Fanaxia: Tuldra and the Harem, part two

"I really don't know Bald Johnny," Tuldralin told the paladin. "I saw him a couple of times when m'Lord was having a spat with his wife and elected to take me to some event or function instead. He seemed... very practical? Maybe a little bit dull, but that's just an impression. You're thinking of putting him in charge?" 

"We need somebody," said the woman -- she'd introduced herself as Martini. "And it needs to be somebody who know the political landscape and the local lords, somebody who makes a logical successor on a practical basis since Lord Crowe's children are either disinterested or unfit."

"He is," added the paladin, sounding half-apologetic, "the best candidate we've found so far." 

"Ah," said Tuldralin, and swallowed. "But you think I should be part of the Council? My apologies, but... that doesn't speak well for your judgement. The old lords and the rest of the council will likely have me stuffed right back into place in a week." 

"Well, about that," said the gnome. "The army of Kuldas Keep was kind of... annihilated... when we took the keep. Bald Johnny has almost nothing in the way of trained troops right now."

Tuldra paused, took a deep breath, and then looked at each of them in turn. "He won't last a week," she said flatly. "The old lords will tear him apart." 

Geddy the gnome shook his head. "What will keep him in office is his alliance with the Bakunawa and the centaurs. That gives him a force that's not beholden to any of the other lords, and is very difficult for them to subvert. In turn, it gives them leverage to force Kuldas to make the sort of reparations that they need. Each of them will have a place on the Council, and part of their job there will be to make sure that you have a place on the council and that you're heard when you speak." 

"And my job on the council?" asked Tuldra, who had the dizzying feeling that all this was spinning out of control. "What will that be?" 

"To speak for those who cannot speak for themselves," said the half-dragon. 

Martini nodded. "Lord Crowe kept you isolated. That means you'll need to learn a lot of things, about a lot of different kinds of things, very quickly. Your ladies-in-waiting can help you with that: they can talk to people, find things out, maybe even organize support where the old lords won't expect it."

Tuldralin blinked at that. She thought the other girls could do that; she just hadn't expected to meet anyone else who thought the same. "That... might be possible."

"More importantly," said Martini, "does it sound like something you'd want to do? Are you willing to try?"

Tavros nodded. "We won't demand anything. We can't. You could take your people to Northgrove, live out your lives in quiet isolation, and let the realm take its own course, and we couldn't stop you. But... I hope you'll decide to do more."

Ilvara stood and approached, placed a hand on Tuldra's shoulder. "Put me down for quiet isolation," she said. She looked the paladin in the eye and said, "I've had enough of courtly attentions."

But Wendra came and stood behind Tuldra's other shoulder and said, "If you won't do it, I'll take the seat on the council. I want to make myself something so different from what I've been that even Lord Crowe couldn't ignore it." She locked eyes with Martini. "And if he ever tries to come back here, I want to be in a position to put a knife in his back." Her smile, when it came, was predatory. "You can show me that, can't you?"

Martini's answering smile was all hungry anticipation as she said, "Yes, I can."

Tuldralin held herself still for a long moment, considering. She was well aware of the others watching them, of the way Durk hovered hesitantly nearby. Finally she said, "Yes. I will try this role you want me to try. But..." She turned to Ilvara. "Ilvara, will you ask among the others, and find the ones who aren't ready or need time to adjust or just want to find their own way, and take them to the estate? Make sure it's ready to serve us as a place to recover, and adjust, and make ready for our new lives."

Ilvara nodded firmly. 

Tuldralin turned her head the other way to look at Wendra. "I will take the seat, but... will you learn whatever Martini can teach you anyway? Learn it, and teach it to the others? I fear we will need it, all of us. Even the ones who go onto something else."

Wendra smiled fiercely, but Tuldra thought she might be hiding a bit of relief. "I will."

Tuldralin turned back to their... rescuers? ...and nodded. "Then it's settled."

OOC: I'm actually picturing this as the potential birth of a matriarchal Assassin's Guild. It'll be slow to get going, but once they find their feet it could become a force to be reckoned with: the Lady of Northgrove speaks softly on the Council, but bad things happen to anyone who steps too far out of line.

But I don't wanna!!!

