War of the Planes

Etali
Looting the corpses of the dead frogish-fishlike creatures finds you little more than the stink of the oil on their skin.  Their weapons are light and fragile, and what little leather they wear is torn and worn by the saltwater.  Aside from a few copper coins in one pouch and a brass coin worn as a necklace, there is nothing of any real value.


Kragar
Launching yourself into the rough air, you find that the fish are quite active on the surface, jumping in and around the area, being divebombed by the occassional bird.  Both fish and fowl are within the bounds ofyour mercy here, but nothing more significant close to the island.

The flight is also worth all the energy you've spent on it, for you feel something on the wind.  It's stronger than usual, and has the telltale scent of a storm brewing in the distance.


Phineas
Once inside, Ironclamp takes the moment to speak to you one-on-one.

"Listen, Phineas, about Tinkerdap..." he stops, unsure of what to say, but calling Bimble by his last name without a title speaks volumes.  "Listen, I've got orders, and one thing everyone knows about me is that I'm going to follow them for as long as I'm able to.  For as long as I can before something crosses a line.  You understand?  I have my duty, and it means a lot to mean.  Even when I don't agree with everything, I'm not a part of the Council, I don't get all the information they do to be able to judge things fairly."

Along with Old Tom and Kyra, you venture into the dense woods, leaving the familiar boundaries of Blackfeather Bridge behind. The forest is thick with underbrush, making your progress challenging. Old Tom leads, using his knowledge of the land to navigate through the less obstructed paths, though the going is still tough.

As you move, you're keenly aware of the forest's sounds and the occasional rustle of wildlife, alert for any hint of danger or sign of the goblins you're tracking. The hours wear on, deep into the night you notice he terrain gradually shifts as you approach the base of a mountain, the trees thinning out to reveal the rocky face ahead.

In front of you stands a crude wooden door set against the mountain, marking a clear transition from the natural world into what must be the goblins' domain.

I must have lost consciousness eventually, because I eventually wake up around the time the sun is overhead.  Everything hurts, and I do mean everything.  It takes me four tries just to sit up, fifteen minutes of exhausted meditation to regain my one spell for the day, and three tries to get the gestures right before I can immediately cast cure light wounds on myself, as I can already tell that I'm not going to be able to get out of here the way I feel right now.  The simple spell helps immensely, but "immensely" is just barely enough for me to climb out and crawl over to a bench so I can pull myself up to lean against it.  Bone-weary, bruised, and encrusted with salt, I must look frightful.  I certainly feel that way!  Eventually, perhaps an hour later, I drag myself to my feet; I have two last things to do in Suthhaven and no more money to stay another night in an inn.  I dread climbing the five thousand steps to get to the asylum, but when I get close to the first tower, a merchant with a cart waves me over.  "You look like you could use a lift," he says.

I just stare at him for a moment until the words penetrate.  "Gods above, yes, please."  He pats the seat beside him, and I waste no time getting into it gratefully.

The merchant chuckles.  "Someone saved my mother from a watery grave last night; I figure the least I can do is pay it forward.  You look like you were out in the bay last night too."

"You could say that," I answer, not immediately making the obvious connection.

Fortunately I'm not the only one who fails to make the obvious connection, as he proceeds to tell me all about this fearless elven lady who, while hearing people cry out in the harbor, arranged for their rescue, even dove for the survivors herself, only to disappear shortly before the boat came back into dock.  If I didn't know better, I'd swear there was a second elf out there last night.  Fortunately, given my condition, the merchant is perfectly happy to carry on his own one-sided conversation, even if it is more than a bit uncomfortably heavy on the hero-worship.  After the first thirty minutes of him waxing rhapsodic about my supposed virtues, I decide he's happier not knowing who I am - the savior he's constructed in his head is much nicer, stronger, and better-looking to boot. Fortunately, despite his odd habit of idolizing people he's never met, the merchant is quite personable, and even better is headed the same way I am, which means that after an hour or so he drops me off at the door to the asylum.  I wave goodbye at him, feeling a bit better (though that still hurts a bit).

The asylum itself is clearly just someone's renovated house - which is what I expected, since there was little need for a mental hospital in peaceful Nimbral until five years ago.  Someone was kind enough to donate their home (or unlucky enough to die at the right time and get their property seized) for the cause.  I walk right in the front door without challenge and start looking for someone to talk to; it's clear that they don't have many visitors here.  I eventually find a rather severe-looking man busy with paperwork who raps out sharply without looking up, "Well?"  His face crinkles with disgust when I hand him the badly water-stained letter of introduction, but he at least reads it before setting it down (carefully away from his more dry papers) and demanding, still without looking up, "So, you think you can just walk in here after five years of our best efforts and help our worst patient.  Who do you think you are?"  To that I just wait, clearing my throat slightly.  He looks up in irritation, mouth open to berate me - then instantly folds in shock; for once, my scars are an asset and I don't need to explain anything to him.  When he finds his voice, the imperiousness is gone.  "Well.  I-I suppose you might have something to offer, and it c-can't hurt to try, right?  I'll just lead the way, shall I?"  He doesn't wait for my response, but just scurries around the desk, keys in hand.  I follow after a brief moment to snag something from his desk.

