Journal of Quinn Ramos

Game One

January 26, 2002

Okay, so here I am getting ready to head out with my…umm…party?… to investigate this increase in power in Thet.

But I guess I should probably start this story from the beginning.

We were doing our thing, just having an ordinary day, when Garad (that’s the head of the family), sends for us. “Us” being me and Theo, or Morak the Murderer, as he is called by anyone outside the family. So we go to meet Garad and he tells us that he wants us to meet up with a friend of his in Futterscharte (I’ll never get used to these Dwarven names). The guy was a mage named Geldemar, and all Garad told us was that he was working on someone, and needed somebody “agile” to help him out. He meant that Geldemar was in need of a good thief, but everyone in the family has this way of beating around the bush about things. I guess I should clarify what “family” means. I’m a member of the Mathos family. I guess you’d call it a crime family, but I prefer to think of it as a family of people who get by as best they can in a competitive world.

Anyway, Theo and I take the job (like we’re gonna turn down a job from Garad), and head out to Futtershcarte. We show up at this inn, the Prancing Unicorn, or something like that, and people start leaving immediately. As you may or may not have noticed, Theo is half-orc. It’s really not a big deal, but everyone seems to have a problem with it. I say, nobody has a choice as to who their parents are, there’s no reason to hold one’s heritage against them. Try convincing the hotheads of the world that, though.

So within a few minutes, the place is cleared out, except for the other people that Geldemar had tapped for this job.

Maybe I should take this opportunity to introduce the people I’m going to be working with. After all, it looks like I’m going to be working with them for some time…they play big parts in this story.

First, there’s Niccolo Morinyon. He’s this smallish guy, not much bigger than me. He’s not wearing any armor, not carrying any weapons, nothing like that. I find out later that he’s an anatomist or something like that. He studies dead things. Keen.

Next is Roxanne. Okay, I’ve seen prostitutes before. A lot of the guys in the family hang out with them. First time I saw Roxanne, I thought “hooker”. The only things that didn’t fit the prostitute profile were the wet hair and the holy symbol she was wearing next to her pearl necklace. Heh…pearl necklace. Anyway, I saw the holy symbol, and it looked like a holy symbol of Taltos. That kinda explained the whole hooker look…followers of Taltos aren’t good people, and I’ve met some really bitchy whores, but then Theo told me that it was actually a symbol of Betshaba. Whoops. Yeah, so Roxanne’s a priestess of Betshaba…who happens to look like a hooker. Keen.

Then we’ve got Maggie, and her pet..something, Micah. Maggie was this big woman…not big like Fat Linda, the barmaid that Carlos the Fish can’t seem to stay away from. No, Maggie’s big like…well, built. Strong looking chick. She didn’t seem too comfortable, but then, Roxanne and I were the only ones who seemed to feel like talking while we waited for Geldemar. Anyway, I think Micah is a mountain lion, or something like that. I haven’t actually seen a mountain lion before, but I’ve seen a regular lion. We had one at the circus, until it got loose and fucked up some gypsies. It was an ugly scene, and their daughter was a wreck. I talked to her, and made her feel better. Yeah, I was a charmer, even at eight. Anyway…what was I talking about? Maggie. Yeah, I didn’t know what to make of her at the time. Actually, I really don’t know what to make of her right now…but we’ll see. She asked me how old I was right away. I hate that. I told her I was twenty, and she didn’t call me out right away.

And then there’s the Dwarf. Gunter Intiefen, of clan Intiefen. I don’t get that about Dwarves. They’re always telling you their last name, and then their clan, which is exactly the same as their last name. I should start saying my last name twice, to be more Dwarflike. I’m Quinn Ramos, Ramos. Of course, I guess I could say that I’m from clan Mathos, but that doesn’t really sound right, and we aren’t supposed to talk about the family around non-members. Anyway, I never saw many Dwarves when I was with the circus, but you can’t turn around in Eisennstadt without almost tripping over one. This one looked like most of them – short, red hair, beard…except that he looked like he had recently been set on fire. Probably had been working at a forge or something…I think he said later that he was a smith. Anyway, as soon as we met him, he got that look that some Dwarves get when they meet Theo, and my boy felt compelled to give them the whole “I’m only half-orc” speech. Gods, I wish that wasn’t such a big deal. One of these days, some fucking moron is going to start a fight just because Theo has green skin, and we’re going to have to wind up hurting someone. Not cool.

So there we were…all waiting for Geldemar, and no Geldemar. We chatted a bit. I told them about us being in the circus, and we talked a bit about what kind of stuff we do. Maggie makes weapons too. I guess we’ll never run out of weapons. Roxanne said something about being a priestess, and not liking having to wash her hair all the time, but she didn’t mention why she looks like a hooker. Long as I get to look at those big, big titties, it’s okay.

Anyway, we’re all hanging around, and in comes Geldemar. He sits down, and asks if there is somewhere more private that we can talk. I’m thinking that it couldn’t possibly be more private than an empty tavern, but the innkeep and wenches were still around. We agreed to go to Niccolo’s place.

So we set out, and we’re talking along the way about what’s going on. It seems that some wizards who see the future have forseen the nation of Thet conquering the whole area – not a good vision, by any means. Geldemar feels that Thet is gaining power right now, and wants the whole thing investigated. The wizards don’t seem to want to do anything about it, so Geldemar is getting us together to investigate. He mentioned some stuff that might be connected…people disappearing from towns, wells being poisoned, that sort of thing. I got the impression that we would start out by looking into that sort of thing, but he also made it pretty clear that he expects us to go to Thet eventually. It’s times like these that I wish I was just a farmer, or something. But Garad wants us to do this, so I’m down. If Garad says jump, I jump. That’s that. So here I was, jumping.

As we’re walking (Niccolo was riding), we run across this guy. He was dressed pretty nice, with an outfit like I’ve seen some of the magic students in Eisennstadt wear. Geldemar seemed to know him, and invited him to go along. I think Geldemar was his teacher, or something like that. His name is Agni Domingo Rafezzi. No mention of a clan.

So we get to Niccolo’s tower, and Geldemar mentions that he had hoped that Agni would join us, because there was something that he hadn’t mentioned. See, there’s this prophecy…and then he opened the tower door, and a big guy in black armor stabbed him through the heart with a rod.

Yes, you heard right. There was this really big guy wearing black armor. It was scary black armor. There were women on it (small, sculpted women, not real women), in various positions of torture, and it was very spiky. More on the spikiness later. He had this really big rod, that looked like it was made out of a bunch of different rods, and he shoved it through Geldemar’s chest, before we could do anything. This was bad, so I figured I should probably do something about it, as Geldemar was a friend of Garad’s, and I knew already that he was going to incur the family’s wrath.

I remembered something that Garad had once told me. He said “Quinn, a warrior stands and faces his enemy eye to eye, and trades blows with him. You are not a warrior. If you get in a spot where you have to fight, get behind the guy. Let him face off with Theo, you want to hit him in the back. It’s the safe way to fight. Don’t listen to people talking about dishonor – graveyards are full of honorable men, they don’t need another one.” So I see this guy, bigger than life and twice as scary, and I’m thinking, “If there ever was a time to follow Garad’s advice, it would be now.” So I try to slide between his legs, get behind him. Well, let’s just say that I found out just how pointy those knees were. I wound up getting stabbed right in the shoulder. It hurt like hell. I screamed, I admit it. You try it sometime. Not pretty. Anyway, the guy says something vaguely insulting, like calling us whelps, and slams the rod on the ground and disappears, leaving us with a dying Geldemar, and a wishing he was dying Quinn. Geldemar wasn’t dead though, and with his last breath he said something like “It is as I feared. The Manslayer has come.” Apparently, spikypants is either the Manslayer or one of his minions. I’m saying that he is the Manslayer…because if he’s just a minion, then the Manslayer is probably even bigger and scarier, and I don’t want to think about that. So, yeah, this guy = Manslayer.

Anyway, Maggie and Niccolo check out Geldemar, and he’s definitely dead. Then Maggie starts working on me, and it’s not pleasant. She’s telling me not to squirm, while she’s fucking around with this spike wound. Don’t squirm, my ass. I bet this has never happened to her. I told her I had been stabbed before, which is kinda true. Once, I slipped while I was opening a lock and stabbed myself with a dagger. It didn’t hurt as bad as this. Once, when I was little, I fell off a low rope and landed on my head. It didn’t hurt as bad as this.

So we take Geldemar’s body inside, and I’m wondering if it would be out of line to suggest taking his money. It’s not like he needs it anymore, right? So they’re talking about getting a wagon to take him back to the magic school. I mention that maybe we should use his money to buy the wagon, and everyone agrees, but says that we have to give the rest to his family. Well, there goes the “taking his money” idea. So we wrap him up in a blanket, and around this time we all notice that his body is aging, really fast. I’ve seen people die before, and this usually doesn’t happen. My guess is that this has something to do with the rod that the guy used. We decide to go back to town and get a wagon, and leave in the morning.

So we get to town, and Roxanne says she has to go back to the temple. Maggie and Agni go to visit Maggie’s family, to get a wagon or something. This leaves me, Theo, Niccolo, and Gunter to get rooms. I get the rooms, and the innkeeper asks me if one of us is Geldemar. Says that this guy in the corner, wearing all this shiny armor, was asking for Geldemar. So we got to talk to the guy, and he says that his name is Alexander Crownguarde, and that he’s a holy warrior of Vortumnis. I ask him why his Vortumnis symbol is red (most are gold, as you know), and he says that he’s from Koramia, and that’s how they wear them there. So we tell him that we can talk to him about Geldemar, but only after we’ve had some dinner. Agni and Maggie show up while we’re eating, and Niccolo and I go to talk to Agni. He doesn’t really want to tell Alexander about Geldemar, but it seems that Geldemar had chosen him to go along as well (Alexander had been waiting at this inn, the Griffon, all day – we were supposed to meet at the Unicorn.) Nobody ever accused the followers of Vortumnis of being geniuses, but they never lie, so I believed him. We convinced Agni to let Alexander in on what was going on, but only after we agreed to not tell anyone else what had happened.

So, we took Alexander upstairs and let him in on what was going on. We agreed to let him come along with us, as long as he doesn’t try to convert everyone. Glad I got that promise, because the last thing I want is this guy trying to convince me to leave the family and go straight. Not that I’d tell him about the family, but you know what I mean.

So we set out in the morning, the seven of us, with the bag of dust formerly known as Geldemar. We had to camp overnight, and there was some argument over who would have to sit watch. In the end, I agreed to sit watch, even though we had plenty of people to do it.

The next day we got to Eisennstadt. We went to the magic school, and met with the headmaster, Agador Winthrop, after having a run-in with this annoying guy from House Ophion, whatever that is. Alexander didn’t go with us, because his horse didn’t like the campus. Weird. Anyway, we’re in the headmaster’s office, and everyone is introducing themselves, and every time someone introduces themselves, he says something about them. Then he gets to me, and I introduce myself, and he says something about not realizing my potential, or something like that. Whatever that means. So then we get to Theo, and I’m expecting him to introduce himself as Morak, and he up and says “Theo”, and then claps his hand over his mouth. Yeah, there was some kind of magic in the room that keeps people from lying. So then, Maggie turns to me and asks me if I’m really 20. Well, there was no magic in the room to keep me from not answering, so I didn’t, but that pretty much answered the question anyway. So we told the headmaster what happened, and then he shuffles everyone out, but he asks me if I’ll stay and talk to him alone. I was about to do it, until I realized that he meant alone WITHOUT Theo, and neither of us was having that, so I said no. We split off from everyone, and Theo, Maggie, and I left. We got off the campus, and Maggie asks me why I lie about my age. I told her about how no one takes me seriously when they find out how old I am, and she starts giving me some lecture about her religion, and how she doesn’t like liars, blah blah. So she doesn’t like me because I don’t tell the truth about my age? Too bad. It’ll be a damn shame if she finds out all the other stuff I don’t tell the truth about. Theo tries to explain about how sometimes you lie to protect someone, but you know how it is when someone has a religious problem with something. I don’t think she even heard him. Then she asked where she might find a butcher to buy some meat for Micah. I told her I knew a guy who owned a butcher shop, and that he owed me a favor, and that I could get some meat for her. That’s right, I lied about it.

So Theo and I head off, and he didn’t seem too keen on breaking into the butcher shop, but I need the practice anyway. It’s not enough to just be acrobatic…if I want to stay in the family, I have to work on my other skills. We got the meat no problem.

We went to check in with Garad, who saw us immediately. I told him everything that happened. He was naturally upset about what happened to Geldemar, and I asked him to let us stay working on it. He agreed. It turns out that Geldemar is the mage that trained the founder of our family, so we owed our whole existence to him. That definitely lit a fire under my ass, since without the Mathos family, Theo and I would be begging on the street right now. Ever since I lost my parents, Theo and the Mathos family have been the only family I’ve got. I also told Garad about the whole headmaster thing… he backed my decision not to talk to the guy. Like Theo said, we could have been tricked into giving away the whole family, and that would suck.

So here we are. There’s some sort of inquiry at the school into Geldemar’s death, and Agni has to be there, so we might be in town for a while. I think our next stop after here is going to be either the town where the well was poisoned, or the place where people were disappearing. I’m leaning towards the well poisoning…not interested in disappearing myself. Soon as Agni gets done, I guess we’ll set off. This should be interesting...

Game Two

February 9, 2002

Woo…were to start?

Well, where did I leave off last time? We were in Eisenstaadt, where Agni (remember Agni?) was going through this whole inquiry thing about Geldemar’s death.

Anyway, the inquiry had nothing to do with me, and as I said before, Theo and I had resolved not to have anything to do with the mages. After all, the last thing I want is to be stuck into some freaky truth-spell and asked about the family (I know you remember the family). And since everyone else was combing the town to find out information about this and that and everything, I figured I’d just hang around the old homestead, work with Dominic a little, and get in touch with everyone. I told Roxanne that if anyone needed me, they could stop by the Flying Stag and tell Drogo that they needed to get in touch with me, and I’d be able to find them in about an hour. Hopefully they just think that he’s the only contact I’ve managed to make in my short (heh) stay in town. I told them I’d meet them at nightfall at the gate to the school.

So that’s where I went. Day was completely uneventful, except for some good training with Dominic. I got to the gate, where I was just overloaded with information. I’ll lay it out in a list:

1) The name of the town where the well was poisoned is Sonnenschwert. Gotta love those Dwarven names. I actually got this from two of my party members. We’re efficient like that.

2) There is an Auger and town that we can talk to. Her name is Gayla Magadas, and everyone thinks she’s crazy. I guess talking about the future in public will do that.

3) We had an invitation to dinner with Gayla’s father, Lord Magadas. Of course, by “we”, I mean “Agni”, although his “staff” was also invited.

4) We would playing the roles of staff members, and I was to be his apprentice. Not his personal entertainer, which I would be much better at, but his apprentice. Now, I don’t have anything against Agni, not really, but he’s one of those people. You know, the kind that…well, how to put this? The kind that would easily snap into the idea of “you’ll be my apprentice for the evening”, without asking us what we thought, or whether we had any suggestions. The kind of person who assumes that no one else is capable of producing good suggestions.