Well, it's officially 2022 and I'm back at work. (I didn't actually take any extra time off, it's less "back at" and more "still here as everyone else comes back" but honestly? That is not making me feel any better about this.) I was able to take advantage of the break and the existence of YouTube to get a handle on a project that I've been putting off in no small part because the system I was told to develop it in was completely unknown to me, the interface was opaque, and the official training materials were useless. So, it kept getting set aside for other things that A) were more urgent, and B) didn't require at least three days of uninterrupted study to get started on. 

The project isn't done yet, of course, but it's off to a decent start and now that I've finally got a handle on how to do things for it, well... it's just a matter of pushing on through until it's finished. I might have a bunch of training in the second week of January, or I might not; I might have other projects interrupting (not so big a problem, now) or I might not; I might have time re-sort my To Do list and reassign priorities and start laying out plans, but I seriously doubt it. 

I'm still tired, y'all. I mean, I didn't try to do much over Christmas or New Year's, and I got a pretty fair amount of rest, and the things we did do were fun in way that refreshes the spirit, but I'm still tired. 

Still, we made it through 2021, even if... well...

...and I feel like that's something we should all celebrate before 2022 leaps on us from behind with claws and fangs bared. So stop and take a deep breath, maybe set aside a moment to think about where you are, where you need to go, and how you plan to get there. 

That's what I plan to be doing, anyway.

Fanaxia: Tuldralin and The Harem, part one

Tuldralin glanced at the girls who huddled around her in the common room, then rose from her seat and stepped towards the heavy wooden door. 

It wouldn't have looked like huddling to anyone else; every woman in the harem, no matter her age, sat poised and still, with no signs of worry or nervous energy. It was the fact that all of them were in the common room and all sitting still that gave it away; none of them worked at their various hobbies, and none of them were ensconced in their rooms. They were all together, all carefully posed, and their collective presence left the air heavy with waiting. 

Tuldralin had just reached the door when she caught the muffled sound of footsteps outside, followed by voices. She doubted any of the others heard them at all, but her father had been elven and her ears were sharper than most. It was a trait that had helped to keep her alive for the last twenty-three years. 

"I'm sorry," Durk was saying, from where he stood just outside the door. It was hard to tell through the heavy wood, but he sounded nervous. "The lord's orders..." 

Another voice said, "Lord Crowe's orders no longer apply to anything in this place. He has fled. He lives only at the sufferance of Cardinal Richlieu, and only until we find him again. Kuldas Keep is ours by right of blood and conquest, and in the name of the Great God Amun I order you to stand aside."

"I--" There was a momentary pause. "A moment, I beg you." 

Tuldralin swallowed as she heard the familiar sound of the bar being lifted. Whatever she needed to do to protect the others, she would do it. Whatever their new conqueror demanded, she would provide it. And whatever advantage there might be to be had, she would find it. I have to protect them...

The door swung open, and Durk blinked when he saw that she was standing just behind it. "Ah... Madam Tuldra? There's... there are... people here to see you." 

Durk was about three-quarters orc by bloodline, tall and strong and intensely loyal: first to Lord Crowe, but also to Tuldralin and the women in her care. Tuldralin had always liked him; he was forthright and fair with them, even sympathetic -- though never to the extent of neglecting his duties. And there might be an opening here already: Durk had become a eunuch at his lord's order when he took up this post. That terrible loyalty extended in part to the harem as well; if Lord Crowe was truly gone, he might be persuaded to focus on protecting them. 

"Then open the door, and let them speak." The words came easily, and something in Tuldralin's chest loosened as Durk swung the door open and then stepped back to stand beside her, still clutching his guisarme. He looked slightly overwhelmed, and as the door swung wide Tuldralin saw why: the group outside looked formidable. 

The one who had spoken before offered a bow. "I am Tavros, a paladin from the lands that once surrounded Fanaxia." He might have been one of the lizard-folk, but... no, his scales were silver, and there was something alarming in the way he stood and moved. A half-dragon? "My friends and I have come in the company of the centaurs and the Bakunawa, to restore their rights and their lands. We would do the same for you, if we can."

Tuldralin swallowed and looked past him. There was an elven woman standing behind him, and a gnomish man; there were others gathered around, but those were the central figures. Meeting the woman's eyes, she voiced the thought foremost in her mind: "Some would consider us possessions of the vanquished lord, rewards to be claimed by right of conquest."