After a few minutes, he stops at what is obviously a bedroom door, fumbles with his keys for a moment, and lets me in before closing the door behind me.  I assume he is going to monitor us remotely; there is probably a scrying sensor in this room, even if just for the woman's safety.  Before he can get to whatever crystal ball he would watch the sensor from, I quickly grab a chair and jam it under the doorknob on this side.  The woman watches, her blank face only confirming what I thought might be the case.  Crossing the room over to her and sitting in the chair opposite, I note the gorgeous view she sits turned away from and press the object I nicked off of the man's desk into her hands.

[OOC: See footnote.]

It takes her a long moment, during which I hear a strangled WHAT? from several rooms away, before she finally focuses on the knife in her hands.  Just before the first pounding at the door, she croaks, in a voice that hasn't been used in years, "Why?"

The chair I propped up against the door does quite well at keeping the furious man out, so I have plenty of time to explain.  "You've been here for five years without doing or saying anything.  I think that means you're expecting this to end as soon as you acknowledge it, but that doesn't matter.  Now, you have to make a choice.  You can choose to do nothing, but that is a choice, and you'll probably lose the rest of these choices shortly thereafter.  You could also choose the easy way out, but I think if you really wanted to kill yourself you would have found a way by now.  You could even choose to fight your way out; I will probably die that way, but it's a possibility I accepted when I gave you the knife.  But, again, I think if you really wanted out then you would have done it by now.  The last choice I can see is keeping the knife for defense - or the second choice, if needed - and finally interacting with the rest of the world again on your terms."  Desperate to get in, the man has stopped trying to batter his way in and has resorted to hacking at it with an axe, so I know I don't have much time left.  "What's your name?"

"Slave," she managed to get out, although it was clear it was going to take her some time to learn to use her voice again.

I shook my head as kindly as I could manage.  "No, it's not.  Anyone who called you that is dead."  Probably, I added mentally, but she didn't need qualifiers right now - she needed certainty.  "You had a real name before that.  Something that friends would call you."

It takes her a long moment - longer than I thought I had, honestly, with the guy trying to hack the door down the whole time - before she answers even fainter than before, "F-Felosial."

I smile.  "That's a nice name.  Well, Felosial, the man out there thinks I'm trying to hurt you, and he's trying to break in here to protect you from me.  He's wrong, of course, but his heart's in the right place.  Neither of us really know what you've been through, but...I can at least guess."  I pull up my shirt for a moment to show her the matted scars across my stomach.  She doesn't react, which confirms my guess is at least partially correct.  "Whatever else happens, remember that you're not alone anymore."  I get up, almost perfectly timed, as the broken chair finally falls away from the door and the man stands in the doorway, wild-eyed and thoroughly confused as both of us just look at him.  It's very clear he was expecting to find one or both of us dead.

The forty-minute screaming lecture he gave me once we were away from Felosial was - to be honest - well-deserved, and if I hadn't been ready to accept whatever consequences came of giving Felosial a weapon, I wouldn't have done it in the first place.  I didn't attempt to defend myself to him as I didn't see the need; seeing Felosial out in the yard through the window - with the knife still in her hand - when she wandered out there after about twenty minutes was enough.  I felt a bit bad about what the nice woman who introduced me was going to walk into when she returned to work, but that was unavoidable now.  There wasn't much he could actually do to me after the lecture, fortunately, as I hadn't broken any laws (that he knew of - I don't think he realized where that knife came from), so I eventually walked out of there after being told I was never to return - which, of course, I had no intention of doing.

****************************************


Shortly afterwards, I hear someone practicing on their hurdy-gurdy as I walk down the street towards Zera the Record-Keeper's place; from all appearances she keeps a tidy little shop on the ground floor with her home up above.  Part surveyor, part archivist, and part note-taker, record-keeper has always been an important but never particularly lucrative job in Nimbral, especially since the humans showed up with their propensity to own land; the job typically involves keeping track of town births and deaths, family adoptions, council laws and debates, property lines, and of course their original purpose - the Registry of Transgressions.

The Registry is one of Nimbral's most carefully guarded open secrets, started thousands of years before most races even knew the island existed.  Back in those days, Nimbral was largely unable to defend itself effectively, so any attacks were usually successful.  According to legend, the first Record-Keeper of Nimbral began the Registry after a genie attack killed her husband, the goal being that Nimbral would avenge her once it was capable of doing so.  I assume that, now that they've shown the Knights of the Flying Hunt can project power appropriately, plans are being drafted to start whittling down the outstanding local debts in the Registry (not sure about the extraplanar ones), but then Nimbral isn't exactly run by elves anymore so who knows.  That's not really what I'm here for anyways; the fact that the Registry is still kept is all that I need.

