State of the Unio-- um, Me. Or the Blog.

Whuf. So we're a little off-schedule here. Dark Armor hasn't been updated in weeks, the Thursday D&D posting have been erratic because the games have had scheduling issues, our DM is moving to Boston in just a little bit, I'm two weeks into a new job, and Firstborn is heading off to college in less than a month. 

I am 25000% out of my head. 

The job change is good: better pay, nice people to work with, a much more focused scope, and a lot less bullshit. They actually promote internally. The only real downside is the commute, which isn't a big difference in time but does cost more in gas and tollway extortion. I'm digging into some things that are very familiar -- user roles, workflows, and like that -- and some things that really aren't -- utility billing, permits, and suchlike. 

So far, nobody from the former job has called me to ask for help about the stuff I handled previously, but then I was very careful about who I gave the new cell phone number to. 

Dark Armor will likely be back as soon as I can get the rest of my shit together and put myself back in that headspace. It'll keep its place on Fridays. 

D&D will likely continue, just online, and the high schoolers should hopefully have picked back up by the time this posts; they're due to interact with the orcs who oversee the dinosaur herds. Following the collapse of the campaign that I was playing in, one of the other players is running a series of sessions in Disgraceland: the island that was taken over by his sorcerer-turned-vampire in the last campaign. I'm not sure about posting the notes from that campaign here; I'm playing Olen Mosk, a half-fiend Bard with an emphasis on Bluff and Oratory, and the other players are the priest of a sex cult and a halfling druid who's a literal trash panda. I'm also considering DMing something for one particular Discord server that I'm on; I'm just not sure how much headspace I have for that. 

I'm very sad about our DM moving to Boston; that's going to seriously curtail my social life here in Texas. This is not to say that I disagree with the decision; I can absolutely understand why they'd want to.

Firstborn heading off to college... if we're being honest, I have absolutely no idea how I feel about this. I'm distracted, of course, but I think I'm also in denial; I'll probably figure out how I feel about it when I finally get around to reacting to it, which might be a while. I will, however, say without reservation that I am incredibly proud of the child (even if I shouldn't really be calling him a child anymore; he's old enough to get drafted). It's time to give him room to make his own mistakes. Maybe past time, given that he spent his Freshman year of high school on Covid lockdown. 

My navel-gazing posts are  usually kind of mixed news, but actually I'm feeling pretty positive about this one; it's just that there's a lot going on. I hope the rest of you are on a more positive trajectory as well.

Terror Povos: Trade Caravan

Lithos had just stretched back out on his bedroll when an older dwarf came over from where the trade caravan was lining up nearby. The passage was too narrow for them to full circle the wagons, but still wide enough that they could park them in a row and leave room for another caravan to pass by. This was a deep dwarf, comfortable in the heat, and wearing a sword and leather armor; his hair and beard were black and neatly braided. "Dark said I should come and talk to you," he said as he drew near.

"As you wish," Lithos said politely, and sat up.

"Belrab's Balls," exclaimed the older dwarf, looking Lithos over. "It's true. You look like a goblin, but you talk like a dwarf born. You were cursed into this shape?"

"Something," Lithos said. "I'm not entirely sure how it happened."

"So one of the temples could likely cure you." 

Lithos shrugged. "If I could afford it." 

"Well, I can't pay you," the dwarf said, "but you'd be more than welcome to travel with us. Be good to have a wizard along. Safety in numbers, and all that."

"I might bring my own trouble with me." Lithos admitted. He didn't think he'd be endangering these people by camping beside them. Traveling with them might be another matter.

"Dark mentioned that." The older dwarf motioned towards the fallen ghoul, which lay stinking some distance off. "She also said you could handle it."

Lithos didn't like the idea. Yes, he'd be safer traveling with the caravan, but that was selfish if his presence was going to put them in greater danger -- and so much of that depended on Vinnie. It had been the better part of a week before the ghoul had arrived, though; the demilich obviously wasn't in any hurry to murder him. And Lithos didn't see any way he could turn the offer down without coming off as even more suspicious than he probably seemed already.

"Then yes, I'd be glad to travel with you," Lithos told him. "Granite Forgefire." 

"Schist Splitvein," the dwarf replied. "Merchant, fighter, and caravan guide. It's a pleasure."

Terror Povos: A bit of lighthearted assassination

Lithos was sleeping deeply, and dreaming of the Shattered Golem when something crossed the boundary of his Alarm spell and jerked him unwillingly awake. It was warm here in the deeper tunnels, and he was sleeping on top of his bedroll, so when he snapped upright he came all the way to his feet. 

There was ghoul creeping up on him. 

It hesitated for a bare second, facing him; then he saw it lower its body and prepare to charge. He reacted by reflex, the words and gestures automatic, and a fiery orange ray leapt from his extended hand to the center of its chest. He was lucky; the ray hit, and burned the thing badly enough that it collapsed before it could really lunge at him. 

For a moment he just stood there, shaking. Then he tossed a tiny ball of acid at it, and then another. It didn't move. With a sigh, he walked over to it, and started searching the body the way Whisper had taught him to. 

