Welcome to my world!
Hello,
Internet. You've found Tessa's blog. I don't know what you'll find
here, but I hope it's fun.
Why did I start my
blog now? Call it a “new month's resolution”. Or maybe in
honour of Hallowe'en.
Anyway, it's
midnight and I have to be halfway awake at work tomorrow, so I'll
sign off for now. But who can tell what will happen in the dramatic
adventures of our heroine in the coming weeks?
-- taleteller
by princess-of-china at 00:32 on Nov
1st
by taleteller at 08:12 on Nov 1st
by princess-of-china at 08:43 on Nov
1st
by taleteller at 12:12 on Nov 1st
Nothing happening...
So... I've had a
blog for a day, but nothing has happened worth posting about. Life at
work is boring, but I'm certainly not going to rant about work here.
This should be a place for more exciting things.
-- taleteller
by princess-of-china at 22:19 on Nov
1st
A party
We went to Ben's
birthday party tonight. It was quite good fun. He's 25 today, so we
took the opportunity to give him lots of “old geezer”
comments.
As you'd expect from
a party of Ben's, there was lots of booze: he'd filled a table with
bottles of tequila, Bailey's, and some beers. (I don't drink beer, so
I can't remember what those were.) He'd got Nathan to bring a bunch
of cocktail sausages, and Ben had made a cake with obscene
decorations on, just like he always does.
And there were some
people being dodgy off in a corner. Apparently one of the couples was
already a couple when they came, in which case I don't know why they
didn't just stay home and grope each other there. Maybe they decided
to drink lots of alcohol that other people brought. The others
weren't a couple, honest, so we're told – they just decided to
take their tops off and dance together. The rest of us tried to
ignore them.
In between the
raucousness (as well as general drinking and drunken singing),
though, Paula and I met some interesting people. There was a girl
called Catherine or something like that who earns her living making
board games. Quite an achievement. We spent ages talking about what
you need to create a game that's really playable – not
something I'd really thought about before. I haven't played many
board games since I was a kid, but there are apparently loads of
strategy games that adults get into, and this Catherine girl had got
two of hers published. She was only about my age, though – she
couldn't have been older than 26 – so she must have got into it
early. She was interesting to chat to, anyway.
There was a guy
called Stuart who seemed just the wrong side of arrogant. He did a
couple of really quite cool things, like spinning three plates at
once on his fingers, but I think he thought he was a bit too cool,
with his slicked-back hair and leather jacket and everything. Still,
he livened up the party. He did make some rather amusing jokes about
Paula's spiky haircut... some of them I even hadn't heard before.
Oh yeah, there was
also a gorgeous guy called Michael who I got chatting to, and I got
his email address. Score!
-- taleteller
by princess-of-china at 02:23 on Nov
4th
by taleteller at 02:44 on Nov 4th
An invitation
So... I emailed
Michael. Hey, he's good looking and we chatted a bit at the party –
I don't need any more reason to email someone, right?
(Yes, he calls
himself Michael, even though everybody in the world would abbreviate
that to Mike. So he's strange. Maybe it makes him interesting.)
And he wrote back,
and suggested meeting up. Great news, right? Well, maybe. He said
that Ben's coming over to his on Sunday to play computer games, and
that me and Paula could come over as well if we wanted. Not exactly
my ideal date. But, well, it's a chance to get to know him better, so
what the heck. Maybe Ben and Paula won't be able to come...
-- taleteller
by princess-of-china at 15:59 on Nov
4th
by taleteller at 17:12 on Nov 4th
by lilcutie89 at 21:26 on Nov 4th
by taleteller at 23:04 on Nov 4th
Okay, he's a geek.
Hmm. That was
interesting.
So, Paula and I went
over to Michael's flat, that he emailed us the address of. It wasn't
far – Paula suggested we could cycle, but I'm glad I drove the
two of us over there. It's blimmin' cold this time of year.
We came in, and Ben
was already there, and the two guys were playing on some games
console. They were fighting each other in some Kung Fu game. He told
us to help ourselves to anything we wanted from the fridge, so we
did, and took the opportunity to look around the place.
Not a bad flat –
two rooms and a kitchen. He's got it done up nicely – deep red
and purple paint on the walls, just like every kid wants to be able
to paint their bedroom. Only a few beer cans and just one dirty plate
on the floor. A couple of shelves of books, a couple I even
recognise. Lots and lots of video games, though.
When we got talking
to the guys once they'd dragged themselves away from beating each
other senseless, Michael said he's got about ten games consoles. Says
he gets the new Nintendo and Sony ones whenever they come out. He
plonked some grey sphere with lots of wires coming out of it in front
of the TV and told us it was the newest console... I can't say I'd
have recognised it, to be honest, but whatever. It did some fancy
swirly graphics when he turned it on.
Then the four of us
started playing this game together that involved rolling around this
platform inside giant hamster balls, and firing dolphins at one
another. Or something strange like that. I didn't quite follow the
plot, but it was quite a lot of fun.
After we'd played
that for a bit, he asked us what kind of games we'd like to play...
(Yes, that's right, afterwards. Go figure.)
Paula didn't have a
clue, so I asked if there were any with a kind of fantasy setting.
Michael exchanged a glance with Ben and they both laughed. (Humph.)
Then he said there were loads, and he gestured at the posters around
the room. I guess I hadn't quite taken them in, but there were quite
a number of posters scattered around the walls of his living room. He
went through a number of them, pointing at one and saying the
character's name and what game she's from, then the next one. I did
notice that almost all of them seemed to be female... It seems the
guy seriously likes his video game character ladies. In quite a few
cases they were quite implausibly curvy as well, but there were a
number of more sensibly proportioned girls as well, which is good
news for those of us with a less voluptuous figure.
Not all the posters
were girls... there were a few dragons and airships and things. There
was one with a whole group of characters. I only noticed it because
Ben pointed at it and said, “Hey, you know that game's come out
now?”
Michael's eyes went
so wide, it was comical. “Really? Cool!”
“Yeah,
I've got it on order.” Ben sounded rather smug about that. He's
good at sounding smug.
“Nice.
I hadn't even heard it was released yet.”
“Well,
you're not on the internet, are you? You're a bit cut off, mate.”
That puzzled me, so
I asked Michael, “Not on the internet? But I sent you an email,
and you replied...”
He laughed and said,
“I got a friend to set me up some autoforward or something. It
goes to my mobile phone.” He waved his mobile phone around...
it looked fancy and modern, sufficiently so that he could probably
connect to the internet just from that phone if he wanted.
So then we got
talking a bit more about fantasy-themed games, and he said they exist
in every different genre I could think of. Puzzle game, fighting
story, adventure, and loads more. I perked up at the mention of
adventures, because as you all know, I quite like the odd fantasy
adventure story in book form, so I thought I'd like to see what a
game in that style would be.
Michael said, “The
problem with playing an adventure story with you guys is that
generally, they take hours and hours to play through. So you'd be
welcome to play the first hour or two today, but you'd kinda have to
come over a few more times to get through to the end. You'd be
welcome to do that too, of course, but... It's up to you.”
How do I interpret a
comment like that?? Does it mean he fancies one of us?
-- taleteller
by princess-of-china at 20:52 on Nov
5th
by taleteller at 20:59 on Nov 5th
by lilcutie89 at 23:12 on Nov 5th
Nothing much to say today...
Monday back at the
store's still boring. I decided to email Michael about going over to
play some of those games of his. Nothing ventured, nothing gained,
right?
-- taleteller
by princess-of-china at 20:01 on Nov
6th
by bringiton at 20:38 on Nov 6th
by taleteller at 20:58 on Nov 6th
by bringiton at 22:41 on Nov 6th
by taleteller at 18:32 on Nov 7th
by bringiton at 23:05 on Nov 7th
A good night
Tonight was lots of
fun. Paula and I enjoyed trying some new cocktails at Jaunty Jerry's.
And on top of that, Michael emailed back and said it'd be great to
have us over to play games together on Saturday. Hear that? Not just
“fine”, but “great”! Heehee, he wants to meet
us again!
-- taleteller
by taleteller at 23:14 on Nov 9th
by princess-of-china at 00:42 on Nov
10th
Ultimate Dream
I think I'd been
looking forward to this afternoon a bit too much. You know how your
imagination builds up a mental image of somewhere you're going to go
or something you're going to do, and you start picturing all these
different ways it could go, each better than the last? Well, I think
I let my imagination go a bit rampant. In my defence, the store was
deathly dull on Thursday and Friday, so I had to think of something I
was looking forward to. But still... I think I might have imagined
myself sitting next to Michael, gaily laughing and effortlessly
guiding some character around on screen while he did the same, in an
elaborate virtual dance, and our eyes meeting. Or something strange
like that.
In fact, we just
went over and Ben brought over this new Ultimate Dream game. And we
spent two or three hours playing it, and then Michael had to go out,
so we all left and I drove Paula home. It was fun and all, but
nothing particularly special.
Still, this game was
interesting. I haven't really seen anything like it before. It starts
off in a pretty stereotypical fantasy world, with some spiky-haired
bloke getting kicked out of his peasant village and wandering around
with a big sword. Pretty quickly he finds two or three girls in
different circumstances who end up travelling around with him,
principally because it's convenient to the plot, as far as I could
tell. One of them is some wussy cleric girl who's all shy and
soft-spoken, and won't attack anybody, but casts healing spells when
they get attacked by random goblins and things. Naturally, her robes
are white and she's got long flowing hair.
The
next one is a sorceress who was about to get in serious trouble with
the law in this little village – she seemed to be having a
serious slagging-off match with a guard in armour, and his captain
walked around the corner and was starting shouting – except
then the main bloke walked up and defused the situation. Sorceress,
check; fiery temper, check; excessively revealing mage's robes,
check; pendant inlaid with some magical gem, check; and she even had
red hair. It's like someone went out for putting all the fantasy
clichés together. I seriously hope she acquires some more
personality beyond a quick temper, and not just some family trauma to
explain it all.
So anyway, when the
main character (his name's Varyn or something like that) meets the
first girl, a second player can pick up the next control pad and
start controlling this girl as the two of them walk around. Then the
third member of the party lets a third player join in the havoc. It's
a bit hard to co-ordinate walking in the same direction, but quite
good fun working together in the combats and things.