A bell rings as I enter Zera's small shop, and a middle-aged woman stands up from behind the counter, frowning.  "Can I help you?"

I see no reason to waste time.  "I need to consult the Registry."

"The Registry of Transgressions is not something you can call up on a whim-" she begins.

I place down my second letter of introduction.  "I'm trying to find out when I was taken."

Zera scans the letter, then nods.  "Very well, we can begin.  The fee is one silver piece."  I toss my last coin on the counter without complaint.  "What do you remember from that day?"

I think for a moment.  "It was a Nelanther pirate attack, in the middle of the night.  The Knights had badly damaged the fleet before it ever reached the shore, but they still came ashore on Salpir Isle and burned my family's - at least one house to the ground.  The survivors from the pirate fleet never returned to the Nelanther Isles as they were forced off course by a storm and crashed into the Chult peninsula, but I'm not sure if that part would have made it into the Registry.  This was at least fifty years ago, and I don't think it was longer than two hundred."

Zera hums for a moment.  "That sounds like enough information to go on.  Let's get started."  She goes over to a shelf and pulls out a book marked "REGISTRY OF TRANSGRESSIONS - 14TH CENTURY" and says, "Let's start in 1332 DR, just in case your best guess on the fifty years is a bit off."  I have no problem with that, and wait in silence as she runs her finger down the Registry.  "Ah, here we are.  A Nelanther pirate attack on Midsummer, 1314 DR - except that's not Salpir Isle, that's Salpir itself...and it says here the ship was sunk before it could leave.  That's not it."

She finishes with the book and puts it back, pulling out one marked "REGISTRY OF TRANSGRESSIONS - 13TH CENTURY".  After a long moment, she says, "Here we go, 1245 DR - says here a Nelanther pirate vessel passed through the Knights, taking enough damage that a fleet of fishing boats from Salpir Isle were able to - oh," she sighs, then continues, "were able to sink it with minimal loss of life.  No damage to the coastline."

She finishes with the book and puts it back, pulling out one marked "REGISTRY OF TRANSGRESSIONS - 12TH CENTURY".  After a long moment, she shakes her head.  "Nothing useful in this one."  She pulls out the book marked "REGISTRY OF TRANSGRESSIONS - 11TH CENTURY", and I'm starting to worry that the attack never got recorded - we're now at 272 years ago and counting - but I don't stop her from scanning the book.  She pauses, and inhales to exclaim something, but then stops and shakes her head.  "Are you sure they were Nelanther pirates?  I have here a rogue Halruuan skyship that otherwise matches pretty well."  Seeing me shake my head - I'm pretty sure I can remember the difference between a sailing ship and a skyship - she sighs.

She finishes with the book and puts it back, pulling out one marked "REGISTRY OF TRANSGRESSIONS - 10TH CENTURY".  Almost immediately she announces, "905 DR, Nelanther pirates attacked by the Knights-" she sighs, "-and sunk, before ever reaching the island, but with two dozen Knights lost in the battle.  That's not it."  She finishes and puts the book down.  "We're twice as far back as you thought we'd need to go.  I'm not complaining or asking for more money, but is there any reason to think we should continue?"

I think for a long moment.  "What do you have on Calimshan history?"

She smiles grimly.  "More than they'd expect, seeing as how we need to balance the scales with them."

"Do you know when the Black Horde attacked Calimshan?"

She doesn't even blink.  "1235 DR.  I take it you were there?"

"Yes, it was - it was bad."  I shudder involuntarily, but avoid thinking too hard of what happened then, though the revelation that the attack was 137 years ago (167 for me) is more than a little bit shocking.  I thought it was maybe 30 years.

She nods.  "Well, at least that tells me we're not looking for a pirate attack in the last forty years.  Anything else?"

"How about - Sapphiraktar the Blue attacked and mostly destroyed Calimport."  While I was being executed no less, I think.

She still doesn't blink, and I begin to suspect she's more familiar with Calimshan than she's let on.  "1018 DR.  So, I guess that breaks the two-hundred year limit."

"I guess so," I manage to add, shocked that that was 354 years ago.

Zera pulls out the book marked "REGISTRY OF TRANSGRESSIONS - 9TH CENTURY" and says, "Well, let's continue back for a bit more then."  Almost immediately she puts down the book.  "Now we're getting somewhere!" she crows.  "826 DR, Nelanther pirate fleet of six vessels attacked and partially destroyed by the Knights, the remaining two vessels went on to burn part of the southern coast, including Salpir Isle, then the Knights flew back to finish the job but there was a storm!"

