Dark Armor: An Unexpected Reunion

"A moment before you go," the Grandmother said easily. She was looking around, eyes slightly narrowed. "There is something here that should not be. An intruder." Her voice firmed. "Come out."

Ember slid out of Ashmiren's shadow and stood, cowed and hesitant. 

"I know you," the Grandmother said. Her gaze shifted to Pallian. "You didn't destroy it?"

"I didn't see the need," Pallian admitted. "I didn't expect it to stay around after I broke the binding."

"Ah," she said. "You aren't much experienced with the Nightmare Realms, then." 

Pallian swallowed. "I confess total ignorance," he said, forcing his voice to stay casual. Just two people talking here; idle chit-chat, with nothing important at stake. "What I do know is that it's currently calling itself Ember, and it saved both myself and the third-princess from the Second's power."

"Did it?" asked the Grandmother. "How very interesting. I could bind it for you, if you like...?"

Pallian shook his head even as Ember shrank in on itself. "No," he said firmly. "Ember helped us because it wanted to. We owe it a debt, and that would be poor repayment indeed."

"Now that is interesting, coming from a prince of the realm and a son of your father. You trust it?" 

"It's shown itself worthy so far. Leave it be."

"As you wish," said the Grandmother. "Then it's the three of you bound for the Temple of the First?"

"Ashmiren?" asked Pallian. "Ember?"

Ember nodded immediately. "I will help as I said I would, and you will show me how to live here as one of you -- as you said you would."

Ashmiren seemed to hesitate, then nodded. "As much as I want to find my mother and sister, this is... I cannot turn aside from this. Yes, I'll go with you."

"Hrrm," said the Grandmother. "Excellent." She fixed her dead eyes on Pallian. "Leave the armor; the bats won't be able to carry it. Take the Spear; without the armor, you'll need it."

"If I take the Spear," Pallian said slowly, "the Second will know it."

"Not until you enter battle," the Grandmother answered. "If the First favors you, by then it will be too late."

Pallian nodded, acceding. He knew himself ignorant on most of these matters, and had no reason not to trust the Grandmother, whose survival evidently hinged on his success. 

"So we're taking the riding bats?" asked Ashmiren. The Shadow of Edrias was a mysterious, dangerous, terrifying figure, but right now she just sounded like an unreasonably excited little girl...

...And Pallian loved it.

Terra Povos: In The Hole

So, the dwarven Senator is dead, We’re in jail. 

The Lictor is Bjorn, the Senator was Goldbeard, and the senator’s son is Throg. The skull is Vinny. 

We sit in the cell for a week. Despite James’ constant questions, it isn’t bloodbowl season. At the end of the week, Ingrid – our Advocate – appears. She thinks we’re pretty much screwed, but she’s going to do her best to get us off. We are, of course, being charged with the murder of the senator. 

She is, to put it charitably, incompetent. It’s her first case, the Quaestor himself is judging it, and the fix is definitely in. 

A dwarf calling himself Gorm opens the door in the middle of the night. He obviously knows who we are. He thinks we can help each other. 

Archibald: “How?”

Gorm: “You guys have a problem. It’s Throg. He’s enraged, he’s hot-headed, and he’s the head of the family now. Myself, I’m concerned that this might have something to do with one of my guys. I need somebody who can track down somebody who’s outside the law.”

Archibald: “A rogue rogue?” 

Gorm: “No. But I need somebody to track this guy, and you need this Throg problem to go away.”

Note: the dungeon we’re currently in is one of the local city dungeons; we’re not in the Goldbeard estate. 

Gorm: “This person was potentially formerly working for Goldbeard, and if he turned on Goldbeard then I have a problem that needs to be cleaned up. Unfortunately, Throg has made this whole thing very public. But I can get you sent to a low-security prison and supply you with some equipment. That way Throg’s satisfied and you’re off his radar. And with everything that’s been happening in Stonehaven–” 

“Wait. Since we’ve been gone?”

“Yes. Your boat captain has been killed, for example.”

Ohhhhh, boy. 

We explain that there are other things going on, and Gorm reluctantly agrees to wait on hearing our additional information. Ingrid shows up bright and early and ready to go: “It’s time to argue my first trial, and in front of the Quaestor himself!” Also, the cake had metal in it and so wasn’t allowed into the prison. Throg comes in with a horde of lawyers; we have Ingrid. Quaestor Hammerheart comes in and Throg launches into his case. He calls some of the maids, and Dane (whose fighting ring we busted up). Ingrid stands up and proudly declares that we’re throwing ourselves on the mercy of the Court. 

Hammerheart stands up: “I am ready to render my judgement.” 

Gorm comes in and is sitting in the back. The Quaestor calls a recess and speaks with Gorm, and Whisper sees him say, “No souls? Truly?” 

He calls court back into session, but much less publicly; his judgement: “I’m sorry. You seem like good kids. The best I can do for you is ten years in The Hole.”

Throg looks like he has no idea what his father might have been into; he’s just straight up angry and lashing out. As we’re being marched out, somebody slips Whisper a pack of thieves’ tools and a note suggesting that someone will contact us on the inside. They cart us down to a small prison built off one of the abandoned mine tunnels: The Hole. Warden M’hole introduces himself; he usually goes by his first name, Hammer. 

Amergin’s going in the priests’ wing. James and Whisper are going in general population. Archibald is apparently going to start by spending a day in solitary, which has not only anti-magic but also Silence. Lithos gets classified into the wizard’s wing, not because Hammer M’hole believes that he’s a wizard, but because he’s pretty sure that Lithos is a camp slave and will get eaten alive in general population. We’re down about 4,000 feet and it’s about 100 degrees and damp. 

Amergin gets a little coil of thorns to worship, and the guard also asks about hours. Amergin has them mark him down as nocturnal; the shop won’t be open then, but Amergin doesn’t care. They don’t have any plants or animals except Monster, whatever that is. Waste bucket duty will earn him a bit of extra money. 

