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Sagiro's Story Hour Returns (new thread started on 5/18/08)
- Thread starter Sagiro
- Start date
Woot. I'm completely caught up! Thanks StevenAC!
Err... crap. I'm completely caught up. Now what am I supposed to do at work?
*twitches a bit*
Thinking about taking up an ad in the paper.
SWRPer ISO RBDM. Enjoys peril, plot twists, and wind walks on the beach. 10 yr. hanging plot hooks pref. Contact XXX-XXXX
Err... crap. I'm completely caught up. Now what am I supposed to do at work?
*twitches a bit*
Thinking about taking up an ad in the paper.
SWRPer ISO RBDM. Enjoys peril, plot twists, and wind walks on the beach. 10 yr. hanging plot hooks pref. Contact XXX-XXXX
Sagiro
Rodent of Uncertain Parentage
Hey there. Sorry again for the long delay, which occured for two main reasons:
1. My wife and I became hooked on "Lost," and for a while we spent every evening watching an episode or two until we were fully caught up.
2. 17 months straight of averaging 5 hours of sleep per night finally caught up with me, and lately I've been unable to stay up as late as I used to. The two hours during which I often worked on the Story Hour, I now usually spend sleeping.
But I do still chip away at the story, word by word, tape by tape. I'm still only about a year behind. And in real life I continue to run the game a couple times a month, as the story barrels relentlessy towards its still distant yet seemingly horrifying conclusion.
Wait, did I say "horrifying?" I meant "exciting." Exciting, I tell you!
Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 263
A Wedding, A Slaughter, An Introduction
Santo and Ernie stare at one another for a few seconds while the others look on curiously. Santo breaks the silence by exhaling loudly through pursed lips.
“This is like those colored gems, isn’t it,” he says. “Dwarf magic. Earth Magic.”
Hurthin Hammersmith, standing at Santo’s shoulder, snorts in derision. Dwarf magic, indeed! There’s no such thing as...
Kibi smiles, casts xorn movement, and sinks into the ground. Hurthin leaps back in shock.
“Holy boulders! What the hell was that?”
“A dwarvish wizard,” says Dranko.
Hurthin blinks, and squints at the ground through which Kibi vanished. A few seconds later Kibi pops back up a few feet away.
“Well, okay then, I take it all back,” says Hurthin.
Someone points out that, if Santo is going to put the golden circlet on the statue for Ernie to find in the future, then there’s no good reason to call the thing ‘Cranchus’s Gift.” That engenders some brain-twisting discussion about the nature of time and causality that not even Aravis can make sense of. Santo excuses himself part way through, desiring to see his family. The debate ends without resolution.
* *
So, for the first time in a while, the Company finds itself in a safe haven of sorts. They have a lead, albeit vague – Morningstar’s commune indicated that something on the island of Nahalm could return them to the future. But that future isn’t going anywhere, so to speak, and thus in the bustling town of Greenshire, which centuries hence will have given way to the tiny village of Dingman’s Ferry, the Company settles in for a couple months of vacation and training.
It is the very next day that Santo, without fanfare, affixes the Ring of Stability to the arm of his statue. Without anyone telling him, he places it on the exact spot where the party has found/will find it in their own time. Dranko and Morningstar hold hands, watching as Santo connects past with future.
“You know what?” says Dranko. “I want to get married here. Right here, before anything else happens to delay things.”
Morningstar smiles in surprise. “Ell doesn’t even know who I am here,” she reminds him.
“She’ll figure it out!” says Dranko. “She’s pretty smart.”
“Our families aren’t here,” Morningstar points out.
“We’ve got the rest of the Company. Hey, I promise, when we get back home, we’ll have another ceremony and invite everyone. But we’ve been putting this off for far too long. We can have Ernie perform the ceremony.”
Santo turns to them.
“The Black Circle is the only legal religion – it’s been that way for decades, since Naloric conquered Charagan following the death of his father, Hagdan Skewn. But Yondalla is still here, all around us, and a wedding in Greenshire would honor her, halflings or not.”
And so, after three weeks of hurried preparations, Ernie marries Dranko and Morningstar on a clear evening under a sky ablaze with stars. He’s had the best smith in town forge a pair of wedding rings from one of the gartine planks he still carries in his bag of holding.
“They resist time,” Ernie tells them. “It seems fitting.”
Standing before a large assemblage of halflings, and with all of the rest of the Company in the wedding party, Ernie joins the two in matrimony.