All of a sudden, the
party started finding villages burned down to the ground, starting
with Varyn's hometown. (Oh, the angst!) Seems there's a dragon going
around terrorising the countryside. Naturally, our plucky
protagonists volunteered to rid the land of the beast. But it seems
to tame a dragon takes the power of a mysterious crystal called a
Heartstone. And so off we set, in search of the mystical stone which
will ease all the world's ills.
Except that we had
to leave the story there, because Michael had to go out, as I said.
So you may never know the fate of the brave adventurers seeking to
save their world.
-- taleteller
by princess-of-china at 21:52 on Nov
11th
by taleteller at 22:41 on Nov 11th
by princess-of-china at 23:02 on Nov
11th
Gaming again
Looks like the
gaming sessions are going to become a regular occurrence. I emailed
Michael again on Monday (yesterday), and we went over tonight. He
said as we were heading off that we could make it a regular thing,
every Tuesday and Saturday. Paula and I were both up for it –
it's quite good fun.
Ultimate Dream did a
little fourth-wall-breaking today. Varyn and the party had a meeting
with the King of the nation of Elysia, in a big fairytale castle with
turrets and a drawbridge and everything. It's funny: the way the RPG
works makes it that you want to go around talking to everyone in the
castle before talking to the person who you're actually there to
see... and so we went traipsing around the kitchens, the dungeons,
and the soldiers' barracks before finally going into the throne room
to talk to the King who'd sent us the urgent summons. Cause that's
what every adventurer who's been summoned by the King would do,
right?
The reason for all
that is that occasionally, there'll be items lying on tables or in
treasure chests or something, that'd be useful to the characters on
their adventure. And it seems the characters are total kleptomaniacs.
Seriously, anything that isn't bolted down, they'll happily nick,
without the slightest comment on the morality of doing so.
This was a bit
interesting, actually, because I commented on that and Paula agreed,
and Michael seemed a bit surprised. He asked us if we'd ever taken
soap or books from people we'd visited. I think I was a bit indignant
as I replied “Of course not!”
Paula, to be fair,
did point out that we'll happily pinch pens from work and things like
that, which was true. (If unhelpful when trying to take the moral
high ground.) But I wouldn't nick stuff from friends, or from shops,
both of which Michael admitted freely to doing, as if he didn't see
anything wrong with it. A bit surprising.
Aaanyway, as I was
saying before I went off on a tangent from the tangent... The game
did a nice little fourth-wall-breaking moment, when we eventually
walked in to see the King. He was all “ancient evil has awoken”
and “Varyn, you are the Chosen One of Destiny” and stuff
like that – this was all facing Varyn, mostly, occasionally
looking at Terena or Alleria (the cleric and the fire sorceress). And
then he turned to look slightly upwards, which happened to be
straight at the camera, and said “And these adventurers will
also need the help of you gods beyond our realm.”
It was quite nice,
quite subtly done. I like it when a story just fractionally breaks
the fourth wall, so you wouldn't even notice unless you were paying
attention. Don't you agree, o reader?
-- taleteller
by princess-of-china at 23:57 on Nov
14th
by taleteller at 00:17 on Nov 15th
by princess-of-china at 00:42 on Nov
15th
Seriously freaky
Okay, there's
something definitely strange going on.
Paula and I went
over to Michael's like last week. We carried on playing through
Ultimate Dream. Varyn had to go to this ancient ruined tower to
retreive a magical artifact from it, blah de blah de blah. Usual
generic fantasy fare. While the party were leaving the palace, they
got robbed by a street thief, and so we went off on a side quest to
track this guy down and get our stuff back.
(It was actually
quite important, because one of the things in the bag that was stolen
was our collection of Phoenix Feathers. You use them when one of the
characters dies in combat, and it makes them not actually die. So
obviously, any sensible party keeps a huge stock of the things,
because you really don't want to lose one of your party permanently.
(And no, the mechanics of how it works obviously aren't explained.
It's a magical feather, that you wave over a character's body in
combat. And then they rise from the dead. And the feather gets used
up. Yeah, right. I can see that potions and bombs would get used up
when you use them, but... Aaanyway.))
So we tracked the
thief to his hidden lair, fought our way through a rather large
number of bandits willing to selflessly sacrifice themselves, and
caught the guy as he was trying to escape. The party got their stuff
back, and Varyn mentioned that they were heading on to the tower to
get this gemstone. Yeah, it's a magical gemstone, off in a tower of
an abandoned ruin. Never heard that one before, have we? So this
thief looked up intently at Varyn and said he wants to come with
them, because he's been wanting to go to this tower for years because
of all the treasures strewn around it, but it's too dangerous.
So to cut a long
story short, we've got a fourth character on the party, this thief
called Maitland. Except that Alleria turned her nose up in disdain at
the prospect of letting a thief join, and said that if Varyn let
Maitland come with them, she'd stay behind. Personally, I think this
was because the battle screen and character display is obviously laid
out to show three characters on the party... but you have to overlook
these little plot conveniences.
Michael was quite
pleased – he gave his wide grin and said he likes playing thief
or rogue characters. So I took over playing Terena and passed him the
controller for Maitland. (Paula's got Varyn and she won't let go of
him. She likes being in the driving seat.)
So we went off to
this ruin, and fought our way up to the highest tower, and then down
to the lowest dungeon. Turns out Maitland's got some rather nice
sneak attack techniques and can steal items from enemies... he's
quite handy to have on the party. Terena's personality's a bit wimpy,
but her healing spells are invaluable, whereas we don't miss
Alleria's attack magic too much with Varyn's sword skills levelling
up and Maitland's new attack moves.
We wondered whether
we should save the game after we beat the dungeon boss and got the
gemstone, as it was getting a bit late, but Michael wanted to head
back and see what the King said. So we trekked back across the
wilderness to the city (there's only one city, everywhere else is
little villages) and made our way back into the palace.
We had to persuade
the King's Chancellor that we needed to talk to him. The Chancellor
is a thin, nasty man who is blatantly evil, even if Varyn and the
others can't see it. But when Varyn told him they'd spoken to the
King before, he gave a thin-lipped frown and stepped aside.
So the King went
through the script about “you've retrieved one of the mystical
Heartstones, you just need two more” (never saw that one coming
either). Then he said to Varyn, “You have been truly blessed.
The gods have guided you well.” And he looked out of the screen
again and said, “Thank you, Paula.”
Paula jumped a bit.
Michael and I just laughed – either at the concept of the world
having a god called Paula, or because Paula thought it was talking
about her.
Then the King said,
“And Michael and Tessa too. Your guidance has been invaluable.”
I swear, we all
looked round at one another as if we'd seen a ghost.
The old geezer on
the screen continued, “Won't you continue to guide this quest
to save the world of Elysia?”
Paula obviously
decided to get into the mood of things, so she said, “Of course
we will!”
She pressed the
“advance speech” button on the controller, and the game
just carried on as normal with the King briefing Varyn on the ancient
underwater temple that they need to head for next. (He addressed a
couple of lines to the rogue, Maitland – something like “your
inner nobility belies your reputation”. Naturally, Maitland
just snorted and shook his head.)
I think all of us
were a little spooked. We decided to save the game there and call it
a night. (The fact that it had gone 9pm and we were all really hungry
might have had something to do with that as well.) So we said goodbye
until Tuesday, and I drove Paula back to hers then came home to
finally eat something.
It seems a bit less
freaky now that I've written it down. I guess Ben or someone must
have entered in our names when we started the game. It's a good way
to get people immersed in the story, I guess, if only it weren't so
blimmin' clichéd all the time.
-- taleteller
by bringiton at 23:50 on Nov 18th
by taleteller at 23:57 on Nov 18th
by bringiton at 01:03 on Nov 19th
by princess-of-china at 02:19 on Nov
19th
by bringiton at 11:12 on Nov 19th
My mind is strange
Heh. Looks like I
was so into the game yesterday that last night, I had a strange dream
about it :)
In the dream,
Michael, Paula and I were adventuring round the land of Elysia. I
think we pretty much picked up where we left the game yesterday: the
party were leaving the royal city to go look for a wizard who can
give us some “underwater breathing” spells. Except
instead of Maitland, Michael was there, wearing Maitland's clothes
and carrying Maitland's equipment and everything. Likewise, I was in
the place of Terena, in her cleric's robes, and Paula was in Varyn's
outfit. She looked very chuffed at having this big sword to swing
around - and she actually had the strength to swing it, too.
First we went to the
chemist in the royal city to buy health potions and Phoenix Feathers
and things. Michael was the one with the cash, and after we'd paid he
commented, “Right, we've only got about 10 gold pieces left.
Guess there's no weapon upgrades for us right now.”
So we set off across
the wilderness to head for the coastal village where this water
wizard lives. And en route we got attacked by monsters, just like
always happens in the game whenever you have to cross the wilderness.
It was so scary!
They were lizardmen, a type of monster that I recognised from the
game, and I knew they weren't too tough; but seeing them running out
of the undergrowth at us, screaming and gurgling, was really a bit
disconcerting. Paula reacted fastest, and just drew her sword and
charged towards the monsters. Michael and I were a little more taken
aback, and Paula had already got in one hit by the time we got there.
One of the scariest
bits was seeing the effect of the monsters' attacks. The resolution
of the game's graphics isn't quite good enough to show wounds from
enemy attacks; but this dream didn't have such problems. The beast
put a huge scrape in Paula's shoulder, with a vicious-looking
scimitar, and she started bleeding. I'm afraid I had a bit of a
girlish reaction – I screamed.
Thankfully, Michael
didn't get distracted like that. His eyes just blazed in anger at the
creatures, and he rushed at them. That's one of Maitland's skills,
which Michael obviously picked up from being in Maitland's place: a
run-and-slash attack with his poisoned daggers. He was faster than
any of the lizardmen, who seemed to be mostly concentrating on Paula
anyway.
Finally I got my act
together and figured Paula needed healing, since that's part of what
Terena's best at. I didn't quite know how to cast the spell, I just
knew that Terena had a <Cure2> spell and I wanted to cast it.
So I kinda pushed my hands in the direction of Paula and
concentrated, and it just came naturally... the white and blue energy
started flowing, and I said some words that I don't understand, and
the gash in her shoulder just suddenly healed up.
It only took another
attack or two by Paula and Michael to kill the things. We all just
looked around at one another and spent at least a minute catching our
breath. Then I cast <Cure2> again at Michael, to heal the worst
of his wounds. I could feel some kind of strength running out of me
as I did so – I guess that would have been me using up my magic
points. Casting that spell twice would use about a third of Terena's
MP in the game at the moment, so that would be what it is. It was
quite funny to feel it in the dream, though.
