Post by blantyr on Jul 27, 2015 22:43:08 GMT -5
Mother Dearest
I shall in time stop shivering, I think. I hope. The Old Hiss has a big fire roaring away. I’ll be fine so long as shivering can’t be caused by memories.
I have been studying Minotaurs recently. The Ranger books have much to say about them, mostly bad. They have one redeeming quality not mentioned in the books. Their mazes break the wind. One is less likely to shake one’s self to death once one gets inside their maze. A redeeming feature, yes, though it does not counterbalance the rest of it.
Our various information sources, divine and otherwise, told us we had to strike at the minotaur in mid winter. You know, I’d heard of northern winters. I thought they sounded like a good time to rest up, to catch up on song writing and instrument practice, on cider drinking and clog dancing. When we returned from our visit with the troll, I sort of made a big deal of collapsing in front of the fire and relaxing. It was a good feeling… for a few hours. Minutes? Seconds? Then the Grey Witch showed up and quite promptly got us going. We wanted to visit the cloud giants, right?
Right?
We did visit, and brought her back a skien of cloud silk which she spun into the most useful spool of thread ever. If you ever need to get into the heart of a Minotaur lair, and then out again, definitely visit your friendly neighborhood Grey Witch. Make sure you really really need to get to the center of a Minotaur lair first. You might otherwise want to avoid Grey Witches.
Actually, she isn’t as bad as she pretends to be. She thinks hobbits need protecting, and has an amazing amount of patience when confronted by hobbit love. Poor thing. They are so appreciative, yet she hasn’t fried them yet, even when they don’t put enough pepper in her soup. Thirty years in prison, waiting to be served the most perfect of all possible meals… and no pepper in the pea soup.
But that’s another tale. She was in a hurry. It followed that we were in a hurry. The demon who is apparently seeking control of the island seemed to have noticed the death of the troll. He started mustering forces for battle in the spring. We were told it wasn’t prudent to wait until these forces were mustered. This seemed to be good advice, but on the other hand there was two feet of snow on the ground. I carefully measured that this was precisely one foot eleven inches too many. Still, one last preemptive warming by the Old Hiss fire, and off we went.
Did I mention it was cold?
So there I was, trundling along, following hint of a path somewhere buried in flakes, when I topped a rise and encountered a rather large bear. Nice bear, I commented, lying. He really wasn’t a very nice bear. Enjoy your wonderful venison, I commented, retreating back towards my humans. I suggested that venison ought to be far tastier than a thin scrawny elf. He was unconvinced. Apparently an elf over the rise is worth more than a deer already half consumed. I retreated, fending him off, looking for a chance to step clear and summon divine protection.
I never did get a chance to summon divine protection. I tried to step back, but Lord Pauled was behind, moving up to come to my aid. Ah well. Fine. Wonderful. Thanks for the aid. Then he leaped into the fray, and I tried to step back, only to be blocked by Father Tiberius. He was just trying to be helpful. When one is being mauled by a bear it is not politic to complain about the holy man trying to keep one alive. Anyway, with friends like this, what can one do? I seemed to have one obvious choice.
I tried to kill the bear.
I still haven’t figured out my new sword. Every once in a while it guides my hands through a dance of death that is amazing to be inside and a bane to one’s enemies. Does it happen by luck? Is it in part a matter of skill, that I must start the perfect dance such that the sword might continue it? I don’t know. I really don’t know. I love my sword. It is very very helpful, just like my friends who were firmly standing behind me. I was suddenly standing next to a shredded and bleeding bear who did not like me at all. Not one bit.
Sir Pauled tried his best to draw it’s attention. He’s normally good at that sort of thing. Six foot plus of holy wrath and dominating personality, he normally get’s the paladin’s share of the attention.
Not this time. The bear really didn’t like me.
There were, however, more of us than there were of bear. Leave Sir Pauled free and he will make you pay. It’s kind of a painful process, but Father Tiberius can heal nigh on as quickly as a really big bear can harm. At any rate, the bear in time went down and I began to notice again how cold it was.
After the bear came the wolves. Four of them. Five of us. We had numbers, right? I chose my opponent and glanced about to see how the humans were deploying.
Two of them were climbing trees.