“Yondalla’s grace is about having a place, a home, and protecting it. What’s special about my friends is that while it seems we’re never home, we’re also always home, because each of us is a home for the rest. Dranko and Morningstar, you have built a home together in each others’ hearts, and in the hearts of those who love you. May Yondalla make you fruitful, and may her shield always protect you. Also, may Delioch and Ell look down upon you and smile at the worthiness of their servants, worthy both to Them, and to us.”
Morningstar and Dranko kiss under the stars, and the halflings cheer. Aravis finds himself crying.
“I’ve never been to a wedding before,” he whispers to Kibi standing nearby.
Dranko beams at his new bride. “You’re now entitled to fifty percent of all the loot I’ve ever stolen from the party.”
The celebration goes on deep into the night and the following morning. Ernie imbibes a good deal more than is good for him, and thus emboldened asks Yoba for a dance. Afterward, still within her earshot, he slurs to Dranko, “The... the problem is, she’s got to back and help her own people. If I asked her to marry me, she’d have to stay here, or I’d have to go there.”
Yoba pretends not to have heard.
“Plus,” continues Ernie, “I can’t ask her until she’s met my parents, and we can’t do that right now!”
“Aren’t your ancestors good enough?” asks Dranko.
Aravis, whose own parents were killed by bugbears, looks alarmed. “You mean, I can’t get married unless my bride-to-be meets my parents?”
Ernie looks at Aravis. “There’s always speak with dead,” he says.
“Thaaaaaat’s enough,” says Yoba, swooping in. She grips Ernie’s shoulder and leads him firmly away.
* *
The next day Ernie wakes with a pounding hangover.
“I know there’s an orison for this,” he moans at breakfast, “but I can’t remember what it is.”
Dranko fixes him up, and Ernie goes from bleary to anxious.
“Did I say anything... embarrassing... last night?” he asks Dranko.
Yoba overhears but merely says “I didn’t hear anything.”
“I thought you couldn’t lie,” says Dranko.
“Who says I am?”
Ernie looks sheepishly at Yoba. “You’re a patient and tolerant woman, and I’m lucky to know you. Er... I was kind of an idiot last night, wasn’t I?”
“I’ve seen worse,” says Yoba, smiling.
“I hadn’t had good halfling ale in a while,” Ernie explains. “I think I’ve had enough for now.”
“You’ve had enough for several nows,” laughs Yoba.
* *
For a week or so after the wedding, nothing much exciting happens in Greenshire. Kibi and Dranko do conspire for the dwarf to chisel “Kibi was here” on the foot of the Wilburforce Statue, via flagrant misuse of xorn movement. And Dranko and Morningstar settle on a new family name: Brightshield.
One morning, soon after Ernie’s heroes feast has ended, there comes the sound of a loud horn blaring over the quiet streets of Greenshire.
“It’s the orc-warning horn!” exclaims Ernie. And indeed, within moments the town is bustling with activity and shouts.
Dranko pops a last bite of buttered roll into his mouth, turns to Morningstar, and comments, “Nothing says ‘marriage’ like beating up bad guys.”
Into Grey Wolf’s mind speaks the sword Bostock. I’m so close! I wish to hew these evil orcs! Wield me in battle!
A very brief discussion follows in which someone counsels caution – too many area of effect spells, and word will get back to the Emperor that the mostly-ignored halflings have powerful wizards. Dranko counters that if no orc escapes, no one will learn anything.
The halflings are rushing out to meet the onslaught of orcs. The humanoid force numbers in the hundreds and is spread out along a long line, so Santo orders the Company to take the center to meet the orcish vanguard.
* *
The orcs are about to have a pretty poor day.
For as long as any of them can remember, the halfling lands have been a sort of gifted playground for the orcs, granted them by Emperor Naloric. That the halflings have lasted so long is a testament to their superior organization and fighting prowess, born of a desperation to survive. Even so, many halfling villages have been razed by marauding orcs, and Greenshire has the been the target of occasional raids for decades. They know that the halflings don’t have many wizards among them, and maybe expect a magic missile here and there, possibly a flaming sphere.
Aravis opens up with a crackling chain lightning that causes 14 orcs to explode. The one survivor pulls up in horror, turns, and flees screaming back through the ranks of onrushing orcs behind him. The rest of the Company then rushes in to join the melee that has now been joined all along the advancing line.
