From the Garden of Draethsemane to Rogtilda
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| Reader Note: This has been
| sent to Ondemeira the White.
| At the castle of King Guy the First
| in the city of Credia
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Good Scribe of Light,
This journey has tested my faith and patience many times. It’s the hours before dawn on the 10th of Corg and I feel like the ‘Great Lawgiver’ awaiting Anubis in the Garden of Draethsemane before he was betrayed to Set. Here I sit upon Rogtilda awaiting the fate that has befallen Master Overkill, Master Tyvernos, Beloved Roggan and now myself.
Let me help fill in the gap from the last missive to this morning.
~ 29th of Majestic ~
Returning from the antics at sea for Master Overkill we docked to find out whether or not Roggan or I would go next. I have given the good Brother Indaris the Lawgiver’s Femur because I felt through this kind soul the Great Lady could touch another part of her husband. Master Ja’Deir and I placed our gemstones in the ship. I have a bag I have affixed permanently to mast and it carries stone from the Baalgor Wastelands, Dragon’s Roost Island, and now gemstones from the Yin-Sloth Jungles. When Master Ja’Deir went to put his gemstones in the room that house the glowing light called ‘Injun’ it was gone. Master Asher used his mental powers to find it – though I confess ignorance of mentalist spells and I am not sure of how successful that endeavor was?.?. There was further talk about Master Asher trying to track the ship Astrally when (at the time the ‘when’ should have been ‘if’ truth be told) they came for our blessed Rogtilda. I will say I was not a fan of the plan due to a lack of information about certain things. Master Azariel when are you coming back so I might give you command on land? I do still pray even though I ‘KNOW’ the gods are real and not fables in books. I just pray I have not mucked things up to badly before your return.
The group talks about a shrine on the ship which is welcomed but I was certain this work had been started in New Crests by one of our group but alas I am not the tall elf Master Azariel is and I can’t remember whom asked for icons to be made. A jeweler said he could have a partial set done in nine days and Brother Indaris tried to whittle a set from wood! My second father, would have loved to see him whittle and what ‘LUCK’ he had avoiding permanent mistakes with Bast, Isis, and mighty Ra!
I had not seen Master Overkill or Mistress Mary since the wedding. There are strange customs of bedding one’s mate for days on end among short people??? Very odd but it’s just another thing I have to learn about such foreign cultures. It was for Brother Indaris and I to take watch over Roggan on the docks while the others came and sat with us in shifts because we still had business both group and personal about town.
~ 1st of Corg ~
The good Brother Indaris helped me with bandages to celebrate the Holiday of Osiris by covering my left eye and we bent my right index finger down and bound it in place. I was unsure how to do something for the right femur I had borne for so long so I had picked a piece we had and one we were going after for the holiday. I found myself thinking what love Osiris must have had for ‘Anubis, the family-breaker’ in those days eons past us. Master Overkill was there briefly and went back to his marriage ritual. I do not have the stamina to bed even Mistress Iana for as long as Dwarves do so!!!!! A thing of legend this stamina is and tales of it are well deserved!
~ 3rd of Corg ~
This day’s watch was marred by the arrival of an imp pressing us again about surrender. Remembering the pestering beast from the docks of the Great Library of Bletherad my answer was simple. I began to reach for the Lawgiver’s Femur in the sleeping priest’s grip and smite the foe but the Master’s Asher & Overkill chased away the beast before I could smite it. Not that anyone could see my smile some foot and a half still above anyone else even sitting. They must come kill me soon or I will keep my word and slay the Gargoyle Mage collecting silver skulls of demon hunters. I will put the bones to rest much work to be done and four centuries to still likely work with. I smiled much hunting to do for Avenging Horus and Bennu the Everflame.
~ 4th of Corg ~
Only Ja’Deir and Master Asher could see when Blessed Roggan was taken. Standing tall enough to see over the rail of the ship from the dock I saw the gigantic Torch Ring around the center mast vanish. My hair absorbed the tear as I whispered to the earth – looking back at earth that was the core of his soul – ‘Endure my friend’.
While the others went to help Master Overkill look for lost members of the Redbeard Clan pirate crew to go back to Sinza. Brother Indaris (oh please remember its In-DUR-is for pronunciation as I have often murdered the name and history and Elves are likely the only ones to say it right) and I took our 90 days of supplies and rations back to stock the ship with stuff. The priest is a better organizer and I made a good mule as we put the items needed away. Afterwards he led me in prayer for our friend Roggan. When that was done he lifted my mood which I think he could sympathize with today.
‘My large friend, do you know how to play kings crowns?’
‘No my friend but if you would deign to teach me this Hooman game I would love to learn.’
This was a marvelous way to pass the time and I smiled and laughed more than I had in a long while. I crave social interaction. This must be the single and yet largest difference between evil and good. I loved to see my good hooman friend laugh! I love laughing myself and I am honestly thinking of becoming a priest like my first father of Osiris. Would likely be beneficial when hunting demons in my future, well, the quest first and maybe the Lawgiver would consider this subject worthy of bearing witness of his word to the world.
KING’S CROWNS THE GAME
Note: There are games with painted tiles of vellum hardened for repetitive use and games with mufti-faceted stones carved with sigils. King’s Crowns combines them. Each person takes five cube shape stones and they roll them. Then you each count the pips on the sides facing up and make pairs, triples, or more as in the painted vellum tile games.
So two cubes with ⚃ ⚃ pips is a pair of fours. Three cubes with three ⚁ ⚁ ⚁ is three of a kind, two high. Five of a kind is the highest hand in the basic game rules.
