Nasty Dwarves and Pretty Rocks

On By ravonlockeIn Jin, JournalLeave a comment

Sho there we go. Inna Town Hall, and the guars were shleep. Doc n Leshhhy woke ’em. I thik they hit chother. Real bad. But nother doorsajar. Jar! Haha! Door’sa Jar.

So we shneak in dere, Real QUiet. An two javlins come flyin out at Doc! We rushhh in and theres blue Dwavses. Anda big pretttty shtatue ofa demon from a ssship. gots somma the wood shtill. The Dwavses make Shandy more gooey, so we shmash them. Theres more though. Schays they’re runnin outback.

Doc, Sandy, and me chase after them. Nice warm alcohol all gone now. It’s freezing out here. Gonna have to go get drunk again after. We follow their steps all the way to the lake. Loch? Lock? and onto a boat. Sandro says there’s no one inside, so we go in. He Hit Me! In the Chest! With a Pickaxe! Doc turned him into paste and then another one pops out of the shadows and we stab him pretty good, too. The rest of the bodies are back in town, so we drag them off there after taking their stuff. They had a map and some really shiny rocks. I got a new shiny dagger!

Eggy explains to the guards what happened. They talk about the shiny rock and the big statue. The Captain says that it’s evil magic demon rock, which seems weird to me. How can rocks and magic be evil? You gotta do evil stuff with them, I’d think. Eggy says that demons are evil so that makes the rocks evil. They keep talking, but Sammy, Saalym, Doc, and I go back inside to look at the demon statue. It tingles when you touch it, and Sammy chips off a piece.

The speaker shows up and says that some demon named Urtoo terrorized the lack or something. So they try to keep the rocks away from people. Eggy gives them back to the Speaker. The Speaker also says the Dwarves are from under the dark water, or something. Saalym says it’s not Waterdeep though. Oh, apparently Saalym and Sammy and a guard got attacked by some humans outside while we were fighting the Dwarves. The Speaker thinks the humans wouldn’t be working with the Dwarves, which seems weird, they were all there at the same time and all of them tried to kill us. The Speaker says he’ll pay us in the morning for our trouble, so Sammy, Saalym, Doc, Sandro and I go drinking again before bed.

In the morning, Sammy tells us what all our new toys do. Eggy gives me an alarm horn, but then wants me to not prank him with it, but he won’t give me anything in return, so I give him the horn back. Then he starts talking about how we all have to be nice to each other and work together, and I’m confused cuz I thought we already were? Then he starts talking about not touching stuff that might hurt other people, which is weird. Of Course we’re going to touch stuff, but we agree to make sure to let him back away from questionable things before we touch them. Sammy says we’re the Best Friends Club, now. Eggy doesn’t seem so sure, but he doesn’t have a better idea. I like friends. I don’t know if we’re all friends, yet. I’ve never had this many friends, but Sammy, Saalym, and Sandro like to drink with me, so I guess they’re alright. Eggy’s real loud though and Leshy’s just not right for an elf. Maybe we can be friends some day, though.

We go see the Speaker. He’s a bit distracted because his friend didn’t come to work today. Saalym and Eggy go run to check on her. He gives us a box of money for stopping the dwarves and giving back the shiny rocks. When they get back, Eggy says she ran away and there was a flying snake symbol in her fire. The Speaker asks us to bring her back alive if we find her in our travels. Eggy asks if we can have the Axebeak from last night, and he agrees. Apparently there was a whole sled chase and crash. We missed all the fun!

We gather everything up, get last supplies and head out. It feels good to be on the road again. That town was terrible. I even try to show Eggy how to hunt food quietly, but he’s just so noisy and working on an even bigger boom stick. We make our way to Good Mead just a few hours down the road. Saalym says we probably shouldn’t try to sell our Ale there, but she has some barrels from East Haven that need filling.

We meet a guy running out of the woods on the edge of town. He says some giants killed a bunch of guards in the woods who were trying to get the town’s mead back. Fef also has a cute little terrified fox! It’s so soft and fluffy. Eggy buys it for me. It stays away from the danger in the woods, but I will keep it totally safe. The hunter also asks if we’ll help the town. Giant hunting sounds super fun, so we all agree. Hunting big awful giants is a lot different that killing poor hungry wolves or a moose. Eggy is such a jerk, he wants to go hunt a moose who didn’t even do anything. He’s pretty big, but I don’t think even he could eat a whole moose.