Michael started
picking the dead lizardmen up and turning them over. I asked him what
on earth he was doing – it looked quite disgusting. One of the
things was literally chopped in two. But Michael just answered
matter-of-factly, “Looking for what treasure they might have.”
It had never really
hit me before, but it's true that in the game, when you kill some
monsters, you get money as well as experience points. That must mean
that the party loot the bodies of the enemies. It's quite gross –
I really hadn't realised.
Anyway, the others
cleaned up their weapons and we set off again. I don't know about
them, but I was feeling really shaken. But onwards we trekked.
I don't remember
much more before I woke up. Isn't my brain strange?
-- taleteller
by bringiton at 11:19 on Nov 19th
by lilcutie89 at 12:43 on Nov 19th
by princess-of-china at 12:45 on Nov
19th
by taleteller at 18:05 on Nov 19th
Another Elysian dream
This is getting
really odd. I've never been the kind of person who has dreams in the
world of any fiction I see, and I've never had a recurring dream
before. But last night, there I was, back in Elysia playing the role
of Terena.
I suppose it wasn't
quite a recurring dream per se, because it carried on right where the
last one had left off: the party were travelling through the
wilderness, just arriving at the village where we hoped to find some
underwater breathing spells.
We got to the
village without any more combats. Paula (still dressed in Varyn's
clothing – it looks so odd!) walked up to the first villager we
saw, standing by the village gate, and called to him straight
out, “Greetings! Do you know where the wizard Vrathia lives?”
But the villager didn't really answer the question, he just smiled at
us all and said “Welcome to Haniton!”
Paula looked
sideways at us, raised an eyebrow, and said, “Thank you. Do you
know where the wizard Vrathia lives?”
The bumpkin looked
blankly at us, paused a little, and said again, “Welcome to
Haniton!”
Paula's reaction was
just... entertaining. She narrowed her eyes, walked right up in front
of the guy, and took him by the scruff of his tunic. “Look
you,” she growled, “we're looking for the wizard Vrathia.
We'd feel a lot more welcome to Haniton if you'd just tell us whether
you know where he lives or not.”
I was trying to
stifle a gasp, somewhere in between shock and laughter. The
villager's eyes darted from side to side and he whispered something
like, “Look, I'm not meant to tell you that! I'm just meant to
welcome you!” When Paula glared at him, he babbled, “It's
easy enough to find! None of us are allowed to tell you where it is,
but it's really obvious!”
At this point
Michael was looking concerned, and he called out, “Paula, let
the guy go. I'm sure we can find the place ourselves.”
She relented, and
let him go. He gasped a little. Trying to pacify things, I smiled at
him and said, “Thank you.”
He looked at me
apologetically, glanced nervously at Paula, and then said helplessly,
“Welcome to Haniton...” Then he put back on the same
fixed smile and went over to stand by the gate. He might have been
shaking slightly.
So we wandered on
round the village of Haniton, to which we'd been so emphatically
welcomed. There were a couple of kids chasing one another around the
village green... I wasn't going to try to talk to them, but Michael
said he reckoned it was worth a shot, and so he bent over to talk to
one of them and said, “Hello!”
The boy pointed at
the girl and said plaintively, “She stole my fish!”
I couldn't help
laughing at that. But Michael just smiled at the kid – the boy
can't have been older than eight – and said, “Oh dear!
What's your name?”
“Ilt–
um...” The kid seemed to have been about to answer, but trailed
off. Valiantly soldiering on, Michael said, “Could you get
another fish?”
The boy seemed to be
having a sudden attack of shyness, and just looked at him for a
moment. Then he pointed at the girl (now over the far side of the
green) and repeated, “She stole my fish!” And off he ran,
chasing the girl again.
Things were getting
a bit eerie by this point. We just walked on through the village, not
stopping to talk to anyone else, looking for someplace that looked
like a wizard would live there. Haniton is a coastal settlement, and
we'd been able to see the sea as we approached; now we just made our
way straight through to the beach. Sure enough, there were two or
three houses there, and one of them looked vaguely more magical than
the other... In that it had a sign above the door with a picture of a
potion on it. There wasn't much else to distinguish between them, so
that was all we had to go on. Paula was wanting to just barge in, but
at my urging, she knocked at the door. An old man's voice cried
tremulously, “Come in!” So in we went.
The door opened
straight into one big main room. There was an open fire burning in
the far wall, giving the place a warm homely feeling. Most of the
rest of the walls were either oak panelled or covered with
floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. There was a small dining table in one
half of the room, and a few chairs and a desk in the other. Sitting
at the desk was a guy who had to be the Wizard Vrathia. He had grey
hair and an old lined face. He wasn't wearing wizard's robes, but he
was dressed in a fancy blue and green shirt of some kind to go with
his deep blue trousers. He turned his chair away from the desk to
face us, and said, “Good day to you. How can I help you?”
Paula stepped
forward unhesitatingly and said, “Are you the wizard Vrathia?”
The old man nodded
once and said, “I am.”
Paula smiled at
Michael and me, and then continued, “We've been sent from the
King. We're on a quest to reach the Atlantean City. We understand you
could provide us with some water-breathing spells to go there?”
“Well, now, is
that true,” mused the old mage. “Old Balshazzar sent you
here, did he?”
At our blank looks
he clarified testily, “The King.”
Paula looked like
she was stifling a giggle as she agreed, “Yes, the King sent us
to you.”
“And what are
you seeking in the Atlantean City?”
“We need to
retreive the Heartstone of Water. We've already obtained the
Heartstone of Earth,” she added proudly.
The wizard ruminated
for a little, while we stood there waiting. In the end he said,
“Well, Balshazzar knows what he's doing. I can make the spells
you need, yes.”
The three of us
turned to one another and grinned broadly. Then Vrathia added,
“But... I will need you to fetch me some ingredients.”
We
really, really should have seen that one coming.
So, off we traipsed
along the coast, to find a little bay where some rare crabs breed. We
made our way there easily enough, and had to scramble down the
clifflike rock front to get to the water. Once we were down there –
surprise, surprise! – we had to fight the crabs.
They were huge! I
mean, I guess on screen they'd be pretty much normal size, the way
things look in the in-game graphics. But when we actually had to
attack them ourselves... They were literally two feet long or more.
And they scuttled damn quickly. One of them got me on the shins –
it hurt like anything, a really nasty graze. I had to smash its shell
with my staff. Paula dispatched a couple with Varyn's huge sword, and
Michael did some nifty move that ended up in him chopping all the
legs off the last one, letting him finish it off at his leisure.
Before we left we
had a look around the rest of the bay. There were a few caves,
half-full of water... We decided to have a little fun exploring. At
the back of this cave was an old wooden box, and in there was a suit
of chain mail armour – hauberk and leggings. Pretty random. In
another remarkable coincidence, it was exactly the right size for
Varyn – or rather, for Paula. I asked her, “Do you want
to put this on now? You may as well – it'll give more
protection than those leathers you've got on at the moment.”
She agreed and
started taking off her trousers. Suddenly I realised that Michael was
just standing there watching... with a rather dirty grin on his face,
I might add. He was practically drooling. I may have been a bit
snappier than necessary when I told him, “Turn round! You can't
just watch a lady changing clothes!”
So while Paula took
off Varyn's leather vest and trousers, I divided my time between
watching her and making sure that Michael wasn't peeking. It did
strike me that this is Michael whose room is covered in posters of
female video game stars. Now that Ultimate Dream's main character
Varyn has been replaced with the rather curvier Paula, is he going to
start fantasising over her all the time? I don't like that!
Anyway, after Paula
had dressed in the chain mail (somehow she just knew how to put it
on... I wouldn't have a clue), we picked up as much of the crab
carcasses as we could carry (they were blimmin' big things,
remember), and lugged them back to Vrathia.
The wizard nodded in
approval, and said, “All right. I'll get to work on these,
making up some potions for you. You can have a walk around the
village for a bit if you want, and come back when they're done.”
At
this point, Michael's eyes lit up in comprehension. He nodded to
Vrathia, said “Thank you”, and dragged Paula and me
outside. “Right, I know how this kind of event goes,” he
said. “We have to find something in the village to do that'll
trigger him to finish the spells for us. Just waiting around won't do
it. Every game has something like this.”
“So we have to
go round talking to those creepy people again?” That was Paula.
“I'm afraid
so. Just let me handle it,” he said confidently. We kinda fell
into step behind him.
It's funny, the
village literally only had about six houses. They were each built of
wood, and most of them had only one room inside when we made our way
in. Michael led us into each of the houses in turn – not
bothering to knock, just like Paula earlier. Nobody seemed to mind,
though. He went round talking to the inhabitants, and then he'd go
picking stuff up off their tables or out of their wardrobes! I mean,
I knew he nicked stuff occasionally, but this was really quite
blatant. And the people didn't seem to mind... even when he'd peer
into their pots and pull out a healing potion or something. (What is
it with pots in this place? Everybody seems to have pots in or around
their house... Anyway...)
Most disturbing of
all was the way that all the people in the houses only had about one
or two things to say, and if we talked to them again, they'd just end
up repeating themselves. Like, one of them ranted about the way he
hadn't been able to catch many fish recently, due to a sea monster
eating them all. Paula asked him what he'd been doing instead, but he
just looked at her funny and said the exact same thing again. Michael
just urged us to walk away (after scanning the guy's table for
anything we could take). I realised as we were walking around that
the guy at the gate did exactly the same, too.
One guy we talked to
was telling us about his son, Mac, who'd gone fishing and got lost at
sea a few days ago. He begged us to go look for him (so I guess we
know he wasn't really lost at sea). And he gave us this whistle that
he said would always make the boy's dog come running.
When we left that
house, Michael said, “That was probably the event we needed to
trigger. Let's go back and see Vrathia.” Paula and I, unnerved
by the people who'd repeat the same things over and over, happily
agreed.
Sure enough, the
wizard welcomed us in, saying, “Good timing, young adventurers.
I've just finished your potions.” He handed them over and said,
“I guess you'd better go speak to Barlin the sailor. He'll
probably let you use one of his ships.”
But
I wasn't quite ready to leave just yet. “Before we go, sir,”
I asked in a rush, “is there something wrong with the people of
Haniton? They all seem to only say the same things over and over
again.” I wasn't sure what the others would think of me asking
that, but Paula at least seemed just as curious about it.