"That...that sounds exactly right," I agree, emotions roiling through me too fast and too extreme to name.  "What day of the year was it?"

She flips a page.  "The 2nd of Alturiak," she announces triumphantly.

I nod, focusing on my breathing.  "Thanks," I manage to add before nearly running out of the shop.  I walk down the street in a daze until I reach the next plaza, where a small band is playing an incongruously-upbeat and catchy song completely at odds with my mood.


Leaning on a stone railing and looking out over the harbor, I try to sort out my thoughts.  Naturally this is when Anne decides to make her appearance.  <You got what you asked for.>

I keep my voice low so as not to disturb anyone else.  "Yeah.  I was 44 when the attack happened, so I was born in 782.  Which means I'm six hundred and twenty years old."

<A few years older than the 100-300 you thought you were,> Anne agrees.

I snort.  "That's putting it mildly."  I shake my head.  "Elves only live to nine to twelve centuries, usually.  My life is more than half over."

Anne makes a strangled sound that I've never heard from her before, a moment before she does the internal equivalent of slapping me in the face.  <Most of me is human.  How long do they live, do you think?> she demands of me.

I'm still not sure how she slapped me in the face, but the question still takes me a minute to figure out.  "Oh.  Right."

<Such a poor little thing,> she mocked me, <having only three to six human lifespans left.>

"Okay, I deserve that.  But," I add as a thought strikes me, "it goes the other way too.  I spent 545, 546 years enslaved; that might be longer than all of you combined."  Now that thought stops Anne right in her tracks.  "How many of you were elves, again?"  I ask sweetly, already knowing the answer was two.

<Point taken,> she acknowledged.

"But thank you, Anne.  I needed the perspective."  She disappears back off to my subconscious or wherever she goes.

I find that the music is more to my tastes now.

I decide to walk back down to the harbor instead of taking the stairs; the walking is helping to loosen me up a bit after last night, and at this point I'm in no hurry; there's plenty of time to find a captain who might be willing to take me to my next destination.

[Footnote: Though I have tried to keep the rest of this thread reasonable, taking psychiatric treatment advice from an RPG message board is such a stupid idea that it should render you unfit to breathe.  But this?  This right here?  DO NOT DO THIS.  Thank you.]

Somewhere in between nightmares, I'm jerked awake by the crash of thunder.  Looking out the window, the sky to the southwest seems perfectly calm, so I do the rational thing and head out to the front of the inn to check the sky, which...just above and northeast of us is completely black.  The wind howls through the poorly-maintained windows and blows out the candles, just before the rain sweeps across the inn's roof.  As the windows shake, I briefly debate going back to my room, but it's not like I'm going to be able to sleep anyways, so I stay in the common room.

This decision ends up saving my life.

For the next half hour or so, I watch the storm outside, occasionally brushing off the stray droplet of water that comes around the window jambs and listening to the howling storm.  The lightning strikes are random and extremely loud to my elven ears, but since it's the middle of the night it's unlikely that any people are being struck by lightning.

About an hour later, I notice something doesn't look quite right outside.  Maybe it's the fact that the rain is still falling on the roof but not in the street, or maybe it's the fact that the howling wind has been augmented by a low growling.  Or maybe it's the black cone just barely visible making its way down the mountainside.  It takes me altogether far too long to realize what I'm seeing.

Tornado.

"Gods below," I breathe, as the massive funnel zig-zags down the mountainside, fortunately missing the towers.  Then it stops moving, and some half-remembered instinct tells me to run; if I can't see it moving that's because it's heading straight for me.

I sprint out the front door (which never closes again), into the suddenly-levitating hail as the approaching winds overpower gravity, and do my best to outrun the approaching storm by taking off across its path.

I don't get very far before the wind simply picks me up off my feet and slams me into the next building over.  I instinctively grab onto anything within reach as I hear a crunching sound behind me just before another cloud of icy needles slams into my exposed body moving at well over 150 miles per hour.  Somehow the wall behind me doesn't give way, and the winds quickly pass as the tornado moves out into the harbor.  Once the wind dies down enough that I can reach the ground, I start limping back towards the inn.

The inn that was ripped apart down to its very foundation.  It doesn't look like there's much I can do for anyone else who was still in the inn when the tornado hit; they're either dead or flung somewhere, or (probably) both.

As the shouts finally start to rise above the howling wind, I briefly consider going to help in the rescue efforts, but then realize that I'm in no shape to do so and I'd probably be better off waiting for rescue myself.  I was barely staying on my feet before the storm, and I can already feel the bruise on my back where my bow got in between me and the wall.  Of course, with the inn totally destroyed and no shelter to be found, I head towards the waterfront, remembering at least a few stone benches to sit on.

