NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 1681311" data-attributes="member: 143">Let us begin...* * * * * Chapter 189Kaurophon’s life had been cursed with an unending string of bad luck. Or at least that was how he tended to see it.  While it was true that the vicissitudes of fortune had often barraged him with unpleasantries, Kaurophon lacked sufficient distance from his situation to recognize that many of his misadventures were rooted in his own poor choices.  He was canny, and possessed of a personal presence that was nothing short of overwhelming.  When he put his mind to it, he could be charming, and utterly persuasive, even when evidence was not upon his side.  Unfortunately, he was also petty, conniving, greedy, and selfish.  Kaurophon’s situation was complicated by an accident of birth that placed him in an unenviable position.  A product of mixed bloodlines, he drew perhaps from the worst of both.  Had he been more fortunate in his early surroundings, he might have someday overcome those failings inherent to his personality, but from his youngest years he was surrounded by violence and ruthless struggles for survival that instilled in him a simple creed. Take what you need, and damned be all the rest. His innate talents allowed him to survive when others might have been crushed utterly in similar circumstances, and as he developed to adolescence the marginal talents that were the gift of his father’s blood expanded into a genuine talent for sorcery.  For all his other failings, Kaurophon turned to the development of his powers with due diligence, and by the time he had reached the tender age of twenty years, he had already mastered spells that many human mages spent the bulk of their adult lives pursuing.  Of course, for him, these abilities were just a stepping stone, toward the greater powers upon which he had already fixed his avarice.  Now older, though perhaps not wiser, the object of his current fixation was before him.  The power that he’d spent a good part of the last several years pursuing was almost within his grasp, and as he stared into the image suspended in the depths of his scrying mirror, he felt a tingle of anticipation.Soon...Then the words of a dying man threw all of his carefully wrought plans askew.  Thinking quickly, he turned from his mirror and hastily gathered up several of the items he had prepared for just such an opportunity.  Belatedly he returned to the mirror, and carefully inserted it into his bag of holding.  He didn’t often take the device from his laboratory, as it was expensive and not especially durable, but with his objective drawing close to his grasp, he wasn’t going to let it slip away through lack of preparation.  His arrangements complete, he unrolled a scroll, and started to read.  For an instant he felt a twinge of uncertainty, remembering the omnipresence of his bad luck, but he shook off the feeling and completed his spell, and vanished, leaving the laboratory empty behind him. * * * * * Half a world away, in a small vault of weathered stone situated in the depths of a vast desert, several other individuals were also musing on the question of luck.  “What are we going to do now?” Morgan asked.  “We could be a thousand leagues from Cauldron.... If we’re even still on Toril!”“Calm down,” Zenna said.  She looked up as Mole and Dannel reappeared at the only exit, an uneven gap in wall of the vault that led outside.  It might have once been a doorway, but wind and sand had widened it, whatever seal or portal that might have once been there either buried or decayed through time.  “Anything?” the tiefling asked. “It’s open desert as far as the eye can see in every direction,” the elf reported.  He’d used his magical slippers to climb up the outer wall of the vault, giving him a good vista over the surrounding area. “We don’t even know which direction in which to start,” Morgan pointed out.  “I be more worried with what be in the gnome’s bag,” Hodge said, the first words he’d contributed to the conversation since the battle’s end.  “Or what nay be in it, as it be.”Zenna turned to the dwarf.  “If need be, Morgan can create magical food to sustain us,” she said.  But the cleric shook his head.  “I have sundered myself from Helm by my weakness,” he said, his voice cold.  “I must seek atonement, before I may seek his blessings anew.”“Look, Morgan, I thought we had discussed this...”“This has nothing to do with my covenant with you,” Morgan interjected.  “This matter is between myself and my god.”And with that he turned and walked away.  For a long moment an awkward silence filled the space between them. “So what yer sayin’, then, is that we ain't got no food, right?” Hodge finally said. “We’ll face what comes when it comes,” Arun interjected.  “For now we must attend to matters of the moment.”  He glanced down at Alek’s body.  The fallen paladin’s upper body had been covered with his tattered cloak, which still bore the faded sigil of Helm’s armored hand. “Come, help me with him,” Arun said, and together the companions lifted the body and headed outside to bury the lost knight of Helm.</blockquote>

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