Vrathia
just looked at us speculatively for several seconds. “You
really aren't the normal kind of visitors, are you?” he said
rhetorically, stroking his beard. We just stood there watching him,
waiting for an answer. At length he said, “The people are fine.
As for the question behind your question... You should seek out the
Wizards' Academy. The sages there are the people to answer your
concerns.” We looked at each other for a few moments, wondering
what to make of this, until Vrathia clapped his hands and said
briskly, “Now... I believe you have a sunken City to find.”
So like good little
plot-obeying bunnies, we walked along the seafront looking for a
sailor. We got as far as the edge of town, and had to turn round and
walk back the other way... But that wasn't very far, given that it
only has six buildings in it. Once we'd walked back past Vrathia's
house, it was quite obvious where the sailor had to live. The house
had a little wooden sign with a picture of a ship on it.
The sailor took
remarkably little persuasion – it seems the name of the King
works wonders in little villages like these. (Doesn't anybody ever
pretend to be on a mission from the King and then just steal a boat
or something?) Helpfully, he also answered a question that we didn't
quite ask, and told us how to find the Atlantean City.
And so in no time,
we were sailing off into the bay, looking for a sea monster and/or
the entrance to the Atlantean City...
And then I woke up.
-- taleteller
by varynfan at 11:25 on Nov 20th
by princess-of-china at 12:02 on Nov
20th
by bringiton at 12:34 on Nov 20th
by princess-of-china at 12:39 on Nov
20th
by bringiton at 12:57 on Nov 20th
Not the kind of gaming evening we'd
been expecting
Ha, I guess that
title sounds really intriguing and exciting. It was a bit
disappointing, really.
Paula and I went
over to Michael's like we always do on Tuesdays. After chatting a bit
we went straight to load our game from Ultimate Dream...
And the savegame
wouldn't load.
We were all totally
dismayed. We tried a few things like pulling out the memory card and
putting it back in, and so on, and none of it worked. We were all
really gutted.
But then we were
talking about it, and we described the place in the game we'd been
at. And then I said, “And, well, I would be really wanting to
see what happened next, except...” I trailed off, looked at
Paula and giggled slightly.
Michael got this
intent look in his eyes and said, “Except? Except what?”
I wasn't sure what
to tell him. But Paula saved me the trouble by saying, “Michael,
you have to promise not to tell anyone what we're about to tell you.”
(I don't know why she said that given I've already described it on my
blog, but whatever.)
Anyway, he just
looked at her and said, “...You haven't been having dreams
where we're going through the adventure in the place of the
characters, have you?”
It was Paula's and
my turn to be surprised. Paula spoke first, going “Yes, that's
precisely it! Both of us have! How did you know?”
And then it just hit
me and I said, “Of course, Michael has too. Haven't you?”
“Yes, that's
right,” he said. “But I just thought they were normal
dreams – well, normal isn't exactly the right word... But I
thought it was just a dream. But... Hang on. In your dreams, did we
go to a village and meet Vrathia and get sent to capture some crabs?”
“Yes, exactly
that!” I exclaimed.
“You mean when
I decided to go around talking to the different villagers because he
was preparing our potions... you saw that?”
“And the way
that you just swiped stuff off their tables,” Paula added with
a giggle. “Is that the way you nick stuff from friends?”
He actually had the
decency to look a bit embarrassed at that point. “No, of course
not!” he replied, a little red-faced. Then his face acquired
his trademark rogueish grin as he continued, “That's just what
you do in RPGs. We did it in the King's palace last time we met up to
play this, remember? Walking around the kitchen and barracks and
things, picking up anything that wasn't nailed down? That's just what
you do in games.”
“Well...
fair enough, I suppose,” I admitted grudgingly. Glancing at
Paula I added, “We were rather glad of your experience of the
way those places work. It was creepy seeing the townsfolk just
repeating the same words over and over.”
“So
freaky!!” Paula interjected. (I'm pretty sure she pronounced
the double exclamation mark.) “I mean... I know that that's
what they do in the game, but...”
“Yeah,
it was a bit disconcerting seeing them face-to-face, as it were,”
Michael said. “Still, we're on our way to the Atlantean City,
which should be quite fun.”
“Fun?”
Paula exclaimed incredulously. “Our dreams are being... taken
over by this gameworld, and you think it's fun?”
Michael just looked
puzzled. “Well... yeah,” he replied, as if it was
obvious. “It's the same events that we'd see if we were playing
the game. We're just getting to experience them up close and
personal. I imagine that when virtual reality consoles get good
enough, people will pay lots of money to get what we're getting for
free.”
I nodded slowly. He
does have a point.
Paula asked somewhat
plaintively, “But how is it happening?”
Michael and I
exchanged glances and said pretty much simultaneously, “I have
no idea.”
We all sat there for
a minute or two. Eventually I said, “So... shall we play
another game for the moment, then?”
And we did.
-- taleteller
by princess-of-china at 23:47 on Nov 20th
by varynfan at 03:45 on Nov 21st
by bringiton at 19:18 on Nov 21st
An update from Elysia, as requested
Actually, it's not
much to do with varynfan's post requesting the update... we seem to
be having these dreams most nights now, and there's not much we can
do about it!
As soon as I was
back to sleep, I was back on the boat, heading for the place where we
knew the Atlantean City was. Pretty quickly we arrived at the spot,
according to Barlin. But he begged us not to leave just yet, because
he was scared of the sea monster that had been terrorising the
fishing lanes recently.
It didn't take long
sitting there before the boat started rocking and being buffeted
around, even though the wind was quite calm. Then the boat received a
couple of fierce bumps.
We had been
wondering if we'd find a sea monster, and sure enough, out of the
water rose this huge serpent. Well, I say huge – it was much
bigger than any snake I've ever seen in real life, but it was small
enough that we had some chance of tackling it. So, naturally, that's
just what Paula did: whipped out Varyn's huge sword and took an
almighty swing at the thing. And she missed. She very nearly chopped
a significant hole in the boat!
I tried to think
what I'd make Terena do if this were a combat in the game... I
figured it'd be worth casting the <Bless> spell on Paula and
Michael, so that's what I did. Again, I don't know quite how I knew
how to do it, but it just worked. I wonder what it'll be like when
the character levels up and I learn a new spell?
The serpent,
thankfully, was focused entirely on attacking the three of us. If it
had tried to smash the boat itself, we'd have been doomed in no time.
As it was, we took some serious beatings, but managed to chop enough
holes in the creature that eventually it suddenly collapsed. It was a
total on/off thing, it went straight from trying to bite our arms off
to falling down dead.
Paula started
swinging her sword around and going, “Hey, I think I'm getting
the hang of this.”
Michael seemed to be
appreciating the way her chest swung around with the sword a bit too
much, so I decided it was time to remind them what we'd come here
for... And so we took our water-breathing potions and dived over the
edge of the boat.
Wow,
it's really hard to breathe water. Even if you know you're able to,
the body has all sorts of reflexes that kick in to make you try to
choke. I flailed about for at least a couple of minutes before I
could convince my lungs that actually, they could extract oxygen from
the water – I kept splashing back up to the surface and gasping
for breath. I think I might have nightmares about that. (If I ever
have any other dreams!)
When
I'd eventually just about got the hang of breathing underwater, I
looked around and saw the others just about swimming capably. Meeting
one another's eyes, we started trying to swim downwards, looking out
for anything that looked like an Atlantean City. It's not easy,
swimming straight down, actually – it's quite exhausting. Your
body keeps wanting to straighten out.
As
we headed downwards, the sea got darker and darker. This was a factor
I hadn't considered. It started getting really quite hard to make out
anything more than a few feet away. But we could make out some dark
shapes emerging out of the murk, which resolved into shadowy
buildings... more and more of them.
As we approached, I
was wondering how we'd know which buildings to investigate. I didn't
relish the idea of searching through endless deserted ruins for one
specific stone. Then I spotted a faint glow through the murk, which
turned out to come from the entrance to a particularly large and
imposing temple-like building. I turned to check the others were
following me, and called out to them.
Then I heard my own
voice in my ears, and remembered I was totally immersed in seawater.
Wow, it sounds really strange to hear yourself talk underwater. But
Michael and Alleria did turn towards me. I gestured towards the
light. Michael squinted, and called to Paula in turn. Everyone's
reactions were delayed by the water, and so they seemed to be moving
in slow motion as they turned towards me. But eventually we were all
together and heading for the one source of light in the murk.
We approached
closer, and found that it seemed the corridor extended deep into the
temple complex. And it was illuminated by ghostly blue light. I
couldn't tell where that was coming from; maybe the walls and floors
themselves were glowing. Anyway, this was pretty clearly the place to
go, and so into the depths we swam.
The
passage opened out into another temple court, but this one had two
routes out of it. The walls were made of huge chunks of stone, like
an Egyptian pyramid or something, and the pillars had stone faces
carved into them that made me think of some South American tribe or
something. Paula swam slowly past me, looked down each of the two
passages, and gestured left then right, shrugging her shoulders. None
of us knew which way to choose, so we randomly chose to go left, and
swam onwards.
We
set off exploring our aquatic environment. To my surprise, pretty
quickly we ascended a sunken staircase that wasn't completely sunken:
there was some air trapped at the top of it. We emerged from the
unexpected surface splashing and spluttering. “For some reason
I'd been thinking there wouldn't be any air down here,”
commented Michael, in between hacking and spitting out water onto the
damp flagstones of the staircase.
“It
won't interfere with our water breathing spell, will it?” Paula
asked anxiously.
“What,
coming up for air? I wouldn't think so. Vrathia said the effect would
last for a day or more,” I replied. “But even if we can
stay down here for a day if we want, I don't want to be down here any
longer than necessary. Shall we press on?”
We continued
exploring, making faster progress now that we could actually walk,
rather than having to swim. In not-particularly-surprising fashion,
we got attacked by some amphibious creatures, and had a few combats
as we made our way through this dungeon.
I kept catching
sight of Michael's face as we were fighting... He looks so focused,
on keeping us safe. His hair frames his face so well, and he's got a
great profile. Ohhh... I really, really like him. I ought to act on
that.