Ah, well. I danced the dance and tried to keep track of everything going on. First thing, the wolves had a breath weapon. Yes. You guessed it. Suddenly I was a lot colder. Well, so was everybody, including those who hadn’t gotten high enough up in a tree. Caleb, our mage, started melting snow. I think he was trying to melt wolf, but they have rather big teeth and tend to make one nervous. Young John, our new fighter, thought it the right time to learn to fly. He didn’t succeed, but he came down dagger first on a wolf’s back. Sir Pauled dispatched his foe and came to the assistance of a fellow party member. Unfortunately, this time it wasn’t me. Caleb tried to find out if he could climb faster than a wolf could leap. He was doing OK until he ran out of tree. Shortly we came to each win our individual fights. Shortly, we came to hear more wolves approaching in more numbers than I cared to think about.
Caleb had spotted some sort of fire burning over a nearby rise. We fought a running battle, not knowing where we were running to, but knowing we couldn’t make our stand in the open, hoping for some sort of any sort of sanctuary. A sanctuary it turned out to be. It was the island of the troglodyte witch, with a bright fire surrounding her goddess’s statue. We slew a few of the wolves vanguard and gratefully slid over the frozen stream that surrounded the island.
Just so you know, crispy frog isn’t a troglodyte delicacy. It is a sign that a witch hasn’t quite forgiven one for putting an arrow into her. Troglodyte revenge can be in poor taste. Still, we were glad for the fire about the statue, and glad that the wolves didn’t try to cross the frozen stream. We talked for a time. I learned that though the witch was normally neutral, she didn’t normally take sides in the various contests for control of the island, that her gods had guided her to come to our aid. I told her of our travels, of our visit to the old Troglodyte city, of the oracle in the City of the Cloud Giants, about the pending waking of the Black Dragon. She spoke of old tales and prophecy. Yes, her people had originally called the dragon. Yes, it would waken and fight three great battles, including the one about to come.
Apparently the little skirmish that flattened the tower of the Regium tax collector doesn’t count.
We escaped the woods through a tunnel. Yes. You guessed it. It was cold. It was wet. It was muddy. It was dark. It was… just typical for this journey. It ended at a hilltop set of standing stones, a witch’s circle. These were of course defended by witchy undead, who of course commanded an aspect of… cold. Pretty little ice necklaces. Frozen claws whose cold went right though armor which proved of no use at all. Father Tiberius never stepped clear of the tunnel, casting healing spells from its protection. The rest of us danced with the various wights, I had one, most of the others drew two.
It was, of course, cold. I was really beginning to dislike cold. I am coming to appreciate Lord Kyle’s tropical island more than when I left. In the end there was a series of decisive moves. The mage, exhausted of spell, drew sword and entered close combat to support Sir Pauled. Brave of him, in his own humble opinion. Shortly after, I got a blow right, and was rewarded by my sword guiding me through several more blows. This scattered fragmented icicles all across the hilltop. Sir Pauled followed up with a spectacular double blow of his own, decisively smashing the last two wights standing.
The fireplace at the Old Hiss was very very far away. How far away can something be on a small island? You’d be surprised. It was very far away. I made do with a pitiful imitation fire in the lee of a bush. The ranger books at least teach one how to light a fire in the snow.
The next day brought us to the old battlefield. There was old equipment scattered about. The stream was frozen and hidden, it’s enchantments subdued. I found an enchanted arrow that had somehow survived all those years, and promptly broke it. Sir Pauled and Father Tiberius somehow managed to break the veil separating the living from the dead, and took knowledge from one who was long ago lost. With his help they found Lord Auld’s old battle standard, a griffon banner of Regium. Meanwhile, I knew what we were looking for from my studies… a large mound of thorns which was the Minotaur labyrinth. I announced my knowledge, declared the path we would take, strode off with confidence into the snow, only to be stopped by a tap on my shoulder.
“Isn’t that it over there?”
Sometimes, studying the enemy just doesn’t pay off as smoothly as one would like.
