Larissa's diary

[cellio]

December 22 (Sunday)

This morning we received a summons from a Lord Yvon, who wanted to meet with us. I didn't think we were that noticable, but I guess we are. The page he sent is lucky he came early; everyone was still at the inn. So we went with him.

I'm not sure what Lord Yvon's position is, exactly. He's obviously some sort of minor bureaucrat, and he rates a decent office and some burly, surly guards. His reason for seeing us seemed to be to try to recruit us for the Tergian army; they've been at war with Lescap since spring. Fortunately, he did not press us when we declined, though he did ask us to tell his guards when we leave town. That's unsettling.

Something else was unsettling to Kyle. After we left, he said there was something not quite right with Yvon's appearance, but he couldn't say what the problem was. Disguise? Polymorph? Something else? Well, we shouldn't assume that people are as they appear anyway; I know how to alter my own appearance, and Firella has a magic device of some sort that allows her to change hers. It's not impossible that a petty bureaucrat might have such a thing, though it makes me wonder what he's hiding.

After the meeting, I sought out the temple here. The primary worship is of Kord, but Pelor's priests have a presence as well. After a bit of waiting, I was able to speak with a priest of Pelor. His name is Boniface. He seems like a decent fellow. Slightly odd in appearance, in a way I couldn't put my finger on.

I asked if he is in contact with his fellow priests in other towns, specifically Shepford, but alas, he had no news for me. I am growing more concerned about things back home.

The main reason I sought him out, though, is my uncertainty about Turok. He's been acting a little strange ever since he got Skullcreeper. He almost left Kotara-nar behind a few days ago on the road, and in the fight with the wood "gargoyles" yesterday he was gleefully swinging Skullcreeper instead of Kotara-nar. And he's been acting protective of the club -- being careful to keep it out of range of my nightly aura readings this past week, and so on.

But I don't want to share these concerns with anyone else. Not even Liandra, yet; I might be worrying over nothing. What I want is a way to detect what's going on, so I'll know if I should worry.

I asked Boniface if it's possible to detect a malicious influence over someone. He said this might be possible, but not without seeing the person, and he wanted to know more about the problem. I just said that a friend had come upon an intelligent weapon that seemed not altogether friendly, and I'm concerned about the weapon's influence on him. Unfortunately, he can't give me a way of magically detecting this on my own, and I don't want to try to lure Turok there. He'd get suspicious, and he has a human-hating club. I'll have to think more about this. I wish I could talk with Brion about it.

Since we'll be in Oakhame for Pelor's birthday, I asked Boniface if there are special things I should do to celebrate on my own. He taught me a special prayer to say at sunrise, and told me to just enjoy the day.

December 23 (Monday)

This afternoon I went shopping and found a wand that could help me if I need to defend myself against Turok. (It could help in other ways, too.) The price was right, so I picked it up.

I've had no luck so far in finding a third pearl of suitable quality for the protection charms.

Tonight Skullcreeper seemed to be in a talkative mood, so we asked it about the Cataclysm. It said that it was in Tergia and Lescap at the time -- the attacks were driving its wielders into Lescap, and in general the Cataclysm proceeded in a vast wave from south to north. (Oh, goody. We're considerably north of Shepford.) The attacks became more frequent and more severe over time, and there were different diseases as well. It all just tapered off over a period of years, apparently; there was no clear end that Skullcreeper remembers.

I asked what's in Lescap, anyway. Skullcreeper said barbarians. I assume that's not as true now as it was 500 years ago. Nithelin was from Lescap and while he is many things, including "wacky" and "deranged", he's not especially barbaric. And I don't think he really has the survival skills to manage amid a barbarian majority.

All of this talk reminded Skullcreeper of several long tales of glorious battles in which it made a major contribution, but after listening to this for a little while I wandered off in search of some good music.

Hrolf is disappointed that we're in the middle of a city and that makes it hard for him to hunt, but he seemed to grudgingly accept the chunk of meat I procured at the inn for him. It sounds like he'll enjoy Oakhame.

December 24 (Tuesday)

I fear that we will no longer be able to be discreet in Kozel'sk.

