Pirates and Poachers

On By ravonlockeIn Jin, JournalLeave a comment

The whale is really nice, but he’s not so sure about us. He needs to get fish for himself and his friends, so we promise to get him fish if he takes the lady to the ice flow to buy oil. Eggy thinks we should promise to kill the bad men we chased away, but that seems weird, to go hunt down some stupid people just to kill them. He agrees to help and takes the lady and her friends away in the boat on his back.

There’s a big talk then about murder and good and evil and “poachers.” Eggy says that’s people who kill for fun and are selfish reasons and take more than is good for the land. He gets real mad when I say he almost qualifies, but for taking care of the land. But it’s True! He goes around hunting things because he thinks it’s fun and because he just wants to! But he doesn’t kill whole herds of animals, just one usually on his real Hunts. Not like now, when we’re being attacked all the time. Mostly when he shoots things.

Anyway. We get a bunch of fish out of the water and then the Whale brings the lady back and we give him the fish. He’s real happy and says he knows where the pirate ship is, but we need to get the lady safely back to town first. We tell him to stay out in the ocean for a few days because the bad people are still around. Twitch’ll talk in his head when we get back.

He heads out and we argue again about what to do. We promised to get the lady back to town, but Eggy wants to go kill the bad men. So, we stay by the water to see if they come back. No trouble at night so we go back to town. We hear rumors of a white dragon there! North past the trees. Maybe it likes the evil wizards at the prison, maybe it IS one of the wizards! We have to go there next! I wanna see a dragon!

We head back to the bell the next day, but the water is all poisoned. How? What? Why? That’s just not natural. I use the spyglass to look into the water, the poison is just on top, but so are a bunch of dead fish. Twitch collects up the dead ones, and I snag a couple. Leshy cleans the water by praying to his god. We’re going after the bad men now, I want to feed them their poison. Eggy shows us the way and then he and Sandy just murder them. Leshy and Saalym pray over their bodies so they don’t get back up again.

Then we go get the whale and tell him it’s safe to come back. He’s happy we took care of the bad water, and takes us out under the ice. He says he’s seen a big shape with wings flying over the ice. Yay dragon! And gets us pretty close to the pirate ship. It’s pretty stuck, so we go right up to it. The side says Dark Duchess. There’s some strange noises, so we climb right up onto it. Saalym says it’s evil inside, which means her god doesn’t like it, which seems really strange to me.

Doc and I start calling down the hole in the top, to see if there are any pirates inside that need help from the evil. A big troll shouts back up to us. Doc drops down and I follow. Twitch magics down to us. Doc says the Troll is hungry so we offer it some food, but it didn’t like that and tried to eat us. There were three of them, so we had to stop them killing us.

After, Doc starts attacking a big pile of ice covering some shiny stuff. Leshy and I go look around the ship. There’s some kobolds in one of the rooms. We met them back at the Yeti cave, so this time we tell them to go down to the mines to join the other kobolds somewhere safe. We find the kitchen next, and there’s a goat in there, I send it out to Saalym who is helping Doc. The next room has some smashed boards that make a picture of a dark elf with a feather in his big hat. Something about One Eyed Jack Rum. But the rum’s gone.

Up on the middle deck, there’s a frosty room with a dead guy holding a chest. It’s got corks, coins, jewelry, and a magic bag in it. There’s another room with beds and papers and maps in it. And another room with barrels full of supplies. There’s also a room with first aid things, I bring some back for Doc and Leshy takes the rest.

When we get back to the treasure, Doc is blowing a REALLY LOUD HORN at it. Eggy and Twitch seem upset by this and say that it all belongs to a very old white dragon. That doesn’t stop anyone from breaking more ice and then stealing the shiny things. They’re afraid of the dragon following us, though, so Eggy pulls a bunch of animals out of his bags and sends them away from the towns while we run towards them and the wizard prison.

Kobolds and Consequences

On By ravonlockeIn Jin, JournalLeave a comment

The nice speaker lady wants the Best Friends Club to own the inn in Lonely Wood, so Saalym, Eggy, and Leshy hire some folk to fix it up and get it ready to open again. Why do we want a building? We have to get back to our ship. Maybe Eggy likes hunting here so much he wants to stay?