Even so, he almost missed it. It was pinned to the back of the cloth vest that was the ghoul's only clothing, and Lithos had been checking pockets and likely places for jewelry: ears, neck, fingers. It was a sheet of parchment, folded over and neatly pinned to the cloth. 

He unfolded it.

You gonna run out on me? it said. You gonna back outta our bargain after I went and made things right for you? You think you can just leave? Here. Have a ghoul. Consider it a test. You're still alive, you're readin this, then you passed. Keep your eyes open, though. This one? Won't be the last. You're still a shitty wizard, and you know it. I coulda made you great, kid. So let's see if you can fucking hang.

It wasn't signed, but then it didn't need to be. Vinnie. Lithos shook his head. The thrice-damned demilich was still going to have his fun. Well... fine. He would deal with that, or else he'd die and be condemned to serve as Vinnie's undead thrall. He could think of a couple of possible ways out, but he also knew that Vinnie had almost certainly anticipated them. 

"Ho there, friend," said a gruff voice, and Lithos turned to look. 

A dwarf was standing some thirty feet away, studying him curiously but keeping her distance.

"Yes?" Lithos answered cautiously, in the same dwarvish that the woman had used to address him. 

"Ah... is it safe to camp here?" She was one of the hill-dwarves, beardless, and doubtless too warm in her armor, for all that it was leather covered in metal spikes. "We're a small caravan, and ill-prepared to fend off a swarm of undead."

Lithos looked at the fallen ghoul and shook his head. "You'll be safe enough," he said. "This was a gift from an old friend, and directed at me."

"Some gift," she said. "I thought I was going to watch it murder you, but you took it down neatly. If it's not too rude to ask, what's a goblin doing this far into Silverkeep?"

The lie sprang fully-formed into his head. "I'm not a goblin," he said. "I'm a dwarf. I just woke up this way one morning. Wild magic, cursed ground, I'm not sure."

She blinked slowly. Then, "Miscast spell?" she asked. 

"...Possibly," he admitted. 

"You have a name, dwarf?" 

"Granite Forgefire." He hesitated, then said: "Don't ask. My parents had very particular ideas. I go by Grant."

The dwarf nodded. "All right, Grant. I'm Darkwater Underspring. Do you mind if we camp with you?" 

Lithos thought about that. He didn't think Vinnie would attack him again any time soon; the demilich was immortal and would want to draw out the suspense. So it was probably safe for them, and wouldn't make much difference to him. "Not at all," he said.

A Dream, A Nightmare, A Transformation, part four

In his current mood, Chris didn't even mind Grundus' company. The older wolf walked with him as he changed course towards the dormitory and made his way to his room. They stopped at the door, and Grundus asked: "You aren't an elder, are you?"

Chris shook his head. "Nope. I'm every bit the daft youth I pretend to be."

Grundus shook his head in return. "No, you're not. I still don't know what you are, but maybe it doesn't matter. You protected Elyssa somehow, didn't you?" 

Chris sighed. "I'm just another wolf, Grundus. A little stronger, a little faster, a little tougher... that doesn't make me better. Did you really think I was an elder playing at being a new recruit?"

Grundus studied him for a long moment. "No," he said at last. "I haven't ruled it out completely, but... no, I don't see it. An elder would have pulled us in as allies, to cover for him. You..."

"...Don't like people?"

"For whatever reason, you're a fucking lone wolf," said Grundus. "That's not a condemnation, it's just an acknowledgement. You don't work with others and you don't want to, except when you do. I honestly didn't think you'd make it through the program, but you're loyal to the people you're working with. You and Antoinette -- and now Elyssa -- have managed some amazing things."

"Whereas you want the wolves here to be a single, united community." Chris kept his voice wry, but it suddenly made sense why Grundus had been so focused on him. He was going against the program. 

"Close enough," Grundus affirmed. "But you know what? When somebody asks you for help, you answer. I'll take that."

"Allies, then," said Chris, looking for the word to describe what he thought Grundus was asking for now. 

"Yeah," the older wolf answered. "That'll do."

"All right," he answered. "But not until after I sleep."

A Dream, A Nightmare, A Transformation, part three

He made it back to the compound with ten minutes to spare, then spent five minutes dithering before he walked back through the wards. The magus in the gatehouse glanced at him as he went past, scribbled something on a ledger, and went back to looking at his phone. 

It was finished. The heart of the fallen god was fully devoured, his original self transformed beyond anything he could have hoped to achieve by devouring the essences of others. He would never be truly human again. 

Possibly he should have regretted that, but he couldn't find any trace of loss or guilt in himself. He'd known what he was doing -- and what he was risking -- when he first moved to devour the resurrected Heart. Even absorbed, it had been... uncontrollable. He could reason with it, bargain with it, ask for its help, call it up to burn out a vampire elder and its nest of progeny, but he couldn't simply assume its power and use it as his own the way he did with everything else. 

Not until now. 