It cannot be said the orcs learn an important lesson about what powerful adventurers can do to lowly humanoid grunts. Oh, they learn the lesson, but it’s not important per se because none of them survive. Yoba and Ernie chop them down left and right, while Dranko and Flicker operate as a flank-n-sneak attack duo to devastating effect. Morningstar kills as many of them with her potent fire shield as with her weapon. Snokas, who already comes complete with a healthy hatred for orcs, lays waste with his dual-wielded picks.
Grey Wolf, despite the exhortations of Bostock, casts a new spell he’s researched: summon the pack. Three dire wolves and a dozen more ordinary wolves appears and start tearing into the orcs. Kibi, not to be outdone, summons a large earth elemental who immediately smashes half a dozen orcs to paste.
It’s ugly. It’s grasshoppers-in-a-blade barrier ugly. The Company moves up and down the line inflicting casualties by the dozen. Ernie actually kills a bunch with castigate: “Shame on you for picking on halflings for no good reason! Go HOME!”
But they can’t, because they’re dead.
“Now that’s a stern talking to!” says Dranko.
Aravis has dimension doored behind and above the orcish lines, so that he can pick out and eliminate the orcs who try to flee. And Grey Wolf, having summoned his wolves, draws Bostock and starts laying down the smack. Orcs fall before him, and as he hews the head from a particularly ugly specimen a bloom of powerful blue light erupts from Bostock’s blade. The voice of the sword sounds clear in Grey Wolf’s mind.
“At last! AT LAST! At last, I’m... still in the sword. Well, I’ll make the best of it. But I was hoping I’d finally emerge from this cursed prison.”
“I was trying,” says Grey Wolf.
“And I appreciate it!” answers Bostock. “Clearly there must be something more we have to do. But this is not the time to talk – there are still more orcs to slay!”
As Grey Wolf continues to chop down orcs, the full powers of Bostock come to his mind, and his pulse quickens as he realizes its potential.
>> Bostock is now a +5 keen defender, and it grants the maximize spell feat to Grey Wolf, usable 3/day and only on spells channeled through the sword.
* *
“That was excellent!”
Santo and the Company meet outside the town after the battle. The halfling leader is flushed with exertion but obviously pleased with how things went.
“I wish all the villages around here had a set of... of you, to help with defense. “
Back in Greenshire, after the Company helps with healing the wounded from the combat, Santo joins them for drinks in the Rollicking Rabbit, the only tavern in town with ceilings high enough for humans to stand straight up. Santo can hardly stop talking about the Company’s fighting prowess, which is well beyond anything he’s seen before. But eventually talk turns back to Santo’s experience in the Mirrors, and the Company’s own travels through them.
“Do you realize,” says Dranko, “that Ernie’s ancestor Santo here met Grey Wolf’s grandmother, Moirel, in those very mirrors?”
Santo nods. “My own grandfather remembers the Mirrors being built. It was seventy-odd years ago now, when the Emperor’s men came to the area. It was a huge endeavor, and many halfling villages for miles around were razed. For all that effort, the Black Mirrors were abandoned not long after they were finished.”
“They sent Moirel through,” says Aravis. “When she didn’t come back, and nothing happened, the Emperor must have decided the Mirrors were a failure.”
Grey Wolf is silent through all of this discussion, which is not unusual. But in his head he hears the voice of Bostock.
“Grey Wolf,” says the sword, “I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done.”
“You’re free, right?” asks Grey Wolf.
“I was hoping that by ‘free’ it would mean ‘free from this sword.” Though I have all of my memories back, this appears to now be what I am. I don’t know if there’s a way to get me out, but as time passes I find my current state quite satisfying.”
“Who are you?” asks Grey Wolf.
“My name is Sir Tennin Bostock. I was... am... a holy warrior of Palamir. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Your friends, on the other hand, have a peculiar attitude, particularly in regards my alignment. You may wish to insulate yourself from it, in the future. Though they do have a light-hearted spirit that you seem to lack. Even in my former state, I noticed that you have a dour and pessimistic attitude that does not match your heroism.”
“Yeah,” agrees Grey Wolf.
“I think you should act with more confidence, more bravado,” suggests Bostock.
Grey Wolf just nods, smiling. When Dranko notices his glassy-eyed look, he smirks.
“So, still talking to your evil sword? Have you slaked its insatiable thirst for blood yet?”
“It’s baffling, really,” says Bostock. “Your comrades continue to insist that I am evil, when the truth is that I am just the opposite. I am only here due to the machinations of evil Vinceris-worshippers.”
