Gadzooks, the Books

Dear Father Philip

Do you remember back when I was in training and I said even though I like maps and drawing, books weren’t my thing. They still aren’t, which is a damn shame because the Library of Bletherad is a Smorgasbord Feast of Scholarly Delight, complete with cocoa sprinkles. You can feel the voices of the past reaching out to you, whispering words in the rustling of turning pages and scratching quills.

It has to be the biggest Library in the World, even bigger than the church library in the Western Empire, and I have been told that that one is huge. I could be here years perusing the maps they have here, and they have many treatises on artists that I could explore as well. I think the church should think about setting up a permanent presence here on the island to protect this precious resource.

The party was over, we were all feeling a bit poorly and Hannah decided to help out in the kitchen, she spiked the cheese sandwiches, of all the things to spike, and those who did glowed gently, which was better than burping your conversation at people. We decided whom was doing what, and No Name was going exploring and the rest decided to hit up the Library, as it was such a beautiful day I decided to stick to No Name as I don’t like breaking the don’t-go-off-alone-rule, which was good as the beautiful day turned nightmarish. We found a Kobold farm on the Island that looked a little roughed up. When we politely introduced ourselves we found out that some other Kobolds had been trying to strongarm these poor hardworking folk into being followers of the Dark. No Name and I looked at each other and both offered to help at the same time. The poor fellow seemed overwhelmed as apparently help from us bigguns hadn’t really been forthcoming before. So off we went, luckily No Name turned out to be a really good tracker, and we spent the morning following these dastardly ruffians back to their hiding place, and well hidden it was indeed. Just before lunch we found it, and If I had just been out wandering I would have walked right by it. As No Name was leading he stopped, crouched and made some funny hand gestures at me, but I just shrugged and he whispered quietly that the enemy was resting and that there was but 1 guard in the hidden dell. We cast our defense spells in preparation and snuck up, No Name melding with shadows and I was Invisible. I snuck through behind them and readied my weapon. Just as I was about to speak a shadow flowed over the ground to the Kobold I was behind and he just exploded into gore, I hurriedly turned to the other 2 who were I thought were asleep and Told them to drop their weapons or else. These must have been trained to the extreme, as they didn’t look around to see what was happening, they went from sleep to throwing spells in under 2 seconds. The surprise that I was hoping to get never happened, they must have been waiting for us and this was a trap. The psionicist immediately hit me with some sort of paralysis and the Wizard cloud of slumbered No Name, how they knew he was there is a tribute to their Mentor (thank goodness Reset doesn’t get this sort of training otherwise we would be in trouble). The fight then was a pitiful until the Psionicist pulled the back of the hill down on me, controlling the flow of the earth and dirt so it only covered me and not him as he was stuck lying on the ground. I then used my teleport back to Sekti-Abtu, do not pass go and do not collect 200 gold token and then Immediately prayed to Isis to return me so I could try to save Name’s life, all I could see in my minds eye was No Name kebab with wild lemon grass sauce.

I reappeared a distance away, but the slippery little suckers were ready and Immediately cloud of slumbered me, and I awoke the next day on the boat, thinking that it had all been a nightmare, unfortunately it wasn’t.

If you could possibly find out who trains the Solarium Kobolds and get them working on our side It would be great, I saw the best of what the world had to offer at the games I thought, and these little suckers easily would outdo them all.

The next day was less fun, we turned up at Aunty Ev’s and from what I heard made me think Hannah and Ja’Deir had been up to some pranks, but neither side mentioned anything so I I didn’t mention it either, apparently Hannah tried to give aunty some holy cheese, and he got all excited about it, but a stranger interrupted them when entered the Tavern. He introduced himself to Aunty Ev and mentioned that he was looking for Indaris Excellar the Priest. Luckily Xerx’ses was there and paying attention so he went and got me from the ship (where I was hiding, trying to draw) and brought me down to the inn. This new person looking for me by name was himself called Herald and apparently he was having visions, he mentioned the vision of him showing me where the map was that showed the location of Yggdrasil. This was going to make our life easier I felt, so we talked to him for a while until we retired for the night. The next day was a bit dreary but still ok. Ifelt happier, mu goddess had sent me a guide to the information I needed to find, so the next day we got up earlier and headed into the maps section, and in the second room in a little vaulted area was some old looking maps, Herald recognised one from dream so I start making copies that would take me to the 6th of Corg to finish. I was excited, I couldn’t figure out who made the map but the detail was exquisite, and it was on what I thought was bleached deerskin, which with its age made it a little fragile.

During this time Xer’ses manged to meet some people from the Old Kingdom, and more specifically had spent a significant amount of time around Mt Nimro, their names were Figbit and Lagram , and they seemed a little starved for polite company but Xerx’ses managed to keep them entertained, and Invited them to the party we were having on the night of the 6th that was being organised by the others, and that afternoon we finished our studies a little early. Xerx’ses asked me to get Noname and meet him in town so we could get ready for the party and he had been spending his time at the Kobold farm helping them repair the damage done to them and more, I never would have guessed he had such a soft spot, little own one for Kobolds, but I managed to get there without issue and get him back to town to meet up with the others, which we did, and then we headed back to Rogtilda to get ready, on the way we heard Overkill’s voice calling out for us to help him from an alleyway nearby, so expecting a trap we went and investigated, and we weren’t disappointed. One of the enemy started spouting something about giving them the book, and we get surprised from behind as well, I got hit by something that disoriented me a bit, and I seemed to slowly float up from my body and one of the enemy holds his hands out towards me and a bright energy beam shoots from his hands, bursts through my chest and continues on through the stone wall. My body bits collapsed to the ground and suddenly a card with a Harlequin appeared in front of me. The card burnt away and suddenly I was standing back in the alleyway seeming seconds before the attack. I casually stepped to the side and this bright beam of energy burnt a hole in the wall behind me. Phew that was a close one.
The other members of CrIsis then upped their game while I recovered from … whatever just happened and I noticed that Xerx’ses was badly hurt, so I called upon the power of Isis to heal him, and the hurts on his body just slowly closed up, an arrow dropped out of a wound and clattered to the floor, by the time I had finished the prayer the fight was over.

We were catching our breathe, deciding what to do next at the Pyramid of Osiris and I saw Burlap, Bungo and Cammy coming down the street towards, I groaned, this was going to be more bad news and I wasn’t disappointed, things were definitely coming to a head, and the world was just spilling over into madness and war, but it was good to see them again.

Written by Indaris Excellar on the 6th of Corg