5) Theo wasn’t invited.

Yeah, you heard that last one right. Theo says “I guess I’ll be a bodyguard,” since that’s what Agni had assigned Maggie and Gunter to do, and Agni looks at him all cool and says “You’re not coming.” So I said “If he doesn’t come, I don’t come,” and Agni says “then I guess you aren’t coming either. No offense, but I can’t have an orc with me when I go in there.” Have I mentioned how much this whole half-orc thing pisses me off? It’s not a big deal. Anyone who talks to Theo for more than a couple minutes, when he’s not putting on this Morak act, you know, knows that he’s not some dangerous monster. Anyone except Agni. And to top it off, he doesn’t even have the decency to call him a half-orc…he just up and calls him an orc. It’s a good thing that he and I have kinda gotten used to this bullshit, because it looks like we’re gonna be hanging around with Agni a while, and I know Theo isn’t gonna do anything about it. Maybe I can straighten the guy out myself.

Where was I? Oh yeah, so everyone else in the group talks Agni into letting Theo come, because they get it. Then he tells us that we’ll have to get some better clothes to wear, so I head off and get my performing clothes, which are a lot like noble clothes, except less frilly and a little more colorful. Agni tells me I look like a jester. It’s a damn good thing he buys the drinks.

So we get to this place, and it’s big. I mean, I’ve seen some nice places, there’s not shortage of money in the family, but this place was beautiful. Splendorous, lovely decorations. So I did what any normal person with an eye for wealth and the good things in life would do. I cased the joint. Unfortunately, I saw that the first floor would be a bad way to get in. Course, that just means that breaking into this place would require a man of special talents…and I am such a man.

We sit down to dinner, which was nicer than any I’d ever had, even nicer than the dinner I had with Garad when I was invited into the family. Duck, venison, starling…I mean, who besides really rich people eats fucking starling?? Dinner talk was…boring. I got that we weren’t actually talking to Maganas himself, but a majordomo, or something like that. I didn’t catch his title, and I didn’t care. He works in rocks, or something like that. Maganas, I mean, not the majordomo. Agni made some small talk about business, and I have to admit that I was impressed with the subtle way he brought up Gayla, as if he had never heard of her. She doesn’t live on the grounds at all, but has her own house in town. It turns out that she was not trained locally, but in another city. Yeah, I listened to that part. I was bored, not stupid. What they didn’t tell us was where she lived, and there was no good way to ask it.

So then dinner was over, and guy tells us Agni that another servant will show him to his room. Agni goes over to talk to the dulcimer player, who was kinda cute, and I found out later that he invited her to his room. I probably could have made a play, but I had other plans for the evening, plans involving myself, a half-orc, a black costume, and fifty feet of silk rope.

No, not that kind of plans. Pervert.

Roxanne asked me if I wanted to explore, but I told her I was ready for bed. See above comments. Theo and I went back to our room, and I noticed that there was no balcony in our room. The windows didn’t open either. Setback, that. There was a stove with a pipe leading outside, but I didn’t want to leave through that. I designated it as an emergency return route, and I remembered to put out the fire, just in case. There was a balcony at the end of the hall, and Theo and I went out. Really, Theo went, and I snuck. We had arranged our alert signal to be two coughs. I thought it would have been good if Theo broke into song if he saw anyone, seeing as he was going to be sitting on a balcony under the moon on a brisk spring evening. Problem is, Theo doesn’t know any songs that you would sing on a balcony under the moon on a brisk spring evening. Maybe next time I should plan all of my escapades in a full taproom with a pint of ale poured on his head.

So I set out from the balcony, climbing the wall to the roof. Did I mention I’m good? Yeah, I’m good. This was no exception. I snuck around the roof, looking for rooms with stuff worth stealing, or rooms with windows that open. While I was looking into one window, a slate tile fell next to me. I look up, and there’s another guy up there, dressed for work and pointing a crossbow at me. We had a short, but awkward conversation. He claimed to have been there first, that he was waiting on the roof since sunset. I told him that I had been at the house before sunset. This wasn’t entirely true, but he was probably lying too. You know what they say – people in masks cannot be trusted. I asked him who he was with, he wouldn’t tell me (of course), so I made the Mathos sign. He didn’t seem to recognize it. I told him that I was really only there to case the joint, and that I would back off if he gave me time to get off the roof. He then tells me (get this) that if I doublecross him, I’d be facing the wrath of the Mathos family. Riiiiight. I did the sign again, and pointed out that he didn’t know it, and he told me that that was last week’s sign, and showed me the new one. The Mathos family doesn’t change their sign. When confronted with this damning evidence, he admitted to being a freelancer. Well, this gave me more leverage. After all, anyone outside the family who goes around doing jobs in our name is in for some shit. In return for not turning him in to the family, I made him promise to give me time to get off the roof, leave the second floor alone, and leave me something on the balcony when he was done.

I headed back, and got down onto the balcony so quietly that Theo didn’t even notice me. I scared him half out of his skin. Score one for me. I told him all about what happened, and we had a good laugh. I checked the balcony in the morning and found a pair of silver earrings. When I had them checked out later, I found out that they were worth about thirty silver pieces. I was kinda surprised – I figured I’d be lucky if the guy left me anything, and I never would have guessed that he’d leave anything really valuable. I guess the Mathos name carries more weight than I thought. Thirty silver for a simple casing jobs…I hope nervous freelancers show up during all my casing jobs…I could make a killing without having to do anything.

So the guys tell me in the morning that they know where Gayla lives. We had a short breakfast with Magadas, who didn’t seem very interested in talking to us. As far as I’m concerned, the feeling was mutual.

We headed out to Gayla’s place. When we got there, no one answered the door. We got a little nervous, and after some debate, I tried the door and found it unlocked. After a little more debate, we went in. We found Gayla sitting on a bench, smoking from a hookah. Aw, yeah. At first, we were having a very difficult time talking to her. She was all over the place – it’s no wonder everyone thinks that she’s crazy. I caught some stuff about Gayla was the one who introduced Geldemar to her Auger friends, and how she and some guy named Master Rugalos taught him about being an Auger. She also says that this whole thing is involving somebody who shouldn’t be here, and that she sees great danger. Then she gets this really creepy look in her eyes, and she’s staring right at me. She tells me that fate has no hold on me, that I have no fate. I can’t really describe how creepy this look is…and she KEEPS ON DOING IT. So I’m officially disturbed at this point, and Agni talks her into casting some sort of spell that’ll let her see the day that Geldemar died, I guess to see if she gets any insight out of it. Well, apparently this kind of spell involves disturbing innocent goldfish who weren’t really doing anything, and smoking a lot. She casts it, and then starts relating stuff that we already know. Real helpful. Then, when she gets to the part about Geldemar opening the door, she starts freaking out, and screaming. She breaks off the spell, and tells us that she saw the Manslayer, and that he saw her. Agni says that it doesn’t work like that, but she’s still way freaked out, so freaked out that I believe her. And it gets me thinking…if Manslayer can see her, and knows who, where, and when she is (because she’s looking through time, remember), then maybe he’s coming for her now. Like, the time that she casts the spell now. Because maybe he sees her and knows the exact date and time that she’s casting this spell, and maybe he’s planning on coming and killing her right after it happens. It’s all very heavy, and means that he could show up at any second. I mention this, and Agni thinks we should take her with us. I don’t think that he got what I meant…the Manslayer could come for Gayla at any second…and if we’re there, maybe he’ll decide to kill us this time. Nobody seems concerned with this, so Theo and I suggest that we’re going to go get the wagon. This was secret code for “get the fuck out of here.” I had no intention of being around when the Manslayer showed up, and if that meant never being around her again, so be it. She wasn’t much help anyway.

So we went to get the wagon. While we were there, we ran into Alexander. I don’t know if I mentioned before, but no one trusts Alexander. Well, I still think he’s okay, but the circumstances of his appearance did seem kinda sketchy. He asked me what I was up, and told me that he was planning on talking to a guy named Henrick. He asked where he could meet us, and I told him the North Gate. Hey, I wasn’t about to bust my ass trying to ditch this guy just because everyone thinks it’s unusual that he shows up to meet Geldemar, but not that the rest of us did. Hell, maybe Geldemar predicted that Alexander would miss the meeting, so he didn’t mention his coming.

Anyway, Niccolo and Gayla met us on the way to her house. She seemed sober, surprisingly enough, and pretty pissed. I found out later that Agni cast some kind of spell to sober her up, and Niccolo took her absinthe. Bad Niccolo. She went back to her house, and Niccolo, Theo and I were on our way back to the temple when she came running back to the wagon. At first I expected to see Manslayer on her heels, but then I saw that she was just charging Niccolo for some reason. Well, she didn’t seem too intimidating, so I pushed Niccolo back and stood in front of him. I figured I could take her. She didn’t attack though, she just asked which one of us was Niccolo (weird, since she had just spent an hour with him), and proceeded to tell him “The first piece is at Zaubersturm.” I asked her if she knew where the second piece was, and she got pissed at me and told me that it wasn’t a joke, that the fate of the world rests on this. Then she left.

We went back to the temple, where we met Alexander (who had got nothing from Henrick) and the rest. Niccolo tried to say something about our meeting with Gayla, but I stopped him, since I figured no one would want to talk about it in front of Alexander. Agni tried to get rid of him, but the guy isn’t stupid, and it’s pretty obvious he’s going to be sticking with us, so we just told everyone. Agni didn’t seem at all interested in pursuing this information, and it came out that the reason that he didn’t want to pursue it was because Zaubersturm is held by The Order of the Sword, or something like that. I think he’s afraid of them. We argued about this a while. I figure, if it was important enough for Gayla to chase us down, it’s probably something we should look into. Agni didn’t think it had anything to do with investigating Geldemar’s death, and that we shouldn’t bother with it. Eventually, Niccolo saved the day by suggesting that maybe this first piece was the first piece of the puzzle that we were trying to solve. Agni relented, and we resolved to travel North to the borderlands, where Zaubersturm lies.

Travel is boring, and will be skipped over.

Then we come to this inn, and decide to stop for the night. We go in, and it’s the most somber place I’ve ever seen. Everyone seems bored at best, depressed and sullen at worst. We order food, and it turns out to be gruel. I thought maybe some entertainment would liven the place up, so Theo and I did one of my acts. Let me tell you, I was on. I ended the act with the best backflip I’ve ever done, over Theo’s head, and no one even paid any attention. After a while, even some of the guys started getting this way. Theo even went off to bed. I was getting downright bored, and thinking of going to bed myself, when this woman walks in.

Okay, I promised myself that after I told everyone in the group about the events of the next hour, I would never talk about it again. I guess I’ll have to make an exception this time. I’ll tell what happened. But this is the last time. When I’m done with this story, I will never speak of it again.

So this woman walks in. And she was hot. No one seemed to be paying any attention to her, not even Agni. I figure hey, I’ve got nothing else to do, and I’m currently the most exciting person at the bar, so I’ll go ahead and give it a shot. I go to her table and start talking her up. She tells me that her name is Phaeron, and that she’s traveling with her brother. I tell her I’m a soldier, a member of an elite force, and she totally eats it up. I’m capping it off by inviting her to come up to my room and check out my collection of rare and exotic weapons I’ve collected during my travels (thinking that if we get up there and she actually wants to see something, I’ll show her my caltrops. They’re all kinds of exotic) when along come Niccolo and Maggie. They’re getting all into my business, and totally trying to cock-block me. While they’re trying to stop me from getting laid, Phaeron has moved to another table and is talking to some guys there. I get rid of Niccolo and Maggie as fast as I can, and I go grab Phaeron, who is still interested in checking out my “collection”. We head up to my room, and I take a moment to wake up Theo and talk him into heading into another room. No big deal, I figure, I’d have done the same for him. He barely pays attention to me, and heads out, and Phaeron and I start getting it on. Well, right as I’m about to come…

Do I have to talk about this? Just this once, and then never again.

She wasn’t even human. I look down to see this gray thing with big bulgy eyes under me. It was disgusting. I only saw it for a moment, but it will haunt my nightmares forever. I shudder to even think about it. Before I had a time to even react, something stabbed me in the back, and I passed out.

When I finally came to, it was a couple days later. My back felt kinda like when I slid into Manslayer’s armor, except that it was in my back, and felt like I had had the entire suit of armor pushed through me. Niccolo had apparently been working on me, but he told me that when he found me, I had been patched up a little already. Apparently the person who stabbed me wasn’t trying to kill me. It turns out that we were robbed. They took Niccolo’s sword and his money, Alexander’s sword and holy symbol, and my lockpicks and the silver earrings. Apparently they also stole Niccolo and Agni’s horses, and cut the axle in our wagon so that we couldn’t follow them – A couple of the others had tried to chase after them, but no luck. Theo had stayed with me the whole time…he felt really shitty about not having been there when it happens. Of course, he would have felt just as shitty if he had cock-blocked me, so it was a no-win situation for him. I felt ready to leave, and I wanted to get out of the place, but they told me that I had to stay in bed for another day. Another thing that they told me was that Agni had found out how to use a ring that Geldemar had that allowed him to teleport. He had been gone almost all the day before, but he found his way back to us that morning after I woke up. He had a hell of a story to tell.

He told us that he had been to Geldemar’s tower, and had seen many amazing things, not the least amazing of which was a copy of the prophecy that Geldemar had mentioned. He showed it to us, and we all passed it around to put it to memory. I won’t recite it word for word, but I know it very well now. It mentions someone called the Wind Lord, who will come from a world far away. This matches what Gayla said about this being centered around someone who doesn’t belong here. It also says that he cannot be slain, and Geldemar said that the Manslayer cannot be killed, so I’m guessing that’s who we’re talking about. Big logical leap, huh? The prophecy says that seven people will come to kill him, and this reinforces my feeling that Alexander belongs with us. See, Geldemar said he wasn’t expecting Theo. So take out Theo, you’ve got Me, Roxanne, Niccolo, Gunter, Agni, and Maggie. That’s six. Who’s the seventh? If it’s not Theo, it’s Alexander, and Geldemar wasn’t expecting Theo. So I think he really did send for Alexander. Course, the guy might still be a little sketchy.

The prophecy spoke about each of us, and for the most part it’s pretty obvious who’s who. The one everyone says is mine says that I have no past, no future, and that I’m opposed to fate. It also says that I was born of neither man nor mate. This makes no sense. I had parents, and I had a past. I distinctly remember growing up in the circus, and I remember my parents very well. So either this isn’t really my passage, or it’s wrong. It also says that I am the key and can kill it at last. I’m not sure that I like the insinuation that I’m gonna have the kill the Manslayer, if that’s what the prophecy is talking about. I just got into this to do Garad a favor, I have no intention of fighting that monstrosity. The other thing really weird is the seventh passage. This one I’ll recite:

“The arm of strength comes to finish

In his hand a sword, in his mind comes magic

He is cloaked with lies, but granted his wish

He will be loyal, but well he will pick”

Okay, who? Geldemar didn’t think it was Theo, and neither do I. After all, Theo doesn’t know the first thing about magic. He is loyal, but also doesn’t usually use a sword. He prefers an axe. It could be Alexander, that makes the most sense, except for the bit about being cloaked with lies. Everyone else thinks he’s not on the level, but he’s a holy warrior of Vortumnis. They don’t lie, everyone knows that. Geldemar also wrote something at the bottom about “the rest”. We had no ideas what that was about.