The grey witch’s spool of thread worked magnificently, which was just as well as my mind felt quite numb. As I said, the thorns at least stopped the bulk of the howling wind. We came in time to the heart of the maze. There, all sorts of important goals and wonders were present. The Minotaur’s table was surrounded by treasures. The tree imprisoning the Great Druid was in the center of the room. About the minotaurs neck one could see the third and final gem Sir Pauled need to summon his father’s blade. The minotaur himself was another of the slayers of our fathers, who would be avenged by his death. And glory of glories, hail and hallelujah, if we could only triumph here, we would be able to start back to the Old Hiss’s fire.
It began with words, and progressed quickly to lightning and fire. Sir Pauled and the Minotaur were properly and elegantly pompous. Sir Pauled accented the end of his speech with thunder. Caleb followed up with fire. There were three minotaurs and we had three warrior that might hope to stand against them, at least if Father Tiberius could ease our wounds. Sir Pauled, I’m not sure how, was suddenly larger than normal, and making appropriately large holes in the minotaurs. I worked to the right flank, hoping to only face one opponent at a time while presenting opportunity for others to work to my opponent’s rear. Young John stepped into the center to protect the mage and cleric. Our flanks were covered by the briars. It seemed a fairly straight forward fight, to be decided seemingly by skill with the blade rather than by maneuver.
Then Young John accepted my invitation to strike at my partner’s rear and there was a resulting hole in the middle of our skirmish line. The big bull accepted that invitation, and stepped up to where he had a choice of targeting Celeb, Tiberius or Pauled. I had my original partner between myself and our center. I had to make the double team with Young John work quickly so we could both provide aid to the center. For a while it was tense.
Sir Pauled graciously attempted to draw as much attention to himself as possible, to a great deal succeeding, drawing attention from two opponents. Father Tiberius kept him standing up, barely. Young John and myself did what we could with our opponent, yet he fought on. It was the front line mage Caleb who stepped up, felling both the leader and the right flank minotaur with spells. This freed up John and I to surround the last standing opponent. It was suddenly over.
Or almost over. We had to free and make acquaintance with the druid. Sir Pauled need to summon and make acquaintance with his father’s sword, which seems to be as strident and opinionated as its new wielder. Caleb got interested in the heaps of gold and other stuff.
And I lit a fire.
Your shivering daughter
Mithril
I shall in time stop shivering, I think. I hope. The Old Hiss has a big fire roaring away. I’ll be fine so long as shivering can’t be caused by memories.
I have been studying Minotaurs recently. The Ranger books have much to say about them, mostly bad. They have one redeeming quality not mentioned in the books. Their mazes break the wind. One is less likely to shake one’s self to death once one gets inside their maze. A redeeming feature, yes, though it does not counterbalance the rest of it.
Our various information sources, divine and otherwise, told us we had to strike at the minotaur in mid winter. You know, I’d heard of northern winters. I thought they sounded like a good time to rest up, to catch up on song writing and instrument practice, on cider drinking and clog dancing. When we returned from our visit with the troll, I sort of made a big deal of collapsing in front of the fire and relaxing. It was a good feeling… for a few hours. Minutes? Seconds? Then the Grey Witch showed up and quite promptly got us going. We wanted to visit the cloud giants, right?
Right?
We did visit, and brought her back a skien of cloud silk which she spun into the most useful spool of thread ever. If you ever need to get into the heart of a Minotaur lair, and then out again, definitely visit your friendly neighborhood Grey Witch. Make sure you really really need to get to the center of a Minotaur lair first. You might otherwise want to avoid Grey Witches.
Actually, she isn’t as bad as she pretends to be. She thinks hobbits need protecting, and has an amazing amount of patience when confronted by hobbit love. Poor thing. They are so appreciative, yet she hasn’t fried them yet, even when they don’t put enough pepper in her soup. Thirty years in prison, waiting to be served the most perfect of all possible meals… and no pepper in the pea soup.
But that’s another tale. She was in a hurry. It followed that we were in a hurry. The demon who is apparently seeking control of the island seemed to have noticed the death of the troll. He started mustering forces for battle in the spring. We were told it wasn’t prudent to wait until these forces were mustered. This seemed to be good advice, but on the other hand there was two feet of snow on the ground. I carefully measured that this was precisely one foot eleven inches too many. Still, one last preemptive warming by the Old Hiss fire, and off we went.
