Gift wrap

Returning to Cottis, not just once but twice in the last few months, has been a bitter-sweet experience. Banaal had spent over ten years of his formative years here and had strong memories of Lord Urdurel and Lady Dulcetta, although from a child’s perspective.

His memories of Lamenta though were much stronger. From when she was a baby until, though about six years younger, she’d stood taller than him. They’d been inseparable best friends throughout the decade he’d spent in the Human lands. She was bright, warm and full of life and he had loved and protected her as if she’d been his little sister. Even now, he still can’t quite believe she’s dead. Not just dead but fifty-years interred in the dark, cold earth.

Lord Urdurel, though much older now, had welcomed him back with open arms and immediately shared his knowledge of the vile Hetzabah’s escape and the strange band of adventurers pursuing her. He’d then asked him to seek out these adventurers and bring them back to him.

A task he was more than happy to accept.

Now though, after successfully completing that mission, he stands alone in his luxurious and secure room in the castle and admires his reflection in the full-length mirror.

As a reward, Lord Urdurel had given him a cloak of sorts. A long cape-like wrap, so delicate it’s barely there at all. A wrap so fine, it looks more like a gossamer spider’s web draped over his broad shoulders.

This cobweb cloak though doesn’t tear to the touch. Instead it tears through the ethereal plane and allows its wearer to weave between them.

This gift of Lord Urdurel’s; a gift literally off of his own back, is probably worth more than all the gold that Banaal’s ever seen. Probably double that! Triple!! 

And despite that, considering the cloaks subtle power and who they’re going to eventually face, he thinks that its original cost, whatever it was, may yet prove to be a bargain!

Run Rabbit

Under the watchful eyes of his faithful hound; Mir Hundur and his magical staff; Dijonn, Liga Bur sceptically tugs on the two magical rabbit fur boots, gifted to him by Lord Urdurel. Despite his doubts though, he’s amazed to discover that the small boots readily stretch and extend to fit over his long Halfling feet. Halfling feet that now, due to their disproportionate length and sable coloured fur covering, actually resemble the long back feet of a giant Jack-rabbit!

He’d never felt the need for footwear before and had always, secretly, taken pride in the fact that, despite his smaller stature compared to his Orcish brethren, his feet had always been bigger and tougher than theirs. 

Looking down at them now though, he has to admit that they feel pretty good wrapped in the soft leather and fur. Better than good. He feels ‘springy’ for the first time in his life. 

Springier and stridier!

The Gods Laugh

Due to the gods of fate, my wife, a cousin, my brother, my parents and my son all independently ignoring my plans, I went from having an entirely free Sunday the 26th, to having multiple plans, including two separate London shows and three family visits!

Thanks to you all for being so obliging, we can still battle the elements, witches and assassins, but just a day earlier.

See you all on Saturday the 25th at 9am!

One Sword, Two Boards

Examining his new, heavy metal, heater style shield, Fortu traces the stylised octopus design with two of his fingertips. Although dark, it’s so well rendered, he can almost imagine the tentacles reaching out to envelop his opponents. It radiates a level of defensive magical energy that even he can sense and it’s an extremely generous gift from Lord Urdurel… 

Although, considering what he and his companions have agreed to do for him, it’s more of a bribe really.

Fortu compares it to his old magic shield. ‘Old magic shield’? How strange that he’s become so quickly accustomed to possessing these fantastical magical items. His ‘old magic shield’ had saved him from serious injury many times, deflecting sword thrusts that otherwise would have wounded him, but now, just by the heft of them, he can tell how superior the new one actually is.

Looking at the two large shields side by side, it’s a shame he can’t use them both simultaneously, but then he wouldn’t be able to use his impossibly sharp and indestructible Flamberge Bastard sword. Another magical item that he couldn’t even have imagined wielding when he was in the brutal gladiator pits of Tuatata.

‘Awesome’ he had named it but Lord Urdurel said that, when he owned it, he’d called it the ‘Sovereign sword’ and the ‘Kingmaker’. Fortu frowns as he recalls the old man’s next words.

‘That’s not what it’s really called though...’

Turning the heavy, but perfectly balanced, Adamantine blade in the flickering lamplight of his spacious private room, Fortu observes the way that the engraved letters on both sides of the base of the blade gleam sinisterly. He’s possessed this sword for almost two months, ever since prying it out of the gauntlet of the mechanical knight that stood guard outside the main entrance of Dulcetta’s lost tower.

In all that time though, despite travelling through towns and villages, he still hasn’t managed to have the words translated.

In truth though, he hadn’t tried that hard and even now, when Lord Urdurel had dangled the truth in front of him, he’d balked. Why was he so reluctant to know what his sword’s inscription actually says? Perhaps, after everything he’s learned over the last few months, it’s because he suspects what language the inscription is actually written in?