The tornado's path of devastation is thankfully very thin, even if complete.  Trees standing ten feet away are stripped of leaves but still standing, while even the stone walls in the path itself are completely gone.  One of the docks was in the path of the storm, and I can see a child screaming, holding on tight to one of the pilings that has no pier leading to it anymore.  His father (maybe?) is trying to coax him to jump back, but the kid isn't having any of it.  Sighing, I realize that if anyone can make it out to the kid and back, it would be me, and start planning a route.  Taking it slowly as the kid doesn't seem to be in any immediate danger, I hop from pillar to pillar, always keeping my balance before I search for the next rain-slicked spot to leap to.

That's when lightning strikes the piling the kid is holding onto.  I can see it arc right through the kid's body, and he starts falling to the water below.  I make the last few jumps in a rush, and grab him before we both hit the water - but unlike the kid, I'm in a good enough shape to swim to shore instead of just drowning.  The salt water stings terribly as it hits my sliced-up face (thanks hail), but miraculously the kid is still breathing as I pass him off to his father, who takes one look at me and just wordlessly passes me a potion vial.  I don't even question what's in it, just down it immediately to find out it was a healing potion - not strong enough to fully heal me, but enough to ensure I won't die any time soon.  I turn to thank him, but he's already busy with saving his son - this seems perfectly reasonable to me, so I just move on towards the west.

The rain continues to pound down as the lightning and thunder start appearing further and further away.  The wind cuts right through my clothes as they're thoroughly soaked, but at least the wind is warm.  The tornado has either disappeared or moved well off the coast, because I can't hear it any more.  This is fortunate, because as a lull in the wind comes up, I can hear several voices calling out from the south.  This confuses me for a moment, as I'm on the harbor's edge - but after a moment I realize the tornado must have dumped some people in the harbor.  I run over to the nearest ship, trying to get their attention - but they either ignore me or outright push me out of the way.  I grab another man's shoulder, who finally listens to me, but shouts back "I don't hear anything."  It isn't until I point to my ears with an 'are you an idiot' look that he finally figures it out, nods, shouts something to the sailors who start lowering a ship's boat on a winch, and casts a spell on me so my ponytail glows.  He leans in and responds, "You're going to have to direct them," to which I nod.  He pats me on the shoulder as I vault into the boat, accompanied by three oarsmen, a corpsman, and two other sailors.

It takes us an agonizingly long time to get out to the first survivor, who fortunately didn't stop calling out.  The other five are humans so I know they can't see a thing, but I can (barely) see the surviving kid holding a piece of wood a few yards away.  I hold up my arm for the oarsmen to stop, then dive in to grab the kid and guide him towards the boat.  Lighting my ponytail turns out to have been a brilliant move by that mage, as the oarsmen can see me even in the water, which means they can help us get back out of the water with minimal effort.

We get two kids in this way before I start to tire, but we don't slow down - there's only so long that these people can hang on, even if they're otherwise uninjured, which is not guaranteed.  The third survivor, for example, is an older lady with a curtain rod through her leg, which I remove as carefully as I can with the corpsman and the other two holding her down.  Patching her up, even provisionally, takes a lot of energy.  The fourth survivor is an uninjured little girl, which makes my job a lot easier - at least, until one of the oarsmen makes a mistake and cracks me hard underwater in the ribs with his oar.  I don't bother complaining as it's clear it was an accident, but I'm well and truly exhausted.

By the time we get to the fifth survivor, he's no longer calling out.  I spot a piece of driftwood spinning in the water and immediately assume he just went under, so I dive down to see if I can find him.  Luckily I do, and I drag the big guy over to the boat so we can get him in.  Getting him on board and breathing again takes some doing, and by the time we're done I'm so exhausted I just barely manage to cling onto the prow of the boat.  I listen hard, but there's nothing more over the sound of the rain and receding thunder.  Finally giving the oarsmen the "turn around and let's go home" signal, they give a weary cheer and start rowing back.  It's all I can do just to stay where I am.

When we get back within sight of the dock, I stiffen as I hear someone else splashing around not too far away.  Forcing myself to my feet (the light spell on me having long since worn off), I point to the rest of the boat and then towards the shore, telling them to go on without me, then dive over the side one last time.

I immediately regret this decision, as my limbs are heavy and my exhaustion comes back with a vengeance.  I have to force myself to stay afloat, and it only gets worse once I reach the panicking full-grown man, who immediately shoves me underwater to try and keep himself above the surface.  Fighting my way back up, I find myself forced to punch him in the head to stun him long enough to drag him to shore.  I have to use the very last dregs of my strength to drag him onto a small beach between two boulders, tucked just underneath the dock, at which point I just lay there, still waist-deep in the ocean, too tired to even pass out properly.  I'm far too exhausted to react when the man I just saved from drowning gets up and kicks me in the chest in a fit of anger for having hit him.  Some people, I swear.