There are a couple of other people in the priests’s cells: a dwarven druid who’s been there for a while, named Lars, who has sworn a vow of silence. There’s an elf priest of Apollyon named Darexis, a priest of Amun who refuses to give his name. 

Things are a little tougher in general population. Guard: “There are three gangs. Join one. The Gravelers are mine workers. The Nomads are mostly dwarves, led by Naughty Hilda. The Chiefs are the most diverse gang, take care of their own, work with the guards.” They ask them about jobs. They both take up dish-washing as a job. 

Baldy is trying to sing, and failing. Eventually he gets the speech as well. He meets Trachelious, who wears fancy clothing but keeps muttering to himself. Rometta Blackblood is a convicted dwarven necromancer – she doesn’t eat with the others because she tend to try to eat the other prisoners. There’s also a bald, tubby human called Zaccharius The Wise. Amergin tries to get basic advice on what to do and what to avoid. The priest of Amun is like, “Oh, yeah. I know exactly how to get out of here. There are secret passageways all over this place. The guards have rings that let them see. I haven’t gone yet because I’m waiting to buy a bedroll.” Darexis is a dark elf priestess of Apollyon; she fought with a dwarf because he was weak, and killed him. 

Whisper and James eat by themselves. 

Trachelious seems to have been a sorcerer, and maybe not being able to cast spells has caused him to freak out. Zac is more helpful; he explains about Solvi, who runs the commissary. Some prisoners who’ve been here for a long time get to help her out. There’s one guy who’s this monster of a dwarf, called Monster; Zac thinks he seems nice enough. The guards have their own quarters, and that’s where the vault is; the warden’s room is back there. There are ballistae aimed to protect the front gate, and there are speaking tubes that the guards use and may also be able to listen in on us.

Baldy finally gets brought out of solitary. He, James, and Whisper are all out there in the yard with the gangs. The Gravelers are pretty obvious; the Chiefs and the Nomads slightly less so. The Chiefs are off to one side, calmer, a little better dressed; the Grvelers obviously just spend most of their money on beer. 

A dwarf comes over and shoves James over. Whisper steps up in front of him. The dwarf laughs. “It’s my job to clean up the yard,” he says. “I was just trying to clean up some vermin.” 

A big dwarf comes over from the Chiefs. “I want to fight him.” He points at James.

James, looking at a dwarf that’s twice his size. “Yes!” 

The dwarf rolls up his sleeves; James shakes out his arms. Baldy attempts to sing and inspire courage, which doesn’t work but sounds nice. (The whole place is under an anti-magic field.) She punches the dwarf, who grunts more in surprise than anything else. The dwarf swings and misses. He grunts again. She punches him again. This time he punches her, and looks surpised when she shrugs it off. He swings again and misses. 

The guards have faded back. Baldy starts trying to take bets, and the shopkeeper is just waiting for this to be over. Whisper steps into the crowd and swipes a mug of extremely watered beer. James kicks the guy in the shin. “Oi! That wee little thing, it hits so hard! How is it so strong?”

He staggering, and misses again. James hops up and punches him under the chin, and he goes over on his back. The guy from the middle of the Chiefs nods and motions James over. Baldy collects on the bets. Sven introduces himself: “Looks like you can hold your own. How about your friends over there?”

As far as Sven’s concerned, the Chiefs run this jail. They’re the ones who have a code of behavior. They take care of their own problems in house. They’re also basically on the side of the warden and the guards. Gaerm, who James just knocked out, got nine years for killing a man with a trident. One of the people Sven introduces is Kyril, a former smuggler who’s been here for a while; *his* job is to inventory the box.

Sven motions the other two over. Whisper isn’t having any of this, but Archibald is in. James, however, manages to sell Sven on the idea of using Whisper as an agent in another gang. They stage a quick scene, and it looks reasonably convincing. Whisper goes off to examine his new mug. 

Baldy goes and talks to Solvi, to see what’s available. It’s general stuff, including clothing, small decorations, One of the Gravelers, Scorr, carves tiny trinkets that she sells. Despite having won ninety copper from the betting, he doesn’t buy anything yet. 

Amergin has his evening shift. He goes around with the guards, and in the process picks up a better understanding of the layout. 

Lithos wakes up to see a small drawing in poop of two unicorns on the wall. He spends his time in the yard and buys a piece of chalk. A guy slams into the bars looking into the yard. It’s ugly Thrain, who inflicted all those scars on himself. Lithos stops to talk to Monster. He seems nice. He then tries to talk to Thrain. 

The guards out here have no armor, no weapons; just normal clothes, though they’re fit and athletic. He heads back to his cell. It’s a few hours before dinner when the skull shows up. It’s Vinny. He’s been talking to Gorm using a borrowed body. One of his teeth is growing bright brilliant green – it’s a new gem. He can offer us some health.

Our stuff is in the vault, except Amergin and Lithos’ stuff is in the storeroom for the stores. ·         

Create undead minions (no onyx required)

Move small objects telekinetically himself

Imbue other with ability to move objects telekinetically for 20rnds

Lv9: Time Stop (for somebody else) for 3 rounds
Lv8: Clone somebody, with sufficient flesh
Lv7: Statue (Recipient can “become statue at will”)
Lv6: Mage’s Lucubration, recall one of the lv1-5
Lv5: Telepathic Bond, Symbol of Sleep
Lv4: Minor Creation (1x cloth or wood object), Mass Reduce Person
Lv3: Greater Magic Weapon, Phantom Steed
Lv2: Detect Thoughts, Magic Mouth
Lv1: Disguise Self (but on other), Shocking Grasp (on someone else, they can discharge later)

He heads off and vanishes again. 