After the reading, I went back to bed, but I wasn’t alone. It turns out that Theo talked to Roxanne, because he’s worried about me. I said something when I was telling everyone about the incident, something about how I was going to have to go through a period of self-induced celibacy. I think he was concerned that maybe I was ruined for women forever or something. Hell, maybe he thought I would turn gay. In any case, he asked Roxanne to take care of me. Yeah, she’s a hooker. I kinda suspected as much, but you don’t exactly go around calling priestesses whores (she doesn’t mind that word, which I think is cool. Most of the whores I’ve known would slap you silly if you called them that. They want to be known as “call-girls”, “women of the night”, and other stupid shit like that). So she said that Niccolo had healed my body, and she needed to heal my mind. Truth be told, I wasn’t planning on staying celibate forever, and I was a little uncomfortable about the whole thing, with images of the incident still in my head, but in the end, who am I to turn down a free lay? And she was good, a real professional. Better than some of Mattie’s girls, even. We balled all through the night, taking breaks to talk about stuff. She told me about being a priestess of Betshaba and a prostitute…apparently that’s cool with the priesthood. She’s not supposed to do it full-time, but that’s just because she’s not supposed to have any job full-time while she’s an acolyte. She wants to see the ocean, and she has to, as part of her priestly duties. She’s never seen it, except once in a dream, when Betshaba came to her and gave her calling. Apparently Betshaba looks like a boat. Fitting, I suppose. I told her that I’d never seen Orchus, but I guess he’s still on my side, since I’m still alive. Then we did it again. Keen.

I woke up feeling refreshed and vitalized, and I was ready to go. We took off from the inn, which seemed a good deal more lively, although still no hub of excitement. Did I mention that travel is boring? It is.

We stopped by another inn, where Theo and I did our act again. It wasn’t as good as the last one, but the crowd loved it anyway, and I got 30 silver out of it. When I got back to the table, Maggie seemed surprised, and asked us why we were adventuring. I laughed…if she only knew. It was a much more pleasant stay, and we left in the morning. This time something happened on the road. An army passed us. Well, in retrospect, that isn’t too exciting either. We’re now stopped at another inn. Theo and I have forgone the act this evening. Three times in a row isn’t too lucky, after all. I guess we’ll be setting out in the morning. I hope we get to Zaubersturm soon.

Game Three

March 9, 2002

Have you ever had questions? So many questions that you didn’t know which ones to ask first? I’ve felt that a lot lately. Now, I’m starting to get answers. Answers to questions about myself, and about others. And now that I have answers, I’m not sure that I want them. But maybe this will make more sense in the context of my story.

We found ourselves outside of [city], and as we approached, we saw that the circus was in town. Not just any circus, though. This was Old Boltano’s circus – I’d recognize it anywhere. We were about to head past the tents into the gate when Teho asked if we could enter the city by another entrance. He said that his memories of the circus were unpleasant ones - Things thrown at him, being treated like a freak. I have to admit, I had never thought about it before. I left the circus because I felt that it was time for me to move on. It never occurred to me that Theo might have left for other reasons. Of course, all of that turned out to be moot – but I’ll get there in a minute.

We entered through the East gate, checking in at the gatehouse on the way in. We spent most of the day finding an inn. When we got there, there was a creepy looking guy who came over to talk to Alexander in a language that we didn’t know (Alexander told us that it was Koramian). According to Alexander, the guy was his (Alexander’s) father’s servant. Turns out that Alexander’s dad has been arrested for heresy while wearching for Alexander. Something about not agreeing with Alexander’s quest, I think. The servant, who used to be a criminal, was set loose, and he’s going to take Alexander to his father to try and free him. We offered our help, but Alexander said that our quest was more important. He headed out, and I decided to take the opportunity to slip out and follow him. I had already been planning on visiting Maravech, Garad’s son, that evening, so I might as well leave then, so I could make sure that Alexander was actually leaving town, and not secretly plotting our deaths. Don’t get me wrong, I actually trust the guy. But I know Rafezzi does not, I don’t think Niccolo does, and I think the feeling is starting to become contagious. Better safe than sorry, right? Well, he went straight for the gate, and left town. So much for that, on to Maravech’s.

Maravech’s place was this nondescript tavern in a dark corner of town. After a short wait, we were let in to see him. First thing he asked was if I was bringing a message from Garad. Like I’m some sort of messenger boy, or something. It irritated me, but he’s much higher in the family than I am, so I have to play along. I explained why I was there (dropping in and being polite), and told him about my quest (that we were investigating Thet, and that Geldemar was dead). We talked for a while, and then I left. I had only gotten out the door when [guy] intercepted me. Here’s where it gets weird. He says that he works for Geldemar, and that he’s been reporting unusual occurrences to him. Now that Geldemar’s dead, he’s going to report to us, since we’re carrying on Geldemar’s work. He asked if there was a good place to send letters containing his reports to. He had been going through the University, but he didn’t like doing that, and with Rafezzi having problems there, that wouldn’t be a good place anymore. He doesn’t want to get the family involved, so it had to be somewhere outside of their influence. I thought of Maggie’s parents’ house, and of Niccolo’s tower. The problem with Maggie’s parents is that they might read one of the letters, or they might be drawn into this conflict, something I definitely don’t want. The problem with Niccolo’s tower is that we don’t know when we’ll be going back there. Also, I have the feeling that Niccolo isn’t going to be with us that much longer. I feel like the first time he’s in a fight, he’ll die of sheer bad luck, or something.

Anyway, [guy] gave us a day to come up with a place, and told us to come back and report to him the following evening. He also informed us that we had been followed, and described someone who sounded a lot like Niccolo. We went back, acting very drunk (we told them we were checking out the nightlife), and couldn’t find anyone, so we went to bed. The next morning, we gathered everyone together and gave them our story – that we had been out drinking, that I had spoken too loudly about Geldemar, and that we had been approached by a man who wanted to share some information, as well as send us reports in Eisenstaadt. Let me say right now that there’s a time and place for a two-man lie. Under the right circumstances, a two-man lie is convincing. It’s especially good for a con, when you can flow off of your partner, build a pretty elaborate story, and when it’s all said and done, you can leave and not have to talk to the victim again. The story doesn’t have to be air-tight, just believable. A bad time for a two-man lie is this situation. These guys know me and Theo. They’re going to be spending a lot of time with us, and the story might come up again. We had to make it good, and I felt like I was having to run parts of it past Theo constantly while we were telling it. I think we did a great job, and I don’t think anyone doubted us…but I was uncomfortable as all hell. Anyway, we told them that we were meeting this guy at a bar, and as I expected, they wanted to come along. We had told them that if we didn’t go alone, he wouldn’t show, but they wanted to us to tell them where we were going so that they could show up ahead of time. Roxanne even suggested everyone going by different routes, so that we were less obvious. We were in a jam, and I knew it, because it wasn’t really a bar that we were going to…it was an alley outside of Maravech’s, and there was no way I was leading them there. Theo and I talked it over, and found directions to a bar that sounded like the one we had described. We agreed that we would say that the guy intercepted us on the way, and we got our business done. The only loose end was Niccolo – he would know the bar wasn’t where we went. We decided to confront him. We figured that he’s been sketchy enough lately that he probably has something to hide, so we took that angle. He agreed not to tell anyone what was up. We didn’t tell him about the family or anything, just that I had a contact in town who wouldn’t appreciate having an adventuring group led to him. It worked out, but I’m starting to worry about how I’m going to stay active in the family and hide them from the party. I can’t leave the family – I wouldn’t be there if Garad didn’t want me, and if Garad wants me around, then I’m sticking around. Hopefully this won’t be a problem. Then again, that’s the problem with lying to friends. They have more chances to figure out that you’re not telling the truth.

Ahh, fuck it. I can keep it hidden.

So we set our little plan in motion, and went to meet [guy]. We told him what the group had decided on – that he can deliver messages to the Rose, the bar where Roxanne works. He agreed, we agreed, everyone agreed. So we left, and went back to the bar. On the way there, we saw the damndest thing. This guy, couldn’t have been a year older then me, was rolling around in the mud in the middle of the street. I found out later that he had approached the group and asked for an adventuring job, and they decided to fuck with him. I thought we should hire him – if he wants to be an adventurer, we’ve got a whopper here. I was pulling for it, but somebody pointed out that our quest might get very dangerous, and if he didn’t make it, we’d have his death on our conscience. I reluctantly agreed. It would have been nice to have someone else around to carry stuff, and there was something else about it too…I couldn’t help but wonder if I would have been treated the same in his situation, if I wasn’t what I am. After all, why am I here? Because of Theo? Because Garad felt that he needed to send me to Geldemar for some reason? If I wasn’t…well, Quinn… would I be rolling around in the mud thinking I had been poisoned after some bored adventuring group played a prank on me?

Nah. I’m way to smooth for that.

Anyway, mission accomplished and we decide to head out on our way. After some more travel, which is mind numbingly boring most of the time, something actually happened! We’re traveling along, and we hear this sound like someone crying for help. We go and investigate, but all we find are some animal tracks. Maggie points them out, and it looks like the animal is a damn big one. Even though Maggie wanted to investigate it, I was all for getting the hell out of there, once we determined that there was no one hurt. Did I mention that the animal was damn big? We spoke to some soldiers on the road who told us that it was likely a Leucrotta, and that Leucrotta are tough fights. Good thing we didn’t find it, though I think Maggie was disappointed. I guess I can understand – she seems to be very into animals, and I’d be pretty disappointed if I missed an opportunity to pull off some kickass balancing trick.

So we arrive at Zaubersturm, and just in time for a siege! Yeah, they’re expecting the Thet army in a couple days. We didn’t know that at the time, though. We saw that they were building something on top of the keep. There was a long argument about how to handle these people – I’ve said before, and I still believe, that Rafezzi is somewhat afraid of them. Of course, he painted a picture of an army of mages who can rip you apart with magic, but can’t see through a simple lie. I think he was giving them too little credit, but if he says that they don’t have magic to reveal lies, I have to believe him on it. After all, he’s the mage, not me. What we decided in the end, after a discussion that took WAY too long, was that we would not tell them exactly why we were here. I suggested that we tell them that we had been sent by an Auger, who had told us that we would receive further instruction on our quest once we reached the keep. Everyone seemed to go along with that, so we approached.

Yeah, they only paid a little attention to our story. Mostly they wanted us to get the hell out so that we wouldn’t be in the way for their siege. We got bumped around through a couple of minor officers until we were offered quarters and the chance to speak to the Mage Steward, William Mercer. We walked in, and he seemed to recognize Theo right away. They didn’t talk right away, instead he spoke to the group about us being there. It was pretty much the same story – Zaubersturm is about to fall under siege, and they don’t need mouths to feed. Basically, we’ve got to get out before the siege, or prove ourselves useful in it. If we can prove our usefulness, they throw us to the Thayvians. Everyone agrees to the arrangement, and we’re told to stay out of everyone’s way. Then, as everyone is leaving, Mercer asks to speak to Theo alone. Well, speaking to me alone means speaking to both Theo and myself, and speaking to Theo alone means speaking to both of us as well. So, I stuck around.

And everything in my world went mad.

By all that...I mean...how do you begin telling a story like this? I guess I’ll start with Theo. Mercer knows him because he’s a mage. Yep, “Magic in his Mind”. It was Theo. How did I never know this? Well, there are a lot of things that I never knew. Like, I never knew that I hadn’t actually grown up in the circus. In fact, I had never been to the circus at all, and neither had Theo. That’s why Theo didn’t want to go there – it had nothing to do with his bad memories, it had to do with the fact that no one would recognize us. So how did I remember growing up there? Well, all of my memories had apparently been magically put into my head. Oh, and I never knew that my parents weren’t real. I never watched my parents fall to their deaths, and there was never a mysterious circumstance surrounding their deaths. They never died because they never were. They were just another fake memory. So why all the fake memories? Oh, this is my favorite part. I was never born, I was made in a wizard’s lab. Yeah, made in a lab. Like a staff, or a knife, or something like that. It took several wizards working together on this...I guess that I could be proud of that. Once I was made, they made it Theo’s mission to watch over me and protect me. Course, he’s not sure that I really need protecting, since I came back after the first time that I died. Yeah, I died. Back when I got stabbed by the gray thing, it killed me. That’s another thing I never knew. Theo says that when he got there, there was just a puddle of blue goo, but it was going. And then, after a while, it grew into me. Nobody ever patched me up – I patched myself up. So can I die? I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. I don’t know about Theo. He says that I started out as a mission, but I became his friend, and our friendship is real. And...I guess I believe him. I mean, I had to put a lot of thought into it...it’s hard to express what I went through here. I’ve always thought that Theo was the one person who would never lie to me...and it turns out that he’s just the one person who’s been lying to me the longest. But if everything I know is wrong, I’ve got to find someone else to trust. And I don’t know why, but I think everything is out in the open between Theo and me.

At least this explains the “no fate” thing.

So here I am. I’m the product of a wizard’s work, built from magic and nourished on a web of secrets known only to a few (Garad among them). I could take years to mull over this in my head. Unfortunately, I don’t have years. Because we’ve just been informed (so timely, these guys) that the guys expanding the catacombs have opened up an unexplored chamber. They think that it may be part of an ancient mage’s tower, and they want it explored and cleared out so that they can seal it off during the siege. If there’s a way in under the castle, they want to know about it. And since everyone else is training for the battle, we’re the best ones to do it, right? Yeah, right. So off we go. We’ve got four days to get in and out, and to bring some answers with us. If we aren’t out in four days, they seal the exit up behind us, and we could be stuck for months.

Well, at least it’s a distraction. I need a distraction. It keeps me from asking more questions. It keeps me from thinking about who I am, and from then thinking about the fact that “who” is not as appropriate a question as “what”. It keeps me from wondering if anything Theo has ever told me is true. I can’t be thinking about this right now. We’ve got four days to get in and out, and the group needs me as their advance explorer.

But still, I can’t help but remember...I died, and came back. What does it take to kill me, permanently? Can it be done? Am I...immortal?

Game Four

April 6, 2002

You know, if everyone weren’t so tense right now, I’d be having a lot of fun.

If you remember last time, we have been asked to explore and clear out an area underneath Zaubersturm. We’ve been given four days before we’re to be sealed in inside to keep out any Thetians that might sneak into the keep from underneath. Since there’s a pretty good chance that we might find this piece that we’re looking for down there, we went.

The first couple of chambers were catacombs. See, the way they found this place was that they’re expanding the catacombs beneath the keep, and they broke into this unexplored area. So we got to wander through three levels of dead guys. Nothing remarkable, except the torches on the wall. When we walked into the rooms, the sconces lit up. Keen.

Anyway, after three levels we found ourselves in the chamber that we’re supposed to explore. You know, it’s underground, it hasn’t been explored in a long time, and it’s full of traps. Let’s just call a spade a spade, and call this place a dungeon. It sounds better anyway.