No Noose is Good Noose

Smiling behind his mask, Torsion, the heavy-set, hooded prison guard, shouts down from the top of the stone steps and delivers the news that the eleven, newly incarcerated, prisoners had been waiting for.

“I come bearing good news men! Although you were scheduled to be hung tomorrow morning in the public square, Lord Urdurel has, for some unfathomable reason, granted you leniency.”

DeFacto, the acting leader of the surviving but captured ‘Dirty Dozen’ calls up from the gloom below.

“That is surprisingly good news! So what’s to happen to us now? A royal pardon?”

Torsion shrugs unseen.

“Lord Urdurel’s not quite that lenient. It’ll be ten years hard labour in the quarry, I’m afraid. It’s back breaking work but you might survive it and, if you do, you’ll still have a chance of a real life.”

There are audible sighs of relief from behind the cell bars but also groans. Ten years of hard labour is often just a stretched out death sentence, with the weaker members of the work gangs, usually not surviving beyond the first year.

Still, Torsion continues to smile. Despite his ‘Chief Executioner’ title, he’d never wanted to do this job in the first place. When he was young, he wanted to be a musician and make people happy but his dirt-poor parents couldn’t even afford to buy him a simple flute, so he was forced, because of his imposing size and lack of a formal education, into this, quite literally, dead-end job.

Uncivil Villains

“Please. Please don’t call me that.”

Cringing but still pleading, the gusset soaked lookout tries to shield his face whilst simultaneously covering his shamefully sopping crotch.

The four thugs surrounding him, all laugh raucously.

“What? ‘Pants-Wetter-Tattle-Tale’?”

“Why shouldn’t we?”

“yeah, that’s what you is, isn’t you?”

“You’re a stinky little pisser and you ratted us out to that armoured tosser, didn’t you?”

The smaller man, in the centre of the quartet of Thieves guild enforcers, gulps and begs.

“I didn’t mean to. I was trying to blend in and be inconspicuous, like what I was told to, but there was a Dwarf who noticed me somehow.”

One of the larger thugs shrugs.

“So what? You didn’t have to admit nothing.”

The quailing lookout grabs a handful of the big thugs tunic.

“It wasn’t him that made me squeal; it was the armoured Knight.”

Brushing off the clinging hands, the enforcer scowls.

“A Knight? A Knight?! If you ain’t learned to lie to a poncey nobleman, who can you be trusted to lie to?”

The young, panicking gang member, snatches at the bigger man’s grey tunic again.

“You don’t understand! He weren’t like no normal Knight what I’d ever seen before. His armour was dark and creepy but his eyes! His eyes were black as pitch! It was like he was Death himself and he was gonna rob me of my soul!”

The leader of the thugs shoves the slender lookout to the ground, where the others proceed to kick and stamp on him until he finally stops moving or moaning.

Walking away, the last thug mutters.

“Pants-Wetter-Tattle-Tale… That sorta sounds like one of those funny, long Gnomish names, don’t it?”

His three goon friends all turn and snigger at the slightly racist observation, despite their ex-lookout’s blood and brains still staining their boots.

The Illiterati

Assif recently (kindly) flattered my ongoing attempts at serialising our shared adventure but it made me consider some of the flaws (beyond my dyslexic spelling) in my writing style.

The weekly Orange inn posts are my way of maintaining momentum in the month(s) between sessions and to act as a recap/reminder of sorts, but they do more than that. They enable me to insert information that I’ve flubbed in-game.

As the DM, it’s my responsibility to describe the environment, opposition and situations that you, the players, find yourselves in. I’m not the most comfortable communicator and Scott noticed (and found funny) something I do in the pattern of my speech.

I can’t seem to help myself from doubling down in the way I write and speak. I like using alliteration, rhyme and the ‘rule of three’, but my most obvious (dodgy) trait is my need to repeat the thought, despite effectively, often creating double or even triple negatives. 

‘No, I didn’t do nothing!’.

In Lord Urdurel’s speech, I used the phrase; ‘Endeavour to try’. I ‘tried to try’. I understood that it was a redundancy but I just liked the ‘shape’ of the sentence.

The past description that made Scott chortle was when I was trying to describe the block of floating ground beneath Dulcetta’s magical spinning tower.

‘It’s like an upside down, inverted pyramid.’

Most recently, when writing about Fortu’s slaughter of the spy assassin in the tavern, I desperately wanted to write 

‘Bisected into two separate pieces.’

It’s a weird literary tic that I can’t seem to shake. It’s probably connected to my need to use emojis to repeat the thought of the preceding sentence. If I write ‘That’s hilarious’, I’ll almost certainly follow it up with a ‘laughing face’ emoticon.