Fef takes us into town and there’s this big building that’s got beehives and a brewery and a bar all together in one place! Saalym doesn’t seem to like the bees very much though. I wonder where they go to get flower stuff to make their honey? The mead is good here, not great, but good enough for this terribly cold place. The people are trying to get a new speaker since the giants killed the last one. Seems like a rough job. They tell us all about the giants we’re going to go hunt. It’s gonna be great!

Hungry Wolves and Drunken Rumors

On By ravonlockeIn Jin, JournalLeave a comment

Once everyone stopped arguing, Eggy picked up the cauldron and we kept exploring the caves. They were pretty boring, actually. Some sparkly pillars, some cave art, an old dwarf campsite. Eggy wants to charge people to tell them where the pillars are, he’s so weird. Saalym added to the cave art. We ended up sleeping at the old campsite. Eggy found some papers, but nobody can read them.

Doc, Sandy, Eggy and me stayed up to watch for danger. There were some growls and then some really big wolves showed up. They were really hungry. Eggy starts growling and barking at them and they actually listen to him. He puts some food in the big cauldron and lets them lick it clean. So unfair! Then he gives them more food to drag away, and they do! He says they have puppies in a den somewhere nearby. Maybe Mom was right and I shoulda learned to talk to animals.

Next morning Eggy decides to clean out the cauldron before we take it back to town. Like somehow they’re gonna know what was in it. It just makes new stew though, when he puts water in it! It’s tasty, but only vegetables. Guess you gotta add your own meat. Everyone’s really upset about the stew and they keep cleaning it out and it keeps making new stew. They’re finally satisfied, but Doc thinks Eggy is weird for wanting to carry it around instead of making a deal with the town people for it. Eggy again reminds us not to talk about the people stew from the Hag. We said we wouldn’t tell already. He doesn’t listen.

We get back to town and everyone thinks the cauldron is pretty cool. Staring at it while we go looking for the Captain at the Town Hall (where you’re not allowed to sleep). The Captain pays us for finding the fishermen after Eggy tells her what happened. He still insists the Hag killed them, but he’s got no proof! She gives us money a piece of paper that Sammy likes, and a grey bag. She says it has tricks in it. I wonder what that means? Then she takes us inside to talk to the guy in charge of the town about the cauldron.

Speaker Daneth Waylan comes to talk to us. He wants to know our story. Everybody lies again and says our caravan crashed. We talk about their winter goddess lady and Saalym tells him the sacrifices are dumb. Speaker doesn’t even know who the goddess lady is, but thinks she would kill him for trying to talk to him. Sure does sound like the Queen on a bad day, but she can’t always be mad. He says she casts spells at midnight to keep it winter all the time. That seems like a sorcerer, unless gods here are really weak that they have to keep casting a spell every day to keep things how they like.

Eggy tells the Speaker about the fights in the cave, and about the cauldron. The Speaker says he’d like our cauldron to help feed the people. I ask if he’ll stop killing people if we give it to him. He’s not sure about that, but it hasn’t been working! We ask for at least two months to find a different solution before he executes another criminal as a sacrifice. He agrees to that and giving us what we need to get our things from our crash. I seal the deal.

We head to the liv…liver… stable and get a couple sleds and axebeaks to help go get our stuff. Sammy says they’re dinos, but they have feathers. He says sometimes dinos are more like birds than lizards. So, we start riding out to our ship. It’s a lot faster with the sleds, I don’t even have to put those big “snow shoes” back on. Good thing, too. There’s a big ogre and his wolves who have decided that our ale tastes good. He shouts at us and I shout back, but we don’t know the right words. His wolves come running at us, probably looking for food like last night,. Instead of giving them food, Eggy starts shooting again. What the hells? The wolves don’t even hurt anybody and they kill a whole bunch of them. I try to get the Ogre to call them back, and he finally does when only one is left, and they run away. We coulda been good friends, he was just thirsty. Didn’t even hurt anyone.

We gather up our stuff, and even skin and cut up the wolves, and head back to town. Eggy is so strange. First stop the Thirsty Trout to sell about half our ale barrels to Nimetra, the owner. She says to talk to a tiefling named Skythan for any news from other towns or about bounties for the murderer running around. So, Doc, Sandy and I stay there to wait for him while everyone else goes shopping or something. Sandro can’t really drink, but he can pour stuff into himself. He says he can’t be poisoned either, but we give it a try, buying him more and more powerful liquor to see what happens.