Did I mention it was cold?
So there I was, trundling along, following hint of a path somewhere buried in flakes, when I topped a rise and encountered a rather large bear. Nice bear, I commented, lying. He really wasn’t a very nice bear. Enjoy your wonderful venison, I commented, retreating back towards my humans. I suggested that venison ought to be far tastier than a thin scrawny elf. He was unconvinced. Apparently an elf over the rise is worth more than a deer already half consumed. I retreated, fending him off, looking for a chance to step clear and summon divine protection.
I never did get a chance to summon divine protection. I tried to step back, but Lord Pauled was behind, moving up to come to my aid. Ah well. Fine. Wonderful. Thanks for the aid. Then he leaped into the fray, and I tried to step back, only to be blocked by Father Tiberius. He was just trying to be helpful. When one is being mauled by a bear it is not politic to complain about the holy man trying to keep one alive. Anyway, with friends like this, what can one do? I seemed to have one obvious choice.
I tried to kill the bear.
I still haven’t figured out my new sword. Every once in a while it guides my hands through a dance of death that is amazing to be inside and a bane to one’s enemies. Does it happen by luck? Is it in part a matter of skill, that I must start the perfect dance such that the sword might continue it? I don’t know. I really don’t know. I love my sword. It is very very helpful, just like my friends who were firmly standing behind me. I was suddenly standing next to a shredded and bleeding bear who did not like me at all. Not one bit.
Sir Pauled tried his best to draw it’s attention. He’s normally good at that sort of thing. Six foot plus of holy wrath and dominating personality, he normally get’s the paladin’s share of the attention.
Not this time. The bear really didn’t like me.
There were, however, more of us than there were of bear. Leave Sir Pauled free and he will make you pay. It’s kind of a painful process, but Father Tiberius can heal nigh on as quickly as a really big bear can harm. At any rate, the bear in time went down and I began to notice again how cold it was.
After the bear came the wolves. Four of them. Five of us. We had numbers, right? I chose my opponent and glanced about to see how the humans were deploying.
Two of them were climbing trees.
Ah, well. I danced the dance and tried to keep track of everything going on. First thing, the wolves had a breath weapon. Yes. You guessed it. Suddenly I was a lot colder. Well, so was everybody, including those who hadn’t gotten high enough up in a tree. Caleb, our mage, started melting snow. I think he was trying to melt wolf, but they have rather big teeth and tend to make one nervous. Young John, our new fighter, thought it the right time to learn to fly. He didn’t succeed, but he came down dagger first on a wolf’s back. Sir Pauled dispatched his foe and came to the assistance of a fellow party member. Unfortunately, this time it wasn’t me. Caleb tried to find out if he could climb faster than a wolf could leap. He was doing OK until he ran out of tree. Shortly we came to each win our individual fights. Shortly, we came to hear more wolves approaching in more numbers than I cared to think about.
Caleb had spotted some sort of fire burning over a nearby rise. We fought a running battle, not knowing where we were running to, but knowing we couldn’t make our stand in the open, hoping for some sort of any sort of sanctuary. A sanctuary it turned out to be. It was the island of the troglodyte witch, with a bright fire surrounding her goddess’s statue. We slew a few of the wolves vanguard and gratefully slid over the frozen stream that surrounded the island.
Just so you know, crispy frog isn’t a troglodyte delicacy. It is a sign that a witch hasn’t quite forgiven one for putting an arrow into her. Troglodyte revenge can be in poor taste. Still, we were glad for the fire about the statue, and glad that the wolves didn’t try to cross the frozen stream. We talked for a time. I learned that though the witch was normally neutral, she didn’t normally take sides in the various contests for control of the island, that her gods had guided her to come to our aid. I told her of our travels, of our visit to the old Troglodyte city, of the oracle in the City of the Cloud Giants, about the pending waking of the Black Dragon. She spoke of old tales and prophecy. Yes, her people had originally called the dragon. Yes, it would waken and fight three great battles, including the one about to come.
Apparently the little skirmish that flattened the tower of the Regium tax collector doesn’t count.