In one way, it was a relief. The nameless god who had been Vengeance and Reconciliation was finally at rest, and its power was fully under his control. He no longer needed to fear its imperatives giving him, giving them, away. In another, it was... a sacrifice. A small death. He could never go back to being what he'd been before the Incident at Pettibone. 

He wouldn't miss his humanity; he'd never felt all that human to begin with. Some of that, he knew, was teenage melodrama; and some was just the inevitable result of being the talented working-class kid at the school for the sons and daughters of the rich and powerful. Some of it might even have come from accidentally absorbing the essence of the speartongue in his youth, and growing up with the knowledge of that second self. 

"Chris?" asked Grundus. 

Chris stopped, turned. He was halfway across the campus, in the open space between the buildings, on his way to... the gym, apparently, he thought. He shook his head and tried to focus. "Grundus."

"I wasn't sure it was you, at first," said the older wolf. "Were you... were you actually smiling?"

Chris offered his most unsettling grin. "I do that sometimes."

"Not around me, you don't." Grundus took a step back. "If rumors are true, you've had a long day. Maybe you should sleep?"

Chris started to argue, stopped, blinked, and then said, "Perhaps you're right, Uncle. Running through the hills helped, but..." He yawned, and then found that it took an effort of will not to yawn again. "I should sleep now."

"Uncle, is it?" Grundus grumbled. "All right, come on. I'll see you back to your room."

Terror Povos: A Letter Home

Dear Marduk & Tara, 

I would address you as my parents, but I fear that I have lost the right. I have made a very, very bad mistake -- but one which, owing to recent events, never actually happened. One of the others can explain the details, if they choose to. I cannot bring myself to explain it, and I am sorry for that; I do not feel that I can return until I have figured out how to undo an event that never happened. 

I want you both to know that I am safe, and on my way to try to build a new life, and that I remain grateful for all that you have given me. 

~Lithos

Terror Povos: The Flight of Lithos

Lithos walked stoically into the darkness. Amergin and Archibald were still with Vinnie, still going to meet with Gorm, but he just couldn't. Not after... everything. 

He hadn't ever wanted to be the villain. He didn't want to now. He didn't know how to think of himself as the kind of person who would tell a demilich to go and murder a century of prisoners and guards just so that he and his family could finally get out of that damned prison. That wasn't who he was. 

Or at least, that wasn't who he was supposed to be. 

They'd tried so hard, too. The disease, the sick guards... it was supposed to be a bloodless escape. But Vinnie, who was supposed to be their contact on the inside, had withheld all but the smallest and most useless sorts of magical help, and since the sleep gas only affected certain areas there was no way out without fighting -- and killing. Their carefully-engineered escape had turned into a prison riot, and then a battle between them and the most powerful of the guards, and then between them and the warden, who was a ridiculously strong fighter for someone who should have been a useless administrator. Then, when the warden finally fallen, they still had to find out a way to get out past the rioting prisoners and the guards who manned the ballistae at the gate.

That was when Lithos had snapped, when he'd suggested to Vinnie the Demilich that he go use the Gas lever. They'd been framed and sent to this ridiculous prison; Vinnie -- and Gorm -- had set them up so there was no way to escape without killing people and further tarnishing their names. If there was no way to avoid becoming villains, Lithos had reasoned, they might as well just get on with it. 

And he had. 

And in the aftermath of all that death? Vinnie had taunted them with the knowledge that he'd been the one to murder the senator and get them sentenced to prison. He'd called Lithos a shitty wizard, and even though Lithos knew that he was young and inexperienced and nowhere near the level of mastery he aspired to... it still hurt. Not because Vinnie was right -- he was, but it was a stupid complaint to level at somebody who hadn't had the time to put in the work to be any better -- but because Vinnie was the only one in his life who'd ever really tried to build him up as a wizard. That accursed skull was the only one who'd ever tried to make Lithos feel better about being a wizard instead of a fighter, a goblin instead of a dwarf.

And the whole thing had been bullshit. He'd just been stringing Lithos along, and Lithos -- being an idiot -- had eaten it up. 

Vengeful? Defeated? Remorseful? Lost? Ashamed and furious at the same time? Lithos didn't know. All he knew was that Whisper and James had left in the night, vanished, and that he couldn't stay either. Not after all that. Master Windborne would repudiate him, and rightly so, if he knew that his student still lived. His parents would be heartbroken. His brothers and sisters... he'd driven them off, and made everything so much worse for them. 

No, there was nothing left for him back there. A new place, a new name... He'd watched Whisper and James leave, but he'd made no attempt to join them. Whisper's judgement hurt, and hurt more -- he thought -- for being correct. He was a fallen thing, a broken thing, a traitor to everything his parents had taught them. He didn't deserve to live, but he was going to do it anyway. Unless Whisper comes after me, or Vinnie does. If Whisper tries to kill me, in all fairness I'll just have to let him. If Vinnie tries to kill me... I won't be able to stop him. 

He knew, though, that Vinnie wouldn't come after him. He wasn't that important. He never had been. 

So he kept walking, not bothering to cover his trail, pack heavy upon his back.