“Vinceris?” asks Grey Wolf. “I’m not familiar with the name.”
“God of assassins and treachery,” Bostock explains. “He’s only a demigod, really, hardly worth the name. But you are not familiar with the Kivian pantheon. Perhaps someday we can go back to Djaw, and we can winnow that den of killers and thieves.”
“I would enjoy that,” says Grey Wolf. “But you still haven’t told me how you ended up in a sword.”
“I was captured, and my essence was put into this blade. They were hoping to have themselves a mighty weapon, and given my power and reputation that wasn’t such a strange thing to think. But I foiled them. I suppressed myself, denying them the full power the sword could bring to bear. It could only be brought out by someone worthy, and that would appear to be you.”
“I’m honored,” says Grey Wolf, bowing his head.
“I was wielded for many months by a blackguard of Vinceris, who thought that by using me in battles he could draw out my power. Right idea, but I resisted. And eventually he was defeated in battle by some kind of tiger-monster, who afterward kept me as a souvenir on his wall until you came along.”
Grey Wolf notices now that the rest of the Company is staring at him, awaiting an explanation.
“Sir Bostock is a paladin,” says Grey Wolf. “A holy warrior.”
“Get out of town!” exclaims Dranko. “Sir Bostock? He’s a noble? And now we’ve traded one full-sized paladin for two tiny ones?”
“Paladins of Palamir are afforded the title of sir," says Bostock, “but we are not nobility.”
When Grey Wolf relays this, Dranko replies, “Yeah, well I’m a ‘Sir,’ and I have a land grant, so at least I outrank the sword.”
Bostock chuckles in Grey Wolf’s mind. “I don’t understand the motivations and priorities of your friends. They are a mysterious lot.”
...to be continued...
1. My wife and I became hooked on "Lost," and for a while we spent every evening watching an episode or two until we were fully caught up.
2. 17 months straight of averaging 5 hours of sleep per night finally caught up with me, and lately I've been unable to stay up as late as I used to. The two hours during which I often worked on the Story Hour, I now usually spend sleeping.
But I do still chip away at the story, word by word, tape by tape. I'm still only about a year behind. And in real life I continue to run the game a couple times a month, as the story barrels relentlessy towards its still distant yet seemingly horrifying conclusion.
Wait, did I say "horrifying?" I meant "exciting." Exciting, I tell you!
Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 263
A Wedding, A Slaughter, An Introduction
Santo and Ernie stare at one another for a few seconds while the others look on curiously. Santo breaks the silence by exhaling loudly through pursed lips.
“This is like those colored gems, isn’t it,” he says. “Dwarf magic. Earth Magic.”
Hurthin Hammersmith, standing at Santo’s shoulder, snorts in derision. Dwarf magic, indeed! There’s no such thing as...
Kibi smiles, casts xorn movement, and sinks into the ground. Hurthin leaps back in shock.
“Holy boulders! What the hell was that?”
“A dwarvish wizard,” says Dranko.
Hurthin blinks, and squints at the ground through which Kibi vanished. A few seconds later Kibi pops back up a few feet away.
“Well, okay then, I take it all back,” says Hurthin.
Someone points out that, if Santo is going to put the golden circlet on the statue for Ernie to find in the future, then there’s no good reason to call the thing ‘Cranchus’s Gift.” That engenders some brain-twisting discussion about the nature of time and causality that not even Aravis can make sense of. Santo excuses himself part way through, desiring to see his family. The debate ends without resolution.
* *
So, for the first time in a while, the Company finds itself in a safe haven of sorts. They have a lead, albeit vague – Morningstar’s commune indicated that something on the island of Nahalm could return them to the future. But that future isn’t going anywhere, so to speak, and thus in the bustling town of Greenshire, which centuries hence will have given way to the tiny village of Dingman’s Ferry, the Company settles in for a couple months of vacation and training.
It is the very next day that Santo, without fanfare, affixes the Ring of Stability to the arm of his statue. Without anyone telling him, he places it on the exact spot where the party has found/will find it in their own time. Dranko and Morningstar hold hands, watching as Santo connects past with future.
“You know what?” says Dranko. “I want to get married here. Right here, before anything else happens to delay things.”
Morningstar smiles in surprise. “Ell doesn’t even know who I am here,” she reminds him.
“She’ll figure it out!” says Dranko. “She’s pretty smart.”