Ahem, anyway. The
Atlantean City had some pretty funky puzzles. There were some
chambers that were flooded with water, and we had to pull levers to
drain them; there were others that were drained and we had to pull
levels to flood them. And sometimes the levers were only accessible
if another place was flooded... you get the idea. Fun stuff. (If not
particularly architecturally plausible... I mean, it's reasonable
that the ancients could build sections of their temples that would
channel water into or out of them if levers were pulled... but why
would they bother? The temple wasn't even underwater when it was
built. And making some sections floodable doesn't seem to achieve
much except making it a pleasing challenge to get to the far end. But
never mind.)
After
one of these puzzles, we found ourselves on a balcony along the top
of a big chamber. Far below us we saw a stone floor, and sitting on
it, a boy and a dog! “That must be Mac!” whispered Paula,
and then without waiting for a reply from us, she called out in a
resounding voice, “Hey, Mac!”
The
sound bounced and echoed around the chamber, and gained an immediate
response from the kid, although he didn't seem to be able to tell
where the sound was calling from. That was easily dealt with: Paula
cried out again, “Up here! We've come to rescue you!”
“Paula,
we can't get to him from here,” I said urgently in a low voice.
Completely
unfazed, she called again, “We don't quite know how we're going
to get to you yet. So wait a little. But we'll get there!”
Finally
spotting us, and demonstrating for the first time any sense of
comprehension or indeed sentience, the boy shouted, “Okay!”
We
followed the balcony around, and found another puzzle-room, where we
could only reach the next section if a pit in front of us were
flooded. Except the lever to activate that was nowhere to be seen...
until Michael spotted a lever several floors below us. We puzzled
over this for a while, until eventually Paula had an idea: “Hey,
we could get Mac to come and push the lever for us!”
“But isn't he,
you know, trapped?”
“No,”
said Paula airily, “there's a ledge just below his platform
that he could jump to if he knew it was there. Come on, let's go tell
him.”
I let myself be
swept away by Paula's exuberant decisiveness. It seems Michael was
getting to know Paula a bit better, as he exchanged a helpless grin
with me and mutely followed Paula.
Her idea worked like
a charm: once we'd communicated to Mac what we needed him to do, he
was happy to help. Next there were some levers we could reach that
affected the region he and his dog were stuck in. Then there were
some rooms where Mac had to go one way and we had to call his dog
along a different path... lucky we'd been given that whistle by the
guy in Haniton, eh?
So we made our way
through the watery maze, and eventually met up with Mac and his dog.
The kid had seemed so scared and depressed when we met him; now he
seemed full of beans and blazing with energy. When we had the next
combat with a bunch of crab-people, he was terrified, and ran and hid
until it was all over. But mostly, he seemed a good kid, although not
very talkative.
It
wasn't too long after that that we arrived at the Boss Chamber. You
could tell that was what it was by the ornate passageway on the
approach, the imposing doors at the entrance, and the sparkling
magical field beside the doors... once we figured out that this patch
of sparkles was in fact a save point :) The air inside it seemed to
be charged with magical energy, but it didn't seem to do very much. I
don't know what I was hoping for... a big grey menu to appear in the
air in front of us listing the contents of some memory card? That
would be somewhat unlikely. Anyway, it seemed that saving the game
was something you only get to do when you're playing the game. When
you're living it, you have to win first time.
So we took deep
breaths, and opened the door. The room beyond was mostly flooded,
with a few platforms of stone jutting out of the pool at different
heights. No creature was immediately visible – it was only when
all of us were through the door and standing looking around warily
that the doors rumbled shut, and a huge octopus-like thing emerged
from the pool. First came a tentacle, sliding up the side of the pool
and onto the platform next to us. Then another tentacle poked into
the air and waved around, showing us some evil-looking suckers,
before landing on another platform further away. Then finally a
rounded head slowly surfaced, turned around, and faced us.
For several seconds,
nobody spoke. Then a watery gurgle emanated from the octopus
creature, which resolved itself into words: “Vvvaryn. Iiiii
ammm the Guaarrrrdiann of Waaaterr. Leeeeaavvve thhhe Waaaterrr
Shhhriiiine nnnowwww.”
“Sorry,
mister Guardian,” chirped Paula nonchalantly. “We came
here for the Heartstone of Water, and we aren't leaving till we get
it.”
“Youuu will
onllly brinng dessstruuuctionnn upoonn youursellllf,” bubbled
the Guardian.
“Yeah, yeah,
that's what the last guy said. Everything's been fine so far,”
she replied cockily.
“Thennn
prrrepaaarre youuurselllves,” came the gurgle in response. And
suddenly a tentacle shot out of the water and wrapped around the
child, who shrieked in shock and fright.
“Mac!”
Paula cried out. Michael leapt to follow Mac,
drawing his daggers and slashing at the tentacle in one fluid
movement. (He looked so cool and dynamic when he moved.) The
squid-thing let out a roar of pain and released the boy, who fell
into the water and splashed about, shouting “Help! I can't
swim!”
I
jumped into the pool and swam a few strokes to where he was
floundering, put one arm around him and swam to the nearest solid
footing. Then I turned to the Guardian and gave it such a glare.
“Pick on the kid, would you?”
At that moment I
felt so much like just bashing the thing in any way I could, so I
just swung at it with my staff. I missed horribly: it was far too far
away. I could only stand there and fume.
Luckily, the others
hadn't been just idling while I rescued our charge. Paula had been
swimming to one of the platforms closer to the monster, and now she
was hacking and slashing at a tentacle that was attacking her.
Michael was
initially nowhere to be seen. As I watched, he surfaced on the far
side of the Guardian, swimming with his daggers. I realised he'd been
attacking the creature underwater – a clever idea. I decided to
give it a try myself, and jumped into the slow-motion world under the
surface... except it turns out that when your movements are forced
into slow-motion by the drag of water, a staff really isn't an
effective weapon. And when I resurfaced, the tentacle had grabbed Mac
again!
I resigned myself to
playing a support role yet again, and spent the rest of the combat
defending Mac, casting <Bless> on the others, and <Cure2>
when necessary. Paula and Michael got the job done, though.
Eventually the Guardian, defeated, fell into the pool. “Yyyouu
brrringg only doooooommm,” it warned liquidly. With that, the
octopus gurgled its last.
Suddenly, the walls
and ceiling started shaking. I looked up, started. The rumbling was
increasing, and dust and small fragments of stone started falling
from the ceiling.
“What? How did
killing that thing make this place collapse?” asked Paula
frantically.
Michael
replied in an ironic tone, “It must have been a load-bearing
boss!” He continued more seriously, “Quick, we don't have
much time. Give Mac and his dog water-breathing potions, and I'll get
the Heartstone!” Without waiting for an answer he dived
smoothly into the pool towards the Guardian's corpse, where I could
see something faintly shining through the water.
Paula
hurried to extract the potions from her pack. By the time she'd
poured some down Mac's throat and got him to open his dog's mouth,
the rumbling was making conversation impossible, big chunks of stone
tile were falling past us from above, and water was streaming through
several holes in the walls and ceiling already.
Michael resurfaced,
and dodged a lump of masonry aimed at his head. “Got it!”
he exclaimed, waving a glowing blue orb in the rapidly disappearing
air. “Is everybody ready?” he asked urgently. We all
nodded. With a grimace he said, “Then I guess we wait until we
can swim out of here.”
“Shouldn't we
take a look outside?” asked Paula, pulling at the firmly closed
doors through which we'd entered. “Hmm,” she frowned, as
they seemed stuck. She gave a big yank, and the door flew open...
with a sudden huge gush of water immediately following.
And then it was just
a long swim up from the depths, to find our sailor friend and start
sailing back to Haniton... Before we woke up.
-- taleteller
by princess-of-china at 10:54 on Nov 21st
by varynfan at 14:19 on Nov 21st
by taleteller at 18:54 on Nov 21st
A strange interview
Back in Elysia
again. We travelled back from Haniton across the wilderness to the
Royal City. There were two more combats – one with a bunch of
strange green slimy things (they were quite easy to beat), and one
with some bandits. That was a real gulp-in-the-throat moment, as we
had to suddenly fight to the death with these figures who really
looked completely human. They were coming for us, and so I guess it
was self-defence, but still... We killed people today. That's not
something to easily take on board.
They
weren't easily beaten, either. There were only two of them, but one
of them gave me a huge whack with this horrible club with spikes in,
that probably broke my arm. Paula and even Michael had seemed a bit
reticent until that point, but when I screamed and clutched my
forearm, that seemed to shock them into action. I had to use <Cure2>
on myself and <Cure> on each of the others afterwards. That was
quite a strange feeling, actually, channeling magic into myself, and
feeling the agony drain away as the spell tingled and healed me.
Anyway, we made it
back to the Royal City (and why doesn't that place have a better
name?). We stocked up on potions and Phoenix Feathers at the item
shop on the outskirts, and then went straight to the Palace. We were
met by a distinctly creepy courtier, who looked like the Hunchback of
Notre Dame. Literally, he had the hunch, the stoop, the misshapen
head with uneven eyes, the works. Thankfully we didn't have to spend
long with him, but he did escort us to see the Chancellor even though
we asked to see the King.
The Chancellor
greeted us slimily and was very inquisitive of how our quest had
gone. (His outfit is so ridiculous, with that big floppy hood and the
sticky-out shoulder pads. It looks even sillier when you see it up
close.) Paula seemed a bit too willing to divulge all the details to
him, so I butted in (perhaps a bit rudely) to request that we see the
King. The Chancellor frowned, but ushered us in to the throne room.
The King wasn't busy
(funny that), and he was delighted to see us. “Do come in,
Varyn, Terena, Maitland.” When we got up in front of his
throne, he seemed to do a double-take, and then he caught each of our
eye in turn and gave us a broad grin. I didn't quite get what he was
meaning at that point. All he said out loud was, “Goodness me,
Varyn, that new armour suits you. Your figure was completely hidden
by the outfit you were wearing at our last meeting.”
Paula actually
blushed as we all realised that this was the first time we'd seen the
King in the flesh, as it were, and so last time he'd seen us Varyn
was a spiky-haired, rugged teenage boy, rather than a spiky-haired
and definitely female adult.
“So,”
the King continued, “how went your expedition to the Atlantean
City?”
Paula reached into
her pack and brandished the Heartstone of Water. “Successfully,
my liege!” she proclaimed proudly. “And we freed a
trapped boy and his dog as well.”
I definitely saw an
amused smile flicker across the King's face at that. “Excellent.
Then you must head for Doom Mountain to retreive the final part, the
Heartstone of Fire.”