<<whistle loudly, point inside>>

"Hey, scaly one  ... inside  ...  pantry  ...  lots of food  ...  if you want meat, there's the cooler pantry."

"Oy vey, draconians  ...  don't want to slow down for a second  ...  got to have blood, once the blood scent gets to their nostrils."

<<watch Kragar fly away to hunt>>

"I am a bit hungry."  I take flight to scout about for something to eat.

Thur'Ryl replied, "Me bag be packed, gear be ready, just grabbin it.." rushing away to retrieve his gear.
He didn't really care to pay too much attention to anything but the adventure ahead, except the urgency in Kyra's statement.
Thur'Ryl "knew" only, that he'd be the first to strike down a goblin. Not Tom and definitely not this sneak. "First blood be mine," he mumbles as he rushes to grab his belongings for the road and catch back up with them.

<<responding to Sergeant Ironclamp>>

"I agree, Sergeant, he will definitely NOT want to be disturbed and NO, I will not make you regret it. I want to know why those things are here, too. Damn, that is infuriating and frustrating."

Looking around at everything   ...  "Well, let's get cleaned up and have something to eat and drink, it's almost dinner time."

Having started nice and early, I manage to get back to the sandbar at low tide this time, and it seems I was largely correct - there's a few gaps to jump across, but otherwise the sandbar extends all the way across the channel.  The footing is a bit more treacherous this time, as the rocks in the middle are slick, but I easily manage.  I even manage to get to the other side before the sun rises, and am treated to a brilliant sunrise visible all the way down the channel.

The mist quickly starts to dissipate once the sun is up, and the cool southwestern breeze over the salt marsh is just what I need to make the miles fall behind.  It's probably five hours before I stop for lunch and a quick nap, the warm sun making me a bit sleepy.

I am woken up by something indefinable, maybe a scent on the wind.  Unfortunately, I picked a bad place (and time) to sleep, as there is nothing around to make much noise - as I found out to be staring at twenty - twenty! - human teens and young adults, all dressed as though they were pretending to be bandits.  I said, far more calmly than I felt, "Tell you what.  You leave, and I'll go back to sleep and pretend this never happened."

Then the inevitable counter-offer.  "Give us your gold, and maybe we'll think about letting you live."

I laughed and flapped my nearly-empty coin pouch at them.  "You hear a lot of jingling in there, kid?"  I only have a couple of coins, so I hear one muted clink.  "You're wasting your time.  Go bother somebody else."

It was abundantly clear that, whatever life lessons this kid had learned, they most definitely did not include how to back down.  "Give us everything you got, and maybe we'll think about letting you live."

As I roll smoothly to my feet, the kid's flinch indicates he wasn't aware just how bad an idea this was.  "I gave you two chances to leave, now I'll give you your third - and last - chance."  I raise my voice to ensure everyone can hear me (although unfortunately that causes my voice to crack, ruining much of the intimidation I was going for).  "Anyone stupid enough to attack me, dies.  Everyone else gets to keep breathing."  Inside, I'm not nearly as calm - twenty-to-one odds are so bad that I'm pretty much doomed and it's only a question of how many I can take down with me.  The leader and his three nearest henchmen draw blackjacks - great, they want a prisoner now - and rush to the attack faster than I was expecting.  One of them even manages to crack me on the head as I try to dodge the other three, and I see stars for a moment.  Taking a quick step around one of the others, I drive an elbow into his back, feeling the crack of a broken vertebra as he goes down like a sack of lead weights.  Three at a time are much easier to dodge, and I drive one kid's nose so far up into his face that he just drops lifeless to the sand.  Two of these inexperienced kids against a hardened champion gladiator is no contest, and soon all four of them are dead or dying.  That's when the screams begin.

"Timmy, nooo!"

"Murderer!"

"That was my brother!"

Sonova crap.

Six of them draw blades and rush in from all directions, swinging wildly.  Their blades are sharp, if not swung with expertise or power, and I get my clothes cut up pretty badly with how hard it is to completely dodge their inexpert attacks.  It's not easy, and I have to devote my entire concentration to fending off their attacks while methodically driving each one out of the fight, but eventually, after a minute and a half of hard fighting, I stand alone among the huddled corpses.  Breathing hard and clutching a deep gash across my chest, I snarl, "Are we done here?"

In answer, yet another kid hefts a crossbow, screaming incoherently.  Kicking up a knife from the corpse in front of me, I grab it out of midair and hurl it right between the kid's eyes.