The woman shook her head with a cold certainty that suggested that she might murder anyone who tried that, and would expect her companions to do the same. Tavros barely shifted his stance, but ducked his head in acknowledgement. "There are some," he said. "We are not among them, and none of ours will be permitted such sins." 

There was a soft rustle of movement through the room behind her: positions shifted, hands clasped, fans raised, postures suddenly relaxed. "I am pleased to hear that," she said. "I am Tuldralin, First Concubine of Lord Crowe." 

"No longer," said the gnome, stepping forward. "You will be Lady Tuldralin, Viscountess of Northgrove, and those here in your care will be your ladies-in-waiting."

Tuldralin took a long, slow breath, making absolutely certain that she had heard correctly; and then, very sensibly, she asked: "What?"

Fanaxia: Kuldas Keep, and the Deck of Many Things

We have elected to invade the castle, rather than tangle with the dragon. It is our 22nd day in Fanaxia, and that morning a powerful force emerges from the swamp and heads slowly south, engaging the magiknights; the magiknights take them out but lose about 15% of their force, and then next group takes out another 10%. The lizard-folk have now come over to Richlieu and are attacking the magiknights; it’s now an evenly-matched battle. Another force attacks lady Merrowin’s troops, but she fends them off. Unfortunately, Ziss’laer the Black Wyrm is heading her way, and he’s a considerably larger threat. 

We spend some time discussing strategy outside the keep, and then…

The airship flies high above the keep, and Azrael unloads with Meteor Strike, clearing off most one side of the wall in an apocalyptic display of destructive power. Leira follows up with Sunburst. The courtyard is filled with alarums and excursions, but the folks on the wall start losing people as whole groups break and run for the courtyard. Leira clears more wall, while Azrael drops another meteor swarm and effectively shells the courtyard, centering on the leaders; the body count is ridiculous, and the army is effectively broken. A smaller group makes an orderly retreat into the keep; we spot some Vecna robes, and someone who’s probably the elder Lord Crowe himself… but even more importantly, Richelieu and a couple of his big orc bodyguards. There was also a priest, and another guy who was probably the leader of Crowe’s forces. 

The centaurs and the Bakunawa move into the castle’s courtyard. Ruin takes himself, Alexej, Leira, and Azrael down to the courtyard, just outside the door that the rather formidable collection of enemy leaders just retreated through. Geddy, Marshall, and Tavros are all still with the advancing centaurs and Bakunawa. 

The strike force goes inside, and finds themselves in a kill box with archers around the walls and Richlieu and the others at the far end of the room, trying to maneuver Lord Crowe towards some sort of escape route. We have no intention of allowing that, but a lot depends on who moves first. 

Alexej waits; Richelieu tags our entire group with Flame Strike and Quickened Flame Strike, which despite our various resistances and attempts to dodge is still pretty painful. Azrael responds with Horrid Wilting on the entire group of enemy leaders, excepting only the Blackguard. He follows it up with a quickened fireball, finishing off the wizards. Ruin and Alexej move to block this door, so none of the enemy warriors can get past us to Leira or Azrael. 

The Vecna priest does a quickened Cure Serious Wounds on himself, then drops a blade barrier on top of us. Leira goes down again. The Blackguard moves over to Richlieu and Lays on Hands, healing him back to considerably better condition. The archers are just sort of watching and panicking. The two orcs fly into rages, and charge up to the door. Alexej, dodging blades from the spell, intercepts them both with his guisarme, damaging them badly; one of the orcs manages to strike Alexej in return using his axe. 

Crowe moves back to the door: “If you surrender now, I’ll spare your lives!”

Ruin: “Optimist.”

Alexej scoops up Leira and moves out of the doorway; the orcs try to attack him but miss. He takes the opportunity to revive Leira with a wand of Cure Light Wound. Richlieu moves up  and quick-heals the other Vecna priest, then drops Flame Strike on Ruin and Azrael. Ruin survives, being extremely fire resistant, but Azrael goes down. Ruin catches him as he falls, and slips them away through a hole in reality. 

The Vecna priest moves forward and summons a couple of Bone Devils next to Alexej. They attack, lightly scratching Alexej. Alexej: “Teleport, yes?”