So we’re in the dungeon. The place they broke in was in the middle of some kind of corridor. We had two ways that we could go – one way was full of cobwebs, and down the other way, we saw some spikes covering the floor. Yeah, already we’ve found traps, apparently. There was a little indecision over which way we would check out first – I wanted to have a look at the spiky end of the corridor, and Maggie wanted to see if we could burn down the cobwebs and see down the corridor. So, she takes Micah over there, and Micah breathes some fire up on the webs. Did I mention before that Micah, Maggie’s… umm… cat, can breath fire? She can. She did. It lit all the webs, and it also lit a pool of oil behind the webs that we couldn’t see, and shot a couple balls of fire down the corridor. Damn good thing I’m quick. I managed to roll out of the way, as did Niccolo. Most everybody else was okay, except for Roxanne, who was fucked up very badly. Niccolo got over to her and went to work on her as fast as he could, and got her awake and on her feet. You know, he’s probably the strangest non-circus person I’ve ever met (no, wait, I’ve NEVER met any circus people…). He’s a damn fine healer, and he’s pretty sneaky, and as we found out over the past day and a half, he knows how to recognize traps. Hell, I’d say he’s better at that than I am. He’d make a good addition to the family, actually. Maybe I’ll look into that.

Anyway, after the crispiness, we checked out the spiky corridor. I was looking pretty hard for traps, and I found a suspicious seam in the floor about twenty feet away from the spikes. We dropped a big rock on it, and the floor flipped over, then we heard a rock hitting underneath where we are. Does that make sense? Basically, the floor spun, and something flung the stone, which had fallen through a huge trapdoor, up against the spiky bottom of it. Hard to explain, and pretty scary. We decided not to mess with it, and went through the door at the end of the hall. I was checking the whole way for traps, and checking every door that we came to. After a while, Niccolo started checking with me, and we worked together on it. He and I make a damn good team, actually.

The next room had four exits, not counting the door we came through, and had a statue of a minotaur in the middle. The statue was made of marble, which was unlike the walls and floor, which Gunther said were made out of some sort of limestone. We checked all the doors, and tried to avoid the statue after Roxanne said that she had heard stories from adventurers talking about statues coming to life. We decided on one door to go through, and as soon as we went through it, we heard this tapping sound. That was when Gunther told us about a legend the dwarves have. There are these things called Nockers, see, and they live in abandoned caverns and dungeons and stuff like that. They chip away at the walls and ruin the integrity of the structures. They don’t mess with people normally, unless they are seen, at which point they attack the person who saw them. Not directly, though, but by caving in the passage that the person is in. Truth be told, the story kinda freaked us all out and put us on edge. After a while, though, we got used to the tapping, and it stopped bothering us as much. Maggie also saw tracks that she thought might have been hobgoblins, but we didn’t see a hobgoblin the entire time.

Now, the next few hours were some of the longest and worst ever. Not worst in a “almost getting killed” sort of way, but instead in a “almost killing myself from boredom” sort of way. See, this entire section of the dungeon was a huge maze. We should have figured this from seeing the minotaur statue, but I don’t think anyone was thinking that way at the time. Anyway, out of something like 9 hours of walking around, we only found a few interesting things. It was a good thing Roxanne was making a map, or we would have been helplessly lost. It’s also a good thing they decided to let me navigate, because I would have gone insane without having decisions to make. We walked around and around, and it was horrible. We found a couple of skeletons, and in one small room, we found a skull that was full of old, dried out shit. That kinda freaked everyone out. We also found a small room that had a stone circle with a metal plate in it. It looked like some sort of trap door, and there was a skeleton of someone who had died with his hand on it. We tried all kinds of ways to pull the pull ring without touching it, but we figured out eventually that it wasn’t dangerous…after we broke the pull ring. We tried chiseling around it, but whatever the plate was seemed to be held into the ground by iron rods. While we were fucking around with it, we heard a rumbling sound, and some air and dust came into the room from all the entrances. It sounded and felt like a cave-in. We were very freaked out, but we managed to keep our shit together long enough to explore the rest of the maze. Then we booked for the exit. We were kind of expecting the minotaur to have come to life and be hunting us, but it was still there. This turned out to be a very good thing.

We went back to the spike floor trap and tried to figure out how to get past it. We eventually decided upon dragging the statue into the corridor and using it to block the floor from swinging all the way around. Then we used Maggie’s pitons to wedge the floor in place. I tried climbing along the wall over the floor section, just in case, but the walls were too crumbly, and after two falls (one of which was on top of spikes…ouch), I gave up. The floor was sturdy enough to walk on anyway. We checked out the door at the end of the hall, and entered, finding ourselves in another corridor.

This corridor was short, but we found a pressure plate in the middle of it. Beyond the pressure plate were seams in the floor. I figured that the purpose of the setup was to step on the plate, and then into or onto whatever was beyond as the trap was going off. I that it would be a good idea to stay put and set off the trap, so we could see how best to avoid it. This turned out to actually be a bad idea. Theo and I triggered the plate, and a large metal panel swung down from the ceiling. Theo ducked, but I got whacked, and thrown several feet. It hurt, but I rolled through it, since I was landing on the spot beyond the plate. As I rolled off of it, I hit another plate, and a pit opened in the floor, between the two plates. I got off of the plate, and the whole thing reset. Then I triggered the pit again, and it opened, but the panel didn’t fall. When I got off of the plate, the pit didn’t reset either. Theo had an idea, and he laid down on the floor and set off his end of the trap. The panel fell down, and then the whole thing reset. Looks like it will only reset after both ends have been used. Knowing this, and knowing what each side does, we were able to get everyone across safely. Theo pointed out that while it didn’t make much sense from the direction we came in by, if someone were coming from the other way, it would be worse. Even if they managed to not fall into the pit, and jumped over it, the panel would knock them back in. Nasty. We kept going, and came to a new room.

The room had four exits (counting the one we came in through), and a spiral staircase in the middle. The staircase was old and corroded, and the top had been sealed off – so there’s no getting into the keep that way. We tried the east door, and it led to a passageway. In the middle of the passageway, Niccolo and I found a pressure plate in the floor. We went around it, no problems, and came to another hallway. This one had an alcove with a statue at one end, and a sloped passage to a door at the other end. The statue was of a wizard with his hand extended towards the door. We checked the area for traps and found nothing. Then we checked the door, and noticed that the bricks in the wall weren’t very secure. I expected that the way would fly out or fall down when the door was opened, so I suggested that Niccolo and I stand behind the door and open it. When we did, a rope pulled, and I saw a boulder rolling towards us. It crashed through the wall, and it was only by agility and sheer luck that we were able to get out of the way. When the boulder reached the statue, the wall and door fixed themselves, and the boulder disappeared. Then, we slept for the night.

The next day, if it even was daytime (no way of knowing down here), We went back to the stair room and tried the west door. It led to a corridor, and Niccolo and I again went looking for traps. While we were looking, Niccolo stepped on a plate. I grabbed him and pulled him out of the way as a bunch of iron bars shot from the floor to the ceiling. We got a little banged up, but we weren’t caught in the cage like the trap intended. We were still blocked from getting through, but we wetted one of our silk ropes and Theo bent the bars with it, letting us through. We followed the corridor around a corner, where we found another plate. Beyond it was a section of floor with holes in it, that looked like it might have been a large pressure plate, with spikes that would come out. I decided to try the smaller plate first, and nothing happened. Then I tried walking very carefully along the big plate, and I went through a lot of effort to stay between the holes. It turned out not to be important. The plates (there was also one on the other side) turned out to be timed safety switches – the trap rearmed while Maggie was on it, but Theo managed to shut it off before anything happened. This took us to an archway with a door.

We checked the door for traps, but the problem with it turned out not to be traps, but decay. When we opened the door (which I pulled open with rope) part of the archway collapsed. Gunther looked and said that it wasn’t a trap, the place is just falling apart. Great. We looked into the room beyond, and saw a pretty straight shot through, with statues lining the walls. I was checking the place out for traps, when something seemed…wrong, somehow. Just as I was about to take a step, I realized what it was – the floor looked too good. I tested the floor, found that it wasn’t really there – it was an illusion. There turned out to be two pits covered by illusory floor, making a bridge in the middle of the room. While everyone filed across, I looked through the illusion, and saw that there actually was a bridge there – and the collapse of the archway was compromising it’s structural integrity – Gunther said the bridge didn’t have many crossings left. We passed through a corridor into another room.

This room had unlit torches lining the walls, much like the catacombs. When we entered, the torches lit up, just like the catacombs. There was a plate in the entrance, but we went around it. While Niccolo and I were looking for traps, I accidentally stepped on a plate, and the torches shot fire at us! We both managed to roll out of the way, and after a few seconds, there was a second shot. We were okay that time too, and we decided to run. We got to the other side of the room, and Maggie counted and told us that the interval between flames was about 12 seconds. We took that time to check the door, in case everyone would have to run straight through. It didn’t turn out to be a problem, because Theo checked the plate at the end of the hall, and it was another safety plate, which stopped the torches from firing.

And beyond the torch room, there were stairs. We went down them, and found ourselves in a corridor made out marble, very different from the lime of the rest of the dungeon. At the end of the hall, flanking a doorway, were two black statues of women with swords. We got halfway through the room, checking for traps, when we heard a grinding, and the eyes on the statues opened. They spoke to us in a language that we didn’t understand. After a few sentences, they sounded like they were counting, and when they got done, they drew their swords. We left the room to see if they would reset, and decided to take a half hour break. While waiting, we discussed the statues, and decided that they probably were waiting for some sort of password – hard to give if you don’t understand the language, though. Just as we were getting ready to leave, we heard that grinding again – sounded like the statues reset themselves. After talking over a few options, I volunteered to try and run past the statues. I walked in and took a running dive through the door. The statues sprang to life and tried to kill me, but they couldn’t reach me. They sounded like they were pissed, and were howling an alarm. Niccolo managed to jump through the door too, and Gunther and Roxanne slipped past while Maggie and Theo fought the statues, which seemed rooted in place. Maggie got hurt, but they both managed to destroy the statues, ending the danger and the alarm.

We were now in a corridor, and we took the first door on the right. It wasn’t trapped that we could tell, so we entered, and found ourselves in a study. There was a lot of furniture, and a couple of murals. There was also some sort of spell cast on the wall to make it look like it had a window view out onto the mountains, which Maggie said aren’t the mountains near us. There was some sort of map on the wall, but it was old and ruined. Looking through a desk, Niccolo found a book and a wand or rod of some sort. There was nothing else of interest, so we moved on.

The next room looked like a weird bedroom, with a gold circle on one wall, a bed on another wall, and some sort of free standing arch on another. Under the arch was a pile of rotted rags, and there seemed to be a person in the bed – he didn’t look like he was breathing. Niccolo and I crept in to look for traps, and the thing in the bed got up and attacked us. It was some kind of desiccated corpse wearing a gold mask. Niccolo tried to sneak up behind it, but I knew better. When Garad was teaching me how to fight someone from behind, he told me “If you ever run across the walking dead, don’t bother. They’re too far gone to care if you hit a kidney, the head, whatever. Just hit them anywhere as hard as you can. Or better yet, run.” Problem was, I was too close to run, so I tried to hit it, defending myself with my staff as best as I could. Maggie rushed in and hit it…hard. And nothing happened. That really freaked me out…more than I would have expected…I thought then that the thing was going to kill us all – even me, and I’m not even sure that I could die. I just couldn’t move, I was too scared. I felt like maybe if I didn’t move, it wouldn’t notice me. While I stood there like an idiot, it hit Maggie, and Theo and Micah jumped into the fray. Micah breathed fire on it, which seemed to affect it. When I came to, it had been hit a couple times, but the only thing that was slowing it down was Micah’s fire. Even Theo’s strongest hits weren’t doing anything. Finally, though Micah was able to put it down. Niccolo took its mask, and checked out Maggie. He couldn’t do anything about the wound, but he noticed some sort of green shit all over it, which he scraped off. He wants to keep an eye on it. While everyone was messing around with that, I decided to see if I could figure out if the arch did anything. I took one of the corpse’s arms and threw it through the arch – nothing. While I was doing that, Gunther took the gold circle off of the wall. He and Niccolo were talking about the mask and the circle being able to pay for us being down there, and Theo suggested that we go get the gold off of the furniture in the next room – there’s a lot of it. So that’s what we’re doing now. Niccolo wants to keep an eye on Maggie, just in case, and the rest of us are pulling gold off of furniture. I’m starting to get a little worried, though. We’ve been down here almost two days, and even though Theo says it might be possible that the book or the wand-thing are what we’re looking for, I’m not so sure. But we’ve got to head back up soon. I just hope the siege doesn’t come early.

Game Six

May 4, 2002

Wow. There’s a lot going on right now, and I’m not sure if I can keep up with it all, but I’ll give it a try. Where were we when we last left our heroes (meaning Theo and myself, of course)?

We had just gotten out of the…umm…place under Zauberstrum keep. I was recovering from dying…again. I guess that pretty much erases any question about whether or not I can die. Theo says that I shouldn’t consider myself immortal just yet. After all, I might have a finite number of lives. All I know is, I die and I come back. Kinda makes my job a little easier, even though it DOES hurt.

So while I’m recovering, this wizard visits us to find out why we’re showing up in his scrying pool. We talk to him, and show him the crowns we’ve collected, and he tells us that the lead one is a magical artifact that keeps someone with psychic powers from affecting the wearer. He said that it has fallen out of use because those kinds of powers are extremely rare in this world. I wonder if this is the first piece that we were supposed to find. Anyway, the wizard left, and we didn’t hear anything else from him. He must have gotten that whole scrying thing worked out.

So, we’ve got this potentially powerful artifact. Niccolo is keeping it, which probably bothers Gunter. See, Gunter doesn’t trust Niccolo since he found out Niccolo is from Thet. Yep, Thet. And some Thetian chick that Niccolo knows is now traveling with us. She’s an officer in the Thesh army, and Niccolo is trying to convince her that if Manslayer (who is working with the Thesh) isn’t stopped, we’re ALL doomed, Thet included. She’s agreed not to kill us until said evidence can be found. Lovely.

Thing is, Niccolo doesn’t trust her not to steal the crown. So at the next town, he sought out a metalworker to fashion a replica. He found someone, but he didn’t have the money to pay for it, and he asked me if I would talk to the guy. I spoke to him, spun him this story about the crown being an inheritance, and how the dying patriarch of the family doesn’t want to favor one brother over the other, so he wants an exact replica made. The guy swallowed it, but he told me that the high price came from the fact that he would have to buy a gem like the one mounted in the crown, and it would be all kinds of expensive. No problem, says I, and I give him the gem from the wooden crown that had disintegrated (remember this, for it will come up again. There will be a quiz later). He says he can drop the price to 100 silver. I work him down to fifty, but he makes me promise I won’t tell anyone I got that price. I tell Niccolo it was 100, keeping my promise, and keeping the extra fifty. Yeah, I haven’t made any money in a while. I needed something besides the community gold bar that Gunter carries around. I mean, really – letting the dwarf carry the treasure? I’m surprised we haven’t had to sign writs to buy things. Anyway, couple days later and we’ve got an exact replica, which Niccolo is keeping in his bag, in case Officer Creepy tries to snatch it. The real one he got sewn into the brim of a hat that he wears now. Keen.