Lithos uses chalk to draw a little skull with sunglasses on.  Below it he writes, “He’s back.”

Amergin thinks this through. He’s aware that the yard is mostly empty at night. 

Day Two: 

Overnight, Whisper tests his lockpicks and explains about the inside man in the note, so James and Archibald are now up to speed. Archibald gathers some information and ends up talking to the Nomads. Gary, one of the Nomads, says the warden took his golden diamond from the vault. Kyril is the member of the chiefs who inventories the Vault; Ulf is the one who helps Solvi. 

James, it should be noted, still has the cursed mace that periodically leaps into his hand. There are possibilities here. 

Archibald attempts to seduce Solvi; one of the guards comes up behind him and jabs him between the shoulders. He’s stunned. Two of the guards haul him back out to the yard and toss him down on his back. 

That evening one of the guards comes up to the cell. “You. Baldy. You’re invited to a special gathering.” 

This is the point where Sven and a couple of the Chief beat the shit out of him and explain that he needs to stop causing trouble. 

Lithos, meanwhile, goes back to his room after dinner. Vinny is waiting. Lithos has him establish Telepathic bonds with Whisper and Amergin. 

The telepathic bond should last a couple of days.

Driving Needs, part three

"Okay, so why did we drive all the way out here if you could talk to Tammy through the cards at any time?" Elyssa was halfway through her Chicken Florentine pizza, and Chris made a point of keeping his attention on his own Cimarron pizza so that he didn't try to answer for Antoinette. 

Antoinette swallowed another bite of her pizza. She'd gone for the Mount Mushmore, and seemed to be enjoying it. "Because Tammy can't afford to let anybody know that she's been talking to the two of you, and I can't afford for the Ministry to find out that I set up the meeting." She took a drink of her water, then continued. "I don't really know, but I assume that anything said back at the training center will be overheard by the Ministry. A semi-random parking lot in Tulsa, on the other hand..."

Chris glanced at her. He was honestly a little surprised; he'd thought that Antoinette still trusted the Ministry.

She met his eyes. "Don't say it. Yes, your attitude is rubbing off on me, but we're not going to talk about that."

Chris turned his head to look out the window and took another bite of pizza, putting on a look of complete innocence. Elyssa laughed, then turned her attention back to Antoinette. "So all this was was just to set up a chance for Tammy to talk with us, without the Hargraves knowing about it?"

"Officially," said Antoinette, "we're here to eat some really excellent pizza and bond as a team. It's a trust-building exercise." 

Chris swallowed a mouthful of pizza and said, "That may be the best use of Ministry resources that I've ever seen."

"So look," Antoinette said, lowering her voice. "I know neither of you like talking about it, but you were both at Pettibone. I've seen your files, and I know you got in despite that, because you were able to attest to a truthspeaker that you'd been trying to save the students there."

Chris exchanged a glance with Elyssa; they both nodded. "What do you want to know?" asked Elyssa, reluctantly. 

Antoinette looked from Elyssa to Chris and then back. "Nothing," she said. "I trust you, both of you. But if there's anything I should know -- about either of you -- this is the time and place to tell me."

Elyssa said, "None of this gets back to the Ministry?" 

Antoinette met her eyes. "None of it." 

Elyssa sat back and sighed, then reached up and touched the medallion that hung underneath her shirt. She looked at Chris, but he met her eyes flatly, expressionless. After a moment she sighed again. "The ghost that killed Julius Thornblade is still around. She was a wolf, and his former partner; he killed her. We're... kind of dating. When we can. When she thinks it's safe to come out. Which is mostly when we're out in the Grey."

Antoinette set her slice of pizza down and sat back, digesting that. "So our team of three is actually -- potentially -- a team of four." 

Elyssa nodded. "Yeah. Except the Ministry can't know about it. Magus Frummelt would know immediately what ghost was haunting me. And if the Thornblades learned about her, they'd demand her destruction -- no matter that it was Julius who made her a vengeful ghost in the first place."

Antoinette considered that for a long moment. "Okay, so she -- what's her name?"

"Clarissa."

"She's an absolute last resort until we can figure out some way to plausibly introduce her as if she were new. Chris?"

Chris had just taken another bite of his Cimarron, so he held up a hand while he chewed and swallowed. "Yes?"

"Anything I should know about you?" 

Chris shook his head immediately. "Just a wolf," he said. 

"An improbably strong wolf who keeps surviving things that should have killed him," Antoinette said flatly, meeting his eyes and raising her eyebrows. "Grundus thinks you might be an elder, pretending to be younger than you are; apparently some wolves can adjust their appearance that way. Magus Frummelt thinks you were raised here in the Mundus, with at least one magus for a parent. He said it doesn't happen too often, but they think about ten or fifteen percent of Registered Outsiders are actually native to the Mundus. Maybe more. Mageborn children often receive initiations to make them stronger, tougher, smarter, so I can see why he might think so."

Chris looked at her for a long moment. He didn't want to lie to Antoinette, but he didn't dare tell her the truth. "Sure," he said finally. 

"Sure?"

Chris shrugged. "Tell each of them, Grundus and Frummelt, that I wouldn't admit anything but you're pretty sure they're right." He swallowed. "I'd be grateful."

Antoinette shrugged. "Sure," she tossed back at him. "But which one is true?"

He shook his head. "I can't answer that," he said. "I don't dare. Not even taking into account that I trust you completely."

"Chris... should I be afraid of you? Of what you might do, I mean?" She swallowed. "Are you a danger to the magi?"

Chris shook his head. "Nobody here -- and I'm including Clarissa and every mundane in the building -- has anything to fear from me. I'm not here to take revenge on the magi, or tear down the Ministry, or sabotage their work."

Antoinette regarded him for a long moment. "All right," she said finally. "I believe you. And I'll help you keep your secrets, whatever they are."