We have a couple days until the moon is the right shape for Twitch, so we go to a new town. They’ve got kobolds in their mine, I guess. So the people aren’t mining anymore. They lost one person in the mine and no one has gone back since. I really want to go meet the pirates, but this is between us and there, so we agree to go take a look.

There’s a sign outside the mine that says Kobold’s Only, so we shout down the hole. Nobody comes to talk though, so we creep in, all careful not to scare them. Doc’s already a goblin, so I make like a kobold to make them more friendly. First, we find a bunch of mining stuff and Eggy says there’s lots of tracks. Humans, kobolds, and big rats. We follow some of the rat steps and find a big sparkly room, but it’s hard to get the sparkles out of the walls. I get a nice rock though. Then we find a couple rats, they are kinda big, but they squish just like the little ones.

We explore some more and find more mine stuff. Until we finally find some kobolds. They’re trying to break things, but after Saalym scares one to death, the other one talks to us. We convince Scorp we’re here to help and he agrees to show us where the boss, Trex, is. So we can help them trade with the town.

Scorp says not to go down one of the tunnels cuz there’s a creepy thing, so Doc and I go look. It’s a beak monster with big long arm things, but it leaves us alone, so we leave it alone. The rest of the group thinks it’s dangerous, and we should kill it, but it’s gone when they go look. Doc and I go find some more kobolds cutting up a dead rat and give them some better food.

Next we go talk to Trex, he’s put wooden wings on his back. They’ve only been here a couple weeks, came from a cave that Yetis took. We tell them they can go back if they want, cuz we killed the Yetis, but maybe there were more somewhere else. They want to stay here. He’s using a big voice and strange big words. And he’s lying about why he wants to stay here. Why do people do that?

Everyone else gets there and Twitch asks to see Trex’s bag. When he lets him, Saalym says there’s a dead spirit near Twitch. That seems bad, but Twitch doesn’t mind. Trex is really confused now. We tell them we’ll clear out anything else dangerous and help them talk to the town so they can stay here and the miners can go back to mining. They agree.

So, we go looking around. We find a weird skull with holes in it in one of the walls. It has a magic crystal inside it that Twitch likes. Eggy really wants to find and kill the beak monster. Leshy says it’s called a Grell and eats people. We can’t find it though, so we head back to town to sleep. The speaker agrees to work with the kobolds. When we go back, Twitch goes wandering off alone to try and get the Grell to show up, and it works. So we run up and kill it and everyone is much happier. So we can finish getting the deal made.

Then it’s time to go back to the moon place in the Woods. We put all the stuff on the pillars in the brazier, including the hand of the dead druid who attacked Doc and me. It lights up, and Twitch lights a torch and puts it on the rock coffin and then we can open it. How strange. The dead lady inside gets up and bows to Doc.

She says she’s in his service for freeing her from death or something. Her name’s Sahnor, I think. Doc says he doesn’t need anything, but she says she’ll stay until he does. We ask her if she can help us fight a goddess lady and fix our tree ship. She agrees to help, she wants to fight bad people. She’s not sure if she can go back to being dead or not.

So, we head north towards the pirates because that’s next until we figure out how to fight the winter goddess lady. I talk to her about the gods here, but her gods were a lot older. Someone says we should head for a talking whale to get to the pirates, He’s got a big name, since he’s a big whale, and I guess he has a boat on his back. That sounds painful. Does it go underwater with him? Isn’t there a lot of ice up here? How does that all work?

First, though, there’s a whole bunch of elks running at a small bunch of people. Leshy makes the ground grind up their legs to death. Elk are really tasty, probably even better after Leshy cooks it, but we’ve been walking a long while and Doc and me are hungry. The people say thanks, and they’re going to the whale too, only they say there’s a bell you have to ring to get the whale. Poor whale, having to show up when stupid humans ring a bell. She wants the whale to take her to camps where people kill whales and take their oil. Why would the big ship whale be okay with that? But she thinks it’s fine and rings the bell way out on a frozen dock.

Some vultures show up and we give them food to go away. Then some jerks who want to kill the whale show up and we have to talk them into going away. Really proud of Eggy for not shooting them or the birds. Then the whale shows up and he’s just SO BIG!

