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Sep. 25th, 2001
Larissa's diary (pre-adventure)
Sep. 25th, 2001 11:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cellioDear Diary,
I haven't written in a while. It's been a busy spring, with all the extra work on the farm. It's a shame that kid Jake didn't work out as a farm-hand; we needed the help. I didn't mean to daze him; I was aiming for Maria. So even though I'm really not very useful for this sort of thing, I've been spending a lot of time out in the fields with Hal and Dad. They don't appreciate my efforts to make things easier, either; *I* thought steering the plow blade by magic rather than by brute force was a *fine* idea. Some people are *so* boring. (I think Hal is just jealous because *he* can't move things with his mind.)
Mom is still mad about the incident in the chicken coop a few months ago. Can *I* help it if I can't completely control this magic stuff yet? I didn't ask for these powers, after all. They must be hereditary; Uncle Sebastian was always kind of peculiar, and they never did figure out what caused that fire at his house. Anyway, that's why I need to practice on things like the plow, where a mistake can't do any harm. Besides, it wasn't that many eggs, and none of the chickens was permanently injured. Sheesh.
May 15 (Sunday)
My little sisters are jerks. They taunt me until I get upset and then weird funky stuff happens beyond my control, and all of a sudden everything is *my* fault. This isn't fair. Maria wouldn't have gotten hurt if she'd left me alone, and Mom wouldn't have needed to send for a cleric in the middle of the night.
June 12 (Thursday)
I saw a traveller on the road while I was out in the fields today. He was having trouble with his wagon. When I got close, I saw that he wasn't really making his repairs with his hands like it looked like; he was doing it magically. I recognized the spell. When he finally saw me he stopped and tried to cover it up, but I said it was ok and I picked up the part he had been working on and asked him where it belonged. That startled him. Then he taught me a little bit about control, which was really nice, and I gave him half of my lunch. (He said he couldn't stay in town, though he didn't say why. Was he in *that* much of a hurry?) Anyway, that lesson was really helpful! His name is Ferdinand, and he said he lives in Shipsburg, wherever that is.
July 1 (Sunday)
Mom and Dad have been having lots of hushed conversations that stop when I walk into the room. I think they're up to something.
July 18 (Wednesday)
I've started to hang out at Jehan's in the evenings. It's a lot more fun than staying home, and I keep hoping that we'll get some fun visitors like those travelling musicians from a few months back. Or maybe Ferdinand would come back and I could get some more lessons. Besides, Jehan sometimes gives me free drinks if I do magic tricks for him, and his beer is better than the stuff Dad makes.
July 21 (Saturday)
I found out what Mom and Dad are up to. (I hid under their bed last night. They're really noisy at night; I'm surprised I've never heard it through the wall. Yuck.)
They're trying to find someone to marry me off to, to get me out of their hair. Apparently this magic stuff is too much for them, but it never occurred to them to look for someone who can maybe teach me or something. No, they said they'll take the first acceptable suitor who can be talked into it. What an insult.
Aug 4 (Wednesday)
I don't care what they say; I am *not* marrying a halfling. Or gnome, or whatever he is. Especially one with a gambling habit. I bet they haven't even talked to him about their idea, either. I can't imagine that he'd be interested in a human wife. Sheesh. Try again, folks, this time within species.
cellioThat was different. I'm not sure how much "different" I'm up for.
Tonight I was sitting in Jehan's. That gnome gambler was there, and also a couple other short guys (don't know where they came from; never seen 'em before). The cleric Mom called in the middle of the night last winter was there, too. And there was a merchant who just arrived in town (wow, a merchant! maybe he has some nice jewelry), and this very weird foreign guy who desperately needs guidance from someone who understands fashion. And he was criticizing the beer, too. I should give him some of Dad's; that ought to shut him up about Jehan's.
So anyway, the tavern was pretty full up, and suddenly the floor caved in. Just like that! I haven't seen anything like it since the time Dad insisted he knew how to build a shed and didn't need any help. One minute I'm sitting there drinking beer, and the next minute I'm sitting on a mound of dirt and broken furniture and floor boards several feet down. Me and most of the rest of the customers. Jehan somehow escaped.