Elyssa half-stood, leaned over, and kissed Chris on the cheek. "That's from Clarissa," she said. "She wants you to know that she's grateful, and she wants you to keep your head down." She paused for a moment, listening. "She also says we're all in this together, and we have to watch out for each other." She looked at Antoinette. "And she says that you're way cooler than any Thornblade ever was."

Driving Needs, part two

"Okay," said Chris, with most of his attention on the traffic around them. "We're coming into downtown."

They hadn't spoken much on the way in; Antoinette had turned on the radio and let music fill the silence. "Over there," said Antoinette. "Head for the BOK Tower."

"The one that looks like a 9-11 building?" Chris asked tightly. 

"That one," Antoinette confirmed. "Find us a place to park nearby."

Several frustrating minutes later, Chris turned off the car. "Okay, we're here. Now what?"

Antoinette opened her door and got out of the car, so Chris followed suit. Elyssa was already climbing out. Antoinette held up a hand as Elyssa closed her door and Chris hit the button to lock everything; she fished inside her jacket and came out with a deck of cards. 

Arcana, he realized immediately. The feel was unmistakable. Antoinette glanced around and then gestured, and he felt a faint shimmer of Grey gather around them, hiding them from sight. A moment later she was studying one of the cards, speaking softly. A moment after that, she extended a hand and Agatha appeared in a shimmer of rainbow light, clasping her hand and looking around carefully. He caught a brief glimpse of Tammy Lynn Carterhaugh shimmering on the far side of the connection, and then she reached for Antoinette's hand and came through as well. 

"Agatha," said Chris. "Pleasure to see you again." 

"Likewise," she said, still studying their surroundings. 

Antoinette released Tammy Lynn's hand and said, "I understand you wanted some answers from my wolves."

Tammy nodded, then turned to look at Chris, and then at Elyssa. "I want to know what happened to my cousin," she said, glancing around them and tracing the dome of this isn't clear and ignore all this that Antoinette had placed around them. 

Chris nodded. "What was his name?"

"Sean," she said, and drew a deep breath. "Sean Jameson."

Elyssa shook her head. "I didn't see him. I ran across a small group of first years, tried to get them out. There were five of them. When they were caught, I dropped back and then pretended that I'd been tracking them. They didn't-- none of them contradicted me." She shook her head. "I tried to get them out again later, but it was too late. Valdemont was already feeding on the wards and using them to draw strength from the children." She glanced at Chris. "And the ghost wolf had taken a lot of us; nobody knew who to trust."

"Ghost wolf?" asked Antoinette, half a heartbeat before Tammy -- judging by her expression -- would have done the same.

"We died," Elyssa said simply. "We came into Pettibone angry, because we were tired of the magi coming into our lands and taking whatever they would." She glanced at Agatha, but Agatha was still watching their surroundings and didn't notice. "We captured the children, as we were bidden, and hunted for any who had escaped." She paused, eyes distant. "Then some of us turned up dead. Then more of us. There were scents there, wolf scents, but nothing we could track back to a killer."

"Truly?" asked Tammy. "I never saw anything like that in the reports."

"Nobody listened when we talked about it, either." Elyssa shook her head. "And what could we say? One of our own, an elder, might have turned on us? It was a judgement from the gods? There were arguments, dissent, accusations... even desertions." She looked at Chris. "You remember."

Chris nodded. "It was bad," he said. "But Sean Jameson... he was a second year learner, I think."

Tammy nodded.

"So far as I know," Chris continued, "he was gathered with the other students. He would have died when professor Valdemont tried to absorb the Heart." He hesitated. "I'm sorry. I wish I had some comforting tale of his courage or resistance to convey to you. I'm sure he was a good kid."

Tammy Lynn Carterhaugh drew in a deep breath, then released it. "That's more than I knew before, at least," she said after a long moment. "I wish I could have him back." 

Elyssa nodded sympathetically. "I wish the whole thing had never happened."

Chris nodded at that. 

"All right," said Tammy. "You kept your promise." She glanced at Agatha, who nodded, and then Tammy drew out her own deck of cards. She pulled the top card, focused on it, and then began to mutter quietly to the person on the other end. 

"Good to see you again," said Agatha, and then stepped up to Tammy, who handed her across to whomever she was speaking with. A moment later Tammy was gone as well, leaving only a rainbow tracery behind her. 

"I''m sorry," said Antoinette. "I thought we'd go and sit somewhere before we had that conversation. The two of you handled it beautifully, though."

Chris grunted and turned away. "Give us a minute," he requested. "That... that was a lot."

Blogging Challenge: Staycations

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews. I have not been following along as reliably this year as I did in previous years, but I'm still participating! Mostly.)

Prompt: How I Feel About Staycations

I love them. 

Seriously, travel can be stressful and expensive and exhausting. Don't get me wrong, it can also be enormous fun. But a staycation is low-key, easy, actually cheaper in some ways than going to work[1], and frequently feels like the only time I really get caught up on things around the house. Sometimes they feel like the only time I get caught up on sleep, too. 

On the other hand, the last two times I've tried to take a few days off for my birthday (a short but very definite staycation) we've had ice storms and the boys have been stuck at home.[2] That part didn't go so well; "quiet and relaxed" for me generally means having the house more or less to myself.

But as a general thing? I love staycations. I would be the perfect retiree. I would literally just, y'know, start cleaning and getting back to my hobbies.

[1] That would be less true if I packed lunch more often. 

[2] Not that they saw it that way. Not at all.

Driving Needs, Part One

"We're going into town," Antoinette said, and Elyssa nodded in a way that made Chris think they'd talked this over in advance.

Chris shrugged. "Okay."

"And," Antoinette added, "you're driving us."

Chris frowned at her, puzzled. "You don't know how to drive?"

"I actually do," Antoinette told him, "but I also know you grumble every time you have a lesson on it. You need to get comfortable with it."