“Our families aren’t here,” Morningstar points out.
“We’ve got the rest of the Company. Hey, I promise, when we get back home, we’ll have another ceremony and invite everyone. But we’ve been putting this off for far too long. We can have Ernie perform the ceremony.”
Santo turns to them.
“The Black Circle is the only legal religion – it’s been that way for decades, since Naloric conquered Charagan following the death of his father, Hagdan Skewn. But Yondalla is still here, all around us, and a wedding in Greenshire would honor her, halflings or not.”
And so, after three weeks of hurried preparations, Ernie marries Dranko and Morningstar on a clear evening under a sky ablaze with stars. He’s had the best smith in town forge a pair of wedding rings from one of the gartine planks he still carries in his bag of holding.
“They resist time,” Ernie tells them. “It seems fitting.”
Standing before a large assemblage of halflings, and with all of the rest of the Company in the wedding party, Ernie joins the two in matrimony.
“Yondalla’s grace is about having a place, a home, and protecting it. What’s special about my friends is that while it seems we’re never home, we’re also always home, because each of us is a home for the rest. Dranko and Morningstar, you have built a home together in each others’ hearts, and in the hearts of those who love you. May Yondalla make you fruitful, and may her shield always protect you. Also, may Delioch and Ell look down upon you and smile at the worthiness of their servants, worthy both to Them, and to us.”
Morningstar and Dranko kiss under the stars, and the halflings cheer. Aravis finds himself crying.
“I’ve never been to a wedding before,” he whispers to Kibi standing nearby.
Dranko beams at his new bride. “You’re now entitled to fifty percent of all the loot I’ve ever stolen from the party.”
The celebration goes on deep into the night and the following morning. Ernie imbibes a good deal more than is good for him, and thus emboldened asks Yoba for a dance. Afterward, still within her earshot, he slurs to Dranko, “The... the problem is, she’s got to back and help her own people. If I asked her to marry me, she’d have to stay here, or I’d have to go there.”
Yoba pretends not to have heard.
“Plus,” continues Ernie, “I can’t ask her until she’s met my parents, and we can’t do that right now!”
“Aren’t your ancestors good enough?” asks Dranko.
Aravis, whose own parents were killed by bugbears, looks alarmed. “You mean, I can’t get married unless my bride-to-be meets my parents?”
Ernie looks at Aravis. “There’s always speak with dead,” he says.
“Thaaaaaat’s enough,” says Yoba, swooping in. She grips Ernie’s shoulder and leads him firmly away.
* *
The next day Ernie wakes with a pounding hangover.
“I know there’s an orison for this,” he moans at breakfast, “but I can’t remember what it is.”
Dranko fixes him up, and Ernie goes from bleary to anxious.
“Did I say anything... embarrassing... last night?” he asks Dranko.
Yoba overhears but merely says “I didn’t hear anything.”
“I thought you couldn’t lie,” says Dranko.
“Who says I am?”
Ernie looks sheepishly at Yoba. “You’re a patient and tolerant woman, and I’m lucky to know you. Er... I was kind of an idiot last night, wasn’t I?”
“I’ve seen worse,” says Yoba, smiling.
“I hadn’t had good halfling ale in a while,” Ernie explains. “I think I’ve had enough for now.”
“You’ve had enough for several nows,” laughs Yoba.
* *
For a week or so after the wedding, nothing much exciting happens in Greenshire. Kibi and Dranko do conspire for the dwarf to chisel “Kibi was here” on the foot of the Wilburforce Statue, via flagrant misuse of xorn movement. And Dranko and Morningstar settle on a new family name: Brightshield.
One morning, soon after Ernie’s heroes feast has ended, there comes the sound of a loud horn blaring over the quiet streets of Greenshire.
“It’s the orc-warning horn!” exclaims Ernie. And indeed, within moments the town is bustling with activity and shouts.
Dranko pops a last bite of buttered roll into his mouth, turns to Morningstar, and comments, “Nothing says ‘marriage’ like beating up bad guys.”
Into Grey Wolf’s mind speaks the sword Bostock. I’m so close! I wish to hew these evil orcs! Wield me in battle!
A very brief discussion follows in which someone counsels caution – too many area of effect spells, and word will get back to the Emperor that the mostly-ignored halflings have powerful wizards. Dranko counters that if no orc escapes, no one will learn anything.