At this point the
Chancellor interrupted. “Sire, might I suggest the adventurers
leave their two Heartstones here for safekeeping while they make the
perilous trek to Doom Mountain?”
The King looked
around sharply at that. He peered at the Chancellor with what looked
like a suspicious expression for a moment, then said, “Chancellor
Binkley, you overstep your mark. All things in good time.”
Then he turned his
attention back to us. “There is a legend which tells of a stone
gate in the face of Doom Mountain, which can only be opened by the
bearer of an opaline pendant shaped in the likeness of a wyrm. Within
the mountain there is said to be a cave of fire, and it is in the
mountain's heart where the Heartstone of Fire has lain for centuries.
You must make your way north-west, through the Kamichika Pass, to
Doom Mountain. But you should be sure to have one with you who bears
the legendary pendant.”
Are all Kings this
credulous of ancient legends?
Still, it was our
best shot, so we took his advice and thanked him. Before we left, he
proclaimed a blessing over us – something like “May you
know the inward guidance of gods from beyond our realm.” The
phrasing echoed what he'd said in the game, last time we saw him,
when he said our real names. I got the distinct impression that his
“inward guidance” turn of phrase was no accident.
Once we were safely
out of the palace, Paula and I cracked up laughing. “Binkley!
The evil Chancellor is called Binkley! Hahahahaha!”
Once we were done
with our giggles, we started brainstorming where we might find
someone with this wyrm-shaped pendant. Problem is, the only notable
pendant we've seen so far belonged to that sorceress Alleria, and she
didn't want to be on the party with Maitland. I wonder if she'll be
persuadable now that Maitland is Michael?
-- taleteller
by
princess-of-china at 12:02 on Nov 22nd
by
take-me-to-elysia at 14:13 on Nov 22nd
by varynfan at
17:09 on Nov 22nd
by ilovealleria
at 17:56 on Nov 22nd
by taleteller at
19:02 on Nov 22nd
by
take-me-to-elysia at 22:48 on Nov 22nd
by taleteller at
23:37 on Nov 22nd
Reunion with a sorceress
We tracked down
Alleria to the fancy inn where she'd been staying. She acted all
snubbed when we asked her to join the party again, but Paula and I
wheedled and flattered and persuaded her to come with us. The fact
that the King had specifically mentioned her pendant and its magical
powers helped quite a bit.
I did actually get
the feeling that she'd been expecting us to come back. She looked
closely at Paula when we first turned up – of course, she's
another one who last time she saw the party, Varyn was still Varyn.
And of course, she added her usual condition that if we wanted her to
travel with us, Maitland had to stay behind.
We'd planned for
this. Michael had agreed that he'd act all hurt for a little bit and
then go away, shadow us for a while, and then rejoin the group when
we were some way out of the city. He played his role admirably, and
Paula hardly needed to do any further persuasion to get her to agree.
Alleria disappeared back into the inn to fetch her things, and before
we knew it, we were off.
We set off along the
road towards the Kamichika Pass. It was several hours' walk away, but
the dream sort of sped through most of it. (Except the combat, of
course... We had to fight some more lizardmen on one occasion.
Alleria's fire spells made quick work of them in combination with
Paula's sword.) I do remember looking around and not being able to
see Michael. It wasn't until we could see the Kamichika Gate in the
distance that Michael snuck up on us... I guess Alleria must have not
looked around, and obviously Paula and I weren't going to say
anything when we could tell that the figure closing on us from behind
was our friend. He jogged right up beside us and said, “Good
afternoon, ladies. May I join you?”
Paula smirked and
grinned at him. Alleria looked positively outraged. “What are
you doing here, Maitland?! You were meant to stay behind in the Royal
City! We can't all go to Doom Mountain together!”
Michael replied
relaxedly, “My dear sorceress, why would that be? Seems to me
that the more, the merrier...”
Alleria still looked
most put out. “I, I, I won't stand for this trickery! I shall
return to the Royal City at once!”
“Please don't
do that, milady. We need you with us. And we want you with us as
well,” I appealed.
Michael added, “If
you like, I can stay hidden. I'm a rogue, see? That's what I do. I
snuck up on you, I can sneak up on dozy guards.”
“I... But...”
Her expression went from affront to objection, and on to bemusement.
“And the rest of you are okay with this?” she asked,
seemingly as a last resort.
Paula and I nodded.
Alleria shook her head and said, “...Very well, then, let's
travel on as a four.” She looked around at the three of us and
said, “You really aren't the normal kind of adventurers, are
you?”
The three of us just
grinned again. We had our sorceress and her opaline wyrm pendant; and
we'd proved that the three-character limit on the party wasn't an
absolute hard and fast rule.
* * *
We had one more
combat en route: as we travelled through the foothills, some bandits
sprang out of practically nowhere and attacked. Once again I had to
steel myself to fighting to the death with humans, or dreamworld
semblances thereof that were indistinguishable from real ones.
Alleria did comment to me in a low voice afterwards that she hated
the fights with humans, and always had to wrestle with herself to
cast the attack spells on them. It was a rare moment of vulnerability
from the normally confident and imperious lady.
We quickly reached
Yamakiri, the little village that had formed just below the Kamichika
Gate. The terrain was pretty mountainous and the air was bracing, but
the locals didn't seem to mind. An old guy was relaxing by a small
fountain, and there were a few buildings scattered around. We took
the opportunity to restock – by some amazing coincidence, there
happened to be an item shop and indeed a weapon shop and an armour
shop amongst the total of about eight structures in front of the
Gate.
When
we emerged, there was a loud conversation going on in the village
square. An outlandishly-dressed man was exclaiming, “In that
case, does anyone know how to get into the temple inside the
mountain?”
The four of us
exchanged significant looks.
We didn't have to
say anything; he looked around, and when he spotted us coming out of
the shop, he lost all interest in the middle-aged man he'd been
talking to and strode up to us. Taking off his wide-brimmed hat and
giving us a sweeping bow, he said, “Good day, fair ladies. An
exceedingly good one, that my presence might be graced by three
ladies as beautiful and intriguing as yourselves. Do I take it that
you too are travellers, passing through this place?”
How do you reply to
someone who greets you like that? Paula – as both party leader
and the most outspoken of us all – was the first to try. “Many
thanks for your graceful – er, gracious welcome, good sir. We
are indeed merely visiting this settlement briefly. I am, um...”
She paused for a moment as she tried to decide how to introduce
herself, and seemed to settle on “Varyn, a travelling
swords...woman. These are Terena, a skilled cleric, and Alleria, a
noble sorceress.” Michael had slipped into the background.
Paula added, “And you are?”
“I am Randall,
a knight and paladin of the Elysian Court. Currently I have been
trying to help the people of Yamakiri to retrieve the platinum Staff
of Eldership, formerly used by the mayor to hold office and inspire
fealty. But it seems to have been lost in the depths of the caverns
of Doom Mountain, and the entrance is obstructed by an ancient gate,
magically sealed.”
(A likely story. How
on earth would some platinum stick get stuck inside a volcano?? But
then, I suppose our quest for a legendary Heartstone of Fire is no
better...)
So at this point, I
confess the guy's style was a bit charming, but it was slightly
starting to grate. I was thinking that we ought to just tell him no
and be on our way. But Paula piped up, “What a fortuitous
coincidence! We have in our possession the magic item needed to open
that very gate, for our objective too is within the depths of the
mountain. We can solve both our missions simultaneously.”
(Fortuitous?
Simultaneously? Where'd you learn words like that, girl??)
Anyway, I just about
stopped myself from slapping my forehead with my palm. Alleria looked
similarly dischuffed. Paula just looked around at us with an innocent
smile.
Sir Randall appeared
somewhat taken aback with Paula's announcement –
understandably, I suppose. But recovering quickly, he gave us another
standing bow with a flourish, and replied, “With the greatest
of happiness would I join your expedition.”
“Well then,
shall we be on our way?” Paula asked us. Still a little fazed,
Alleria and I just agreed. I did catch Michael's eye as he blended in
with the small crowd that had formed to watch the flamboyant Sir
Randall; Michael nodded in the general direction of the Gate and
slipped away.
So it was as a
different group of four that we progressed through the forbidding
Kamichika Pass and on the final trek towards Doom Mountain. Ignoring
the descent towards forest and plains below, we followed a rocky path
that just climbed and climbed, rising steadily towards the face of
Doom Mountain itself.
...And that's where
I woke up this morning. I'm quite looking forward to seeing what
happens next time :)
And I really must
start writing these posts a little earlier and actually make it to
work on time...
-- taleteller
by princess-of-china at 12:19 on Nov 23rd
by take-me-to-elysia at 13:08 on Nov 23rd
by varynfan at 17:09 on Nov 23rd
A world of flame and fury
Our nighttime
narration rejoins our heroines as they approach the foreboding face
of Doom Mountain. The rocky path petering out into a rugged climb, we
pressed on. Michael had rejoined us shortly after we left Yamakiri,
and he met with disapproving looks from Sir Randall, but there wasn't
much he could do.
The rockface was
populated by a few oversized lizardy creatures, which meant –
yes, you guessed it! – more combats. Sir Randall has a fencing
sword, something like a rapier, and although it looks pretty silly,
he was actually pretty good with it. I continued to feel a bit
unnecessary during the fighting – I felt like I was strictly in
a support role, that could be played just as well by a few health
potions – but I kept trying not to let it bug me.
Eventually
we stood before a vast stone gate. You could almost miss it, it was
so large and looked like it was – how do they say it? –
“hewn from the very rock itself”. But there were Ancient
Carvings™ in it, and it was basically shaped like two huge
double doors in the shape of a big arch.
Alleria's
eyes seemed to be glowing as she looked at it. She muttered something
that sounded like “This is of my ancestors...” as she
approached the gate, holding out a hand to touch it. We all clustered
around the centre where the two doors met, as the carvings seemed
focused around a certain point there. There was a dragon-shaped
indentation about the size of a hand right at the point where all the
lines converged.
Our eyes went to
Alleria, and she reached for her pendant. Sure enough, it had already
started to glow. She took the mystical relic and placed it into the
socket, where it fit perfectly, and immediately a deep rumbling
started. You could just tell that a background theme song indicating
Deep Significance would have been playing if we'd been watching this
on a screen. But any deficiency in the atmosphere caused by lack of
musical accompaniment was more than made up for by physically
standing at the base of these thirty-foot-high doors as they
shuddered apart sideways while the ground literally trembled beneath
us.