"The fact that I despise automobiles--" Chris stopped, then swallowed and started again. "Fine. I'll drive us."

"Really?" Antoinette asked. "No objections?"

Chris didn't answer; he just turned to look at the car. It was a Honda Accord, a gray sedan, parked not far from the gate. The Ministry didn't forbid its Registered Outsiders from interacting with the human world, it just made very sure that they knew how to pass in mundane society first. Driving a car was part of that.

Antoinette tapped his shoulder and handed him the keys, and he touched the fob to unlock the doors. They climbed inside, Antoinette in the passenger seat and Elyssa in the back, and Chris waited until they were all buckled in before he started the car. "Okay," he said. "Where to?"

"Downtown Tulsa. I'll give you something more specific when we get there."

Chris resisted the urge to shrug again, and instead put the car in gear and drove them out through the gates.

Lithos: At The Square

"I can't believe you put a sleep spell on your bed," Kalkin said, for about the seventh time. They were walking back to the small market square where the tinkers had set their wagons. Once Lithos had finished his lecture, it hadn't been all that hard to convince the other to cut the kobold loose.

"You didn't have to find out," Lithos reminded him. "Now most of my siblings think we're sleeping together."

"Not even if you were a kobold," Kalkin assured him."Not even if you were an incredibly sexy female kobold."

"Kalkin!" a voice called from overhead. Lithos glanced up as Syscylla circled once and then descended, folding her wings behind her as she landed. "Where have you--?" She glanced at Lithos. "Oh. You."

Lithos nodded. "Yes. Oh, me." He actually kind of liked Syscylla; she was Kalkin's sister, younger by about a year, and where her brother's draconic bloodline had manifested as sorcery, hers had manifested as leathery red wings. 

Wings were cool. He wouldn't mind having wings. 

Scylla turned her attention to Kalkin. "Look, whatever you've been getting up to with the goblin--"

Kalkin tried to interrupt, but Scylla kept talking. 

"--you need to get back to the families now. Mom's been worried sick that you'd been arrested and the peacekeepers were about to descend on us, and Dad's been insisting that you were probably right there in the room and laughing your invisible ass off. They had a whole big fight about it. Nobody asked me, of course." She looked at Lithos again. "Um. You should go back to your den now. Pretty sure Uncle Padirog and most of the rest of the elders are going to try to murder you if my idiot brother tries to bring his goblin boyfriend back home."

"We're not--" said Kalkin, just as Lithos protested, "It's not a den--" They stopped, looked at each other, and Lithos finished with, "It's a perfectly respectable inn. And I'm officially a dwarven citizen now." 

"...And we are not," Kalkin added, "any sort of item."

Syscylla frowned doubtfully. "If you say so. You still need to get back to the wagons. And you need to get back to your perfectly respectable inn."

Lithos eyed Kalkin for a long moment. "Find another hobby," he suggested, and turned to start walking away. 

"What," asked Kalkin, "and miss out on all this fun?"

Music: Thunder Rolls

Okay, so the song was originally by Garth Brooks, and you probably remember it. But when I added it to the Country Music Road Trip mix, it turned out that... it wasn't the whole song. There's a whole verse missing. The dude comes home, she smells strange perfume on her husband and knows that he's having an affair, and... 

...nothing. The song winds down, and that's it. 

This was deeply weird to me, because I distinctly recall her shooting the cheating sonofabitch. So I started pulling up versions of it on YouTube and... nope, it's just not there. I was seriously starting to think I'd imagined it. 

...And then somebody pulled the lyrics for me, and yeah: that really was part of the song. I wasn't hallucinating, and it wasn't some sort of weird Berenstain Bears split-multiverse event. Armed with that knowledge, I went looking again, and found this version, which I rather like:

Debriefing, part one

"Ah, Chris." Magus Frummelt looked up as Chris entered his office. "Do close the door, if you please."

Chris closed the door, then turned back and waited until the magus motioned for him to take a seat. He was learning. 

"How would you say that your last assignment went?"

Chris settled into the lone chair in front of Magus Frummelt's desk and considered that for a long moment. "Successful, obviously. The young lady Carterhaugh is back with the Hargraves, and no harm appears to have been done. There were things that we could have done better, but for a first outing in dealing with one of the old families and a venture into the Grey..." He hesitated. "Well, it wasn't a disaster."

"No," said magus Frummelt. "It wasn't. Antoinette and Elyssa conducted themselves quite well, and Peter and Morrigan... well, they aren't your concern except perhaps in how they report your actions." He paused, studying Chris for a long moment; Chris, curious, returned his study. "RO Morrigan recommended that we make more use of magus Gillespie and her team, and magus Saldivar largely supports that recommendation. They both think that you're more... assertive than is strictly proper for one of our ROs, but neither of them seemed to think it was a problem."

"Assertive, sir?" Chris thought he had a pretty good idea of what they meant -- that he was stubborn and prone to trying to do what he thought was best -- but this was an area where he didn't trust his own impressions of the situation. 

"Materfamilias Amelie Hargrave made sure to express her concerns that you didn't 'know your place', though she didn't specify any particular events or circumstances. Coming from her, that sort of complaint could mean anything..." Frummelt put on an inquisitive expression and raised his eyes to meet Chris'.

"I'm not sure, Sir," Chris told him, which was honest enough. "She seemed worried that I might be intending to form some sort of attachment with Tammy Carterhaugh; she also said I wasn't afraid of her the way I should be."

Magus Frummelt chuckled. "She would think that, and by her lights she'd be right. Still, you must have done something right, or I'd be looking at a much more specific complaint-- or a demand for action. The old families need to be handled very carefully, even -- or especially -- when they're wrong."

"I do know how to shut up, Sir."