With the extra fifty, I buy a chest, a lock, and a rudimentary trap, with which I’m training Hank. Didn’t I mention Hank was back? Yeah, let me backtrack a little. We’re traveling from the keep, and we get ambushed by bandits. They’re gonna hold us up, only Hank pops up and says he knows us. The bandits go about their merry way, and there’s this big moral discussion about whether or not we should bring Hank along. I don’t really care about Maggie and Gunter’s moral discussions, and I’m not about to get into religious discussions with Roxanne, but I was all about taking Hank along. I mean, come on…banditry? The guy could have a better future than being a common thug. There’s no grace, no style in popping up from the bushes and threatening to shoot someone if they don’t pay you. Sneaking up behind someone and taking their gold from their pocket without them even knowing you’re there? Grace. Operating an elaborate ruse to trick someone out of their money, fooling them so badly that they feel good about being broke while you head for the hills? Style. Climbing a three story building, slipping into a window, walking into a treasure room and removing the most expensive valuables and leaving the house without anyone ever having known you were there? Grace AND Style, baby. But that thuggery that Hank was hooked up with, that’s just wrong. That’s not for pros, it’s for overly muscled idiots whose talent stops at saying “give me your money or die.” We did the guy a favor. He owes us. Shit, he owes us extra, because he’s annoying. He was convinced that he had magic arrows that fly around corners, and there was no talking him out of it. Not the brightest bulb in the box.

So anyway, I pull him aside one night and break it down for him. He acts like he knows some shit. I do know some shit. I’ll teach him some shit. And then the motherfucker calls me “kid”. That’s just not gonna fly. The guy’s maybe a year and a half older than me. Okay, realistically he’s probably about twelve years older than me, but it’s not my fault I wasn’t really born. So I challenge him to a fight and tell him that if he wins, he can keep calling me kid, and I give him one of my daggers. If I win, he trains under me, accepts me as a teacher, and stows that “kid” bullshit. Non-lethal combat, three hits. I keep it interesting – hit him once, let him hit me once, lather, rinse, repeat. We’re at sudden death, and I show him why I’m so damn good. I was all over the place like a hobgoblin hopped up on Dwarven Ale and Elven pepper plants, and slid in a shot to finish it off. All kinds of smooth. Whose house? Quinn’s house! Whose house? Quinn’s house!

Where was I? Oh yeah, so we’re on the move again. We’re about to pass through the town where Alexander left us, and we decide to go around the quickest way to avoid them finding out Lady Spooky is with us. But we do have to go through one gate. They stop us, and we can see one of the guards riding towards town. Meanwhile, the guard at the gate is very obviously trying to stall us. So we start moving, and he’s going with us, still trying to stall us. At this point, it looks like we’re on the run from the guard. How good does that look for us? If they do manage to catch us, they’re gonna search us to find out why we’re in such a hurry…so I decide to pull a reason for our hasty retreat out of my ass, just to give the guy an answer when someone says “why did they run?” I tell him that I need to be in my cousin’s wedding in two days in Eisenstaadt, and that we have to ride hard or we’ll be late. We start heading on, and we look back to see the rest of the guard on horses, swords drawn, coming to catch us. Oh shit. We’re gonna need some smooth talking to get out of this one. We haven’t got Agni with us, but we have me. After all, I’ve been caught with my hand in the proverbial cookie jar more times than I can count, and I’ve stayed out of trouble every time. “Don’t worry guys…just let me do the talking.”

And then Maggie says “Hell no.” “What?” I say, wondering why my help isn’t wanted on this. And she looks at me and says:

“Cousin’s wedding?”

Maybe I’m not getting the tone right for you. Let me translate those two words. What she said was “Quinn, I’ve decided that the lie you told the gate guard was unsatisfactory. You are no longer allowed to do the talking. You have lost your lying privileges. Despite the fact that I have admitted to not knowing anything about lying, Gunter is a dwarf and dwarves don’t lie, we don’t trust Niccolo and his buddy, Roxanne hasn’t shown any proficiency at bending the truth, Theo doesn’t talk much, and Hank is a complete idiot – Despite all that, I have decided that you are not worthy of the honor of lying for us.”

Ahem….

FUCK

ALL

THAT.

No, really. I’m not trying to take over and be the leader of the group, but I didn’t see any other motherfucker stepping up to explain to the gate guard why we were running away like we’d just snatched the mayor’s fine fucking china. I try to do the group a favor, and I get shit on. This won’t happen again, or they’ll be finding another guy not born of man or mate to do their Manslayer slaying. I’m sure that you can pick them up at the “Not Born of Man or Mate” shop, right next to the inn at Futterschaddt.

So I don’t say shit, and the guard tells us that we’re accused of murder. Whose murder? Well, the scruffy guy that Alexander left with showed up outside of town with his face ripped off. Also, there was a mage in town who had her face ripped off as well. The third guy, they say, was a common thug. And I just know what’s coming. I have to ask for the name a couple times, since everyone’s trying to find out who the mage was. I have to ask, even though I know the answer. They fucking got Hector. Two guys who were in with members of our party, and a mage who probably knew Agni. Fuck. And whoever it was killed Hector. Hector who could probably have killed a god if they looked at him sideways, and they ripped his fucking face off.

And then it hits me. Someone is killing people who have associated with us. Gerad. I’ve got to get to Eisenstaadt, and now. I tell them that, and we all agree with mercifully little debate to buy horses and hot-hoof it to Eisenstaadt. We find a stable, and they suggest that I use the gem from the wooden crown to pay. I agree, and then when I go to pay, I have to act like the gem was stolen, because I used it to make the crown replica (see, told you it would come up again. You’ll do fine on the quiz, don’t worry). Truth be told, I had a little too much on my mind to pull off a good performance, but hopefully everyone else was preoccupied as well and bought it. In the end, Gunter coughs up a couple shavings of our bigass gold bar, and we got horses. Now, I’m not much of a rider, but I took off as fast as I was. Roxanne and Maggie are right behind me, telling me to slow down. Slow down, they say, you’re going to tire out the horse. Let’s see – shortly after I find out that my childhood was a lie, and that I never had parents, the one person in the world that I could consider a father is in danger from a murderer who has already killed three people, including badass Hector. Yeah, I’m real fucking worried about a horse. Still, I slow down, because I realize that I won’t get to Eisenstaadt any faster if the horse dies. I’ve got two horses, but I’m going to need them both.

We stop at the inn where I had my “experience”. The memory doesn’t bother me as much now, because without it, we would never have known about my ability to come back to life. Okay, the memory of actual sex acts…yeah, I still shudder. But hey, I’m unkillable, so fuck it.

Anyway, Niccolo pops in briefly to confirm that yeah, the bartender is dead. Face ripped off? Of course. Needless to say, I’m riding harder than ever. We show up at Eisenstaadt and are stopped by the guard. They tell us that a local hooker has been killed – guess the MO. I let the rest of the group talk to them, and Theo and I take off for Garad’s place. I found out later that they went to Gayla’s place, and ran into some trouble with a crazy druid. Theo and I finally show up at Garad’s place to find him…alive. I explained what was happening, and implored him to keep some extra guards around him – more than he even has now. Whether or not he’s gonna listen to me remains to be seen, but when you find out that you have no past, the people from your present become more important to you than ever. Garad’s not dying on my watch.

I later received word from the rest of the group that we’re going to be sticking around for a while. I think I’m going to be spending that time with Dominic, brushing up my technique. Really, I could probably use the time to cool down a little. Not that I’m forgiving Maggie for that shit at the gate right away, but I probably do need the rest of them for now. Especially Niccolo – I like that guy. Maybe I can convince him to come with if Theo and I have to jump ship. I’ll also take Hank, who we left back at the last town. Oh shit...Hank. I hope he’s okay.

Game Eight

June 1, 2002

So I’ve started all kinds of trouble. Mind you, I didn’t do it all by myself, but I was the main person at fault. So let me explain…

We had gotten back to Einsenstaadt and gone to Garad to make sure that he was okay. He was, and we talked. I tried to impress upon him to up his personal guard, since so many of the people murdered had been associated with either us or Geldemar. I was very concerned about Hector having been killed, but Garad told me that Hector wasn’t killed after all. Apparently there was another thug in Marovech’s organization who used to like to claim to be Hector – I guess to sound tough – and he’s the one who got it. Hector has gone to ground, and we’re letting everyone think that he really was killed. Or at least trying to. More on that later.

So we’re talking about the flow of information, and the fact that these people being killed may indicate that we’ve got an information leak. I mention that we’ve got information coming in through the Rose, and Garad informs me that that isn’t such a good idea. It seems that The Rose is the home of some Nedaran spies, who will sell information to anyone who has the money, including Thet. If they’re reporting on our comings and goings, and who we’re meeting, this could mean real trouble.

So we meet up with everyone else at The Rose (the last place I want to be now) and the first thing that Roxanne does is announce that Hector isn’t really dead. Right there in The Rose. I suggest that we should go somewhere else, and she again goes into how safe it is to talk there, blah blah blah. Now that I know what I know, this bothers me. A lot. I tell everyone that I don’t want to talk futher until we get somewhere more private. To combat Roxanne’s “This place is completely safe” protestations, I insinuate that I’ve gotten paranoid ever since people we know started showing up dead. This is kind of true, but really I just don’t want to talk at the Rose any more. So we head to Niccolo’s, and we talk on the way.

At Niccolo’s we meet his friend who is staying with him under his care. I later get the whole story about Agni trying to use magic to go to bed with her, and in private Niccolo admits to me that she has a contract out on his life. Truth be told (and I told everyone else this), I’ve never liked Agni. His superior attitude and way of talking down to anyone who isn’t nobility or blessed with a vagina irritates me to no end.

Anyway, later Theo and I have a talk with Niccolo, and a long talk between the two of us after he’s gone. We tell Niccolo about our concerns about there being a mole, the untrustworthiness of The Rose, and that we want to have Hector deliver his letters to somewhere else. The hardest part about this, we know, is going to be convincing Roxanne to have the letters go somewhere new. We decide that we’re going to have to trick her somehow, and then it occurs to us – what if Roxanne IS the mole, and she wants the letters sent to The Rose so that the info will immediately be on it’s way to Thet? After Niccolo leaves, Theo tells me that we can have some kind of Magic Inquisitor read her mind and find out for us. The way we would do this is anonymously turn her in for treason, and she’ll be examined. We both know this to be a shitty thing to do to a party member, but we have to know. I’d rather deal with the guilt of siccing some mind reader on Roxanne than the grief of having a knife plunged into Theo’s back. I still stand by that, even now. So, after some discussion and soul searching, we come to the conclusion that this is exactly what we’re going to do.

Then the conversation turns to my…existence. Turns out we’ve both been thinking some of the same things. Why did the wizard Tam, if that’s who it was, make me? If he knew Geldemar, and Geldemar knew the prophecy, was I created solely for this purpose? If so, then this Tam probably knows more about this prophecy. We need to talk to him, badly. I’ve been wanting to talk to him ever since I found out, but now I realize that we need to speak to him regarding our quest. Another more disturbing question came up as well – if I was created to defeat Manslayer, what will happen after I do so? Will I exist indefinitely with no purpose, living a relatively normal life, or will I cease to exist, my purpose fulfilled? If I’m the result of a magic spell, do I have a duration? Maybe I can somehow defeat Manslayer without killing him, imprison him somehow, and live indefinitely.

Somehow I doubt that’s going to happen.

So the next day the plan is to go to the University and try to get our money back from Agni. I’m not too keen on going to the University, since I don’t want to deal with any truth spheres, so I tell everyone I’m going to do some stuff in town. While they’re gone, Theo sets up Roxanne. By the time I see them again, she’s been taken into custody. The good news is that she was innocent. The bad news is that she was publicly humiliated by being taken away in shackles, and examined not by one wizard, but by five. Not at all what we had intended. Furthermore, we found out that Roxanne is not a spy, but we didn’t find out anything about whether the Rose has been selling Thet our information. Roxanne could still be unwittingly giving them our info, not knowing where it is going.

So here comes the hard part – admitting to Roxanne what we did. I really didn’t want to, but Theo made a good point – we were headed to Futterschadt, and the first thing Roxanne is going to do is report to the Rose what happened. I reluctantly agreed that we should tell her, and I decided to take the blame all on myself. So, I told her. I told her that I was part of an information ring (partially true), that a very reliable source had informed me that The Rose employs Nedaran spies (completely true), and that I had to be sure that she wasn’t knowingly selling our information (true), so I turned her in to a contact who turned her in to the authorities (not true, theo did that). It seemed to bother her less that I had thought that I had turned her in than it did that I accused The Rose of employing Nedaran spies. She considers the Rose her family, and refused to believe any of it. Instead, my information must be incorrect.

This was a hard conversation for me. It was extremely frustrating for me that she refused to even consider what I was saying, when I know the information to be so reliable. On the other hand, I can completely see where she was coming from. If someone told me that Garad was not who I thought he was, and may well be betraying us, I wouldn’t listen either. Unfortunately, this turned into a “my contacts say that your contacts are dishonest, and I trust my contacts explicitly” vs. “I trust my contacts explicitly, and therefore your contacts must be either lying or wrong” argument. The worst part is that Roxanne’s life may very well be in jeopardy if she goes to the Rose and tells her what has happened – the Nedarans are completely willing to kill to protect their espionage rings. It was for this that we argued so strongly that she not go straight to the Rose and talk to them when we get to Futterschadt, but she refused to believe us. Eventually, Roxanne tried to leave us on the road. She told us to go on ahead and let her think. Right. With everyone dying lately, we’re going to ride off and leave her on the side of the road. So we waited most of the night while she bathed in a stream, presumably communing with Betshaba. And while we waited we talked.

What a talk it was. Surprisingly, Gunter had seemed to understand where Theo and I were coming from, and had wanted Roxanne to exercise caution in approaching the Rose. Niccolo’s Thetian friend [I don’t think I know in character that she’s his sister] admitted that the Nedarans do indeed sell information to Thet. Maggie, on the other hand, was very flustered about all the lying that has been going on. She pointed out that she would find it very hard to trust Theo and myself now as well. I can agree with that. She went on and on about everyone having secrets, and when we pointed out that everyone has their secrets, she insisted that she doesn’t have any secrets. It seemed that it was time for some truth to come out.

So we told her about me. Where I came from, why I can’t die, what I wasn’t born of man or mate, how Theo and I came to be friends, the whole story. We also managed to work in why it is so important for us to hunt down and speak to Tam. I had expected the news to come as more of a surprise, but everyone seemed to take it well. I had also hoped that revealing this part of my past would help establish Theo and my reliability and earn us some trust, but Maggie still seems to think that we have too many secrets, and I think she still thinks of us as a couple of liars. Fine. She’ll have to deal with that. I’ll always have secrets. That’s the way I am. Considering my entire past was a lie, how can anyone blame me for dealing in lies? It’s what I know. Still, try telling that to Maggie.

Anyway, Roxanne finally left the stream and rode ahead without speaking to us. We reached Futterschadt, and the first place that she went was a temple. So far, so good. Gunter was of the opinion that we may have gotten through to her, and she might not report to the Rose right away. I wasn’t so sure. She was at the temple all night, and we even got approached by the guards and told to leave the street. In the morning, she left the temple and went…

Straight to the Rose.