Dead Druids and Barry the Bush

On By ravonlockeIn Jin, JournalLeave a comment

With all the animals gone or dead, Doc and I take a look around. The front door’s all sealed tight on the inside just like the outside. Down another hall, there’s a door with a half moon on it, looks like a D to me. Inside is a big dome with sunlight coming from no place onto another big stone coffin. The group discusses breaking it open, but Doc and I keep looking. There’s a really big mirror in another hall, but it won’t come off the wall and doesn’t do anything fun. Saalym’s axe makes it glow a little, but that’s it.

There’s another path that goes up, the half moon goes the other way on this one, but it’s the same inside. Except someone’s been living here. There’s drying plants and blankets. Folks think this is where the bad druid is staying and start talking about tricking and attacking her here. Or maybe outside. Saalym’s really tired, so she, Doc and I take a nap in there while the others go look for the druid or something.

There’s a big loud noise from down the corridor after not that long and Saalym goes to look what happened. The big stone box breaks open and a dead druid pops out and attacks Doc and me. It turns me back to myself and burns a lot. We smash it back down into the box and Doc and I cut off the head just to make sure. There’s lots of shooting below so we go help. After I put my goblin mask back on.

There’s a ghost down there, telling everyone to be quiet. And a dead druid like on the floor, almost like the one we fought up above. The ghost gets really angry and screams at us, so we have to make her go away. After, just to make sure, we go to the unopened coffin in the first hall and open it up and stab the body. It doesn’t move. Doc’s mad at the dead for attacking us, so we take all their stuff.

When we catch up with the rest of the group, they’ve made friends with a bush and named him Barry for his berries. He says the angry ghost lady hangs out in the forest. I send Kit out to see if she can find any of the druid’s other talking animals while we go looking for the ghost lady. Saalym wants to give her a proper funeral so she can go away and not come back. Spirits here are so strange.

Kit comes back with some ice friends when we find the right spot. So, we make lots of snowmen to watch Saalym say goodbye to the ghost. After Doc helps dig up her bones, he helps me with snowmen. Saalym and Leshy say goodbye to the ghost for a really long time. But she doesn’t go away, she shows up instead. And then Saalym gets really mad and hits her really hard. That makes her burn all up. Saalym says she was horrible and hurt kids.

Barry doesn’t really know what to do without the druid lady, so he comes back to town with us. I teach him Hide and Seek with the Speaker’s kids. Then we go to bed in her nice little house. I think Saalym owns the town’s Inn now, how strange.

Gotta Hunt a Druid

On By ravonlockeIn Jin, JournalLeave a comment

I had a great time with Dad. Told him all about my life and about home and about space. He told me about how he talked to a fish once and it took him to the faewild and that’s how he met Mom. I wrote down what everything he had carved was. But eventually The Best Friends Club came back and said they were heading to the next town, so I said I’d come back and maybe take him to see more fantastic things later.

I got lost in thought then, for a while. Until we started talking to a big water dino things with a big long neck. It was awake, too, and was afraid the druid that woke it up would make it sleep again if it didn’t attack fisher ships. That’s silly and also, we need to stop that druid. The dino said it would stop attacking if we’d protect it from the druid. The druid likes the winter goddess lady, so we definitely need to do something about them. Name’s Raveson or something. Saalym went swimming and brought up some dead bodies and booze.

We gave the fisher people some big fish and they gave us some stuff. We go to the five taverns and get more booze. Some of them were asking about the druid, but it seems like they’re not here anymore. Went towards the Lonely Woods, I guess.

So, we head there and ask around. There’s a big white moose up here attacking people. That druid has been real busy. It’s only attacking people trying to cut wood and it hides from any hunters that come after it. The speaker lady and her kids are really nice and since the Inn is closed, she lets us stay with her. I try to teach the kids to make daggers, and we have lots of fun.

Eggy’s a real good hunter, so we go track it down in the morning. It’s a big ritual place with big crystal pillars and a big fancy coffin box, and a house without walls, and a bunch of statues with worn faces. Twitch says it’s something to do with the moon and time. He wants a dead elf to give him a moon sword. Do they do that? We mess with the pillars and the signs for a bit. Some snow and twigs and pinecones and fire. But nothing happens. Maybe it has to be a certain moon. The moon Twitch says we need is in a few days from now.

We look around instead. There’s a hole busted into a hill, and a lot of bones inside. There’s also a bunch of sleeping animals of all kinds. And that big white moose. Who shouts at us for the Frost Maiden and charges before we can make friends with it. All the smaller animals ran away while we killed it. Poor moose, it shoulda listened.