This morning over breakfast a young acolyte from the temple burst into the inn at a dead run. It took him a few minutes to catch his breath, and he was obviously panicked. He finally gasped out something like "monsters...basement...temple...come now". When we got him to breathe and talk in complete sentences, he told us that something strange was going on in the basement of the temple, and it involved skeletons rising from the dead, and could we please come help?

Skeletons? In the basement of a temple? And priests need our help to deal with that which ought to already be dead? We were confused, but the problem sounded serious so we grabbed our gear and ran.

We met Boniface at the temple, and he reported that there were swarms of ambulatory bones all over the place in their catacombs, and that a priest of Kord who had gone down there was currently unconscious. Pelor was unwilling to heal the priest beyond stopping his bleeding, it seemed, which I've never heard of before.

I asked the obvious question, and Boniface said that they did try turning the animated bones, but they kept rising up again anyway.

We said we'd do our best to help, and Boniface led us down the stairs. The catacombs are where they entomb people, so we tried to be respectful, but we ended up doing a lot of damage to the bone piles (and a little bit of property damage to the other contents). We made sure to do no damage to the records room and the wine cellar, at least.

At one point a very weird, shadowy thing dropped in front of Turok and scared him. He actually ran screaming and headed up the stairs. He returned a bit later, though, teleporting into the middle of the fight swinging Skullcreeper. It was freaky. By then the shadowy thing had somehow turned into five shadowy things, and Turok kept hitting them and making them disappear. I think I've seen Prolix do that trick. Finally, we were down to one again (through a combination of attacks), and we told Turok to hit that one.

That left the bone piles, which were animated and numerous. One of them was covered in green slime like we've seen before, and another was apparently diseased. That one hit Hrolf and he got sick! I blasted those ones with fire, though I had been trying to keep the use of fire down out of respect for the temple. But they hurt Hrolf!

Finally, when all the bones stopped moving (and many were singed), we found something surprising: an ancient statue of the dragon of Agondre, with a gem in front of it like it was an offering. Boniface said the statue had been here for a while, but the gem was new to him.

This seemed pretty unnatural to us, and Boniface decided to ward us against unsavory influences. When he did, Skullcreeper screamed at Turok and Turok flung the club across the room. He then pulled Kotara-nar and began chopping up the club! It was very strange; the club was shrieking and finally those glowing red eyes just faded out. Turok was quite thorough. There was nothing but splinters when he was done.

Everyone was pretty shaken, so we went with Boniface back upstairs where he and the other priests healed us and let us rest.

Tonight, Turok told me how relieved he is to be free of Skullcreeper's influence. So I was right, it seems. We were pretty lucky Boniface cast that spell when he did. I'm glad to have the real Turok back! He seems to have spent much of the evening gazing at Kotar-nar.

Meanwhile, Prolix told me that his special mirror is ready and he is now able to study people at a distance, for brief periods of time. Finally, we may be able to find out what's going on in Shepford! We decided not to do this in the city, though; too many people are already interested in us, and I don't want people to know that he can do this. (I didn't ask him where he got the mirror and whether that was noteworthy, though.)

Meta-game note: Larissa writes the following entry as secretly as she can -- hunched over the book, under the bedcovers, or whatever. Motivation: what if Yvon is scrying us? This would be at the forefront of her mind, given that we're trying to scry him. Best not let him read about this over her shoulder. :-)

December 25 (Wednesday)

It was a setup.

That uncoscious priest of Kord (named Karel) woke up and was promptly interrogated by the other priests. He set those monsters loose, though that wasn't his specific intent. He made an offering at the dragon shrine and asked to lure us in so he could get a look at Skullcreeper. Oops, I thought I had been more discreet than that.

And Boniface knew that there was some sort of ploy to get Turok into the temple, though he didn't know what Karel had planned. It worked, but it was awfully dangerous. According to Boniface, that's why Pelor wouldn't heal Karel's wounds (beyond making him stable); Karel had willingly given up something of himself to bring this about. I guess those legends of people being able to sacrifice parts of themselves for the sake of others are true.