Swat hapns ish, Doc n me get real drin…druk..drunk. Shandies fine. Den Skything shows up and eveyone elsh too. We get losh more dinks. Sky talksh wen he drinsh, and tellshus soooOooo much. A darf lady tellsus bout murderus den. Wans us findem. Summin bout worgs? Meby torgs? Sa torg? Den we gota see…slep…sleep.

No? Wat? Door’sajar. Hehehehehe! Door’s a jar! Ajar! Uh oh.

Fishers and Auntie

On By ravonlockeIn Jin, JournalLeave a comment

So, first things, apparently their winter god is a lady. I really do think they should talk to the Queen. She’d know what to do. The sleeping guy woke up. He says everyone will be real mad he’s not dead out in the field there. Says he told them it was dumb to kill people, so he got picked next to be killed. Says the winter god lady is crazy. Sounds like it might be the people who like her are. But says they won’t do it again for until the sky gets a new moon. I guess some lady named Shar takes or breaks the full moons, so another lady named Selune has to make a new one every month. This is a strange place. Anyway, the not-sleeping guy says he has somewhere to go and is going to sneak out during the execution this morning.

That was even stranger. They tied this guy in red robes to a stake in town square and lit him on fire. He just stood there and let them do it. Didn’t even move or cry or scream or everything. It made everyone real uncomfortable, him just staring at the people killing him for killing other people. Maybe he wasn’t really there, he’s got magic and everything. I wouldn’t just stand there. No way!

After, some lady with almost-elf ears and armor talks to Eggy. She says her name is Imdra something, and she’s Captain of the Guard around here. Says that wizard killed the last adventure group that was helping the town. Says we look like adventure folk. Doc asks if she knows where to get a cart, but she brushes him off. Wants us to go find some missing fishers. Like the birds? No, I guess she means men fishers. Whatcha gonna give us? She says she can give us some stuff from the dead wizard and a little bit of gold. Doc and Leshy say that it’s enough gold to probly get a cart. She also says we can loot whatever we find along the way. They ask about the wolves that tried to eat us, but she doesn’t know. Need money for a cart, so we agree to go look.

Sammy says we need snow shoes. I’ve got boots, they’re shoes for snow. But he wants us to wear these big wood and reed things to walk on top of the snow. They are Not good for sneaking. Eggy pays for mine and Doc’s. I now owe buying him something later. I don’t like it. I could have bought ours, first ship paid well enough, second ship hadn’t charged us for passage, yet. He also gets a bunch of tents, even though the lake is just north of town.

The not-sleeping man’s house is ransacked. He said we could take things, but it’s mostly been taken already. We find a fancy fishing pole. Eggy also finds some silver hidden under the floor. I guess people here aren’t so smart.

The lake isn’t far above town, so we start walking around it the way the Indy lady said to go. Find a little boat floating in the ice first. Saalym shoots it and Eggy pulls it in. There’s some fisher gear and empty bottles in there. Then some flying bird ladies come to talk. Eggy shoots at them though, and everyone else follows suit. I try to ask them about the men fishers, but Eggy kills one and the other flies away over the cliffs. Ugh! How are we supposed to find people if they just keep shooting? Saalym has a bit of a drink from the dead one.

We go in a cave. I take off my show shoes and Eggy puts them in his bag. Can’t sneak with those things on and they’re his anyway. Eggy says there’s tracks in there. Doc and I scout ahead until we find a frozen waterfall. Looks a bit tricky to get up alone, so we wait for everyone to catch up. Eggy shoots the waterfall. Ugh! His boom is way worse indoors! This makes the water mad and it attacks us. I’d attack us, too! We stop it from killing anyone, though, and there’s a mining pick and a backpack behind the water. I wonder if the water man used to be a miner and just got tired.

We help everyone climb up the waterfall so we can keep going. We find some stairs and they lead into a big room full of blood and bones. Even the bones of a giant man. Nobody finds anything but bones, so we keep going. Doc and I go down some more stairs to an even bigger room. This one has a nice hag lady in the middle. She’s cooking up a nice big stew and invites me and Doc to join her. It tastes way better than the porridge back in town this morning. There’s some dead people behind her. Must be what the stew is made from.