(Looking back on it
now, I am forced to wonder where the hidden recess was in the side of
the mountain into which the doors slid? It's pretty fortunate that
the mountainside hadn't been eroded to expose the hole to the
elements. It'd suck for an ancient race to build some magical sliding
doors, and then when they get opened by the Adventurers of Destiny,
have the doors jam because they got stuck on a fallen boulder.)
Still, at the time,
the effect was quite awe-inspiring. The passage revealed was lit by
an ominous red glow coming from the walls. But what else could we do?
We walked into it.
At first, the
tunnels were formed of granite, with glowing red-and-yellow cracks
running through the walls and ceiling (thankfully not the floors).
There were a number of enemies scattered throughout the place, from
salamanders and hostile animate flames (flame elementals, Michael
called them), to goblins and imps. Many of them were utterly
invulnerable to fire-type attacks, which really vexed Alleria as
those are her strongest spells. She discovered that her <Ice>
spell, although she says it's much lower level than her <Fireball>
and <Hail of Fire>, worked particularly well against the
enemies in here. I was pretty useless through all these fights,
because my staff is pretty useless in combat. The only thing I'm good
for is healing everybody afterwards. (Yep, that's Tessa, our walking
medical kit.)
This place had some
fun puzzles in. Although a couple of them didn't seem to work so well
from a point of view actually inside the place... And there was one
room that was clearly supposed to be a puzzle, but it was really
easy! There were these switches that lifted a section of path up out
of this pool of lava; and it was just totally trivial for Paula to
just walk straight up the middle while the other four of us just
stood on these switches to make the path stay clear. It looked like
if there were just three of you, it'd be really quite tricky and
you'd have to do lots of moving back and forth... But somehow the
ancients who created the place must have only imagined that the
adventurers visiting would be in groups of three.
When we got through
that room, we made it into a huge, roughly circular cavern, full of
acrid smoke that made us all cough. Almost all of the floor was a
huge bubbling pool of lava, which radiated heat and made your face
hurt. Looking up, we could see the night sky: we were actually within
the central crater of the volcano. There were some oversized crows
and things flying around, which made a beeline (crowline?) for us, so
we started by fighting them off. After that we could look around a
bit more. There were a load of rocks floating in the lava, somehow
not melting, forming a few chains of stepping-stones. There were a
load more rocks floating in the air above the lava, magically
hovering over the crater and tracing paths up and down and around. It
was quite a sight. We had to each leap in turn between the stones,
and climb onto the circling levitating ones when they were down low,
in order to reach the higher platforms.
Another memorable
part of the Fire Shrine was right at the end, as we approached what
would turn out to be the boss's room, we passed along a very narrow
granite walkway – basically just the top of a wall – with
cascading curtains of lava falling on either side. I was willing to
ignore considerations of the practicalities of how one would pump all
this lava around, because the effect of walking between these two
red-hot waterfalls of molten rock was pretty damn cool.
Then was the huge
iron studded door that led into the boss's chamber. I asked Michael
if it was worth me casting <Bless> on the party before we went
in, rather than waiting for the whatever-it-would-turn-out-to-be to
attack us. He reckoned it would almost certainly get dispelled when
we entered, but I thought it was worth a go. Unfortunately, he was
right – their golden auras disappeared as we passed through the
doors.
Passing through
those doors, we entered a big circular chamber. Its walls were hung
with decorations, and interspersed with more constantly-falling
curtains of lava. The place was full of treasures, and there was an
intimidating-looking creature standing in the middle of it. The thing
looked somewhere between an ogre and a demon. It was about eight feet
tall, and almost as wide, basically humanoid but very heavy-set, clad
in dark metal armour, and with two big spiralling horns emblazoned on
its head.
“I
am the Fire Shrine's Guardian,” the creature rumbled in a
gravelly, booming voice. “Thou wilt not claim the Heartstone of
Fire while I live.” It paused for a moment, then looked
directly at Paula and added, “Human known as Varyn. Thy actions
will bring nothing but misfortune and doom. Thou shouldst abandon
this misguided quest.”
Paula
looked at me, and she looked genuinely troubled. “...What is
it?” I asked after a few seconds.
“You
know, Tessa, maybe we should do as he says,” she said
hesitantly.
“Whaaat?”
I was gobsmacked, and it seems Alleria and Michael hadn't been
expecting that either. Even the Fire Shrine Guardian looked
surprised.
Paula
valiantly continued, “Well, both this guy and the Water Shrine
Guardian said it was a really bad idea. Even the guy in the Earth
Shrine said something like that. They all keep going on about doom,
as well. So maybe we should take their advice?”
Michael
replied uncomprehendingly, “But... the game's plot clearly has
the party obtaining the three Heartstones.”
She
acquired a positively mischievous grin as she looked at Michael and
said, “But we don't have to follow the game's plot, do we?”
At
this point Alleria chipped in. “What is this ''game'' you keep
talking about? This is no time for games!”
The three of us
started a little. I'd forgotten Alleria and Sir Randall were there.
The paladin was standing watching us expressionlessly, but Alleria
looked very confused. Paula, Michael and I exchanged helpless
glances, and unanimously decided not to even try to explain. (What
would we say? “You see, Alleria, we come from a world where
people entertain themselves by guiding your life through this kind of
adventure, and controlling where you walk and what kind of spells you
cast, and thousands of people around our world play this game?”)
Sir Randall spoke
up. “From what you told me earlier, I understand that you've
been appointed by the King of Elysia to fetch the Heartstones under
his orders. And I only seek the platinum staff of the Yamakiri, but
this creature appears to be holding that as part of its hoard as
well. So I believe our duty, as loyal citizens, is to fulfil our
King's commission.”
Paula still
hesitated. “Even if that's leading to doom and destruction?”
Solemnly Sir Randall
affirmed, “Even then.”
Paula looked
thoughtful for a moment longer, and then her expression totally
changed to a carefree smile. She shrugged and said, “Well then,
let's get on with it!”
“You
will not be deterred?” rumbled the Guardian.
“Afraid
not,” said Paula cheerily.
“Then prepare
yourselves!” With that, the hellish thing drew two
savage-looking blades, practically cleavers, and leapt at us.
It was fast! Paula
was just about able to draw her sword and parry in time, and even
then, the force of the thing's blow drove her backwards at least a
foot and knocked her to the ground. Sir Randall was immediately
lunging at the thing with his rapier, Michael surged off on a
sweeping run with his daggers, and I set about recasting the <Bless>
spells that we'd wasted outside the door.
Alleria, to her
credit, spotted that the beast's speed was one of the most dangerous
traits about it, and started casting her <TimeSlow> spell on
it. When the Guardian noticed this, it turned at her and roared the
most menacing roar I've ever heard. It stamped on the ground, which
shook and disrupted Sir Randall's charge, and then aimed a slicing
blow of its weapon at Alleria. Her spell took hold of the thing and
its blade slowed in midair... but that didn't quite give her time to
dodge. She tried, but the vicious blade chopped her arm off. The
thing literally chopped Alleria's arm off.
She screamed, and so
did Paula and I. Michael had the presence of mind not to slow his
attack, which is just as well because the Guardian kept on attacking,
at his reduced pace (which is to say, at about the pace most of the
other enemies we've fought had). I choked back my terror and,
shaking, cast <Cure2>.
That was really
weird to see, as well. The spell started swirling around both
Alleria, clutching her shoulder in agony, and the arm lying on the
floor... and it lifted her arm up to her and knitted it back
together. (She moved her hand away from her shoulder pretty quickly
when she realised what I was doing.) There was still a bleeding gash
there, but she flexed her fingers and bent her elbow in wonder. This
all took just a few seconds, and she threw me a quick look of
profound appreciation and relief, then went straight back to casting
attack spells at the beast.
It didn't look like
it knew how to fight five people. Paula, Michael and Sir Randall were
pressing in on it and falling back, nipping in to get in an attack
and then ducking as the Guardian's flailing blades whooshed past. But
it heard the sound of Alleria's chanting, and turned to direct its
attention back at her. For some reason the creature really seemed to
hate having spells cast on it, and so it started slashing at Alleria.
She was just about managing to dodge the evil swords while keeping up
her spellcasting, but it was touch and go. The attacks of the others
seemed to be doing serious damage – I was sure the thing
couldn't have many hit points left – but it was focusing on
Alleria. Finally, she stood up straight and defiant as she cast <Ice>
straight at its face.
The Guardian howled
in pain and anger, and viciously swung its outstretched arms
together. Alleria looked to her left and right in terror, and then
there was no time left and nowhere to dodge...
She got cut in two.
Hacked through the waist by a demon's cleaver. Her look of horror
stayed on her face as she slumped to the ground.
But the Guardian had
left itself exposed. Shock- and anger-fuelled attacks from Paula,
Michael, and Sir Randall converged on the demon-thing and dealt the
final damage needed. It lurched, swayed, and toppled to the ground,
its impact shaking the floor.
For several seconds,
the four of us left alive just looked at one another and around the
room, gasping for breath.
Then I felt tears
welling up and I cried, “Alleria–!”
Michael looked grave
for a few moments. Then he said, “Paula, do you have the
Phoenix Feathers?”
“Phoenix...?
Oh my goodness, of course!” Paula was looking seriously
shocked, but she reached into the pack and brought out one of the
magical things.
I hadn't actually
looked at one since we'd been in the gameworld “up close and
personal”, and peering through a haze of tears, it just looked
like any other feather. Paula was staring at the magic item similarly
and asked Michael after a second, “How do we use it?”
For the first
occasion in quite some time, Michael looked uncertain. He hesitantly
said, “I guess, just... place it on her body...?”
Paula looked like
she was hoping against hope as she stepped up to our fallen comrade,
lying gruesomely on the floor. She took the Phoenix Feather in two
hands, held them both out straight above Alleria's body, and let the
Feather fall.
It drifted
downwards, gently, seeming buffeted by the breeze, achingly slow, and
eventually landed on Alleria's chest...
And magic happened.
I can't describe
what I saw. There was gold and light and sound of rushing wind and
crackling flame. I think my hair stood on end a bit. And then I heard
a spluttering cough, and Alleria got up.
She was looking
distinctly the worse for wear, and I remembered the way that in the
game, if you use a Phoenix Feather then the recovered character comes
back with a tiny fraction of their hit points. I knew what to do
about that. “<Cure2>!”. (Yes, I actually cried out
the spell name as I cast it. I was feeling emotional, all right?)