So as if that's not bad enough, within seconds we were attacked by a swarm of giant rats. I don't mean like the ones that hang around the barn sometimes; I mean *huge* ones, almost as big as me. I tried to get out of the way quickly (what do I know about rats?), and some people picked up table legs and whatever to fight with. I figured that couldn't hurt and grabbed something too, though I hoped to stay out of the fight.
But it got worse. These were followed very quickly by rat-men. Rats walking on two legs, and wearing armor, and using weapons no less! Who could have imagined such a thing? I was hoping that they were after the rats, but they started hurling spears at us. Bah.
That gnome (named Prolix, I later learned) turns out to be an illusionist, and he blasted a bunch of the rat-men with a color spray. I took the direct approach and killed one with a magic missile and dazed another. That funny foreigner (named Torak or Turok or something like that; I think he keeps changing it, actually) is a pretty good fighter; he managed to drop several of them.
The merchant was in a bad spot; he has a bad leg, so he couldn't get out of the way. Some people stood over him to protect him while fending off the rat-men, and he managed not to get hurt.
We eventually killed all the rats and rat-men and climbed up out of the hole. Jehan was cowering in a corner. We told him what we saw, and he told us we have to go back down there and hunt out the rest. That doesn't sound like a bright idea to me, but I guess if we don't do it the problem will just get worse. I don't know how many other people in town could take on rats in armor with spears, though I can think of a few I'd love to see try. Like that nasty bully Roberto. But I digress.
Jehan gave us free drinks after that, and after a while he offered us money to go after them. Ok, that's starting to sound interesting. Gotta sleep on it.
I wonder what he's going to do about that hole in his floor?
cellioOuch. Ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
I stayed in the inn Tuesday night. Everyone else did, and I was feeling a little too tipsy to walk home anyway. Jehan fed us breakfast, and then I noticed that Colm (that's the merchant) had set up his shop nearby.
He has a big mix of stuff. He did have some pretty bracelets and necklaces (and a ring) for not too much money -- well, not too much after we haggled for a while -- so I bought some. He also had some very pretty fabric, much nicer than the stuff we weave here. It's not wool, either; I think it's probably silk. I bought enough to make a couple shirts and a gown.
While I was shopping a woman with flowers in her hair and a wolf came in. She had another short guy with her, too. (Come to think of it, we never did see the two who fell through the floor with us after that night. This was definitely a different one. Grumpier. Maybe he's not a morning person.) They apparently just arrived in town and missed all the excitement, so Colm and I told the story again. Some of the other people who were there wandered into the shop, too. Liandra (the flower-lady) asked if we were going to go after the rat-men and most of us said yes, so she and her friend (Kyle) offered to join us. That sounded like a fine idea, especially as our cleric was nowhere to be found and Liandra said she knows about healing.
So anyway, we all got some gear together in the morning, and then we headed down through the hole in Jehan's floor. We found a tunnel leading to Jehan's store-room, and it's obvious that the rat-men have been stealing food and covering their tracks. We told Jehan about that later and he plugged up the hole.
There was a passage leading out from the "room" we fell into, so we followed it. We found a wall with a stone door (!) and spent a while trying to open it. While we were doing this, three rat-men (a patrol?) approached us from the other end of the hall and attacked. We killed two of them, but the third got away.
We decided that the still-unopened door could wait, and we headed down the hall in pursuit of rat-men.
We got ambushed. Badly. There were like a dozen rat-men, and one of them was doing all sorts of acrobatics and seemed to somehow always get behind one of us no matter what we did. Things got ugly. We did what we could; Prolix and I got off some spells to damage them, and Turok was making mince-meat of a bunch of them with that mucking big sword of his. I've never seen someone cut two opponents in half with a single blow before. But there were too many of them, and the last thing I remember from the fight is being gutted with a spear and thinking that now I know what my intestines look like.
I woke up much later in a bed in the tavern. Liandra told me we got everyone out and she healed the three of us who fell, but we'd need a bit of bed rest yet. I was really sore, so I wasn't about to argue with her. I fell back to sleep pretty quickly, and it was after breakfast when I woke up this morning. Not that breakfast sounded particularly appealing anyway.
Liandra says we're going to wait another day at least, and she cast some healing spells on me. So now I only feel sore and tired, not queasy.
But I can sit up and write now, and soon I'm going to practice some more with magic. I'm pretty good at moving a single object; I wonder if I can do two at a time.