The halflings are rushing out to meet the onslaught of orcs. The humanoid force numbers in the hundreds and is spread out along a long line, so Santo orders the Company to take the center to meet the orcish vanguard.
* *
The orcs are about to have a pretty poor day.
For as long as any of them can remember, the halfling lands have been a sort of gifted playground for the orcs, granted them by Emperor Naloric. That the halflings have lasted so long is a testament to their superior organization and fighting prowess, born of a desperation to survive. Even so, many halfling villages have been razed by marauding orcs, and Greenshire has the been the target of occasional raids for decades. They know that the halflings don’t have many wizards among them, and maybe expect a magic missile here and there, possibly a flaming sphere.
Aravis opens up with a crackling chain lightning that causes 14 orcs to explode. The one survivor pulls up in horror, turns, and flees screaming back through the ranks of onrushing orcs behind him. The rest of the Company then rushes in to join the melee that has now been joined all along the advancing line.
It cannot be said the orcs learn an important lesson about what powerful adventurers can do to lowly humanoid grunts. Oh, they learn the lesson, but it’s not important per se because none of them survive. Yoba and Ernie chop them down left and right, while Dranko and Flicker operate as a flank-n-sneak attack duo to devastating effect. Morningstar kills as many of them with her potent fire shield as with her weapon. Snokas, who already comes complete with a healthy hatred for orcs, lays waste with his dual-wielded picks.
Grey Wolf, despite the exhortations of Bostock, casts a new spell he’s researched: summon the pack. Three dire wolves and a dozen more ordinary wolves appears and start tearing into the orcs. Kibi, not to be outdone, summons a large earth elemental who immediately smashes half a dozen orcs to paste.
It’s ugly. It’s grasshoppers-in-a-blade barrier ugly. The Company moves up and down the line inflicting casualties by the dozen. Ernie actually kills a bunch with castigate: “Shame on you for picking on halflings for no good reason! Go HOME!”
But they can’t, because they’re dead.
“Now that’s a stern talking to!” says Dranko.
Aravis has dimension doored behind and above the orcish lines, so that he can pick out and eliminate the orcs who try to flee. And Grey Wolf, having summoned his wolves, draws Bostock and starts laying down the smack. Orcs fall before him, and as he hews the head from a particularly ugly specimen a bloom of powerful blue light erupts from Bostock’s blade. The voice of the sword sounds clear in Grey Wolf’s mind.
“At last! AT LAST! At last, I’m... still in the sword. Well, I’ll make the best of it. But I was hoping I’d finally emerge from this cursed prison.”
“I was trying,” says Grey Wolf.
“And I appreciate it!” answers Bostock. “Clearly there must be something more we have to do. But this is not the time to talk – there are still more orcs to slay!”
As Grey Wolf continues to chop down orcs, the full powers of Bostock come to his mind, and his pulse quickens as he realizes its potential.
>> Bostock is now a +5 keen defender, and it grants the maximize spell feat to Grey Wolf, usable 3/day and only on spells channeled through the sword.
* *
“That was excellent!”
Santo and the Company meet outside the town after the battle. The halfling leader is flushed with exertion but obviously pleased with how things went.
“I wish all the villages around here had a set of... of you, to help with defense. “
Back in Greenshire, after the Company helps with healing the wounded from the combat, Santo joins them for drinks in the Rollicking Rabbit, the only tavern in town with ceilings high enough for humans to stand straight up. Santo can hardly stop talking about the Company’s fighting prowess, which is well beyond anything he’s seen before. But eventually talk turns back to Santo’s experience in the Mirrors, and the Company’s own travels through them.
“Do you realize,” says Dranko, “that Ernie’s ancestor Santo here met Grey Wolf’s grandmother, Moirel, in those very mirrors?”
Santo nods. “My own grandfather remembers the Mirrors being built. It was seventy-odd years ago now, when the Emperor’s men came to the area. It was a huge endeavor, and many halfling villages for miles around were razed. For all that effort, the Black Mirrors were abandoned not long after they were finished.”
“They sent Moirel through,” says Aravis. “When she didn’t come back, and nothing happened, the Emperor must have decided the Mirrors were a failure.”
Grey Wolf is silent through all of this discussion, which is not unusual. But in his head he hears the voice of Bostock.
“Grey Wolf,” says the sword, “I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done.”
“You’re free, right?” asks Grey Wolf.
“I was hoping that by ‘free’ it would mean ‘free from this sword.” Though I have all of my memories back, this appears to now be what I am. I don’t know if there’s a way to get me out, but as time passes I find my current state quite satisfying.”