I found this out because I had gone back to the temple to help with cleanup. We burned some things, and they said yesterday that they wanted to clean up that statue and get a closer look at it. So I volunteered to help and set a small army of magical servants to work building shelves and scrubbing the statue with holy water. It was kind of slimy, so the priests were happy not to have to do it themselves. When we scrubbed away most of the slime and dirt we saw part of the word "Agondre" engraved on it.

The priests are trying to raise funds to consult a bard about the statue. I made a contribution, and they promised to share the results when they get some.

We decided today that we're going to try to leave town tomorrow, so we made an appointment with Lord Yvon to let him know, as he requested. As we were getting ready, I heard Prolix and Kyle discussing a bit of sneakiness. Prolix said he wants to magically study Lord Yvon (after we leave), but his chances will be better if he has a hair or a fingernail clipping or something else of Yvon's. (I wonder what would happen if he accidentally got someone else's hair, like from Yvon's lover if he has one.) So Kyle was planning to grab something during our meeting, and to make that easier Prolix was going to turn him invisible. This made me pretty uncomfortable, and I told them I wouldn't lie to cover them. They seemed to think they had it under control, though, so we went to visit Yvon sans visible Kyle.

Lord Yvon asked us immediately about our other member, and we said we didn't know where he was. He commended us on our rescue of the temple (news travels fast, it seems), and then tried again to lure us into the army. But we said that we are investigating these unusual occurrences and will be of more use to Tergia if we continue to do that, and he didn't press us. We asked if he knew of other unusual events, and he said he had heard tales that he had discounted until now. We promised to let him know if we encounter others in Tergia, and in what I thought was a moment of brilliance, I asked him if he could write down for us a way to address a note to ensure that it gets to him immediately. I thought the piece of paper might be helpful to Prolix.

We told him that we're planning to leave for Oakhame tomorrow and he wished us well. After chatting a bit more we took our leave. I don't know if Kyle got what he was looking for; I haven't asked him yet.

Tonight Turok quietly told me that he's noticed some odd things about Kotara-nar, and he asked me to take a look. He says the sword is "whiter", though I don't see a change. But I can definitely feel that the sword is quite warm to the touch, and it wasn't before. We are both wondering if this has anything to do with Skullcreeper.

I studied the sword magically, and the aura is a little different. It's much stronger, and there's a new flavor of evocation that looks kind of like some of my own magic. That combined with the heat makes me think that Kotara-nar has some sort of fire-based ability, maybe the ability to shoot flames in combat. I'm going to have to ask Liandra if I can study her fire-blade spell; that might give me some hints about what's going on. I hope that Kotara-nar isn't going to start throwing around large balls of fire like those I've recently learned how to make; that could be dangerous! I mean, I don't have any reason to believe that either Kotara-nar or Turok knows how to control such magic, and uncontrolled would be bad. I made my vest to protect myself from enemies; I didn't expect to have to defend myself from party members.

Turok also thanked me for intervening with Skullcreeper, and I apologized for it being more public than I had meant. He asked me to intervene again if anything like that ever happens again. Oh, he can surely bet on that!

December 26 (Thursday)

Oakhame is beautiful! I can see why Liandra likes the place so much.

It took us all day to get here, but with Liandra to guide us we made it. We met some of her friends in the woods before we got there, and they led us to Lady Mairead, Liandra's mother. She's a striking, digified lady and a gracious host. We had a splendid feast with her family and a number of prominent people in Oakhame; apparently Liandra's mother is important here.

There are many bards here, and they had tales of ferocious tribes in Lescap and in the mountains. They have sent people to Cardior to investigate the current activities, both the war and others, but they have no news yet.

One bard, Seamus, spent a lot of time talking with us, and we told him of our adventures. He recognized Therion's name as legendary, and he told us stories of dragon statues with magic powered by belief. He and Turok spent a while talking; Seamus was particularly interested in hearing how Turok came to have dragon form, and he asked if Turok has all of the properties of dragons. We don't know what those are, but maybe Seamus will help Turok find out during our stay here. I think Turok is also going to ask him to examine Kotara-nar, maybe tomorrow.