Yeah, I wasn’t particularly surprised. We stayed close, close enough to run in if there was any trouble. And that’s where we are now. She’s just come out a moment ago, and her eyes are a little puffy. All she would say to us is “They didn’t do it.” Does she mean that they aren’t employing spies? I don’t believe it. Does she mean that they weren’t the ones who passed our information on to our enemies?

If so, I pray to the gods that she’s right. For her sake. For all our sakes. Because if she’s wrong, she may have just killed us all.

Game Eleven

July 27, 2002

What a week.

So, when we last left off of the story of The Mighty Quinn and his best friend Morak the Murderer, nee’ Theo, I was dead. Again. I was also about to perform at a birthday party for a kid, and in doing so case the house of a very rich man who I may someday rob if I have the opportunity.

If you know me, and I assume you do if you’re hearing this story, you’ll understand how all of the above can be true.

So the show’s over, I got paid, I know my way into this guy’s house, and it’s time for Agni to pick Theo and I up via the very magical teleporting ring that he wears on his very arrogant finger. We wait until the pick-up time comes – no Agni. We wait a couple more days, getting drunk as we do – no Agni. We say fuck it, grab our horses, and head off in the direction that the group was traveling, asking questions along the way in case something has happened to them. And we find answers – they’ve gone to Oridal.

This was the turning point in my week. So far, the time between being killed and going to Oridal had been just fine. +Note to those hearing this story – I still haven’t grown completely accustomed to being able to casually toss out comments about being killed, but I’m working on it.+

Oridal is the worst place I’ve ever been. Seriously. We get to the gate of some terrible border town, and we don’t speak the local language. Then some guy shows up and informs us that he’s a translator, and that we may hire his services for 20 silvers (or the local equivalent, anyway) per hour. Greeeeeat. He “helps” us by translating, and we find out that we’ve got to pay all sorts of taxes and fines. We have to buy medallions that show everyone that we’ve paid our “traveling through Oridal” tax. Theo has to pay an extra “not breaking shit” tax. We aren’t allowed to camp in the wilderness, or we’ll be arrested and charged a “sleeping in places you aren’t supposed to” tax. Also, no hunting, unless you pay an “eating shit you aren’t supposed to” tax and get a license. I ask how much it’s going to cost for me to perform to earn all this fucking money this place is costing me – shouldn’t have bothered.

So we trudge on through three or four towns, all of them gouging us with their “just passing through” taxes, and make our way to the capital city, which I believe is called DrainYourWalletsBurg. We had heard that the party had gone to meet with a wizard named Rusalos – the guy who trained Geldemar and Gaila. I figured I’d be clever and save us some translation money by drawing a picture of a wizard and showing it to people to try to get directions. It wasn’t a good picture, but I wasn’t created to draw, I suppose. Besides, it looked enough like a wizard, no matter what Theo says. Anyway, everyone I showed the picture to directed us to the same place, and we went there. We knew right away that it wasn’t the wizard’s guild, but the guy inside wouldn’t talk to us. We had been warned about this – even people who could understand us wouldn’t talk to us, because they get fined for taking business away from the translators. Eventually we paid the guy 50 silver, and he would finally talk to us, telling us that this was for the fine he would have to pay for talking to us. So again, we’re being screwed. He tells us that this is the guild of guides, or something like that. Nobody in town is allowed to give an outsider directions, because that takes business away from him. For all we knew, the wizards guild could have been twenty feet away from us, no one would have told us. I fucking hated that place. Anyway, we discussed the local customs at length, since he wasn’t charging us by the hour. He offered to find the rest of the party and take us to them…for a fee, of course. We finally accepted, and he took us two buildings over, where we found everyone else. They all looked as pissed off as I felt.

I brought them up to speed on what I had found – Manslayer can watch us, he knows I’m supposed to kill him, he can pop up and kill me when he wants to, but he doesn’t seem to want to unless I’m separated from everyone else. Swell. Now Theo is never going to fucking leave my side. I need to sit down and have a talk with him about this. I enjoy his company and all, but I’m a thief. T-H-I-E-F. Thief = skulking around without a seven foot half-orc following you. Also, I inform them that it’s taking me longer to reform when I get killed. I did some thinking later, and if I get killed a few more times, we’re going to start getting dangerously close to months in between. And since I can’t be moved, that’s a real problem. So, less dying from now on. Course, nobody else can take dying at all, so I’m really still the best person to take shots in a fight. I just need to be a little more careful.

For their part, they filled me in on a LOT. Starters – Agni, who has ditched the group again (way to get started on that religious conversion, pal) has been conversing with Rusalos via an amulet that he has. And Rusalos wants it back. So we need to get the amulet back from Agni and return it to Rusalos so that he can help us out. Furthermore, Agni could have netted us an invitation from the Wizards Guild, saving us a lot of money. He didn’t. Thanks. Second, the teleporting ring belongs to some mage named Mordenkeinan. Never heard of him. But – not surprisingly – he wants his ring back. Again, need to get it from Agni, who is conspicuously absent, to get his help. So we have to go looking for Agni, who may have gone home. He had spoken before about taking a ship, so we’re heading towards the coast. This should absolutely thrill Roxanne, who was notably silent this whole time. Sick or something. A little note here – I felt bad about what we did to Roxanne, but after her steadfastly standing up for Agni, I’m a little less than impressed with her. I have to keep reminding myself that we wronged her, but I still think she should have fucking listened to us when we told her not to go back to the Rose. I would kill to find out what was said while she was there. Not that I’d have to – just find a spy and pay them enough, I’m sure they heard every word.

Where was I? Oh yeah, the good news – getting the hell out of Oridal. We moved as fast as we could towards Halgard, where we would not only find a ship, but would also be a little closer to finding Tam. Remember Tam? That wizard, if that’s who Tam is, will probably have questions about why and how I was created. And if I was created specifically to fight Manslayer, he should know something about our quest. And most importantly, he’ll be able to tell me what happens to me when Manslayer is killed. So I’m doubly happy to be going to Halgard.

We got there as fast as we could, and spoke to a merchant as soon as we were out of Oridal’s borders. Maggie talked to him at length, but I wasn’t really interested in what was said. I was surprised to see that she paid him for his information, even though she didn’t have to. I wouldn’t have.

When we got to an inn, we were all a little disoriented, surprised to find that it was legal to do things like camp and hunt, and that people would speak to us for free. Keen. Inside the inn, everyone was burly and there were numerous tests of strength going on. We put Theo up, planning on making a bundle on him, and found him facing the bar champion. They wrestled for a very long time, and in the end, Theo fell. It wasn’t until later that we noticed that both of them had several broken fingers from the effort. The guy turned out to be pretty nice.

We set out the next day, and were riding until dark, when we decided to camp. We noticed a campfire in the distance, and after some argument about who would be able to scout ahead, we approached the guy. He invited us to his fire and introduced himself. His name is Benedict Goddart, and he’s a decent enough fellow. He’s a bounty hunter, and he’s hunting a guy named Drizz’t Piergeron, whose tracks he’s been following. He asked for our help, and I told him that I was in if he would help me look for Tam when we were done with his mission. He agreed, and the next morning we set out after Piergeron. His tracks led to a cave, which we entered. It was a very strange place, with lots of carvings of statues, some of looking very, very human. Gunter told us that there are some creatures who can turn people to stone just by looking at them or breathing on them, so we were a lot more careful after that. Niccolo and I were on scouting and track-detecting duty. We wandered around until we found ourselves in a big room with carvings of people on the walls. As we looked for traps, something fell from the ceiling and flew at Niccolo. I had only a moment to shout a warning and throw a knife at it, but the knife bounced off. The party swarmed the beast, which was some sort of stone monster, but had a great deal of difficulty harming it. We were also plagued by bad luck – shots intended for our foe would hit friends, and we were probably wounded worse by each other than the monster. Clearly, Orchus was not with us. Eventually we managed to defeat the thing, and I found it’s lair at the top of the room. Inside were a handful of coins, some gems, and three vials of pink liquid. We continued to explore and found some stairs, and we could hear something coming up the stairs. We ambushed the creature, which was a huge man with the head of a bull. Niccolo and I managed to slip by it using some particularly brilliant acrobatic maneuvers (mine especially), and between our companions fighting it head-on and the two of us hitting it from behind, we were able to kill it fairly easily. It had a pretty nice Greataxe, which Theo kept.

Some of us were kinda beaten up at this point, so we started looking for a place to rest. Along the way we encountered another of the stone creatures. This one fell easier than the other, but when I tried to flip past it, it was ready for me and gored me. And it hurt. We found this one’s lair too, and I cleaned it out – more coins. Then we rested.

We awoke, and we’ve set off to explore the downstairs. We crept down the stairs, but something in the room at the bottom heard us, and came to investigate. It’s here now – some sort of giant, two headed person. It’s carrying two big tree trunks, and it looks nasty. Don’t think I’m gonna have much luck, unless I can get behind it. That shouldn’t be a problem, though. It’s just come around the corner, but I’m pretty well hidden in the shadows. No way can it see me…

Game Sixteen

Ocotober 19, 2002

What a month (or so) it’s been.

So, when we last left our…umm…me, we had set out on our way to [JC homeland], in the hopes of locating Mordenkeinen. Agni had left us, something I was very glad of, and I was still a little fucked up in the head after meeting my “father”. I had tried to go talk to Garad, but I would need to take a trip with the ring to Eisenstaadt to do so, and Gunter needed to go somewhere with the ring first. He took Theo with him. When they came back, they weren’t the same. Gunter had aged – a lot. And for a dwarf to noticeably age a lot…well, he had aged a WHOLE lot, apparently. Theo seemed the same, except that he was walking with kind of a limp. Nobody knew what was up with that.

Anyway, we took a ship up, and when we got to [homeland], we heard that Mordenkeinen had been killed. Obviously, a big dent in our plans. While we were mulling over what to do next, somebody snuck up on Theo and myself, and knocked us out by poking us in the head. Or something like that. It was pretty wacky.

I wake up in this chair, and this guy is looking at me. And he introduces himself as Mordenkeinen. Yeah, same one that just died. This should have been shocking. Lately, though, nothing is shocking. He told me that he had spells set up to bring him back if he was killed. He also said that Geldemar should have had similar spells up. I told him the details of Geldemar’s death, how Manslayer had poked him with that rod of his. Big M thinks that Geldemar’s soul might be trapped in that rod. See, the rod is the “Rod of Seven Parts”, an uncreative name if I ever heard one (now, if it were the Rod of Seven Parts, and was actually made of 8 pieces, that would be something). The Rod was made by the seven Wind Dukes to fight Chaos. Each of them had a piece of it, and when it was needed, they would combine them into a super weapon [like Voltron!]. And it worked. Except that one of these Dukes went nutso, and killed all the other ones so that he could have the rod all to himself. That crazy Duke was none other than Manslayer (dramatic music).

So, Manslayer’s got the rod, which makes him all kinds of badass. Geldemar’s soul is trapped in the rod, which is why he hasn’t come back. We need Geldemar to come back, so we need to break the rod. How do we do that? I thought you’d never ask. Well, actually, I was pretty confident you would ask. Anyway, we break the rod by hitting it with the Sword of Kas. Yeah. So all we need now is the Sword of Kas. Keep in mind that this is not the weapon that Maggie is supposed to make for me. No. This is just the weapon that breaks the rod. Which means that we aren’t going to take on Manslayer with it. We’re just going to lure him out, and hit the rod with the sword. How to lure him out? Mordenkeinen has a plan, but he won’t tell me, because Manslayer might be able to read my mind.

Read my mind? But how? Psychic powers. Yeah, it’s not magic, it’s psychic power, which is different. He has this power, and he’s good at it. So good that he can see with it, despite being blind. Oh yeah, Manslayer’s physically blind, and sees with his psychic powers. Now, where have we heard about psychic powers, boys and girls? If you think waaaaay back, we were contacted by a mage who told us that the lead circlet that we had was an old artifact that blocks psychic power. Which means that anyone wearing the circlet cannot be seen by Manslayer. Mordenkeinen and I are both of the opinion that “anyone” should be me.

So then, I ask Mordenkeinen what happened with Gunter and Theo’s teleportation. He tells me that they wound up somewhere else, and that it took Gunter 600 years to get back. During that time Theo died, but Gunter had had him cloned so that when he found the way back, he could bring Theo with him. Gunter, during this time, lived in a place called Sigil, and became all super-powerful. They called him the Iron Archmage, and he was the one who taught Mordenkeinen how to forge magic items. See, somehow, they were also in the past. Most of what Mordenkeinen knows about our group and our story he learned from the Iron Archmage. So, we’ve got an archmage traveling with us, who became so good at what he does that the guy who taught Geldemar how to make magic items learned it from him.

And he doesn’t remember a bit of it. That’s right, not a damn minute. Gunter has no idea that he’s the Iron Archmage.

So anyway, while this conversation is going on, Mordenkeinen is testing the rest of the party. He doesn’t want to test me, because he can’t risk me being hurt. He’s also surprised to hear that Tam is here. Somehow, this will work to his advantage. We chat a bit, and he leaves me with the advice that we’ve got to keep the party together, which means bringing Agni back into the fold. Cause Agni’s back, right by our sides where we want him. Terrific. It’s enough to make you want to chew your own foot off.

I leave Mordenkeinen’s and regroup with everyone else, where we have a little chat and bring each other up to speed on the stuff we’ve learned. Guess what? Alexander Crownwarden, our paladin that no one trusted, was Manslayer in disguise! Furthermore, I found out later from Niccolo that the last time Alexander was in town, Niccolo was there but Alexander didn’t seem to see him. Know why? Cause he’s blind, and couldn’t use his psychic powers on Niccolo because Niccolo was wearing the circlet.

Skip some traveling crap, and get to [JC home]. We’ve found out that the Sword of Kas is in the castle of the King of this land, who Agni is referring to as the Pretender King. See, the land is now in civil war, because the King has gone bad. Agni’s father has declared himself the true king. We need to get to the capital city where this palace is and get the sword. Problem is, Agni is all about ending this war, so he wants us to take a Navy to the city, and lay siege to the Palace. I don’t like this idea. It’s going to take too long to get in, and it would be easier if we just snuck in, grabbed the sword, and snuck out. But that’s not good enough for Agni. He tries weakly to put forward the pretense that it’ll be easier to steal the sword in the chaos of a siege, but really he’s more interested in stopping this war than he is in getting the sword quickly and using it the way it needs to be used. Not that I would want him touching it anyway. The sword is said to have the power to exert its will over the will of its owner, and Agni strikes me as the type who is easily corrupted. We argue over the whole war/sneak in issue for a while, and then we get a visit from Agni’s father and some of his retainers. The New King informs us that we’re going to hop on a ship and attack the harbor, and help his army get into a castle. So it’s basically Agni’s plan with a royal decree attached. Splendid.