I don't think I let
the spell finish before I ran to give Alleria a fierce embrace. She
looked at me rather strangely and didn't exactly hug me back, but I
didn't care. I was just so relieved to see her back alive. And even
then, I realised that I didn't quite know whether she was really
alive or not, whether she was just a figment of our dreams or a
character from a game or what... And I didn't really care. Just
having seen her... die... and now being able to see her and talk to
her again... It was scary.
Of course, I did
realise that from her point of view, this wasn't the first time this
had happened, and she'd not really known Terena for that long. So I
let go of her fairly quickly, and she stepped back. But looking
around I saw Paula looking just as relieved as I felt.
Sir Randall,
meanwhile, had been looking around the room. “Aha!” he
exclaimed, picking up a thick shiny rod. Then he looked at us and
said, “Didn't you ladies have a Stone of some kind you were
looking for?”
Paula nodded
enthusiastically and jumped to search. She wasn't searching for long:
there was a big pedestal prominently positioned opposite the door,
with a large red gemstone displayed on it that looked, well, like a
red version of the Heartstones of Earth and Water.
“Here
we go, guys!” exclaimed Paula with gusto, and lifted the stone
high. “We made it!”
“My
congratulations to you all,” said Sir Randall with a bow.
“Where are you bound now?”
Paula answered
happily, “Back to the palace!”
“Then
it seems our paths may coincide for a little longer,” he stated
solemnly. “May I accompany you back to the Royal City?”
“Of
course!” Paula and I said at the same time. Then we glanced at
one another and shared a smile. I don't quite know what was on her
mind, but I know that I rather enjoyed having Sir Randall with his
exaggerated courtesy around.
So, that was pretty
much that. We left Doom Mountain; Sir Randall delivered his platinum
staff back to the Yamakiri elder, who was overjoyed; and the five of
us started the boring trek back to Elysia's Royal City, to see what
happens now we've got all three Heartstones. Wish us luck!
-- taleteller
by princess-of-china at 09:15 on Nov 24th
By take-me-to-elysia at 09:19 on Nov 24th
by varynfan at 09:45 on Nov 24th
by bringiton at 13:40 on Nov 24th
by taleteller at 17:56 on Nov 24th
by princess-of-china, at 18:03 on Nov 24th
by taleteller, at 18:11 on Nov 24th
A night out
Paula and I went
clubbing tonight. A new place has just opened, so we decided to check
it out. Even if, in Paula's words, “just to give you something
except Elysia to write about on your blog, right, Tessa?”
After
we'd been there only half an hour or so, I spotted Ben, strutting his
funky stuff on the dancefloor! I called Paula over and we went to say
hi (yelling over the music, obviously). He pointed out his mate who
he was with – a guy called Stuart, who I think we've met once
before. He had sharp taste in clothes, and danced pretty well, and
wasn't bad looking... Somehow though, something was telling me to
steer clear.
I figured out what
it was a bit later, when the four of us went to get a drink. Stuart
commented that Paula had looked good with the blue highlights in her
hair, and asked why she'd ditched them. Paula pointed at him in
horror and shrieked, “You're the guy who was making rude
comments about my hair at Ben's party!”
Now that I looked
for it, I could recognise him. Paula carried on, “You insulted
it then, why are you saying now that it looked good?”
The guy shrugged,
and replied with a grin, “Maybe they grew on me afterwards.”
Anyway, despite his
rudeness, he was an okay guy to be around. And we all had fun losing
ourselves in music and movement. So all in all, it was a good night.
I wonder whether the
late night will mean I get less time in Elysia tonight? I wonder
whether it waits for all of us to sleep before we all go into it in
our dreams? What would happen if one of us stayed up all night, and
the other two slept? So many things we don't understand about this
connection to the gameworld that we have :)
Anyway, I'm off to
bed... I'll update in the morning to tell you what happened in
Elysia!
-- taleteller
by varynfan, at 04:19 on Nov 25th
by princess-of-china, at 07:45 on Nov 25th
The doom that was impending
Okay, okay, Paula,
varynfan, here you go! The latest update from Elysia, complete with
weird swirly hole. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
I found myself back
with Paula, Michael, Alleria and Sir Randall, on the road from
Yamakiri to the Royal City. “Did I miss anything?” I
asked – not a very sensible thing to say in retrospect, I
guess. It certainly earned me a strange look from Alleria. But Paula
giggled a bit, so it seems she understood why I said it.
The trip back was
fairly uneventful, as they often are in these games: a couple of
combats as we made our long trek north, and that was about it. (I
don't know whether it's a good or bad thing that killing bandits has
become a routine event for us and I don't think much of it...)
However, things were
plenty eventful enough in the palace.
Sir Randall took his
leave from us once we arrived at the Royal City, declaring that
although he'd love to accompany us to the palace, he had to return to
the paladins' court. We urged him to stay a little longer, but he
wouldn't be swayed. So we bade him farewell. I was sad to see him go –
having him with us has been by turns reassuring, amusing and
exciting. Reassuring because although I'm sure we could cope without
him, he is a strong fighter; amusing because his outlandish clothing
and mannerisms have grown on me; and exciting... I don't think I'm
going to go into any further detail on that one.
So we arrived at the
palace. The creepy courtier we'd seen before met us with a cackle,
and escorted us to the Chancellor as before. The Chancellor looked
positively delighted that we were back successfully. At the time I
didn't know why...
Once again, we were
able to go and see the King without any further delays. He also
looked delighted to see us. “My congratulations, Varyn,”
he said warmly. “With these three stones, we can establish
communication with the Realm of the Dragons, and prevent any more
occurrences of the kind of disaster that befell your home town.”
Paula nodded solemnly... I wonder if she, like me, had forgotten the
actual reason we had been collecting the Heartstones?
The King said
formally, “Chancellor, would you perform the ritual?”
“Gladly, my
liege,” murmured the silly man, and stepped towards us. He held
out a hand towards us, and I wondered what he wanted. When nobody
moved for a few seconds, he said irritably, “Well, hand over
the Heartstones, then. I need them to perform the ritual, you know.”
“Oh...
of course. Sorry,” said Paula rather
embarrassedly. She pulled the three gemstones out, each one pulsing
and shimmering with power. The greedy expression on the Chancellor's
face really should have alerted me that something was up, but I just
stood there like a lemon. I think Michael might have been looking a
bit suspicious of the Chancellor's intentions, but he didn't do
anything either.
The Chancellor
lifted the three Heartstones together in his hands, and began to
incant. It was clearly a powerful spell, as gusts of wind started
swirling around us, and beads of sweat appeared on the Chancellor's
forehead.
Suddenly, the gusts
turned into a whirling disc in front of us, and we could gradually
see some kind of scene in it, like it was some kind of screen. Or
rather, a portal... a “weird swirly hole”, as Paula so
succinctly put it. The Chancellor continued incanting under his
breath.
“Good work,
Chancellor!” commented the King jovially. “Now, do you
have a messenger to the Dragons?”
“Ah.
I'm afraid that that won't be possible... your
Majesty,” cackled Binkley. And suddenly, I couldn't move. As
in, literally I was paralysed in place. I happened to have been just
turning my head to glance between Michael and Paula, and so I could
see that they'd both frozen as well.
The Chancellor
laughed maniacally. “Muhahaha... Look at that, Kraus! The mass
paralysis spell can be cast so quickly when amplified by these
stones!”
And I heard a
higher-pitch cackle from behind me, in the unmistakable tones of the
Chancellor's misshapen assistant.
“But
I'm sure you'll be glad to hear, your Majesty, that no emissary to
the Dragons will be needed,” continued the Chancellor. “After
all, we can control them using the enchanted gold from the Goblin
Mines in the World of Darkness. As ruler of the World of Darkness,
I've already prepared enough of that gold to command twenty Dragons.
So sending an emissary would be fairly pointless.”
I confess, I was
shocked at this point. It had been blindingly obvious that the
Chancellor had been up to no good, but I certainly hadn't been
expecting him to turn out to be an evil ruler of the realm we'd been
working so hard to enter.
“But...
Chancellor... Why?” The King croaked the words with immense
effort.
The
Chancellor turned to him with a mocking version of the expression a
teacher uses to praise a child who's done particularly good work.
“Goodness me, your Majesty, you can move your lips! And indeed
vocal chords – even through my Heartstone-amplified paralysis
spell. I do congratulate you. But as for your question, the answer is
simple: because ruling the World of Darkness isn't enough! Knowing
that there's this entire realm just sitting here, not being ruled by
me, became intolerable. So I warped myself though to this world and
set myself up my courtesan identity. But even with my immense powers
and the finest Warpwood from the Twisted Forest, I still couldn't
create portals large enough for what I needed. That's where Paula and
her friends came in.”
He paused in his
spiel to laugh demonically, and then continued, “And now,
thanks to these Heartstones you so generously fetched for me, I've
finally been able to open this portal to the World of Darkness!”
He turned to give a mock-bow to us, while we fumed impotently. “So
Kraus, tie up his Majesty and these fools!”
“Nyehehehe.
Yes, Your Excellency,” snickered Kraus, and started scampering
around us to tie us up with rope. We just stood there helplessly.
When he tried to tie me up, my arms were splayed out from my sides
where they'd been when Binkley cast the spell. He scowled at me, then
focused intently and muttered, “<Motion>!” And my
arms just moved down to my side. Part of me was thinking 'Hey, that's
a pretty neat spell', while the rest of me was being tied up. Then
suddenly, we could move again, and Alleria stumbled, nearly falling
over. I looked around at the others: we were all tied around waist
and arms, and bearing expressions of fury at Binkley's betrayal.
“Now,”
gloated the Chancellor. “Time for you all to be thrown in the
dungeon! But since you foolishly neglected the need for a dungeon in
this palace, 'your Majesty', we'll have to take you through this nice
new portal... to the Citadel of Darkness!”
And Kraus cackled
one last time, long and loud, as he yanked on the rope and shuffled
to follow his master, pulling all of us into the swirling depths of
the portal.
-- taleteller
by ilovealleria, at 10:07 on Nov 25th
by princess-of-china, at 12:31 on Nov
You called your blog “dreaming of something happening”? Is your life really that boring, or are you just being a bit melodramatic?
Still, I'll look forward to seeing what you write on here. Just be sure to say nice things about me, okay, sweetie?