Prolix called me aside and said that he's ready to scry on Shepford. He assumed I was going to look in on my parents, but I said to do Brion first. We only have a few minutes to talk (if indeed we can talk at all), and I don't want to spend them listening to my mother demand that I get home and get married right now. I want to know what's going on in Shepford, and I think Brion is a more likely source of information in five minutes. So using the torch of Pelor as an aid to the spell, Prolix cast the spell and was successful.

We saw Brion sitting down to a meal. After a few tries, Prolix said he had successfully cast a spell that would let us talk. Actually, it allowed Prolix to talk to Brion; I couldn't talk directly, and he had to relay my messages.

Thanks to the gods (and particularly Pelor), Shepford is fine so far. They had a good harvest this year, and had enough to be able to share with Timberthorp, who had problems with slime monsters and crop failure. (They used poison to combat the slime, and it apparently caused the crops to fail.) He said my family is fine, and I asked him to not tell them that I had contacted him first. I'll be trying to contact them, but this spell can take a few days to succeed sometimes. He agreed.

I asked after Tobin and learned that Tobin has left Shepford to "make a difference". He left nearly a month ago and was heading north, but no one knows where he is. I hope he's ok! I also hope he's not alone, though Brion was unsure. (The rat-kin can be hard to distinguish at times, and no one is sure just how many there are.) Maybe Prolix will scry on Tobin for me at some point. But not right away; he said tomorrow he's going to scry on Lord Yvon. I asked if Kyle had been successful and Prolix showed me a small statue that had been on Yvon's desk. That wasn't part of the plan! He was supposed to take something innocuous that Yvon would never miss, not something that he might care about! I am bothered by this theft and am not sure what to do about it.

Tomorrow Liandra and I are going to go looking for the ingredients for the pearl charms. We need to make them as the full moon rises, which is soon.

Comments

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

Delightful as always. Some specific comments:

- I don't remember anything being odd about Boniface's appearance.

- Karel didn't give up something of himself and deny healing--Pelor was just feeling pretty cranky about Karel invoking Agondre and creating hordes of undead underneath Pelor's temple. (Pelor *was* merciful enough to keep Karel from dying, though.)

I'm not sure whether you'd actually figure this out, but I don't mind you knowing.

The issue of 'giving up part of yourself' came up more in Turok's fertilizing the dragon's blood herbs--those self-inflicted wounds won't respond to magic healing.

[cellio]

- I don't remember anything being odd about Boniface's appearance.

He's a half-orc with high charisma. Larissa has interacted with either zero or one half-orcs before, so isn't familiar with them. And the Spot roll you had me make was pretty pathetic. So I figure this all translates as "something odd, but not sure what and it's not really important anyway".

(The "zero or one" bit is because I can't remember if that bodyguard who joined us for one adventure in Edwest Burrows was a half-orc. I think he might have been, but I didn't check my notes.)

- Karel didn't give up something of himself and deny healing

Ah, my mistake. That said, though, Boniface might (or might not) have wanted to put a better spin on the guy's acts to outsiders while dressing him down royally in private. I am confident that he could say something that gave Larissa this impression without actually lying.

The issue of 'giving up part of yourself' came up more in Turok's fertilizing the dragon's blood herbs

Yup. I'm saving that to write up with the rest of the item-preparation stuff, in case you're wondering. Larissa's diary runs in days, but our adventures don't necessarily. :-) (On that day we're going to collect herbs, look for a unicorn, prepare the mix, try to make the item, and celebrate the beginning of the new year. She'd have no reason to stop between steps one and two and write about it, though that's where we ended the session.)

[cellio]

Whoops. Actually, we're not going to make the item the same day, but you know what I meant... :-)

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

Ah, the half-orc thing. I had suggested to make him a human with the same stats, rationalizing it as within normal human variation.

He's still strong and stocky--that's probably typical for Tergia.

I think you're right about the half-orc in Edwest Burrows--I think his name was Crate. I'd forgotten about that--another orc in a nearly orc-free campaign. :)

a change

[cellio]

At the game Prolix' player told me that he had not shared the specifics of how he was scrying Yvon with anyone else, so a small part of the above entry didn't really happen.