We get ready to get underway. They stock us up on equipment, and we’re ready to go. The night before we left, I spoke to both Niccolo and Gunter. I wanted to borrow the meld with earth ring from Gunter, to use to hide myself while I’m sneaking around the palace. He doesn’t want to hear of it, since he thinks the best way to get into the vault is to charge in and kill the guards. There’s absolutely no way that I, a master thief, sneak past the guards, break into the vault, and steal the sword. Nooooo. Fucking dwarves. I eventually get him to agree to loan me the ring as a contingency plan.

Then I talk to Niccolo. We talk about the whole psychic thing, and how I should be wearing the circlet. He agrees quickly, and we make the switch. I now wear it under a head scarf, braided to my head. This way, when I’ve got the weapon I need, I can sneak up on Manslayer, blind as he is, and kill him. Keen.

The next day, we set off. We’re shown to our quarters, and then ship heads out. Maggie and I hang out in the ropes and chat again. I have to admit, we’re getting along pretty well now. She apparently never meant to insinuate that I’m not capable of doing the things I do best – lying and sneaking. We talk about a lot – members of the party, the story of Gunter and Theo’s trip, and so on. She agrees not to mention to Gunter what happened. After all, it’ll eat him up inside to know that he has lost so much knowledge. We also talk about who should handle the sword. Roxanne seems to think she’ll be able to do it, something she read in the prophecy. Maggie thinks maybe [Monk], but I don’t know him well enough to feel comfortable with that. She rattles off a few opinions about other people in the party, but conspicuously doesn’t name herself. I, on the other hand, think she’s the best choice. She’s strong, she’ll know how to use it, and she’s too naïve to be easily corrupted – the whispered offers of power, wealth, and glory don’t appeal to her.

She’s also crafted this sword for Niccolo – it’s really nice. She doesn’t want to give it to him herself, though, so I agree to sneak it into his bunk. I don’t understand that woman sometimes.

Then the Captain and Admiral come out to speak to the crew, and Agni makes a pretty speech about the upcoming fight. Later that night, he slept among the common sailors. Don’t know what’s up with that.

Two boring weeks pass.

We reach the harbor, and the navy is, not surprisingly, waiting for us. They’ve got a line of ships blocking the harbor, catapults at the palace, and a fort of mages chucking fireballs at us. It’s pretty hairy. A couple of times the ship is hit by fire, but we manage to put it out. Then we’ve got just enough room to break through. I’ve leaving out a lot of fighting, mind you. It’s not that it wasn’t exciting, it’s just that I didn’t have a lot to do. I shot some cover fire with arrows, but I don’t consider that excitement - I don’t like bows.

We finally hit the dock, and we come off the boat in force. We can see up ahead that the gate that Agni’s father is supposed to be breaching is under attack, but we’re needed to raise the portcullis. So we charge. Archers are shooting at us, but we’re dodging. We lose some guys, but the party is still ok. Half of them (Maggie, Roxanne, Agni, Gunter, and [Monk]) go to the door to the tower that will lead to the Portcullis mechanism. The rest of us start climbing the portcullis. I got most of the way up before seeing that attackers were waiting at the top of the climb, and they knocked Niccolo down. Time to try another route. I don’t know what’s going on down at the tower, but I’ve got to get into here, and if I have to attack from the top, I will. So here’s the plan. I’ll loop the rope around myself…like so. Now, with a giant leap, I’ll flip up on top of the battlements, taking the archers up there by surprise, and kill most of them to take pressure off the army outside. From there, I’ll work my way in to the mechanism. Here goes nothing…and WHOOOOOOO. Oh, that was just fucking beautiful. I hope somebody saw that.

Wow. A few more archers up here than I was expecting. Lot more, actually. I didn’t see this many arrows coming down. Well, at least I’ve got the element of surpr….

Oh, crap.

Game Nineteen

January 4, 2003

I’m not happy.

I can’t imagine that any of us are right now, considering the situation. But I’m getting ahead of myself…let’s go back…

I had been spending some time in Eisenstaadt after the debacle in Eeridia. Hmm…okay, a little further back.

Niccolo and Gunther are dead, killed by a mercenary captain. Agni is missing and presumed dead, Theo had been killed and then resurrected, and the Sword of Kas, an item capable of destroying the Rod of Seven parts and freeing Geldemar’s soul, is in Manslayer’s possession. Wonderful.

So Mordenkeinan has wished into existence a list of artifacts capable of destroying the Rod, and we’ve fled to the tower to regroup. Mordenkeinen had plans to retrieve his ring, but in the meantime offered to teleport us to where we needed to go. I chose Eisenstaadt. It was time, you see, for Garad and me to have words.

I went to see him and asked him up front about Tam. He told me to stay away from Tam. Yeah, umm, too late. I demanded to know how Garad knew Tam. He essentially told me that he and Tam’s paths ahd crossed and that he had worked for the lich, but he wouldn’t go into details. He made a good point why – when someone like Tam tells you to keep your mouth shut, you keep your mouth shut. I believe Garad. I mean, it’s not like I think he’s not capable of lying to me or anything, and I know damn well that there’s more to him than meets the eye, but I believe him on this. Still, considering the importance of what we’re doing, I strongly recommended that he fill me in on this kind of thing in the future. I can’t imagine that many of the members of the family survive speaking to Garad like I did, but they aren’t trying to save the world either, so I’m betting he’s willing to give me a little leeway. Still, best not to push it too far.

So I relaxed a little, and we talked. Mostly current events. There’s unrest in Eisenstaad, with the central issue being that some humans want to maintain the alliance with the Dwarves, and some want to break off. These factions are led by two wizards, Agadore Winthrop and Gaila Maganas. Coincidence? I’m not sure I believe in the word anymore. These two have had several public arguments, but something about it is bothering Garad. He says that the arguments feel fake, scripted. Also, Winthrop has been buying a lot of Granite from the Dwarves, and we don’t know where’s it’s going. Gardad tried having a shipment followed, but the spy was killed, and his head was delivered to Garad’s son. Creepy. Garad has since backed off investigating.

Anyway, we chatted a bit more, and Garad told me that I could stick around and train awhile. He’s looking forward to this business being over so that I can come back to Eisenstaadt to stay, and I intend to. Mordenkeinen had told Theo that he needed to stay with the group, so it was just Dominic and me. It was hard work, but I think it went pretty well. Ever since my meeting with Tam, I’ve been thinking about the things that I can not only do, but are like second nature. I pull off tricks and stunts that would make the most agile of men go green to watch, and it doesn’t bother me in the least. It’s hard not to be a little prideful, even if I was designed specifically for this.

A week or two later, Theo came to pick me up. He had this big guy with a weird accent with him. The guy is a wizard, and he’s joining us. I checked him out by walking around while he was talking, and he followed me with his eyes. Manslayer, being blind, wouldn’t be able to visually track me while I wear the circlet, which I do all the time. I’m so fucking clever sometimes, I don’t know what to do. Anyway, big guy checks out. We go back to the tower, and who should want to talk to me but Roxanne.

So we talk. For a second, I actually thought she wanted to bury the hatchet, but that wasn’t really it. And may I break my line of thought here and point out here that I apologized to her after that investigation shit went down, but she doesn’t even bat an eyelash over treating me like shit since then. Not that I expect her to be kissing my ass, but if you’re coming to me asking a favor, be willing to swallow a little pride, particularly if I was RIGHT ALL ALONG. Anyway, that attitude isn’t helping anyone I suppose. It’s just frustrating. Where was I?

Right. The favor.

So she lays it all out on the table for me – no, not THAT, her situation: Roxanne has offended Betshaba several times. Helping Agni’s dad take down the King of Eeridia, one of the strongest supporters of Bethshaba, was the last straw. Roxanne has fallen from grace, and lost her status as a priestess – which includes all of her spells and powers. She went to the head of her order and asked what she needed to do to regain her standing, and the answer – this is the order directly from Betshaba, mind you – is that she needs to kill the spies in the Rose. Yup, the same ones that caused all that trouble to being with. I thought we should have taken care of them back then, and Betshaba agrees. Yeah, I try not to be smug about being right, but it’s hard when you’ve got a GOD backing you up. So now Roxanne needs my help. Killing them? Does she want me to arrange an assassination?

No. She wants help finding out what they’ve done. “Betshaba doesn’t normally have a problem with spies, so I need to know what they’ve done that’s so bad.”

Now, for those of you not paying attention, Betshaba didn’t say “I want you to investigate the activities of these spies in the Rose, and if they’ve done something horrible, eliminate them.” No - Betshaba, Roxanne’s God, said “Find the spies in the Rose and kill them.” And though I was worried that it might cause an argument, I had to ask the very obvious question – If you’re trying to get back on your God’s good side, is it really a good idea to question your divine orders? Needless to say, she was pissed. “These people are my family...” and so on. Yeah, I know what that’s like. Garad and the Family are my family, and they’re important to me. But they aren’t endangering our cause, and I haven’t been asked by any deities to take them out. “If someone told you that to get something back, you had to kill your family, how would you react?” Well, for starters, I’d think that reclaiming my position with my god would be a bit more significant than just “getting something back.” She makes it sound like Betshaba took her favorite pair of boots and then demanded the deaths of everyone in the Rose before she would return them. But I didn’t even take us down THAT road. Instead, I answered honestly – “I’m not a priest, being told to do this by my God.” And she insisted that that wasn’t the issue, and pressed the question again. I don’t claim to know the mind of Betshaba, but if I were her, I would just tell Roxanne to fuck off at this point. I got the same impression from others in the group, when Benedict asked her if she had considered the possibility that she might not get her powers back anyway, after questioning Betshaba. Roxanne said that she had considered that, but if we were in her situation, would we do it? Maggie and [cleric] answered with an almost simultaneous “YES!”

So I went back to Garad, and asked him if he had any other information on the matter. He knows that some of the spies are Neresian, and that there’s a jeweler in town who works for them, but that’s about it. He suggested staking out the Rose, but Mordenkeinen had us on a timeframe – he feels that this is pretty unimportant. If not for the fact that Roxanne’s relationship with Betshaba is probably important to our quest, I would agree with him.

So we wait and try to spy. Roxanne knows that the dog at the Rose is somehow in communication with the Madam, and can tell her if the Rose is being scryed upon. This makes things a little more difficult. We consider and discard a number of plans, including a kidnapping plan that I think would have worked very well. In the end, we decide to have the Madam come to us, and we’ll take her to the Tower to get Mordenkeinen to read her mind and find out what she knows. We go to the Temple of Betshaba, which is across the street from the Rose, and explain our situation to the Priestess there. It is agreed that the Rose’s spying activities are a danger to the town, and the Priestess charges Benedict with investigating, which suddenly makes our plan completely legal. Roxanne sends a summons to the Rose, but the Madam refuses to come into what she calls an “ambush” – to be fair, that’s really what it was. They send some letters back and forth, with no result, when suddenly there is a rumble under the town, and a cry goes out – Futterschadt is under attack!

We rush out to help with the defense, and I position myself to watch the Rose in case anyone tries to leave. It’s determined that the invaders are coming up through the well, and troops are positioned there to receive them. I wait at the Rose for a long time and nothing happens. Finally, everyone comes back and informs us – “Us” being anyone not around the well at the time – that the “invasion” was actually Dwarves constructing an escape tunnel. They were from another town, and we had not been advised of their coming. We gather outside of the Rose to discuss out next move, and that’s when Maggie informs one of the Dwarves of the presence of Nerisian spies in the Rose. Well, never let it be said that Dwarves don’t act quickly and decisively – next thing I know, we’re being ushered into the Rose to confront the Madam with a small contingent of armed guards behind us. We get inside and things start to get hairy. Literally.

We confront the Madam with the charges, and question her. The Dwarves use magic to determine if she’s telling the truth. Over the course of the questioning, we are able to determine that there are four spies in the Rose besides herself, and one of them is the dog, who is a man able to transform himself with a magic ring. Then she flees, and he tries to cover her escape. There’s a prolonged fight, and the guy is pretty good. While we’re fighting him, Maggie and Brag pursue the Madam. Finally, we manage to knock him out, with a little help from one of the Dwarves, and we take the ring that he was using to transform off of him. Meanwhile, Maggie and Brag catch the Madam, and she is sentenced to death. Roxanne volunteers to do it, and Theo and I go to watch. It’s only appropriate, since we were the ones who revealed the presence of the spies in the first place. The evil bitch manages to get one last verbal dig in to Roxanne before dying. Then we wake up the dog-guy and question him. We don’t get much more from him, except the confirmation about the ring. He is sentenced to death as well, and requests being killed with his own poison. Then Benedict, Brag, and our new Wizard friend go and hunt down the rest of the spies. Two of them manage to poison themselves before being caught, the other one is executed.

So now this is all done, and it’s time to get back to business. We’re getting ready to go back to the tower when we’re approached by this guy. Maggie tells me that he has also joined the group. He tells us that he has received a message that there’s somebody named Rothgepharius who wants to see us. Yeah, the same one. Anyway, old grey-skin supposedly has snuck his girlfriend into the home of one of our family members, and will have them killed if we don’t comply. We decide that we’ll meet with him, and then our new friend transforms – he’s Rothgepharius himself. Considering the danger our families are in, I have to resist stabbing him on the spot.

He tells us that Manslayer needs our help. There are apparently a group of creatures called “Mind-Flayers” that have followed Manslayer from the last world he was in. These creatures have powerful psychic abilities, and are as evil and cruel as Manslayer himself. If we don’t get rid of them, they may defeat Manslayer, but they’ll then overrun our world, and no one will be able to stop them. So Manslayer intends to use us against them, presumably in the hopes that we’ll take each other out, and he’ll be unopposed. We ask how we’ll be able to find these things, and Rothgapharius informs us that he’ll be accompanying us as bait. See, he also is psychic, and the Mind Flayers will be able to sense him, and will come after him. Then we’ll kill them. No problem, right? Riiight – these things can supposedly present a real danger to Manslayer, so I’m not too keen on fighting them. We ask him if he’ll let us go somewhere to talk, and he smugly informs us that he knows about the tower. So we go to the tower, and the wizard goes to where Mordenkeinen is to ask his advice. Mordenkeinen feels that this is a very real threat, and though it isn’t safe to be working for Manslayer, it’s not safe to have these things running around either. So we decide that, like it or not, we’d better help get rid of them.

But there’s one more catch – before we went and got Mordenkeinen, the point was raised that if Rothgapharius can read minds, anyone who thinks about Mordenkeinen in his presence will give the Archmage away, and Manslayer doesn’t know he’s alive. So the plan now is to have Mordenkeinen wipe all traces of our memory of him from our minds. He’ll instead insert a memory of us finding one of his books, and everything we know that Mordenkeinen told us we’ll think we know from reading that book. This way, we’re not in danger of giving him away (not that I was in any danger anyway – Rothgapharius can’t read my mind while I wear the circlet). Even now, he’s preparing the spell, and there’s some sort of argument going on. I just hope this all works out…

So where was I? Oh yeah. According to the Mordenkeinen guy who wrote this book everyone is so fond of, these Mind-Flayers, or Illithids, are some bad motherfuckers. As much as I hate to admit it, we’re probably going to have to go along with Rothgapharius on this one. I just hope that when it’s all said and done, and everyone is safe, I get the chance to slide a knife into Rothgapharius’s creepy grey back.

Game Twenty

February 1, 2003

I’m starting to dislike being underground.

