Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Altalazar" data-source="post: 2906355" data-attributes="member: 939">Cordozo – Chapter Eighty-Four – Damek on the Rocks    We climbed (or flew) up over the rubble, and found ourselves face to face with Damek as he fought off swarming little creatures shooting tiny arrows at his head.  Pixies, they apparently were.  We quickly ran forward to save him.  Unfortunately, in the process, we were all hit as well, and so the next thing we knew, we were walking on the road back to the Monastery, Damek in tow, with no memory of how we got there or how we even found him.  But we did still remember the 10,000 gold we were owed.  There was nothing in this contract about any reduction in price for his lack of memory, so we collected the full amount.      Cordozo – Chapter Eighty-Five – Memories lost, now found        We then returned to Cauldron, where all of us felt like there was something missing, our memories having been changed to us finding Damek on the road, with no memory of pixies or any landslide in sight.      We sought out Poseidon, the psion, to see if he could help us with what was wrong.  He agreed, though as it turned out, he lied to me.  He said he would fix our memory.  He started on me first, restoring my memory to the point where we found the avalanche, but not much further, before he said he had to stop and resume his work the next day.  He then left me alone and I did not see him or my companions for some time after that.      Cordozo – Chapter Eighty-Six – Memories returned    The next day, Poseidon returned, though I sensed something different about his demeanor.  I didn’t quite trust what he told me the day before, but I wanted my memories back, so I watched him carefully.  He used something called “aura alteration” on me, something I then wished to master, and then worked to restore the rest of my memories.  When he was done, my memories were complete, from the time we found the rocks to the time we were struck by the arrows and returned to the road with Damek.  It was all very vivid and clear and no details were left out.      Cordozo – Chapter Eighty-Seven – Clues     My memory thus fully restored, I returned that night to my journal, eager to update my memoirs with all that I had forgotten.  As I opened the pages, I discovered something strange.  Written in the front my journal was something I had not seen before and had no memory of writing.  It said that if I ever read this journal and had missing memories from it, that the way to fix this pixie memory loss (caused by their tiny arrows) was the use of a “heal” spell.  How could I have written that.  I did not know how to cure pixie memory loss, and I did not write anything in my journal after we met the pixies.  But it was in my handwriting.  Curious.      Cordozo – Chapter Eighty-Eight – More clues     I carefully read through my entire journal, looking for more clues as to what had happened.  Nothing else came to mind, though in my careful examination of all of my journal materials, I realized that there were blank pages missing.  Many dozens of pages were missing, not from my current journal book, but from the other papers and other blank journals in my belongings.  These I also did not recall missing.  There was no evidence that they fell out and my materials looked suspiciously clean and neat.  It even looked as though a tiny tear in one of my pages I had accidentally made late one night by the fire while writing a new memoir chapter had been miraculously fixed.  Curiouser and curiouser.      Cordozo – Chapter Eighty-Nine – Some answersA voice in my head that sounds like my own.  It is myself.  It is Cordozo, only the Cordozo from the future, the Cordozo from my past.  He is whispering something to me, about hidden journals and secret entries.  Or was it all a dream?  Finally, I had some answers.  Missing chapters, real chapters, chapters from my journal that were written and now gone were now restored.  The chapters, the REAL chapters, follow:          Cordozo – REAL Chapter Eighty-Four – Road less traveled now traveled more        After we traveled a quarter of a mile over the rubble, we found the road again, and something rather curious.  The road branched out into a new road right where the rubble ended.  A small sign there labeled this new road “Oblivion.”  True to form, Morwen said, “Let’s follow the road to Oblivion,” thus again reminding me how it is usually a bad idea to follow Morwen’s lead.  Morwen then led.      Morwen scouted ahead, with only my voice in her head as company, checking out the path for any signs of our quarry.      While she snuck ahead, I looked at the new-found road.  There was something curious about it.  It appeared almost like the lower half of a cylinder carved through the mountain.  There were signs of subterranean mosses on its lower reaches that were in the later stages of decay.  It suddenly struck me that this new road used to be a tunnel through the mountain.  Whatever excavated it surely would be worth quite a lot of coin for large construction work.  I began hammering out the contractual details in my head, taking notes as I did so, to have a contract ready for signing when the time comes.      Morwen suddenly shouted in my mind that she found something.  “Pixies!”  “Wonderful,” I thought.  We quickly joined her.      Cordozo – REAL Chapter Eighty-Five – Pixies – Oh joy    Standing up in the sky was a pack of pixies, three in all, trapped in a cage of force.  They were complaining mightily that they “spent a whole day in there!” and that they were “bored!”  