Leira teleports them away, and Marshall raises Azrael from the dead. We huddle up with the leaders of the invading army, and then we heal up and start teleporting ourselves and the local champions back. 

By the time we get back, the leaders have gone and the archers are still lining the walls. Geddy tries to intimidate them, and they all move to the center of the room and loose arrows at him, doing… only a little damage. A pair of fireballs follow from Leira and Geddy; two thirds of them die, and the others flee. Ruin slips across the room and grabs one of them. Geddy asks Tavros to wait outside, and questions the guy… who is currently wrapped up by a giant snake. 

According to the captured archer, they teleported away. The younger Crowe comes in and shows us the secret passages and also the royal chambers; Marshall does a Discern Location, and we learn that Crowe has gone to the central wing of Castle Fanax. 

While we’re discussing this, the Bakunawa and Centaurs come to Marshall and lead us to Crowe’s treasure room. Younger Crowe shows a really well-concealed secret door, which leads to an armor room with the Sacred Snake Armor hidden behind it. They call it the Armor of the Avatar, and it was stolen from the centaurs and the Bakunawa. It predates the Sundering. Since Marshall is the chosen one, it is his to wear. 

Marshall is thrilled. It is +5 Wild adamantine Full Plate, provides +6 to Wisdom, and immunity to poison. Once per day it will cast Blade Barrier in a five-foot ring around him. (The blades are snakes.) The adamantium provides damage reduction 3. We also gain $99,000 plus a tome of clear thought +4. 

So: the lizard folk attack the magiknights, and the magiknights take quite a beating before they pull a trick and recover. It’s a battle of attrition at this point, with the lizardfolk slowly starting to gain the advantage. Even so, the battle drags out until at last the Magiknights are annihilated. (“The magiknights are extinct. Their fire has gone out of the Universe.”) The lizard-folk have lost about two-fifths of their force. 

The black dragon assaults Lady Merrowin, tearing into her forces and ripping up her positions. She counters, damaging him, but her attack capability is dropping rapidly while his remains intact. Martini whisks Lady Merrowin away at the last moment, as the last of her force falls to the dragon. The dragon is badly injured, but will recover by the morning. The battle has torn up the landscape, and the dragon is flying overhead. It’s blackened on the surface, but it seems to be a white dragon underneath. Possibly Vecna has raised the white dragon we slew. 

Strategically? Based on what our characters know? We need to get to Castle Fanax, and disconnect Fanaxia from the Abyss. With any luck, if we manage that – and kill Richlieu and etc. – we can then go to the tower and use the hand and the blade, which will hopefully free the place from Vecna’s influence as well. 

Kuldas Keep: we start considering who should take over the rulership. The younger Crowe has no interest. There’s another son, who’s spoiled; no. There are twin daughters, spoiled; no. There’s a minister of trade, Bald Jonny; he’s well-dressed, and carrying a bunch of papers when he comes to speak with Geddy. “Might I share with you some of my plans that I would implement if I were king of Kuldas Keep?”  He sits down, and he starts smoothly laying plans: “The centaurs and the Bakunawa would both need to have trusted advisors on the council.” Weirdly, he seems sincere though he’s also obviously telling us what he thinks we want to hear. “We will need to reorganize some of the lesser lords. I know there’s sausage-making to be done there, but we can’t just toss out the old lords… it would be chaos. Still, we'll have to levy them to give some land back to the centaurs, as fairly as possible.” 

Tavros: “Good. Also, all of the former harem are ennobled as ladies.” 

Jonny: “Of course. And that brings me to my first question for you: what would you expect of me?”

Geddy: “You have to keep the city safe, and report to us.” 

Bald Jonny: “I won’t disappoint you.”

Later, Tavros approaches young lord Forthwind: “Hey, can I talk to you about something really fucking weird?” He may have been hanging around with Ruin a little too long. 

Lord Crowe: “Of course.” 

Tavros: “You strike me as a forthright and honorable young man, one who inspires loyalty and wants the best for your people – all your people.” 

He seems kind of torn. “One that just rebelled against his own father.” 

Tavros lays out his offer, with the amulet and the possibility of priesthood. Tavros has some other options as fallbacks, but he’s the first choice. Crowe wants some time to think about it, which only seems fair since the amulet will kill him if Tavros is wrong and he's unworthy.

