroyed (along with a bystander psionic item we never got a chance to meet) and Cadrienne's body was recovered, and Dylrath accidentally stumbled into Mirata's Mirror and bonded to it. And he picked up this broken chunk of her floating bed out of the rubble of her room, and started careening around on it.And when I finally got Cadrienne back,  I missed being Dylrath. More than I had missed Cadrienne while she was off being a Pawn of Evil.Well, anyway, the next adventure involved a lot of Dopplegangers, and I have to let P'cat tell that story, 'cause it was gorgeous and I'll butcher it. The politics of Gaunt suddenly became very complicated. For the first time, the Defenders found themselves facing deadly foes, nearly stark naked and in chains. The Defenders, that is, not the foes. And by the end of that cycle, Alix and Tomtom were a whole lot richer, and Arcade pulled one of the greatest magical MacGyvers ever, and Cadrienne broke her mind playing mental games with telepathic monsters, and Tao's dog became a great hero, and we discover Piratecat's first Most Horrible RatBastard Unique Monster (tm) ever, and Gaunt would never be the same. By mutal consent, we all decided we had had enough of Cadrienne the drama queen to last us quite a while. Piratecat had her hauled off and magically restored her sanity (she had become convinced that she was Mirata Du Chemith) and I decided that if she was going to have to go through life perfectly sane, she wasn't going to adventure ever again. Nobody who is perfectly sane adventures.Dylrath was definitely a few tumblers shy of a padlock (think Kiki from Sluggy Freelance <a href="http://www.sluggy.com" target="_blank">) and a hell of a lot more fun to play.</a><a href="http://www.sluggy.com" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://www.sluggy.com" target="_blank">A few episodes later we broke Chadrather's Curse and destroyed a village, and Cadrienne found her happily-ever-after. These villagers needed her, and she wanted to be needed almost more than a dwarf wants gold. She settled there and set to rehab-ing the cultists, building a village, and trying to establish a utopian community and a University. The sentient Library, after all, would have been a good idea, if she had been right about it. Perhaps it would be a sort of atonement for her abetting Mirata's return, if she built one that really was what she had envisioned.</a><a href="http://www.sluggy.com" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://www.sluggy.com" target="_blank">Anyway, that's enough of suchstuff for now. If we ever get our hands on enough documetnation to fill in any more bits, we'll let ya know.</a><a href="http://www.sluggy.com" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://www.sluggy.com" target="_blank">Thanks for listening!</a></blockquote>

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