Frummelt's smile widened, so that had been a good answer. "That's an excellent skill, and I recommend you cultivate it around the families. Let your magus do the talking; even if she's uncouth, it'll be more acceptable to them."

"I understand," Chris told him. He really did; it was just that he was still, despite his best efforts, having trouble adjusting from what he'd been to what he was now. "Antoinette and I talked about it too, and she plans to start us training to work as a group. It's her decision, of course, but for whatever it's worth I support it."

"She mentioned that, and I approved it." Magus Frummelt sat back and relaxed. "You'll see it reflected in your training schedule in the coming weeks. I take it you aren't looking for a transfer, or unwilling to continue venturing into the Grey as needed?"

"That's correct, Sir."

"Then that's all for now. If you have any questions or concerns, you know where to find me."

Lithos: The Rival in Repose

"Um... Lithos?" asked James, stepping aside so he could see. "Why is there a kobold sleeping in your blankets? Is there something you need to tell us?"

"Darkstabber's sacred vulva," Lithos muttered, and Archibald shot him a look. "That little shit."

Lithos wasn't usually so vehement, so he immediately had the others' attention. "You know them?" Whisper signed. 

Lithos sighed and then nodded. "Lissorkalkin. Kalkin for short. He's... His family are tinkers. They come into town in their wagon train maybe once a year, looking for work. Kalkin's different, though. He's got dragon blood. He's a sorcerer." Lithos sighed again. "And he's been trying to prove that he's better at magic than I am ever since we met."

"Okay," said Amergin slowly, "but why's he sleeping in your bed?"

"He was probably trying to steal my grimoire," Lithos admitted. "Like I said, he wants to prove that his way of doing magic is better than mine. That's one of his arguments: he doesn't need a book to do magic."

"Okay," said Archibald, even more slowly, "but why is he sleeping in your bed?"

"Because I trapped it," Lithos admitted. 

"You what?" asked James, looking at him. 

"Magical trap," said Lithos. "I'm a wizard, I can do that. Master Flyleaf showed me how." 

Whisper was scribbling on his slate, and they all waited for him to finish. When he turned it to Lithos, it said: You can set magical traps? 

"Sure," said Lithos. "It's not hard. Kalkin could too, except his magics don't include the right spells. Which is why my way of doing magic is better."

"Should we report him?" asked Archibald. 

"Or kill him?" asked James. She was smiling the sort of calm, imperturbable smile that had always made their classmates take a long, involuntary step back.

Lithos shook his head. "No, we'll do something worse."

Amergin, almost reluctantly, asked: "...Worse?"

Lithos nodded. "Yeah. Muzzle him and tie his hands. Then I'm going to make him listen while I explain how much his sorcery sucks compared to my wizardry. Dumbass thought I'd keep my grimoire hidden in my bed, and that he could sneak in here invisibly and take it. Instead, he gets to listen to me lecture."

"Diabolical," Archibald said, in a tone of soft awe.

Writer's Block

So yeah, writing -- even low-stakes writing for the Blog o' Doom here -- hasn't been going well lately. This is not a huge surprise; I've mentioned before that May is basically the worst month of the year for me. Sometime I cope with that by writing more, but I've been trying to take a sensible, low-stress approach this year and...

...Well, frankly I think I'm just extremely burned-out. I think I have been for some time, and when I finally made a real effort to slow down it all caught up with me. And there's not much to be done about that except keep trying to take things slow and sensible until I get back to feeling like myself. 

Things are going to be a little slow around here, is what I'm saying. They should get better -- I should get better -- once we're done with May, but in the meantime I'm just going to try to get through without burning out completely the way I usually do. 

See you on the other side, friends.

I think I'm broken again

May, as usual, is trying to kill me. 

I'm back to having sinus drainage and a persistent cough/upper-respiratory tickle again, and it's making me kind of crazy. On the plus side, I'm still negative for both covid and flu, so it looks like this is just the worst allergy attack I've had in years. Which ::gestures around at everything the weather has been doing:: I am perfectly willing to believe. I've got some more medications, which should be enough to keep me on my feet through the next two weeks; after that I can afford to collapse. 

Work has also been making me crazy, mainly because I've been trying to work out a schedule for a big event that's coming up at the end of next week, and everybody has decided that they need a piece of my time for something. (Often fairly critical somethings, like the fact that the document attachments don't display correctly in our financial/ERP software, and the tech support for that is... slow to respond. This is not a good combination.) On the plus side, Facilities just replaced a belt that had broken on the air conditioning and fired up the fan motors again, so we're coming down to a reasonable temperature inside the building here. 

The plan for this weekend is to rest up as much as possible, and try to stay sane next week. There may be writing; there may not. There'll be a lot more sanity if we manage to play D&D. There'll be even more if I can shake off this cough. 

Wish me luck, y'all.

More Wholesome Children's Songs

Following up from the Weekly Blogging Challenge two weeks ago...

Don Gato: 

And, if you'll indulge me with a couple of... atypical arrangements...

There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly:

The Itsy-Bitsy Spider:

Lithos Foundingstone: Mornings

"Wake up, Lithos." One of his siblings was prodding him, but at the moment he wasn't even sure which one. 

"No," he said, and curled up tighter in his blanket. The blanket had been made for dwarves, of course, so there was plenty of it to burrow into. 

"Lithos, come on," the voice repeated. That would be Amergin, which... Still no. Amergin usually knew what was going on and what to do about it, but even mostly unconscious Lithos was completely certain that he wasn't working the inn today. If he wasn't working, then he didn't need to wake up. Q.E.D.

The caves were smooth-walled and comfortable, and he had his own little nook with just room for himself and his blankets, very cozy once he'd warmed it up. Nobody would bother him all the way back here, not even the other goblins...