I quickly rectified the situation, pointing my finger skyward and sending forth the tendrils of my mind to wrap around the bars of their cage of force and to pull them from existence.  The pixies quickly flew forth.      They explained that “Rolling Thunder” came through here, wreaking havoc, and apparently unappreciative of pixie pranks.  It finally captured them in their cage, after being frustrated by its inability to catch beings of their quick speed and tiny size.      I asked their leader if they saw our cleric walk by.  He fervently denied it.  It was so obvious he was lying, even Ee could tell.  Not desiring to waste much time with the pixies, I formed a deal with them.  I told them I had a “special present” just for pixies (a blur potion I held in my palm), and that I would only give it to them if they told.  They said that I’d have to get it from them and that they could make me forget it.  I said “fine, I can do it.  But if I can get it from your mind, and keep it, then I win.”    They agreed, and the game was on.  I spent all this time preparing my mind for its task, digging deeper and deeper into the lead pixies’s mind, until it became crystal clear what they knew and what we wanted to know.  And then one of them shot me with an arrow and I forgot it, and everything else.      Unfortunately for the pixies, even though my memories were gone, my mind probe was still deep in their leader’s brain, and knowing that, I sought answers to my current amnesia there first.  I found out not only what they did to me and how to fix it (spells known as “heal,” “limited wish,” “wish,” and “miracle” all came to mind), but what it was they were keeping from me before.  And so with a little help from my befuddled companions (a “heal” from Krynyn) my mind was restored and our path was made clear.      For in the pixie’s mind, I saw a clear vision of our quarry, Damek, heading down this same road and a “helpful” pixie getting his mind off of the road, in the literal sense, as he fired an arrow at him.  The newly amnesiac Damek then continued down the road, and the pixies scattered as “Rolling Thunder” appeared.          Cordozo – REAL Chapter Eighty-Six – Farmer Torvek is looking green    We came around the bend in the mountain, after walking on this new path for a while, and found ourselves face to face with four men in leather armor surrounding a large troll wearing coveralls, a large straw hat, and wielding a scythe.  The troll shouted at us in some unintelligible language and we sprang into action.      My first thought was that this was some poor farmer transformed into a troll and now set upon by his fellow farmers as an aberration of nature, unable to communicate with them.  What was actually going on was far stranger.      Ee was ready to kill the troll and charge.  I said, “please don’t kill anyone yet,” but Ee was already ahead of me.  Fortunately, so was Marcus, and he cast a protective spell of sanctuary on the troll, frustrating Ee’s attempts to decapitate farmer troll.      The men in leather were not so kind, and they continued to attack the farmer, who attacked them back with great vigor even as he retreated into his field off the path.      With a single thought, I was standing behind our farmer friend, whom I linked in mind to say to him “don’t worry, we’re here to help.”  Unfortunately, in his desire to avoid being made farmer soup, it took me a while to get a firm grip on him so as to enable me to whisk him away to safety.      Marcus, meanwhile, told them all to drop their weapons, an order he enforced with the power of Pelor.  They quickly found their weapons very hot to the touch, and let them fall to the ground.      I finally connected with Torvek, and then with another thought, we were back on the mountain path, far away from any melee.  I introduced myself and asked him if he had need of an attorney.          Cordozo – REAL Chapter Eighty-Seven – Back on the road to Oblivion    I was quickly disabused of my previous assumptions.      “I was born a troll,” farmer Torvek told me in common.  “I moved to Oblivion to forget my former life.”  I asked him if he forgot in the pixie-sense, and he replied that he did not.      He suggested that we go talk to the Ladies who run Oblivion.  That sounded good to me.  He said that he had never before seen violence on the road there.  I wondered if the recent unmasking of the path had something to do with that.      We began to walk up the back way to Oblivion, until I suggested that we meet up with my companions, because they had subdued the bandits.  As we returned on the path, one of the bandits ran back our way.  I quickly locked his brain, and farmer troll Torvek picked him up on his shoulder to carry him to town.  My companions already had the others in custody when I met up with them in Torvek’s field.      Torvek told us that the Ladies of Oblivion were Lillends, whatever those are, and that everyone comes to Oblivion to start life anew.  He also told us about a recent resident of the town, someone who sounded rather like the Pelorian we were seeking.  We knew he needed little help forgetting his former life.      The Ladies themselves verified what Torvek told us, but they also had a tale of woe.  Apparently, the destruction we had seen was caused by a “Juggernaut.”  They were still rebuilding after the damage it had done.  They asked us if we would help them with it.  Of course, Marcus said yes, but before he could continue, I said, “here’s our standard contract…”    Cordozo – REAL Chapter Eighty-Eight – We like our worries up front    We sauntered into the town square, greeting by a large sign which read “Welcome to Oblivion!  