So next we need to get to the keep, but before that… we stand with Geddy as he draws from the Deck of Many Things. Geddy takes a day to locate a Wand of Searing Light first, so he has some way to counter the worst possible outcome; then he readies Airwolf, our Ebony Fly and dons the Wings of Flying. Then he draws seven cards, and we see what happens.

-Jack of Hearts: he gains the services of a fourth-level fighter. 

-Jack of Clubs: He must fight a Dread Wraith. Geddy finds himself in an extradimensional space with a Dread Wraith, which is a horrible robed figure with a scythe. He immediately hops on the ebony fly and uses that to stay out of reach, and bombards the thing with Searing Light. 

-Queen of Diamonds: he receives 1d4 wishes. His player rolls a 4.

-King of Clubs: Void, his body functions but his soul is trapped elsewhere. 

-Ace of Hearts: Avoid any one situation.

-Ace of Spades: He is imprisoned. 

-Two of Hearts: He gets money: 50,000 GP, in fact.

From the perspective of the rest of us... Geddy draws his cards and disappears. Apparently we’re going to have to find him. The deck falls to the ground unnoticed as we wander off discussing how to find the gnome. A random by-passer, Jerry the Archer, finds it. He draws four cards, gains two wishes, and immediately blows them to avoid the effects of the next two cards, and levels up after the next thing he kills. His heroic adventure has begun. Perhaps unfortunately, none of us will ever know about it...

Booster Shot

Well, I did it. I went and got the booster shot at noon on Wednesday, knowing I'd have Thursday and Friday off to recover. And it went about exactly the way I expected: I crashed hard Wednesday night, woke up logy Thursday morning, and proceeded to spend the entire day playing Skyrim because hey, why not? I paused briefly to: 

• Run Secondborn and Beautiful Wife over to the nearby donut shop, which does really excellent sausage-and-bacon pastries as well.
• Afternoon grocery shopping run. 
• Bake a frozen pizza because I didn't eat lunch and by 4:40 or so I was starving.
• Pull the roasted potatoes out of the oven because Beautiful Wife was busy walking the dog. 

That was literally it. And honestly, aside from just being kind of dazed, the booster wasn't that bad. (And even that was probably only partly the booster's fault -- I haven't pulled a day of Nothing But Downtime like that in way too long, and I needed one.) I don't appear to be magnetic, nor do I have the power to manipulate metal with my mind. Bill Gates has not broadcast any orders into my brain. Nor am I shedding protein spikes, except in the vague sense of getting in the shower and washing off a bunch of dead skin cells along with the dirt and grime. I didn't even wake up as a gigantic cockroach. 

The whole thing was pretty anticlimactic, which is honestly about all I want out of a vaccine booster. Even my shoulder has quit being sore. 

And now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go kill some more dragons. 'Tis the season, after all.

A farewell to 2021

So it's December and Christmas is Any Day Now and that means that somehow 2021 is nearly over and I'm sitting here in the Designated Writing Closet and wondering: where the hell did it go? 2020 was this horrible, slogging, torturous grind that almost culminated in a full-on fascist coup. 2021 was supposed to kind of ease back from that, give us a small chance to regroup and maybe start to repair some of the horror and mistakes and stupidities that were done. 

And maybe some of that did happen. 

Maybe. 

But holy hell, it feels like 2021 just went by in a blur and nothing much has changed. There was a push early on to get everybody vaccinated, and even some progress, but then Delta and now Omicron appeared and it looks like our deliberate stalling has pushed us past the point of being able to really get rid of this thing. Meanwhile, our politicians and especially the Republicans are studiously pretending -- still -- that there isn't a global pandemic going on, except when they switch to pointing out that there is and it's President Biden's fault. The schools are open more or less by mandate, a fact mitigated only slightly by the fact that vaccines are now available to everyone five and older; ditto restaurants, bars, nightclubs, concerts...

It will be... interesting [read: infuriating] to see if the spread of Omicron changes that at all. 

Climate Change is in much the same situation: we're confronted with example after example of just how bad it is and just how much worse it's going to get, and we're well past the point where if we'd acted seriously we could have avoided the worst of it... and yet we're still not doing anything about it. Oh, a lot of individuals and families are; but that's like trying to fend off an iceberg with a blow-dryer. We need large-scale structural changes, the kind of things that affect whole countries and industries, and every time someone tries to even look at doing that the Powers That Be immediately move to block and discredit them. 