Looks like a lot more to explore here, but we take a rest first.

Dad!!!

On By ravonlockeIn Jin, JournalLeave a comment

I found my Dad!!! No, not in the blue dwarf castle, that was before. Dad was after. Okay. Wait. Start with the mushrooms.

We rested in the mage’s bedroom with all his shiny rocks. Then Twitch looked at and took all the rocks and a lantern that changes colors. And he said the dagger and armor from the stabby guy was also magic, so we took that, too. Then we went back out through the drop doors. And we found a goat out there eating a new dead dwarf. He sat down when he saw Saalym and he’s got fangs just like her. He’s a good boy.

Then we went out to the entry place and down the next hall. There’s noise behind the door so I opened the door and then hid behind it. These big mushrooms can wandering out. Like really big. Then shook some spores on Twitch and Sandro when Eggy tried to talk to them. So, of course he shot them. They started punching my friends, so I threw my psy blades at them. Then I got hit and went to sleep.

When I woke up again, there were lots more and they were all dead. Some of them had people inside them. Dwarves and humans. Leshy said his spell was going to go away, so we rushed up the next set of stairs. We only found a couple dwarves in their bed covered in mushrooms up there, so we stabbed them so they wouldn’t turn into mushroom monsters. Then we took all their stuff, including some really pretty carved pearls.

We decided it was time to sleep so the magic people could be magic again, so we went back to the mage’s bedroom. Eggy didn’t want the good boy goat in the room with us, even though Yogi was allowed in the room. So we put him out to guard the metal suited dead dwarves instead. Kit isn’t so sure about him either, but I like him. In the morning we gathered up everything useful from the metal suits and all the armor and war picks to sell and headed down to the town to find Garry and Good Boy.

Their Speaker sleeps in the snow. He’s silly. Called us thieves! We’re not thieves, but we found and killed the thieves. Told us that the Inn is missing a pretty lantern. When we go there, she’s really happy we brought back her color changing lamp, so she gives us free drinks. Says the goats came from the tavern and the carved pearls from the supply company. Eggy and Saalym go off to talk to those people. Saalym said she wanted to buy the good boy goat from the guy because she gave it fangs. I don’t understand, but the ale was okay. Then we had a drinking competition that night and Sandro won! I dunno, I slept through most of it.

The next day we went back to Targos. Garret had left before we got to the inn the day before so he made it back to his husband just before we did, and they were all very happy to see us again. They gave us some cute little figures carved out of bone. There was a fox just like Kit. They said there was another carver in town who was much better and his name is James Brewer!

I ran off then, but I had to get my friends to help me find the house because I forgot to listen to where it was, but I found it, and his front room was all filled with carved bone things, but he wasn’t there, so I snuck around back and he was in the kitchen carving something else, and I knocked and he opened the door and I told him he was my Dad and he was really confused and I tried to explain, I even showed him my face and everything and he thought it was a dream and pinched himself, but I’m not a dream and I asked him if he hated me cuz Mom said he never wanted to meet me and he said Mom never asked him about that, he’s just been having dreams for a couple years now but I think I’m more than that old and I showed him my pretty daggers, and then someone shouted to ask if I was okay.

I told him those were my friends and asked if we could come in his shop and he could come meet them when he was ready. He said okay, so I went back outside. Back around the front to tell them all I found my Dad, and then I brought them into the shop. The carvings were all really good, so I start explaining what some of them are. There’s some of the trees I exploded. And some plants I recognize. And there’s one that looks like Auntie’s hut. There’s one that Eggy recognizes of the MeanHead like the one Doc and I chased in the woods the other day. He says he had it in a cage but he forgot and the cage got broke when we crashed our ship. He’s really worried that it’ll take over all of Ten Towns or something, but it’s a little scaredy, it ran away from me and Doc.

Dad came in then and I introduced him to everyone. Then I started explaining the carvings to him. and people told him he made a good kid, and Eggy said he’s fae touched, but I think it takes more than touching to make a kid, but I don’t know for sure, Mom’s real tricky. Dad seems really confused, but he says I can stay with him if I want to, and there’s so much to say, so I say I will and get Leshy to leave us some mead and tell Doc to stick with Saalym so she doesn’t get scared because I’m not there.