Everybody else gets there, but they get real mad. They say she killed the men fishers and that we shouldn’t be eating the stew. But that’s rude, you don’t turn down hospitality from a hag lady. Eggy, of course, starts shooting. Oh Man! Mom’s gonna be real mad if I kill a hag lady. So, I go look to see if the bodies really are the fishers, and everyone’s yelling at me and Doc. The lady’s gotta wisp, too, and Doc says it’s okay to kill those, there’s too many of the pests anyway. Then the lady tries to make a deal cuz something big is coming. I try to get everyone to take the deal, but they won’t, so she runs away. Eggy chases her, but it’s too late to worry about that because that big giant skeleton breaks through the wall and starts attacking people. He Hurt DOC! We smash him to bits!

After, Eggy drags back the hag lady, all dead. And everyone gets mad at Doc and me again for eating “people stew,” but I’m not people, and Saalym ate those bird people outside. They say that’s different because they were “monsters” and so was the lady. So, now I get mad, because I’ve got an Auntie who is a hag. Then Leshy gets mad and says I can’t have, but I do! She’s my Auntie and he doesn’t even Know Me! Eggy tries to stop the fighting, just asking we don’t tell the townspeople that we ate “people stew.” Fine, not going to lie, lying’s bad, but we don’t have to mention it. Leshy says we can just bring back some of their stuff and not the bodies.

Are we going then? Or we going to keep exploring the ice cave? It’s a really interesting cave.

Crashed and Drunk

On By ravonlockeIn Jin, JournalLeave a comment

It was a nice ship with a beautiful tree. I don’t get why there was a tree, but it seemed real important to the Captain. Until something happened. Something that was absolutely not my fault at all. The tree split right up the center and there was fire everywhere and then we crashed into the ground!

At first, I got scared. It was real cold and snowy and I thought we somehow ended up back home. But it didn’t feel right. Felt strange, for sure, but not Right. Doc and I start throwing snow on the fires, and getting all the useful stuff out of the ship. Can’t let it go to waste, right? I mean there’s whole Barrels of Ale in there. Wouldn’t be good for those to catch fire at all. Back in my old Winter clothes now, too. it’s much colder here, but it’s a start.

Only half the ship folk survived. That odd big Gyph man and his astral elf protector – she starts making a fire and some food. That’s a good elf. Doc and me, of course. And the oozy deckhand guy. Guess he just didn’t care too much about the impact, not being solid and all. Captain, Pilot, Cook, and a couple other deckhands all died on impact, or burned up, or something. Gotta look out for us now. The Gyph man says he’s names Eg..Egnats the Leg… Ugh, Eggy, and his elf says her name’s Leshanna.. and some other stuff. The ooze man’s Sandro. Much easier.

Then they start talking about some scary crow or something off in the field. Why’s a crow so scary, but they say it’s only scary to other crows. So maybe this is his field or something. We go look, but it’s only three more people, more like human people. They all look kinda dead though. A youngish man who says his name is Sammy, a really pale elf lady with sharp teeth who says she’s called Saalym, and an unconscious man. I don’t know his name. They say he’s a sacrifice to the winter god to make him go away, make winter go away, but I feel like giving him things will only make him want to stay. Maybe they should talk to the Queen.

Anyway. Eggy and Leshy think we ought to protect the tree so we can fix the ship and get back into space. They think that covering it in water so it freezes in the way to go, but we gotta keep the water from freezing Inside the tree or it’ll explode it even more. Doc starts wrapping the tree in the sails, and I start taking barrels up to pour over it. They others just watch and yammer while we do their work. Though that Gyph climbing a tree would be the funniest things, so maybe better he didn’t try. And maybe the barrels woulda just fallen through the ooze man, he did use the rigging to help me lift at least.

Doc wants to know if they have a wagon so we can bring all the ship stuff into town to sell so we can fix the ship. They don’t though, but they say there’s a town real nearby, and offer to bring us there for food, drink, and warm beds. It’s real cold so we all agree to go. Some hungry wolves come check us out, and almost eat Eggy. Some of them kill the poor hungry things, but I just put them to sleep so they’ll go eat someone else.

Sammy and Saalym keep talking about us being near ten towns. But the way they’re saying it Ten Towns, like with capitals and everything. They’re taking us to one called East Haven, but could… could it actually be The Ten Towns? Like where my dad James is from?