Meanwhile, the would-be fascist coup is still ongoing and very well might still succeed; the Republican party has clearly decided that the best way to run a democracy is to prevent anyone who might disagree with them from voting. They'll do it legally if they can, but they'll do it either way. The anti-vaxxers and QAnon true believers and Big Lie promoters are all still out there doing their thing, and maybe even getting more virulent; I'm seeing more and more reports of the QAnon types assaulting hospital personnel for using actual medical procedures instead of snake oil. Some of the folks who besieged the capital back on January 6th (with the apparent intention of hanging the vice president and probably Nancy Pelosi and some others as well as trying to overturn the results of the election) have been arrested and some have even been given jail time, but the ones who were leading the attempted coup right out there in the open? Nothing but the distant chirping of crickets. And police reform of any kind? Dead in the water.

On a personal note, as I've said a couple of times already, 2021 feels as if it looked at 2020 and said, "Well, that was a good series of unrelenting disasters, but what if we tried it again and this time we made it personal?" I think we might be through the worst of that, but I'm afraid to say so; might be tempting fate, after all. And I sure as hell don't want to give 2022 any ideas.

::sigh::

Also from a personal perspective, so much of what I intended to get done in 2021 just... didn't happen. Write a book? I now have three pages and a really excellent outline, but it feels like it just got shoved aside by everything else that was happening. Finishing [Project A] and [Project B] at work? Sidelined by a weird combination of Other Projects and weird technical difficulties that I haven't really had the time or energy to properly troubleshoot, in no small part because of Other Projects. Career advancement? There's a joke. I have managed a few things -- I started studying Spanish and German again -- but they don't feel like much.

2021 feels like it just went by in a sort of horrible blur because I've just spent most of the year being overwhelmed by thing after thing after thing. And yeah, I say that knowing full well that things could have gone a lot worse for us in a lot of different ways, because that doesn't really change anything. It's still been pretty horrible, and there's a particular sort of exhaustion that comes from having dealt with this shit for two years now, if not longer.

Goodbye, 2021. Good riddance. May 2022 break the cycle, even if it's just a matter of small steps in the right direction. And you, my lovely friends: take good care of yourselves, and take good care of each other. It's the only way through.

Idea for a Novel

Just reiterating something here that I was... ranting about? ...on Twitter, in response to this tweet:

On the other hand, small scale personal/emotional can be more important than ever in the context of even a slow moving disaster. See Emma Donoghue's gorgeous novel set in a 1918 flu ward, The Pull of the Stars. https://t.co/J2Tfw31MnP

— Sarah Pinsker (@SarahPinsker) December 20, 2021

You can find my response on Twitter, but I'm reproducing it here because not everybody follows me on Twitter. 

I swear I'm going to write a pandemic novel where everybody just keeps going to work and shopping and eating in restaurants and there's just this occasional aside like, "Did you hear about John? Yeah. Last Tuesday. Funeral's next week." Because honestly, that's how this feels.

Our protagonist will be training a new co-worker but there won't be any discussion of what happened to the previous co-worker, just a vague allusion to the handout from the funeral that's still on the bulletin board by the coffee machine.

Somebody will start ranting about how people need to be more careful and everyone will just look at them and edge slowly away.

Periodically there will be emails from management or bulletins posted from the Department of Health explaining that extra precautions are advised but not required at this time, but there will be no mention of what the precautions would be *for*. 

But other than that it'll just be a perfectly mundane slice-of-life book, with no dramatic character arcs and nobody really learning anything. Character growth? Naw.

Until *maybe*, at the very end of the book, the protagonist undergoes a full emotional collapse under the weight of all the things that everyone has been carefully ignoring the whole time.

I'm so tired, y'all. And it's not just the ongoing global pandemic, it's the persistent failure of leadership and the outright gaslighting from our Republican political figures and their pet media outlets. Yes, the global pandemic was always going to be horrible, but still: it didn't have to be this way. 

Blog-wise... I'm probably going to put something up for tomorrow, and there may be a few more entries next week, but it's also possible that it's just going to be radio silence over here until January. Take care of yourselves, take care of each other, and be careful out there: it looks like the holidays are making everyone a little deranged right now.