Leave your cares behind!”  Somehow, there was something sinister about that sign.  Never trust happy signs in a village full of monsters happily plowing their fields.  Monsters, in this case, being an ogre, a drow, and a human.      At the center of the square was a fountain inscribed with the words “Drink deeply and leave your cares behind.”  I began to notice a theme.  Morwen said, “It looks refreshing.”  I quickly said, “I don’t think we should drink from this fountain.”  I almost had to tackle Morwen and Ee to keep them from taking a drink.  A lawyer’s work is never done.  Oftentimes the hardest part of the job is protecting one’s clients from themselves.      Just beyond the fountain, I saw more evidence of the path of destruction, ten feet wide, and as long as the eye could see.      We went back to the ladies to discuss with them the terms of our arrangement.  They had offered us 2,000 pieces of gold in return for tracking down and destroying this monster.  The monster in question was a large construct on wheels that seemed apparently unstoppable.  It had just gone through the village and was now some distance away.      Cordozo – REAL Chapter Eighty-Nine – We meet the ladies, properly.      The ladies of the town were lillends, all serpent-like and wrapped around four columns in a large public building near the town center.  “Welcome to Oblivion, stranger!”  they all declared upon seeing us.  “Do you need a lawyer?” was my standard response.      I asked them if the bandits we captured for them would have to drink from the fountain.  “We’ll have to discussssssss that” was their serpent-like reply.  Their forked tongues would look great in a courtroom, I’m sure.      “Let me guess – no prison,” I replied.  I got the feeling the bandits would soon be drinking from that fountain.      Ee, as always, got right to the point.  “New guy.  Where him go?”    Marcus also piped up, “I am also a brother of Pelor.”    The ladies replied, “Nobody comes here unless they are looking for it.  We are very upset about the earthquake.”      Then they added the dreaded conditions.  “In addition to the gold, we require that you take a potion to forget this place when you leave.”      There was no way I was going to let them mess with my mind.  And especially not my journal.  NO ONE messes with Cordozo’s Memoirs.  That is written right on it, in fine print, on the back.  “Cordozo’s Memoirs.  NO ONE Messes with Cordozo’s Memoirs.”  Then there is lots of fine print detailing all of the definitions of “messes with” and all of the consequences of doing so.  Most involve large fines and long days in court.  Recently amended to the possible consequences under subsection 194(IV)(e)(1) was “disintegration.”  Of course, since it was all written in legalese, probably most could not entirely decipher the details without retaining counsel.  But that does not change the fact that, under the law, everyone is presumed to know the law.      I began to make appropriate plans.      Cordozo – REAL Chapter Ninety – Gorchuck and Damek    Ee’s query led us to Gorchuck, the town healer.  A beholder.  We met up with him when he was working on healing our quarry.      Gorchuck’s house had a large sign which said “Gorchuck’s Healing & Apothecary.”  He had a special lens on one eyestalk and his big eye was closed while he used a very narrowly focused disintegration beam to remove remnants of green slime from Damek’s unconscious form.      Ee, who had arrived on the scene first, kept trying to interrupt him and Gorchuck kept shouting “Take a seat, I’ll be with you in just a minute!” in a strange chorus of Ee and Beholder that got louder and louder as the rest of us approached.      Finally, he was finished, and Damek was healed, and we had a conversation.      Damek seemed to think he was needed here, despite our pleas to the contrary, that he was needed in his monastery.  Finally, he compromised, and promised to let us heal his mind from the pixies because he could always drink from the fountain again if it turned out we were incorrect.  That decided, Marcus and Damek went off to heal other members of the village before we rested for the night in anticipation of chasing down the juggernaut in the morning.      Cordozo – REAL Chapter Ninety-One – Blades and beams, oh my, there’s a juggernaut, bye-bye        Damek accompanied us on our trek after the juggernaut.  We followed it for miles, finally spying it some three hundred feet away, slowly rolling over the landscape.  It saw us and stopped and turned around and came after us.  Very.  Slowly.      Ee screamed and charged and started running toward it.  My companions also started moving in its direction.  I decided to walk at a leisurely pace, not very eager to get within reach of its six huge sledgehammers of stone nor its grinding wheels that seemed to flatten even the boulders it rolled over.  I quickly went over everything my mind was capable of and came to the conclusion that almost nothing there would likely harm what was a large, solid rock monstrosity with no discernable brain or weaknesses.  My encounter with the rock-slide came to mind and so I began to concentrate.    As I got ever closer, Krynyn set up a barrier of blades in front of the construction, doing some damage as the blades made sparks bouncing off its hardened surface.      I boldly stepped forward a few more steps and then, taking careful aim with my finger, sent forth a ray of green light, from my brain to its granite center.  My aim was dead on, striking exactly the center of its mass at the very edge of my range.  I sensed it would have eviscerated its heart, had it had one.  