“Who are you?” asks Grey Wolf.
“My name is Sir Tennin Bostock. I was... am... a holy warrior of Palamir. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Your friends, on the other hand, have a peculiar attitude, particularly in regards my alignment. You may wish to insulate yourself from it, in the future. Though they do have a light-hearted spirit that you seem to lack. Even in my former state, I noticed that you have a dour and pessimistic attitude that does not match your heroism.”
“Yeah,” agrees Grey Wolf.
“I think you should act with more confidence, more bravado,” suggests Bostock.
Grey Wolf just nods, smiling. When Dranko notices his glassy-eyed look, he smirks.
“So, still talking to your evil sword? Have you slaked its insatiable thirst for blood yet?”
“It’s baffling, really,” says Bostock. “Your comrades continue to insist that I am evil, when the truth is that I am just the opposite. I am only here due to the machinations of evil Vinceris-worshippers.”
“Vinceris?” asks Grey Wolf. “I’m not familiar with the name.”
“God of assassins and treachery,” Bostock explains. “He’s only a demigod, really, hardly worth the name. But you are not familiar with the Kivian pantheon. Perhaps someday we can go back to Djaw, and we can winnow that den of killers and thieves.”
“I would enjoy that,” says Grey Wolf. “But you still haven’t told me how you ended up in a sword.”
“I was captured, and my essence was put into this blade. They were hoping to have themselves a mighty weapon, and given my power and reputation that wasn’t such a strange thing to think. But I foiled them. I suppressed myself, denying them the full power the sword could bring to bear. It could only be brought out by someone worthy, and that would appear to be you.”
“I’m honored,” says Grey Wolf, bowing his head.
“I was wielded for many months by a blackguard of Vinceris, who thought that by using me in battles he could draw out my power. Right idea, but I resisted. And eventually he was defeated in battle by some kind of tiger-monster, who afterward kept me as a souvenir on his wall until you came along.”
Grey Wolf notices now that the rest of the Company is staring at him, awaiting an explanation.
“Sir Bostock is a paladin,” says Grey Wolf. “A holy warrior.”
“Get out of town!” exclaims Dranko. “Sir Bostock? He’s a noble? And now we’ve traded one full-sized paladin for two tiny ones?”
“Paladins of Palamir are afforded the title of sir," says Bostock, “but we are not nobility.”
When Grey Wolf relays this, Dranko replies, “Yeah, well I’m a ‘Sir,’ and I have a land grant, so at least I outrank the sword.”
Bostock chuckles in Grey Wolf’s mind. “I don’t understand the motivations and priorities of your friends. They are a mysterious lot.”
...to be continued...
Nice to have you back!
I understand about the Lost addiction. While you're at it, let me warn you that Battlestar Galactica (the Sci-fi channel series) is an AWFUL hackjob and not worth even bothering to ever watch. No sirree, don't bother with it.
Ever.
It's truly awful.
You'll hate it, really!
(Am I trying too hard?)
I understand about the Lost addiction. While you're at it, let me warn you that Battlestar Galactica (the Sci-fi channel series) is an AWFUL hackjob and not worth even bothering to ever watch. No sirree, don't bother with it.
Ever.
It's truly awful.
You'll hate it, really!
(Am I trying too hard?)
LightPhoenix
First Post
Heh, BSG is the closest thing to drivel you'll ever get! Really! It is!
...
Theory time... I bet one of those Orcs DID escape, and that's why Greenshire "becomes" Dingman's Ferry. Or is that too morbid?
...
Theory time... I bet one of those Orcs DID escape, and that's why Greenshire "becomes" Dingman's Ferry. Or is that too morbid?
Ashrum the Black
Explorer
Actually, I'd bet the party was very very thorough. Which unfortunately could have worked against them. When nobody comes back from the raid on the poor little halfling villiage ... well, wouldn't you get a wee bit curious and send either a small scout force, or an overwhelming army to stamp out any resistence?
Either way, bad things come back to the town, and the PC's can't stay forever.
-Ashrum
Either way, bad things come back to the town, and the PC's can't stay forever.
-Ashrum
Sagiro said:
*chuckle* Nice.
So, I know you've all been close friends for a long time. Still, was there any awkwardness with playing the Morningstar / Dranko relationship? Did you go out of your way to be sensitive to the real relationships at the table, or was it never much of an issue?
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