We escaped the woods through a tunnel. Yes. You guessed it. It was cold. It was wet. It was muddy. It was dark. It was… just typical for this journey. It ended at a hilltop set of standing stones, a witch’s circle. These were of course defended by witchy undead, who of course commanded an aspect of… cold. Pretty little ice necklaces. Frozen claws whose cold went right though armor which proved of no use at all. Father Tiberius never stepped clear of the tunnel, casting healing spells from its protection. The rest of us danced with the various wights, I had one, most of the others drew two.
It was, of course, cold. I was really beginning to dislike cold. I am coming to appreciate Lord Kyle’s tropical island more than when I left. In the end there was a series of decisive moves. The mage, exhausted of spell, drew sword and entered close combat to support Sir Pauled. Brave of him, in his own humble opinion. Shortly after, I got a blow right, and was rewarded by my sword guiding me through several more blows. This scattered fragmented icicles all across the hilltop. Sir Pauled followed up with a spectacular double blow of his own, decisively smashing the last two wights standing.
The fireplace at the Old Hiss was very very far away. How far away can something be on a small island? You’d be surprised. It was very far away. I made do with a pitiful imitation fire in the lee of a bush. The ranger books at least teach one how to light a fire in the snow.
The next day brought us to the old battlefield. There was old equipment scattered about. The stream was frozen and hidden, it’s enchantments subdued. I found an enchanted arrow that had somehow survived all those years, and promptly broke it. Sir Pauled and Father Tiberius somehow managed to break the veil separating the living from the dead, and took knowledge from one who was long ago lost. With his help they found Lord Auld’s old battle standard, a griffon banner of Regium. Meanwhile, I knew what we were looking for from my studies… a large mound of thorns which was the Minotaur labyrinth. I announced my knowledge, declared the path we would take, strode off with confidence into the snow, only to be stopped by a tap on my shoulder.
“Isn’t that it over there?”
Sometimes, studying the enemy just doesn’t pay off as smoothly as one would like.
The grey witch’s spool of thread worked magnificently, which was just as well as my mind felt quite numb. As I said, the thorns at least stopped the bulk of the howling wind. We came in time to the heart of the maze. There, all sorts of important goals and wonders were present. The Minotaur’s table was surrounded by treasures. The tree imprisoning the Great Druid was in the center of the room. About the minotaurs neck one could see the third and final gem Sir Pauled need to summon his father’s blade. The minotaur himself was another of the slayers of our fathers, who would be avenged by his death. And glory of glories, hail and hallelujah, if we could only triumph here, we would be able to start back to the Old Hiss’s fire.
It began with words, and progressed quickly to lightning and fire. Sir Pauled and the Minotaur were properly and elegantly pompous. Sir Pauled accented the end of his speech with thunder. Caleb followed up with fire. There were three minotaurs and we had three warrior that might hope to stand against them, at least if Father Tiberius could ease our wounds. Sir Pauled, I’m not sure how, was suddenly larger than normal, and making appropriately large holes in the minotaurs. I worked to the right flank, hoping to only face one opponent at a time while presenting opportunity for others to work to my opponent’s rear. Young John stepped into the center to protect the mage and cleric. Our flanks were covered by the briars. It seemed a fairly straight forward fight, to be decided seemingly by skill with the blade rather than by maneuver.
Then Young John accepted my invitation to strike at my partner’s rear and there was a resulting hole in the middle of our skirmish line. The big bull accepted that invitation, and stepped up to where he had a choice of targeting Celeb, Tiberius or Pauled. I had my original partner between myself and our center. I had to make the double team with Young John work quickly so we could both provide aid to the center. For a while it was tense.
Sir Pauled graciously attempted to draw as much attention to himself as possible, to a great deal succeeding, drawing attention from two opponents. Father Tiberius kept him standing up, barely. Young John and myself did what we could with our opponent, yet he fought on. It was the front line mage Caleb who stepped up, felling both the leader and the right flank minotaur with spells. This freed up John and I to surround the last standing opponent. It was suddenly over.
Or almost over. We had to free and make acquaintance with the druid. Sir Pauled need to summon and make acquaintance with his father’s sword, which seems to be as strident and opinionated as its new wielder. Caleb got interested in the heaps of gold and other stuff.
And I lit a fire.
Your shivering daughter
Mithril