The kid's shot goes wide, and I hear a faint "oof" from behind me.  The boy behind me has the crossbow bolt sticking right out of his chest and is fading fast.  I'd like to say I make a reasoned decision here, but I don't - I step over, catch him, pull out the bolt, and use my only healing spell to save the stupid kid's life instead of sealing up my own cuts.  I look at the next closest kid - a terrified girl who can barely keep the sword in her hands, let alone pointed towards me.  "I had better not regret this," I growl.  "One more of you tries to attack me and all of you will die.  I'm done playing around."  Almost immediately I hear a tussle behind me as two kids tackle a third.  Standing up slowly so as not to startle anyone into doing something (even more) stupid, I give these thoroughly cowed kids their marching orders.  "Stay within twenty yards of this tree," I point to the closest little scrub tree, "until it's shadow touches him."  I point to the kid whose life I just saved; it should be three or four hours until then.  "Anyone leaves that twenty-yard circle, they die.  Anyone that gets away before the shadow touches him, I will track you down and kill - not just you, but anyone who gives you shelter too.  And if I ever find any of you attacking travellers again, I'll string you up by your entrails and let the crows feast on them while you're still alive."

********************************************

I honestly didn't expect to walk out of there, but somehow that's exactly what I do, the deep cut on my chest still bleeding into my shredded tunic.  About a quarter mile later, I stop at an old trailside chapel to bandage myself up and thank the gods for my undershirt, which is all that keeps me decent now that the tunic is largely scraps.

<Would you really have killed them all?>  Anne apparently decides now is a good time to show up.

I answer without hesitation.  "Yes."

<Why?>

"Because that's the only way they'll learn."

<How are they supposed to learn if they're dead?>

I open my mouth for a quick retort, then realize it's not helpful.  Turning away from her (not that it makes a difference), I struggle to figure out why.  After a minute in silence, I finally mutter, "I saw what their friendships were doing to them.  I had to make them see that they stood to lose even more if they kept it up."

<That explains the threat, but not the follow-through.>

"Ugh.  Just leave me alone."  Fortunately she does, as I clearly do not want to talk about it.  Then my ears perk up.  "Wait."  There's a slight, but noticeable, echo in here - at odds with what would be expected for such a small chapel.  I start looking around more closely, starting with the stairs down into this place - but there doesn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary on the stairs, or anything big outside that would reflect the sounds back in.  Coming back down the stairs, I look around the nave of the chapel, with the strong feeling that I'm missing something obvious.  I inspect all eight shrines, the altar, even fire a tipless arrow at the ceiling to check that it's real (it is).  I give up and go back outside, only to think better of it and come back down the stairs - "Wait," I say aloud, my words still echoing strangely, "Where does the rain go?"  I can see the gutters in the floor, letting water flow into them and towards the back of the shrine.  I follow one as it bends around the altar and -

And meets the other one on the far side.  "What?" I ask into the silence.  There's nowhere for the water to go; this place would flood in any serious storm, but these are dry.  After a moment, I pour some water from my waterskin into the gutter to see where it goes.  It flows down the gutter a short way and disappears..."No," I tell myself, not realizing I'm speaking aloud, "It didn't disappear, it flowed through the wall!"  I put my hand on the "wall" and it goes right through; the entire wall behind the altar doesn't even exist.  I poke my head through and see another staircase down further into the earth, with the (now damp) gutter flowing on the left side.  Down the stairs I go, now curious about what else might be down here.

That the gutter sends its runoff into a well is almost disappointingly mundane, but the rest of the room at the bottom of the stairs makes up for it.  Stunning frescoes of dragons, griffons, pegasi, even a nymph standing in a waterfall, all shimmer in the continual flames keeping this place lit.  The frescoes are beautiful enough to keep my attention such that I don't even notice the human sitting unmoving on the floor until he speaks.

"The gutter - such a common object, and only the child and the endlessly curious ask where it leads."  I nearly jump out of my skin.  He continues serenely.  "It is unfortunate how many children lose their sense of wonder when they grow up, but it is beautiful to see someone who has been through so much yet still keeps that sense near to their heart."

"Um.  Thank you?"  I'm at a bit of a loss; I think I should be wary of this man, but that's hard to do when he hasn't moved so much as a hair.

"Hah!  Quick on your feet, too.  Leira must have loved you."

"I doubt it.  I'm not much into lies, or illusions."

"Faugh!  After all this time, no one else has seen the truth?  Oghma has been spreading lies about my Lady for so long that even her own priests can't see her truth.  That is why they named me the Heretic, the Etaoin Shrdlu."

"The what now?"

He laughs.  "A jest, from another world, yet oddly fitting.  But enough about me; you have noticed that something is wrong on this island."

It wasn't a question, but I answered anyway.  "I wouldn't say wrong - it's lovely here - but something doesn't add up.  I can't put my finger on it though."

"I imagine not - though you were born here, you have been gone so long that you are as much an outsider here as anyone.  As much as I."

"Wait, how did you-" I was overruled as he continued.

