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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Altalazar" data-source="post: 2817019" data-attributes="member: 939">Book VII    Cordozo – Chapter Forty-Eight – Breaking and Entering, Head and Home    My shoes are very expensive.  I’d wear nothing less, both for court and for “adventuring.”  They are certainly a distinctive sight when viewed walking toward you in the street.  They were also a rather distinctive sight on my floor, my feet still in them, when viewed through the front window to my domicile.      Apparently, I picked something up in those shadow planes, and I’m not referring to the power stones and crystals, though they were certainly interesting.  The crystals can actually store my mental energy, allowing me to call upon it later when my own mental reserves are exhausted.  And the stone seems to store a power inside itself, allowing me to call it forth without any of my own power at all, but it only works once.  I’d never heard of such things before, but then I’d never heard of my own powers manifesting anywhere else before, either.  It was certainly a pleasure to meet others with my rare, and once-thought singular gift.  Unfortunately, not everyone of the rare bearers of such gifts are bearable to all.  But I digress in my digression.  With my hard-earned spoils, I traded my headband of intelligence to Morwen and then got an even stronger one for myself.  I know I have but one asset to offer, my mind, and so I sharpened it as best I could even as Ee sharpened his axe or Krynyn sharpened his new-found sword of stone.  We found several items known as dorgets, items that can store a power of the mind and then call it forth without expending one’s own energy, but they have but a limited charge.  We sold one and I kept the other, curious to learn its secrets.  The two final items of note were also psionically active.  One, known as the Third-Eye of Guardian, will allow me to roll out of the way of trouble once a day, assuming my reflexes do not fail me.  I figured my soft disposition required a little extra help.  The other was known as a contemplative pearl, and it uses the power of the mind to form almost anything at all one can think of.  One could consider it almost a miracle, if one were so inclined.  One like Marcus, for instance, who has taken the pearl into his custody and care.  Now I finish my prime digression.  Back to my shoes.  Morwen apparently admired my shoes for the first time when I failed to meet her following our swapping of intellects (of the worn variety).  She and the others (minus Ee) came looking for me at my abode and found me there, or rather, my shoes.  This led her to unlock my door (no, I did not give her a key) in what could only be described as a burglary, according to the common law definition, minus the element of intent to commit a larceny or felony therein.  In fact, one could make an argument for exigent circumstances, one I’d have been happy to make for her had I not occupied those shoes in an unconscious and otherwise incoherent state.      Morwen quickly summoned help in the street, in the form of a dirty chicken cart.  Using a blanket to keep most of the chicken excrement off of me, she put me on the cart and wheeled me off to the temple.  And I can only say now that I am glad I was unaware of my surroundings or as I lay there, covered in feathers and dung, well, there would have been a lot of free fried chicken in the streets of Desbury that day.  But I was out and so off to the temple was I brought.      None of the temples, miracles notwithstanding, knew what to do, but they did know to summon someone I had not met before by the name of “Princess.”  I learned it was not so much a title as a disposition.  She was the only other mind in town as active as my own, and I would have been intrigued to compare notes with her had my brain not been infested by psionic parasites slowly killing me.  That little nugget, in fact, kept her not only from making conversation with me, but it kept her at least twenty feet away from me at all times, and I swore later, that she always held a silk handkerchief in front of her mouth whenever she was in my presence.      Unfortunately, her diagnosis did not include a cure, but she did offer to take us to someone who would be able to help me.  This required finding something rarer even than a psion: a conclave of them.  They were accessible through another nation some two weeks travel from Desbury.  We did not realize then just how far beyond that we would be traveling.      Fortunately, she was able to salve my affliction to the point where I could remain conscious.  But, she cautioned, her method, which involved splitting my mind in two, had a problem.  If I let any of my active mind out, it would cross-contaminate the two halves again within an hour, returning me to my shoe-displaying state.  She had only three stones that allowed her to grant me this state, and she had used one already.  This meant I would need to use my mind judiciously, if at all, until we reached our destination.      Cordozo – Chapter Forty-Nine – Ee hits the bars, we hit the road    We did eventually locate Ee in one of his favorite taverns.  He was in the process of trying to make his mental state match my own, as it was earlier, through the use of ale.  I wondered if it actually improved his intelligence quotient to do so.  And I figured, even with half a brain, I was still likely smarter than Ee, but then I couldn’t face a dragon in single combat and survive, either.  But then, I digress.  And foreshadow.  So let’s move on.      The road was unremarkable, as it usually isn’t, and we traveled for about a week, Princess graciously taking last watch so I could sleep through the night.  I left unsaid my desire to never take a watch, even when perfectly healthy.  If we are so sure something will attack us in the night, why go to sleep at all?  