Once we get to the bar and start drinking and listening. Everyone is talking about a murders around Ten Towns. And an execution in the morning. It really does sound like The Ten Towns. The not-really dead lady takes the unconscious man to her room somewhere else, but she comes back bleeding, I wonder if he woke up angry. Saalym, keeps introducing us to folks, and one of them is named James. When she gets distracted again, I ask if he’s my dad, but he just looks confused and says no. Doc finds out where to get a wagon in the morning, but everything is closed right now. Sammy takes Eggy, Leshy, and Sandy off to bed, but I’m not tired. So, Saalym, Doc, and I get really drunk. Well, I do, I dunno about them.

Eventually the bar says we have to leave, so I go look for a place for Doc and me to sleep. I find a nice big building right in the center of town, but I can’t get the doors open. Saalym says it’s the Town Hall and I can’t sleep there, so she takes us back to her room at an inn across town. The unconscious guy is there, I don’t even know how he got there. Oh well, good night Doc.

Jin, Jinna, Jinx

On By ravonlockeIn Backstory, JinLeave a comment

Jin’a’loquaris of the Winter Court never quite fit in with the high unseelie fey. She was never serious enough for the Queen’s guard. He didn’t have the attention span for the scout’s corp. And while they could play a fairly decent Birdpipe, they weren’t good enough to accompany the Chorus.

It’s not that she didn’t try, she really did. He could race and climb and hide just as well as the other fey children, but it was the discipline to follow a single path that was lacking. It was that extra special Something that got everyone else chosen before them. And her relationship with the Fates was even more fickle than most Fey. Bad luck followed him everywhere, and though he usually managed to escape mostly unscathed, his companions did not. Even their magic was late in coming, or at least their control of it, and the other fey children teased them for being a weak half-breed. 

So, she would quit one thing and move onto the next. Over and over again. Until he found his way to the goblin caves. They didn’t judge them as lesser. They accepted her strangeness, her chaos and distraction. And they taught him things. Things their mother would rather they not know. 

Five Big Events

  1. Jin’a’loquaris was born of a human father (James) and changeling mother (Cin’da’loquaris). Her mother, after giving birth and confirming the child took after her, went back home to the Feywild. Leaving Jin’s father to wonder if it had all just been a dream.
  1. As a teen, Jin finally confronted his mother about who his father was. Everyone else seemed to know, but Mother had never told Jin. After some lengthy dissembling, avoiding, and sideways answers, she finally admitted that their father was a human from the Ten Towns region, and was called James Brewer. And promptly forbid her from going there or seeking him out, saying James wanted nothing to do with his child. Jin had no idea what “Ten Towns” meant, or how to even begin to get there, so the command did not matter and was quickly forgotten. Her mother had never actually admitted that Father was not fey before, and that was what mattered to him – he really was the weak halfbreed the others called him.
  1. As a young adult, Jinna was on a scouting mission and accidentally manifested psionic powers that caused the tree the group was hiding behind to explode. Giving away the scouts’ position, and injuring everyone else, two quite badly, though Jinna was unhurt.
  1. After failing at so many things, though none quite as spectacularly as the scouting mission, Jinx began spending a lot of time down in the Goblin caves, and picking up some “despicable behavior.” Mother grew tired of arguing, scolding, confining them to their room, and dragging them almost bodily to court functions. Mother contacted friends of friends of friends and got Jinx a contract on a Spelljammer ship. It will teach you about duty and following orders, she told him. Jinx didn’t argue, spelljamming sounded like an excellent way to escape the stuffy court. Secretly, they snuck off to the caves get Doc to come with. Fortunately, he was equally amenable to an adventure outside the Feywild. 
  2. Wildspace was just as amazing as Jin had hoped, even if the work was boring. Unfortunately, her bad luck followed Jin out into the Astral Sea. It wasn’t his fault, never his fault. They were just looking at the helm, trying to figure it out. Doc came looking for her, and she turned a little too quickly, her hand on something a little too important, a little too startled to keep a lid on her powers. It started to overload, to melt, to explode, or whatever it is those things do. He ran, grabbing Doc on the way, too late to alert anyone, too late to stop it. But not too late to save Doc. They both made it out, just barely, and with just enough luck left to be picked up by a passing ship before they ran into something truly dangerous.  A smaller ship, but with far more interesting characters than the last one. At least, until that one crashed too, this time into Torril.