As you well know, our last little adventure ended with a visit from Rothgapharius, who, using the leverage of having his psycho doppleganger girlfriend holding one of our family members hostage, talked us into helping him eliminate some Mind Flayers that are posing a threat to Manslayer. Needless to say, we weren’t too keen on the idea of working for Manslayer, but we checked the Big Book of Mordenkeinan, and it confirmed that these things are badass – badass enough that a few hundred of them, which could easily happen, would be worse than one Manslayer. After all, an old prophecy says that I’ll kill Manslayer. There’s no prophecy that says I’ll save the world from a bunch of Mind Flayers.

So we go to make some preparations, and I’m approached by Roxanne. She feels that she’s no longer useful to the group, and intends to retire from adventuring and serve in an information gathering/advice giving capacity in Eisenstaadt. She never really apologized, but she seemed bent on telling me this personally, so close enough. I know that the members of the family will take care of her – she did help out with one of the girls at the Flying Stag, and even though that’s not enough to get her the Royal Treatment, it’s enough that she won’t be made dead. Also, having been my companion is a step in the right direction, no matter how that whole thing worked out.

Anyway, I’m hanging out with Garad, and I tell him about how there’s a doppleganger in…ah, somebody’s midst. We chat about that, and as I’m about to take out, I’m told that there’s this guy who’s been looking for me, and he’s apparently associated with Tam. So Theo and I go talk to him. I let Theo open up, so that I can watch him and check him for Manslayer blindness. He’s clean. Plus, I can’t imagine that Manslayer knows that Tam is here…at least, not at the time.

Anyway, the guy’s name is Baelthezar, and he’s been sent by Tam to keep an eye on me. This will eventually prove to be very annoying. However, at the moment he seems okay. We lay it on the line for him – he can come along, and he can try to keep me from being dead, but since I’ve also got a deep interest in seeing my friends and companions alive, he’ll have to help in that capacity. I make sure to point out my penchant for getting myself whacked in my attempts to help protect my friends, and he grudgingly agrees to keep an eye on everyone.

So we head back, and there are a couple more people there. One of them I initially thought was Rothgapharius – turns out it’s the half-elf that Mr. Greyskin was impersonating before. And, there’s a Paladin of Sarpedon (though at the time I didn’t know that she was a Paladin) there. Have I ever mentioned how I feel about the followers of Sarpedon? Let’s put it this way – we’ve run into some crazy shit on these adventures. A druid who rips people’s skin off. Dwarves that can disappear. Thesh assassins. The walking dead. Dopplegangers. And, of course, Manslayer. But to a follower of Sarpedon, you know who instantly qualifies as evil? Me. Why? Because I’m a thief. What a fucking crock. Anyway, she’s been sent to protect certain members of the party, particularly me. This would be really fucking funny (The Paladin of Sarpedon must protect the THIEF!) if it weren’t for the fact that, like way too many other people, she immediately replaces the word “protect” with the phrase “treat like a child.” What, is it the way I look? She doesn’t even fucking know me, but she acts like she has to fucking hold my hand. She’s not doing this with everyone else in the party.

Anyway, we talk about how we’re going to get to the caves where the Mind Flayers are, and apparently the plan involves taking Rothgapharius to the tower and everyone teleporting. That’s right, taking him to the tower. I’m immediately against this plan. I don’t want that sick fucker wandering around Geldemar’s tower. It’s just wrong. I argue for a while, but eventually Araven convinces me that he’ll be well guarded, and that taking this risk is better than taking the several months it would require to travel to where we’re going. So we decide to teleport in. But since there’s no point in leaving until the morning, we decide to camp outside of Eisenstaadt for the evening. While we’re out there, Rothgapharius gets into an argument with Brag, that culminates in him growing to the size of a giant. We’ll soon find out that, unlike most shapeshifters, Rothgapharius has no size restrictions, and gains the abilities of the creature that he’s mimicking.

How did we find this out? Well, Maggie overhears me saying something to Baelthezar about him being associated with “dad”, and puts two and two together to come up with Tam. She pulls us aside and we discuss the fact that Rothgapharius now knows that Tam is in this world, since he can read Baelthezar’s mind. She also asks him about the gem in his chest, and it turns out that it’s just like one Agni had – Tam can use it to spy on us whenever he wants. Following this discussion is a very bizarre talk with Tam, who is communicating through Baelthezar. Baelthezar, by the way, seems to take things even less seriously than I do, unless they involve the physical act of protecting me. Needless to say, the talk is a little hard to follow, but through it all, we get the following:

Yes, it’s important that we kill the Mind Flayers.

Rothgapharius is a badass. Since he can read our minds, he can change his shape to avoid any attack. The only way to reliably kill him is with multiple area-affect spells, cast fast enough that he can’t change his resistance. It also occurs to me that I might be able to hit him, since he can’t read my mind and anticipate my moves, but I keep this to myself.

Baelthezar did something wrong to wind up serving Tam.

Tam may not always be watching, but he could be watching at any time. Bad Tam!

Also, we tell Baelthezar about the Paladin, so that he can be on his guard. Don’t do anything too thiefy, Baelthezar!

Anyway, we teleport to the tower the next morning, and Rothgapharius pays an inordinate amount of attention to the scrying mirror. I don’t like it. There’s very nearly trouble when Araven teleports me with Baelthezar, leaving Theo behind. We might run into some problems with the two of them competing for protecting me. At least Theo isn’t quite so heavy-handed about it.

Anyway, we find the area where the cave is, and we teleport there. We prepare to head inside, and Rothgapharius agrees to provide light be being a giant lightening bug. Almost immediately, problems start with the marching order. Now that everyone wants to protect me, I’m not allowed anywhere NEAR the front of the group. But how, then, will I scout for traps? No problem – Baelthezar can do it. He’s also very sneaky. And just like that, I’m suddenly useless. I can look forward to spending the rest of this quest squeezed into the middle of a line and pushed to the end whenever enemies, traps, or possibly beavers show up. You know, I can’t wait for Maggie to forge me this weapon to kill Manslayer. I think I’ll wait until then to bring up the fact that I’m not gaining any of that fighting experience that Geldemar wanted me to get by standing behind everyone else. Hell, I’m sure we can re-write the prophecy, right? Once I’ve been so well protected, we’ll just hand the ultimate weapon over to someone brave and tough enough to stand near the front, and I’ll be well protected. That’ll work, right? Yeah, fucking right. At least Maggie and Araven have some faith in me. So does Theo, he’s just always been protective. Oh, and that ring I thought I was going to have to get from Benedict? Turns out Araven has it, and he gives it to me.

Anyway, we travel through the caverns for a long time, until we come to this place where there are some holes in the wall. We start to walk past them, when four carrion crawler burst from the holes. I manage to dodge a couple shots from one of them, but he hits me with one of his tentacles, and suddenly I feel my whole body freeze up. By the time I’ve come to, the carrion crawlers are dead. Yeah, this does a lot for my fighting credibility.

So we keep going, and eventually come to a place where the floor drops off, and the walls are close together. Looks like someone is going to have to scale across, and Baelthezar is already gone. We discuss the problem for a while, and Araven turns into some sort of bird and flies a rope across, which we tie up to use as a tightrope. Shit, now I can do something. I walk across easily. Eventually everyone else gets across as well, and we keep moving.

When we come to a corner, there’s some sort of noise from behind it. I was listening, trying to figure out what it was, and then…umm…well, everything is a little hazy for a couple seconds. Next thing I know, everyone is around the corner looking at this bat lying there. Turns out that there was this thing called a Gibbering Mouther, and it would have been a tough fight, had Araven not turned it into a bat. I offered to shoot it, but it flew off. And on we walk.

Damn, but we walked for a long time. Nothing but tunnel. It was really, REALLY boring. And then we come to a cliff. Theo pounds a piton into the ground and we tie a rope to it, and I start to climb down. I get about halfway down, and the piton pulls out, dropping me. I’m sure everyone was really freaked out – oh my god, Quinn is going to die again! I thought very briefly about rolling with the fall, but there were a bunch of spiky stalagmites under me. Fortunately, I think quickly – remember the shape-change ring? I used it to turn myself into a sparrow, and flew to the ground. Meanwhile, Rothgapharius had turned himself into something called a Cave Fisher and crawled onto the ceiling, where he could use this longass tongue to catch me. Creepy, but I mentally filed it away. See, now that I have this ring, I can turn into pretty much anything I’ve ever seen. And now I’ve seen a cave fisher.

So it’s me and Baelthezar at the bottom of this cliff, and I’ve got the rope. No problem, I’ll attach my grappling hook and throw it up. Everyone backs up, which fucks with the lighting a little. I give a good, hard throw, and up the hook sails…past the edge of the cliff, and hits the ceiling. Suck. I get ready to throw again, but wait – the ceiling is cracking. I realize that I’m about to have a lot of stone dropped on my head, so I start running. I take a running jump in an attempt to get out of the way, and Baelthezar collides with me in midair. Between the two of us, we’re able to clear the area, and we’re safe. No fucking around this time – Baelthezar takes the rope and climbs back up – I could have done it, but no point in arguing right now. Then he climbs back down, and Maggie and Theo hammer the piton in again. Sarpedon-girl climbs down first, and – surprise – her thousand pounds of self-righteous armor weighs her down too much, the piton pulls out, and she falls. I don’t think she was too badly hurt, though. She was still able to walk after the fall. More’s the pity, I say. Eventually, everyone climbs down, and we head out.

More boring.

Then we come to a place where another tunnel intersects this one. It’s a weird tunnel – very large, and very smooth. The general consensus is that it’s from some kind of giant worm. Great. We keep going, and suddenly there are vibrations, and little stalactites are falling off the ceiling. We keep running, but no worm. And so we slow down and start walking.

More boring.

Then, as we’re walking, we spot these tiny little guys, probably Hobgoblins, running around in the dark. We try following them, in order to keep them from reporting to their masters about our presence, but they lose us. We keep going, round a corner, and there are two of them waiting for us. Araven casts a spell so he can understand them, and he translates for us. We’ve been summoned by their king. We decide to go along, and they lead us through tunnels, past a couple of traps that they somehow disarm (though they aren’t too confident about that disarming), and into their hobgoblin city…

And holy shit, are there a lot of them! Good thing we decided not to fight. Most of them just move out of our way as we head towards the throne room. We enter and find ourselves face to face with the Hobgoblin King. He’s…umm…short. He has to talk through Araven, and tells him that he wants to talk to him and “Jared”. I have no fucking clue who Jared is, but he points me out (I was hiding, pretty fucking well, at the time). Well, I’m caught, and I step forward.

And so here we are. This thing is chattering at me, and I can’t understand a single word. From what Araven is saying, though, he’s pretty insistant that everyone but the two of us leave, and no one seems to be having it.

Oh wait…it looks like our half elf friend is casting some kind of spell…

Game Twenty-Four

April 5, 2003

We’re close to the end now. Very soon, all of this will be over, and we’ll move on to…to whatever comes after.

We had traveled to Otherworld to search for the Black Stone of Destiny, which we believe had the power to break the Rod of Seven Parts. After several tests and challenges, we arrived at the last – a large giant, well armed, standing above the stone. I had snuck into the clearing, and Balthazar had done the same. After very little discourse, a battle began. Airaven cast some sort of blinding spell on the giant, and although he managed to hit Theo a couple of times, he was okay. After that, we surrounded the giant and unloaded on him. Between Theo’s axe hits, Balthazar’s arrows, and my dagger wounds, he was greviously wounded when Maggie got ahold of him in her bear form. One more swipe was all it took, and he fell.

As we prepared to gather the stone (and thought about how we would gather it), a large dog approached – the one that had been described to us by the giant we fought earlier (the one who wanted to play the hiding game). The wolf attacked, and while we were fighting it, its owner jumped out of the bushes and attacked as well. The fight was bloody, but we prevailed, and we were left with the Black Stone of Destiny. While we examined it, we saw that some of the warrior spirits were watching. Airaven stood on the stone, and a cry of joy was heard. The warrior spirits solidified, and bowed to Airaven as the high king. Cool. He ordered them to gather him an army, and we left Otherworld. Upon our return, we looked to the sky to see the planes that Manslayer is pulling together toward ours. Time was running out. We went back to Mordenkeinan, who told us that we had about three weeks, but he doesn’t know how to locate Manslayer.

We discussed some options, talked to some people, and then we were visited by a woman. She is a mage from the nation of Lun Darak, and she filled in some of the blanks on what’s going on. When Manslayer brings all three planes together, he’ll stand in the convergence of their energy, and all magic will be drawn from them into him. All three worlds will be completely bereft of magic, and he’ll be the most powerful being in the universe. Gotta stop him.

We set about trying to figure out where the convergence is, and for two weeks we had no luck. Finally, we received reports that Manslayer’s army was marching on Futterschardt. We teleported ourselves and some of Airaven’s army in, and then we were shut down by a magic field to prevent teleportation. A lengthy battle began. On our side we had Rangers, Dwarves, Celts, and the natives of the town. After a while, we spotted Manslayer and started moving towards him. Our army formed a wedge, cutting us a path through the living and the undead alike. After much fighting and death, we were surprised to find that dead soldiers from both sides were rising to fight for us – a gift from Tam. As we fought our way through the army, Manslayer’s dragon appeared and swooped towards us. Before she could reach, though, a huge dragon, much larger than this one, flew out from a cloud and killed her, flying away with the carcass (presumably to eat). With that problem out of the way, we kept going.

Eventually, we broke through the line, and continued to pursue Manslayer. Then he stopped ahead, and was joined by another creature on a skeletal horse that could only be the Fell King. They turned towards us and appeared ready to charge when Airaven cast a large fireball at them. Instead of just taking it, like Manslayer would almost definitely do (he’s immune to magic), both of them rolled out the way – STILL ON THEIR HORSES. This didn’t look right, and I began to suspect that these weren’t Manslayer and the Fell King, they were Rothgapharius and his mate. They charged in, and I tried to hide. Unfortunately, my hiding place was already inhabited by a snake. Then I tried again, and twisted my ankle in the process. By this time they were getting close. Kesleigh charged, barely managed to scrape “Manslayer” and kept going. Then, out of nowhere, Bracka charged. He looked like he was going to swing at “Manslayer”, but instead he opened his mouth and just sucked him in! It was unbelievable. The other doppleganger didn’t take it well, and she turned herself into a very huge dragon. I’ve never been more afraid in all my life. I ran. We all ran, except for Kesleigh. The dragon grabbed her, and told Braka that he if didn’t return Rothgapharius, she would kill Kesleigh. Braka considered this an acceptable loss, until the dragon also agreed to not attack us, and to give us the location of Manslayer. Braka didn’t like it, but Airaven made him accept. He coughed Rothgapharius back up. Before leaving, Rothgapharius told us where Manslayer is, and what kind of backup he has. He’s set up in a valley near the Inn at the Crossroads – where I first died. He has 50 drow elves, and some of his best warriors. We have a few celtic warriors, the element of surprise, and a weapon. It’s a staff that Maggie made for me, and it’s amazing. Now all I have to do is get to Manslayer, and get a shot off. Easier said than done, though.

I’m starting to get nervous, but soon this will all be over.