Someone was tugging on his blanket. Whoever it was wasn't saying anything, just pulling the blanket up and letting gravity do the work of unrolling Lithos. "Hey! Hey! I'm slee--" That was as far as he got before he tumbled loose, unwilling awake. 

Rubbing at his left butt-cheek, where he'd landed on a stone floor, he looked around. Oh. Right. They put us in their jail. It made sense, after a fashion. The Senator was dead, after all. Though the idea that the group of them would just walk in to accept the Senator's dinner invitation, poison the man -- if it even was poison -- and then just stand around afterwards beggared belief. Still, he supposed the Lictor had to be thorough, even if the Senator's idiot son had been inclined to execute them on the spot. 

"Do I really need to be awake for th--?" He finally focused on the door of the cell. "Oh. I guess I do."

Quiet weekend, busy week

Well, it was mostly a quiet weekend. We played D&D for the middle school group on Saturday morning -- we're breaking in a new player -- and then went by the local comic book shop for National Comic Book Day and Star Wars Day (May 4th - so, May the fourth be with you) and out to lunch. So that part was busier than I'd expected, but it all went really well and nobody was taken prisoner by the Inquisitorius. 

I'm still kind of broken -- I swear, the more I try to take care of myself the worse I feel -- but I'm starting to feel like I might someday have the energy for writing again, at least. Monday, meanwhile, has returned with its usual load of Having a Job and needing to Plan All The Things, and also needing to make sure that Secondborn is keeping up with his work so that he can actually finish the year. 

Meanwhile I have tea and food, so I'm going to dive in and see how much I can get done if I stick to a sensible, steady pace... which may or may not happen, since timesheets are due this morning and there's usually some last minute panic. Still, I hold to the hope.

Music: Friday I'm In Love

The Cure: 

Terra Povos: Tying Up Loose Ends

So Vinny used to be a dwarf, before he was a floating magic skull with green gem eyes and green gem teeth that glow. He became a wizard and a lich, was living out in the west caverns and then Durest put necromancy on the map. Vinny’s a big fan of this, and then when Durest ascended Vinny decided to shrug off his body.

Turns out the dwarves are still racist against necromancers, so Vinny takes over the crypt of trickery, renames it to Durest’s Funhouse, and it helps spread the word around.

We manage to get back to the dock, and go ashore. We get the stuff for Mom to do spells with, and then Vinny pots  nice fox-fur handbag and he wants it. Well, okay, we buy it for him. He snuggles in; he’s very excited about this. We had back over to the Shattered Golem, bringing Mister Pibbles the carrion crawler into the stable. The Alderman and our goblin contact Max Glimmergab are at a table, and they’re pretty drunk. 

Mom comes out and hustles into the back before the two drunks really focus on us. 

We hand over the spell components and break down who needs help with the restoration. She thrilled that we’ve returned with enough money to get Pythia resurrected. We’re going to have to make the journey to Silverkeep to get it done, though. 

The conversation that ensues is someone awkward, especially after Vinny teleports up to our room and starts offering to reanimate our dead sister. As an undead. Which… NO. Lithos goes upstairs to try to head him off, which cues up a whole Benny Hill scene complete with Yackety Sax for the background music/

The rest of us eventually recount the story… well, most of it. 

Then we get the story of why Alderman Thunderbrew is drunk: the “investigator” talked his way into questioning the prisoners and then killed them. Mom thinks we should go check the jail and release the two guards that Thunderbrew locked up after that. The Senator is pissed and the Quaestor is coming to investigate the crime scene in person. 

The Senator isn’t here yet, and apparently we’re still invited to dine with him. He's also in Silverkeep, so we can do that and resurrect Pythia all at the same time.

We stop and talk to the two drunks. Alderman Thunderbrew has left Grimgor (the head of the Guard) to watch the jail; the Alderman explains how the investigator just came in, and went to talk to the prisoners. Also he had a package for us “from the quaestor” to “thank us for solving the mystery.” He seemed so official, the investigator did, in the colors of Silvergard with the logo on his back. Short-trimmed beard, jet black hair, kind of thin – for dwarf. Looked like a good underhill soldier – chainmail and  a tabard. 

We wait until morning, when we get our Wisdom restored. At some point Amergin comes out to use the restaurant and finds Vinny floating in the air with a spellbook in front of him and a pair of glasses on, reading. 

Elderman Thunderbrew is sleeping on the table, and Max is curled up in his lap. We have breakfast, Mom restores us. 

We head over to the jail. Grimgar looks up from the desk. “Oh thank God! Can you do something about the Alderman?” 

Baldy: “Marduk and Tara are taking care of that.” 

He takes us over to where we can look at the crime scene. Grimgar: “I wasn’t here when the ‘investigator’ came. So the evening this happened I was at home, and one of the guards called me back to the jail, where Alderman Thunderbrew. Scori and Ulfgar were the two guards on duty. They let the investigator see the prisoners, using the standard protocol. So there are keys on a latching ring in the main room. They go in with the visitor with the keys, so once they’re in they can’t get out. There’s a rope inside that the pull that rings a bell in the guard quarters and that guard comes in to bring the prisoner in.”

James: “Has anybody ever hung themselves on the rope?”

Nobody has.

So, the prisoners are in there and manacled to the floor. Which means that their corpses are now in there manacled to the floor. To find out what happened that night we need to talk to Skoli and Ulfgar. There’s also another prisoner who’s been locked in here this whole time. There are bloody footprints going back and forth across the floor because they’ve been feeding the prisoners while trying to not to touch anything. 

We send a note to the captain of our boat and tell him not to talk to ANYBODY until we get back. James and Lithos stay behind, while Amergin casts Pass Without Trace on the other three. Whisper checks the package for traps and finds nothing; there appears to be a cloak of resistance +1 inside. We open it up and look at the nice writing on the expensive paper: from the desk of the Quaestor’s office of Silverkeep. It thanks us and offers the cloak as a reward. Embroidered on the back of the cloak is the Silvergard emblem. We hand that off to Whisper. 