I won half of the games and Brother Indaris won the other half.
~ 5th of Corg ~
⛵ This day was grand and sad (missing my friend as much as I missed Master Tyvernos when he was gone), but we were on our way to the heart of the Church of Light and Dark, Sekti-Abtu! We made 50 miles or leagues that day, again I not a sailor, hahaha! I do however enjoy the brisk salt air and sense of scary wonder in the dark blue waves. I can see why Captain Overkill has come to love this bitter and harsh mistress. Second only to the love he bears his wife that took my advice and went to the ‘Compound of Elves & Dwarves’ with the city!
~ 6th of Corg ~
⛵ Bad rain plagued the ship and we were nearly set upon by pirates under a plain black flag I began to turn myself into a seagull to fly over while Master Overkill was signaling with flags and getting no response. We were saved by Master Tyvernos and his ‘Whirlwind spell’ we sail past them and before the captain can return to the wheel Master Asher gets jostled and the ship lurches tossing most of us overboard!
My spell failing all I can think of laughing as I fall is
‘Again’!!!
As long as I am in CrIsis I shall no longer fear for Master Ja’Deir and others saved us. We are the most random crazed motley in the world and often we are at odds with social and philosophical view points. Never would I doubt my friends to come for me and I know Hades would not stop me from doing the same for them. I pity poor men that abandon the fellowship for small and petty things such as a pierce flank long healed but for a small heart and wounded soul.
To the Lords and Ladies of Ra’s benevolent fellowship of light!
May the good monk find his soul healed and faith in friends restored. I seek not mending betwixt him or I for that would be avarice and gain for which I have not prayed. I beseech thee to before the last of the Defilers flee this world for your warm embrace in the hereafter that he sees his brothers and sisters again for the fellowship they were, are, and shall always be for those of Palladium.
I hope this prayer to you all finds its words pleasing I have been listening to the good Brother and trying to phrase it as he does.
Your servent now and forever,
Cyrus Far’zan, named by his mother, Xerx’ses, chosen to remember the Lawgiver’s servant that was his first father.
P.S. may Masters A’zad & Aesyl find peace as well in the Lord of Wisdom’s hall.
~ 9th of Corg ~
⛵ Roggan returns! His soul screaming and we can hear it from every grain of the ship, when asked if he it is a spell my friends yell with haste for a ‘Cloud of Disrupting Magic’ and I oblige knowing from the Great Library Roggan cannot be banished by such feats as other golem creatures. However, it only make him scream in torture and so I stop the spell and suggest he is cursed. Between Brother Indaris and Master Asher’s Holy Weapons Roggan is freed of the curse and the ship shakes for joy as we all grab something nailed down!!!!! Never have I been so happy to be on a rocking boat with no shore in sight! I am told on the morrow I will be taken.
~ 10th of Corg ~
⛵ I see the moon is falling from the sky so Ra’s light may once again push the shadows back. My time is soon and good Brother Indaris has given me a ‘Contagious Scripture’ to say forcing the minions of darkness to repeat when they hear me say it. I have dressed down to my Mologoth Hide robe and and breeches. I can’t help but smile at the good Brother of light. When queried for the reason I am so happy I tell him, coming full circle to the beginning of this missive.
I am remembering the ‘Great Lawgiver’ awaiting Anubis in the Garden of Draethsemane before he was betrayed to Set. My first father and tribal elder Xerx’ses, for whom I take my name from. He said to me a moment comes at least once to everyone and some many times where they must wonder whether Osiris knew he was to be betrayed and still waited in the garden. Could I be that calm? Could I be that strong in faith? I have heard the stories of my companions and I know the torture will be tailored for me. Yet here, now, I am thankful to the gods of light all of them for this chance to be tortured. I am thankful to Zii’clymnt for trying to burn me alive (Shows the priest his scaring again on the left side of his face, neck and torso).
All of the Paladins good Mergerij trained are asked about the Garden of Draethsemane and would they stay if they knew ill winds were to befall them bringing them into shadow. I no longer have that question before me. I am here in the wood garden of my friend Rogtilda and I have no fear!
I know their will be pain, I know I will suffer but such is life to endure. Yet, I have wandered the world, fought sea battles, met hoomans, a race I didn’t know existed! Been graced by the presence of Isis and Bast! I have stood up for my friend Master Tyvernos to the God of War Lopnel, I have stood in the child halls, born from the Prime Incunabula!
Were I to die today as a sacrifice or victim of the gods all I have to say is, THANK YOU!!!!!!
Thank you for the wonders I have seen, evils I helped to vanquish so their light may show more people the way to being good! Thank you now for allowing to know the question posed to palladins! I will stand and let the dark have at me as they had at my Lord Lawgiver! Every lash shall bring me to a deeper understanding of Osiris and his trials. I have kept my right index finger bound (shows the priest his hand again). I have never understood the happiness the gods speak of until this moment and it is over flowing in me
When you read this missive I shall be taken. Weep not one tear for me I am with my lord and even death can’t separate me from that.
Be well good Scribe of Light,
Xerx’ses, War Wizard of CrIsis
Although I am no priest may the lady’s light shine on you.
>>> Written by Xerx’ses Goldenflail,
upon the pre-dawn hours of the 10th of Corg, 70th Year of the Wolfen Empire, 2nd year of King Guy the First of the Timiro Kingdom, and 343 year of the Dominion of Man. <<<
Lady Ondemira of Torchwood by AZ-Rune Art, commission him at artist@agodrebuilt.org
Imp demon from Emmanuel Martin.