"Nothing about this place 'adds up', as you so eloquently put it."  He throws out an arm, the first movement he has made.  "Do the Knights ride griffons or pegasi?  Do the people continue to honor Leira by telling minor lies all the time, or did they destroy her temples after her death?  Why do the Nimbral Lords stay in the fortress of their exiled captors?  So little is known of this island, but even the known facts contradict each other or make little sense.  But of course, that is to be expected for Leira's favorite place in Faerûn, as she does not make sense to an outsider either!"  He chuckles.  "Would you like to hear a truth?"

"What do you mean a truth?"

"My, Leira really would have liked you," he laughs.  "You picked up on that right away.  Yes, Oghma would have you believe that there is but one truth.  Objectivist garbage!" he spits.  "If a tree fell in the forest, and nothing was around to hear it, did it make a sound?  The Oghmanyte would tell you yes, of course it did.  Ask him how he knows, and he will tell you that all other trees have made sounds when they fell.  But trees fall in the forest all the time, and this isn't the only tree that was never heard.  Perhaps some, very rare, trees make no sound when they fall, or grow on the ground such that they look like they fell.  How would you know?  And if I told you that, somewhere out there beyond Faerûn, there was a forest where these trees were common, and it was the exceptions that made a sound as they crashed to earth?"  I just stare at him, as his preaching is getting increasingly more weird and detached from reality.  "Oghma denies this, but it has already happened once, in Katashaka."  I twitch as the same name comes up from two days ago.  "Ah, you recognize the name?  Perhaps he hasn't been completely successful then.  Swans."

I'm definitely starting to lose the conversation here.  "Swans?  What-"

"Yes!"  He excitedly interrupts me.  "Swans.  All swans are white, are they not?  Well, except those on the heraldry of a few families scattered across the Realms.  Except, no, they are not.  Centuries ago now, there was an expedition to the lands of Katashaka - and do you know what they found?"  I just stare at him, not really comprehending anymore.  "Black swans."

I give up, and demand, "What does any of this have to do with illusions?"

He cackles.  "It doesn't, and that is the point!  Leira is not, and never has been, a goddess of lies and illusions - that is merely Oghma's interpretation of her portfolio.  Rather, Leira was Oghma's opposite in a completely different fashion - she taught that there is more than one truth.  That her priests must be honest about their truths, which from Oghma's perspective means they lie.  They 'impersonate others' and 'infiltrate places' to experience new perspectives, new truths.  To slice the Whole Sort of General Mish-Mash in a new way."

"Wha- ... wait- ... you- ... but-" I sputter, having completely lost him now.

He continues, ignoring me.  "Oghma's attempts at objectivity allow his priests to distance themselves from the world, categorizing it.  But Leira allowed for subtle access to the roiling chaos of reality, real reality, where everything is subjective and malleable.  And this is what made her an inspiration to artists everywhere.  The End of Creation is no curse, it's a prediction - a prediction of what happens when Oghma's brand of knowledge is allowed to swallow everything else.  On that day, there will be no inspiration, no creativity, because it will all have already been done, you see?"

I do not, and just gape at him in confused silence.

"Unfortunately, Leira's death was prophesied centuries ago, by myself."  He sighs.  "If gods are a disguise, if gods are an illusion, then perhaps Leira was the only beacon of truth in our entire pantheon of lies.  But if gods are real and true and all-knowing, then Leira cannot be a god and must be dead.  But that doesn't mean her efforts must go to waste."  He looks me straight in the eye.  "There is another 'illusion' prophesied centuries ago, that of the Higher Self, one who wants only to become what one is.  The self-created, autonomous, authentic self."  He points right at my heart.  "In your case, one who remembers that her worst days are always going to be behind her, who remembers them but does not let them rule her.  If you wish to become your Higher Self, you never have to worship Leira at all - just find your calling in life and dedicate every fiber of your being to it."

It takes my brain a long time to rappel down into the earth to pick up my jaw again, and in the meantime he simply gets up and walks out of the temple altogether, long before I can marshal my thoughts enough to reply at all.  Eventually, a few minutes after he leaves, I shake my head.  "What in the Hells was that?" I ask myself - but of course there is no answer.

********************************************

I can't help but think about what the crazy man - he said his name was Etaoin Shrdlu, I remind myself - said as I return to Suthhaven.  Most of it was ranting gibberish - or at least seemed to be - but the part at the end at least seemed relevant and important.  A calling is exactly what I've been missing, but I don't even know where to begin looking for one.

Eventually, shortly after it gets dark, I reach the base of Suthhaven.  Having already traveled forty miles, I have no intention of climbing back up to the Maiden's Leap tonight, and instead find a much less reputable inn down at sea level.  The chair I used to "lock" the door came in quite handy as several drunks tried to enter my room overnight, presumably because I had the closest room to the stairs.  Fortunately, none of them made it inside so I didn't have to add to my body count for the day.

I would like to go back to looting the bodies.