Time for Vacation

Well, it seems like forever since I sat down for one of these blasted video-diary sessions, and what do you know, as soon as I do, my vid-corder conks out.
Typical.
Normally, this wouldn’t be an inconvenience, I’d just pass it along to Bexx and he’d take care of it. He always was the tech side of our partnership. Instead, I’m stuck with this cludgy old tablet and a tap-screen. Ah progress. Thing makes me feel like I’m back in class, frantically trying to type arcane symbols on a New Navy Note Pad.
Man I miss Bexx. This place… these people. I think they’re starting to get to me.
Starting to get me down. Man this place sucks. Where are all the girls? Haven’t seen a decent right-handed break in months. Every time I try to have some fun, one of my companions loses his shit and freaks out, or does something so irrational as to border on the insane… I mean, c’mon! When I say I’ll train you on the “light cannon”, that doesn’t mean hop-in and start pressing buttons! Especially not when I’m trying to enjoy a glass-calm day on the ocean! That reminds me, I still have to teach Master Red Dwarf to steer an “S” course so I can get some better wake-boarding in.
Cava’s going insane, or went insane, and got himself possessed by something claiming to be Anubis… so just what is Isis thinking? Did she forget to do a background check on this guy? How’d he pass through her screening process? Then, once we get that sorted, thanks to Bishop Tutu, Rell then gives us a scare with the same antics.
Are you kidding me?
So Bertie, she doesn’t work like she does back home, no surprise there. Everything here is muted. Dialed down. Oh well, I didn’t expect this to be easy, but after the way the kid (who’s not a kid… what is it with Changelings around here?) has been fingering the damn thing when he thinks I’m not looking, well, what better opportunity to show him what it does than when I’m riding the back of a Wooly Dragon, trying to pull a clean 8-second run off him? But natch, while the Ion Blast does sting the beast, it’s nothing like the response I get back home when Bertie finds a soft-spot.
Typical.
Bloody hell. This thing’s all over the place. I can’t think straight with all this crap going on. Feels like half the time I’m being remote-controlled by Isis, and the other half I get to play catch-up and try to right some misconceptions about me and our mission. CrIsis is as fragmented as my mind. Can’t even muster up the foresight to buy (and bring!) along a tender for Matilda, when we know the bay leading to the Great Wooly won’t let us anchor. And just what the hell are we doing, anyhow, with certain people who can’t swim?!? What the F^(&, Buttercup! Forget the guns, first thing I do is teach CrIsis how to bloody swim! Can you believe it?
Typical.
I think we need a vacation. Or at least a holiday. Even a coupla’days off would be good. Seems like we’ve been pressing really hard lately, and too much has transpired for us to assimilate. Time to regroup and refocus.
Time for us to Pray to our Gods.
Time for us learn to work together.
Once we bring our Priest and our Captain back into the world of the living, that is. Isis preserve me, but I think we should neuter the dog while he’s out… maybe that will cool his heels. ‘Cause you for sure-as-crap didn’t see me trying to stare down an Adult Wooly Dragon. No sir. I’ll give him this: he didn’t so much as let out a “bark” when he went down.
Then again, the last thing that came out of his mouth was his butt, near as I can tell. Smucko. Be interesting to see what the Bishop can do with this one.
The Dwarf is in no better shape, for no better reason. I’m still not sure what he thought he was doing, running under the belly of 50 tons of scaled death… maybe he thought he could wedge it up from the ground? Be a speed bump?
So we’re down two members, while a necromancer continues to play with one of the pieces of Osiris, and we’ve proven ourselves incompetent and incapable of laying a plan and sticking to it. Seems our emotions keep catching us up. Oh well, at least maybe now these cock-sure companions of mine will believe me when I tell them that the last thing we want to do is combat the Ancient Wooly Dragon. I mean, the one that got Greldarr and Master Red Dwarf was but a pup compared to the big-guy…
Now, the harpies were a piece of cake… they didn’t even make it into the air before we had busted up their little dance party and saved the hatchling. Silly me… I thought that act would buy us much more solidarity than it did with Mama.
Live and learn, I guess. Good thing, too. Maybe some of us living can gently remind those who’ve passed of the error of their ways… assuming the Bishop can bring them back.
I can tell something is up with Rell… he hasn’t been himself lately. Guess I’ll go check on him while we wait …

*some time later…

Well, Rell stayed closeted up with the D&D show (Dog and Dwarf*), so I didn’t get to talk to him… some other time, perhaps. On a bright note, Bishop Tutu managed to coerce Greldarr and Overkill back to their material, painfully mortal forms. They don’t look well. I think we’ll take that little vacation now, just to be sure they’re up and at-em, in fighting shape. Sounds like we’re gonna play ferryman to the Bishop, so hopefully we can rest up during that voyage and sort out the ClusterF^(& that has become CrIsis. Maybe, with luck, and a softly guiding hand by yours truly, we can leave behind us this debacle (just what were we going to do with all those logs I carried through that bloody jungle, anyhow?), and find our aim… after all, wasn’t it Nemo 2 who said “Never mind the manoeuvres, just go straight at ’em.” Some would say, “Not a great seaman, but a great leader”. Yah, I’m sure that was about ol’Nemo.
Anyhow, our next leg awaits us. I pray (frequently and fervently) that Isis knows what she’s doing, and can now keep the heat off us long enough to complete the Rebuilding. I had hoped to keep Set and Anubis off our trail, but instead find them riding along with us. Hmm… maybe that’s why the dreams have been so vivid lately. Come to think of it, I’m sure it is… could this really mean that the Lord of the Deep does have ties to this plane? Are Anubis and/or Set vessels or vectors for that monster’s machinations here in Palladium? I can still feel his black tentacles reaching across the deep for me while I meditate… Not only that, but a casual note dropped like a bomb during one of our conversations. It would appear that even after (if?) we succeed at reconstructing Osiris, even then I will be alone, as none of these companions offered any aid or assistance with my mission back home. I think a few of them even burst out laughing when I mentioned it, but I can’t be sure… they’d broken in on a meditation and I wasn’t exactly clear-headed at the time.

Can’t even remember why I thought it was a good idea to tell them what plans I had for the future… I’m sure now that I have confirmed in their minds just how crazy I must be.
Typical.

This is Chip Samuel, signing off.

Pictures from DeVito Art Works, Mormonthink, respectively.