But as it was, it was satisfying to see the great climax of our encounter end in a large pile of dust, slowly wafting in the breeze.      Ee looked downright mad.  “You steal me kill again!”  “Cordozo always takes away my glory.”      I suggested to Ee that perhaps it was for the best, in this case.  Ee looked ready to run right into the six arms of the beast.  I doubted even Ee could stand up to such punishment.      Cordozo – REAL Chapter Ninety-Two – A plan unfolds like paper in the wind    We returned on the path back to the village.  Over the hours we walked, I wrote in my journal, making multiple copies of what I was writing, in case they dared mess with my sacred texts.      We needed to rest a day for Krynyn to heal Damek’s mind, so I took that time as well.      One copy of my journal entries since we began our search for Damek I sent off to another plane, one of the more neutral planes, along with a note, promising a reward of 1,000 pieces of gold to whomever returns said journal to Cordozo in the city of Desbury on the prime material plane.  I made sure to send it to a location I was unfamiliar with, so there was no way anyone could locate it.  If I couldn’t find it, no one else would stand much of a chance to find it, either.      Another copy of my journal I hid out in the mountains there, with another similar note, leaving off any mention of the planes.      And then, I took advantage of our unique situation and reached out my mind, across the mountains, over the rivers, and into another mind that I found very familiar.      “Cordozo?  This is Cordozo from the future.  I have a task for you to complete…”    When I was done, I had asked myself to make a copy of the journal notes dictated to him, and then had him hide copies in “our” residence, as well as in various other places in town.  I also had him take dictation about a note to myself to be left at the residence, written in a code only we would understand, as psion lawyers sharing the same brain.  It was short and to the point.      I then completed one more set of entries, and prepared to meet the ladies.      Cordozo – REAL Chapter Ninety-Three (from secret journal entries) – We leave our worries behind    Upon the beholder’s insistence, we collected our reward and drank the potions, after much mucking about with Morwen.  I was as reluctant as her, but decided fighting them then would not be wise.  Leave that for the future.      After we drank, they led us out and they also violated my person, stealing things from me and messing with my memoirs in clear violation of subsections 1 through 197.  While it is always sad to have to deal with a violator of the law, it is always just to do so.  See earlier secret journal entries, special section.      Damek, of course, upon having his real memories restored, agreed to return to his obligations in the real world.  So we took him to his monastery.      We then returned to Cauldron, where all of us felt like there was something missing, our memories having been changed to us finding Damek on the road, with no Oblivion or even any landslide in sight.      We sought out Poseidon, the psion, to see if he could help us with what was wrong.  He agreed, though as it turned out, he lied to me.  He said he would fix my memory, but instead, he just changed it to include only the pixies and the landslide, and to leave oblivion out of it, thus again, violating subsections 45 through 194 of messing with my memoirs.  But, of course, I did not know it at the time.  Cordozo – Secret Entries – War is declared, or rather, the lawsuit has been filed    So, that is what really happened.  Not only did the denizens of Oblivion see fit to violate my person, my mind, and my memoirs, this Poseidon fellow has as well, for reasons still unclear to me.  I do not want to bring this up with my companions because I do not know the extent of the alterations to their minds.  Suffice it to say that I will keep a close eye on them.  And from now on, I will be sending off to random neutral planes each new set of memoir entries I create, along with monetary rewards for their return to Desbury.  And I will take advantage of the overlap of time with myself for as long as that lasts so he (well, me) will back them up that way as well.  I will just have to be sure to keep my dual knowledge secret from the others as long as that lasts.      Now on to consequences.  It was not right that they eviscerated my person, my mind, and my memoirs.  Such is an evil act, and as such, it must be punished according to the dictates of the judicial system.  Those evil beings in Oblivion will feel my wrath when the time is right.  They must be destroyed for doing this.  No other penalty is sufficient.  And this Poseidon as well is now in my sights.  I will no longer trust him or his ilk.  He isn’t even a lawyer.      They will all learn that it does not pay to violate section 194(IV)(e)(3) of the protections afforded my memoirs.  Justice will be served, even if it takes years.  The courts, alas, move slowly but steadily forward.  Book X    Cordozo – REAL Chapter Ninety-Four – Another missing daughter, Ur my    After our encounter with Poseidon, we found ourselves another job to do, this time the search was for the daughter of a noble named Lord Ur.  Her name was Celeste and she was in her mid-20s.  She had hired a group to find a missing dwarf.  The dwarf, when found, was apparently not in his right mind, but she still took the journey to return him to his family.  She left for Portsmith, a town to the south four weeks ago and has not been heard from since.      “Here’s our standard contract.”</blockquote>

Verification