And if we have no such suspicions, why not let those whose minds need rest less stay up the night?  I always made sure I got a good night’s sleep before any big days in court.  Court.  It has been so long now.      Incidentally, I discovered later that the dream world of shadow passes time at a different rate than in Desbury, such that we lost several days.  Had I had any big cases pending, I could have missed filing deadlines and committed possible malpractice, requiring disciplinary action by the court (i.e. bribes).  But then, perhaps destroying an evil book that is a fragment of an apocalyptic deity from the future on the plane of shadow counts as a reasonable excuse to miss court.  I’ll have to look that one up in the court rules.      Cordozo – Chapter Fifty – I hear an Ee that isn’t Ee.          I was awoken by the sound of screaming, like someone was screaming Ee’s name, someone who wasn’t Ee as he charged into combat.  Then I heard it again, this time it was more like “heeeeeeelp me!” and it sounded like Princess.  So much for the fourth watch.  We got up just in time to see her flying through the air.  I would have been very impressed had she done it herself, rather than with the aid of a black dragon that was holding her in its grasp.  Given her annoying, non-stop banter, and her drooling over both Ee and Krynyn’s muscles, I considered leaving her be and heading onward to Raizenburg without her.  But then I looked up again and realized, I’d never seen a dragon before.  It looked very impressive, even though it was much smaller than I’d imagined a dragon to be.  Still, it was certainly a bit larger than my horse, who was standing nearby, grazing on some reddish-brown grass.  Even in my weakened mental state, I sensed from him a fleeting thought that the reddish-brown grass really doesn’t taste any better than the reddish-green grass, but it does seem to give less indigestion.  “A horse.  I’m reading the mind of a horse.  Ok, I need my cure, and I need it now,” I thought to myself.  I suppose that involves rescuing her, I sighed.  We all watched as the dragon flew up toward a mountain, and then right into it, disappearing into an apparent cave up its rather impressive-looking face.  Here we go.  Just to be clear to everyone as we headed toward the mountain to rescue our Princess, I said “you do all realize, right, that it’s a dragon?”  They didn’t even slow down.  Thus, we followed the dragon into its lair, not knowing what might be there.  At least I fulfilled my fiduciary duty by pointing out the obvious before we all went up toward certain death.  Cordozo – Chapter Fifty-One – Eight Hundred feet to nowhere – nowhere good, that isWhen we reached the base of the mountain, we saw that the way up was aided by steps cut into the steep rock, leading up to a barely-discernable cave entrance into the mountain.  It was about eight hundred feet of climbing, and it was not something I looked forward to.  In fact, I offered to stay put.  Ee offered to carry me.  I opted for the middle route and just climbed up myself.  I had visions of falling to my death.  The parasites didn’t help, in that regard.  Of course, just when we reached the halfway point, that’s when we found ourselves caught between rocks and a hard place.  Lots of rocks.  Rocks tossed down on us by at least a dozen orcs above.  Their aim was mostly wide, but a few did connect, and so my companions doffed potions of spider climbing (except for Ee, whose slippers provided the traction) and then took bizarre, zig-zag courses up the side of the mountain in the vain hope of avoiding rocks.  I decided I was just as likely to get hit either way, so I just kept on climbing straight up.  Given my desire to keep my brain intact, I used no powers of my mind, but I did drink a few potions.  One to blur my presence, to avoid some of those rocks, and the other to help my climbing which, unaided, was about as good as my aim with a crossbow.  The climb up seemed to take forever.  I contemplated stopping and wasting a few crossbow bolts, but ultimately, just kept on going.  I was hit by a few rocks, drank another potion to cure what ailed me, then I got close to the top.  In fact, given my straight course, I was second to arrive there, just behind Ee.  Ee killed several orcs, but unfortunately discovered that there were over a hundred more waiting behind them in a large circular cave carved out of the mountain.  When I got close to the ledge, I decided that either we rescued Princess or I was doomed anyway, so I let loose my brain and cleared the ledge of five more orcs with orbs of cold.  I shouted to Ee, “Get off the ledge, I’m going to fill the room with death, this time I mean it!”  Ee did not even pause as he jumped off of the ledge and below the lip.Cordozo – Chapter Fifty-Two – A roomful of deathJust as Ee left the ledge, I stepped up on to it.  There was just enough space for me to stand without being swamped by orcs.  I closed my eyes and let my fury at the rocks, the dragon, the orcs, the Princess, and finally, those damn parasites fill me and center me.  Then I let loose with a blast of cold that surrounded me and filled all of the space around me up to forty feet with frosty death.  When I opened my eyes and the dust settled, there were almost a hundred frosted orc corpses surrounding me in the cave.  I sensed fear leaching from the remaining orcs.  I also heard one in the rear shout out some mangled orc call for help.  Unfortunately, I’m a rather easy target, even for orcs.  Fifteen of the survivor’s threw javelins at me, one of which connected, nearly finishing off what the rocks started.  I would have been more worried had Morwen not stepped in, did a cone of cold of her own, and felled almost all of the remaining orcs.  But then I was more worried anyway when the black dragon appeared at the back of the cave, looking none too happy to see us.  