We are not, at this point at all sure whether the “Investigator” maybe was an impostor who killed a legitimate investigator, or whether for some reason the Quaestor actually wanted the deep dwarf and the duergar smugglers killed, or if something even weirder

Amergin goes sniffing around the outer room; Grimgor doesn’t think that anything much has changed in here. We think Grimgor is basically competent. 

We release Scori and Ulfgar. Grimgor has been using a second key ring; the one they were using is still on the floor. Archibald starts questioning Scori and Ulfgar. Scori is a little slow, but after talking to Ulfgar their stories seem to line up: they brought the investigator in on Thuderbrew’s orders. Red hair, long braided beard. Nice noble clothes. Had the Silvergard logo on his cape, just like the one Whisper is now wearing. 

So they unlock the door, then lock themselves into the holding area. Then they bring the prisoners out from the cells, shackle them to the floor, and they stand with the guest to flank him. Then the Investigator turns around to ask a question and then the guards wake up in the cell. Scori dreamed he was a unicorn. The investigator has a mannerism where he strokes his beard, but this is the third physical description we've gotten of him and aside from being a male dwarf, none of them match. 

Scori and Ulfgar leave with effusive gratitude. 

We move to Gondrin, a drunkard who’s been sitting there in his cell smelling the corpses rot. He’ll tell us the same thing he told Grimgor: there he was in the cell, “drying out”, Then there’s this visit, and they bring the prisoners out, and then things got quiet – really eerie quiet. Magically quiet. Then, out of the corner of his eye he sees the investigator walking back to the holding door. He can’t give us a very good description. And a bit after the guy left, Gondrin could make noise again. 

We agree to let Gondrin go. 

Whisper checks over the holding area, with Amergin and Archibald to help him. The key ring is on the floor, the corpses are still manacled to the floor. Amergin looks over the bodies; they’ve been expertly tortured, probably with tools; it was time-consuming and methodical. Based on what Gondrin had to say, it was something like half an hour before the silence ended. 

Lithos says, “I wonder why none of the bones in their right hands were broken?” Apparently they were writing answers while the silence was in place. There isn’t much sign of struggle, despite the blood on the floor. 

Vinny informs us that the corpses don’t have souls. It’s like the fat on the ribs, he says. He has no idea how that might have happened; he says it wasn’t him, though. Also, he’s too much of a soul snob to have eaten these two. Lithos doesn’t come up with much, except that it’s probably a wizard, sorcerer, or cleric of considerably higher level than us. Archie tells Grimgor that we’re going to have to go to the capital to investigate further and ask for additional support. 

Grimgor is actually pretty favorable towards his idiot boss, the Alderman, and hopes we can help him out. He then falls asleep because Vinny wants to come out and talk and Vinny knows the Sleep spell. He’s not worried about the tarrasque; he thinks this is awesome. He learns that it’s a baby and now he really wants to keep it as a pet. “Ohhhhhh,” he says happily. “This is getting good.” He slips back into his bag. 

We decide we need Mom to come Gentle Repose these corpses, but after that we need to lock the place up to make sure nobody else stumbles into this. We bring Mom over. “Huh,” she says. “That’s weird. It’s not working the way it usually does.” We don’t enlighten her about the missing souls, but it doesn’t matter: she’s our mom. “Amergin Gregory Foundingstone, don’t you lie to me!” 

So we tell her about the missing souls.

“Oh,” she says, “like the Caminante.”

Those are the secret police for the Empire; powerful people – like Senators – would be able to use them. They have this rod that they carry that they can use to eat souls – the rod is called the roubama – to silence witnesses. Brinja and Durak had smuggled the tarrasque baby in, and that means that the Inquisitor – um, investigator – almost certainly knows what they had and who took it from them.

It is definitely time to head for Silverkeep. We can take our boat, fortunately, which will only take about half a day – not that we have days, exactly, down here. We find a room, send word to the senator, and find the Temple of Shiva and get Pythia resurrected. She’s definitely not at full strength, so she’s just going to stay here and rest. We catch her up on the less… incriminating… elements of subsequent events. 

We leave Pythia behind and go back to await word from the senator. We head out to the market to get the lay of the land and do some shopping. There’s news of a customs agent who was killed in Deepwatch – which is where the two smugglers came into the kingdom. None of us think that's a coincidence.

We get back to find a scroll from the senator's butler welcoming us to Silverkeep; he's has a small barrel of fine wine sent to the inn, wine which is neither poisoned nor magical. Not that we're paranoid. The senator is honored that we accepted his summons; he's prepared a supper for us this very evening. 

We head over to the senator's house. We get an immediate introduction to the Senator, his older son Throg, and his lictor (a distinguished warrior who serves as a guard to important personages). Senator Goldbeard is a very polished man. He's polite, he's pleasant, he toasts us as the ones who discovered who killed his son. He's pissed that the ones who killed his son will never face justice-- he collapses onto the table, silent and unmoving.

Vinny says, "Uh-oh. Bad place to be." He disappears from the bag. 

Amergin approaches the senator, looking at Throg and the lictor.

The senator's chest is not moving. 

James spits out his wine. Archibald sets down his food and starts reassuring folks that it'll all be okay and nobody needs to panic. Whisper is taking stock of the situation. Lithos starts casting Detect Magic, and the Lictor draws his sword: "Stop!" 

Throg (the son) calls for us to be arrested as assassins. The lictor pulls him back a bit, but we're still going to the dungeon while they sort things out. Amergin yells for them to seal the house, and Lictor Bjorn acknowledges that as a good idea. We're still going to the dungeon, though.

Music: Come Along

 A catchy little tune from Titiyo: 

I have no brain, so this is pretty much what we get for today. D&D notes will go up tomorrow.