I felt a wave of strong emotions emanating from its form, almost as if it were wearing an aura of fear.  But it utterly failed to penetrate my superior mind, and I laughed at its rather pathetic attempt at mental manipulation.  My lawyerly self thought to the dragon, “Amateur!”  I stepped back down underneath the ledge and waited for Krynyn to arrive, his feet lagging far behind the rest of us in his very heavy armor.  I met him just in time for him to lay his healing touch upon my chest, closing the many wounds left open by the marauding orcs.  I left the dragon a parting gift in the form of five balls of cold, killing the remaining four orcs, and saving the last one for the dragon himself.  (I assume it was a him – I shuddered to think of how close I’d have to be to discern the appropriate anatomy).  Cordozo – Chapter Fifty-Three – They finally realize it’s a dragonEe returned to the ledge and charged the dragon, managing to penetrate its thick scales with a few blows of his own.  The dragon seemed unimpressed, and proceeded to rend Ee’s form with a series of sickening blows, first with its fanged mouth, then with its claws, wings, and tail.  Ee looked closer to death than I’d ever seen him, and that was in the space of a few seconds.  Ee quickly retreated to Krynyn, even as Morwen sent a few arrows into its scales.  I kept my body below the ledge, just peeking over the top enough every few seconds to send a few more balls of cold its way.  I hoped my assaults were steadily wearing it down.  I fervently hoped that it never stood next to me and did what it did to Ee, or else there would be enough left of me to bury.  The battle seemed to be at a stalemate, with us lobbing a few things the dragon’s way, and the dragon sending acid and other death our way.  Then everything went black.  Fortunately, unlike the other times this has happened to me, I was still conscious and aware.  It was just, well, black.  Magical darkness, I figured, at least I sure hoped it was.  I shouted for Krynyn to dispel the darkness with some divine light.  He declined, and instead called upon some divine retribution, making himself as large as the dragon, and as tough, though I did not realize it until a few seconds later, when he did indulge my rather selfish desire to be able to see where the big nasty dragon was that was trying to kill us and cast some divine daylight on the situation.      The dragon had moved from where he was.  Krynyn charged him, as did Ee, and they locked in a ballet of melee for what seemed like an endless series of blows and counter blows until finally, with one last swipe of Krynyn’s stone sword, the dragon fell at his divinely enlarged feet.  We heard, again, a muffled “help me!” from within the cave.  Oh yes, we can’t slay a dragon without forgetting about rescuing the Princess.          Cordozo – Chapter Fifty-Four – More copper than we can carry     We found the Princess down a pit in the dragon’s lair.  I offered to dimension down and grab her up, but she did not want me anywhere near her.  Those parasites must really like her.  I can see why.      Morwen instead offered her a rope, and then we took stock of the dragon’s horde.  There were a few choice objects d’art, and a huge pile of coins that probably amounted to over 80,000 pieces of copper, but I think we collectively decided just not to bother.  One of the gems we found was worth more than that.  The dragon was young, so perhaps that’s why all he had was copper.  I imagine that the older, tougher dragons probably came by and asked him for “protection” money, thus always taking his other coins.  Ah, the mysteries of dragon culture.  I wonder if dragons ever go to law school.  If they did, that might explain a few of my professors.      We packed up what we could, Princess, from a safe distance, re-partitioned my mind, and off we went.  I idly wondered if this splitting of my mind was akin to what we asked juries to do when we’d admit evidence and tell them they could only use it for the purposes of impeachment or some other such nonsense while telling them they couldn’t use it as evidence of guilt.  I know from reading their minds that such legal fictions seldom found purchase, even in those jurors who thought they did.  I wonder how many dragons were on those juries.      Cordozo – Chapter Fifty-Five – I meet the enclave – plane and simple.      We finally reached the nation of Raizenburg after another week of travel, minus and further dragons.  There, in the city of Bellonen, we waited three days for this portal to yet another city in some far off land, a city known as Cauldron.  We paid our toll of one piece of gold and stepped through the circle.  The city turned out to be in the crater of a (hopefully extinct) volcano.  We quickly gathered where it was we were to go.      In a huge tower I finally met the enclave.  I would have been more eager to ask them questions had I not been in such urgent need of some disinfection.  In fact, they barely talked to me before they quarantined me and put me in a large metal box for transport to yet another plane, this time the ethereal.  Great, long rituals were performed by hypercognitive masters to determine this course of action.  I slept through most of it.  Suffice to say that in a day, I was back to my usual, cynical self.  I wondered whether there was some vast “brotherhood” of psions whom I could now join the ranks of, or if instead I’d be presented with a large bill.  My ruminations were interrupted when I noticed that Marcus’ hand was glowing in a way that I associated with that paragon of inter-planar virtue and exploitation, the Vessel of Stars.  Wonderful.  What the heck does she want.      I tried to keep my mind off of it as I promised the other psions to always practice safe psionics in the future.  After all, practice makes perfect.  Now where did that Princess go?</blockquote>

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