River Trip

Dear Nath

I haven’t heard anything from you in some time, hope everything’s well with you.

I have news! We tracked down the man who killed my family!

It turns out Reeves was a priest of Anubis in Kaash!

He agreed to meet me in single combat, and I beat him to death with my bare hands. All I remember is punching and punching and punching until I felt life slip from his body, then I gave his blood to my axe. It’s kinda creepy, but he likes that kind of stuff.

At the time, it felt great, but now I can’t help but feel that his death was too quick. Perhaps I should have kept him alive and extended his torment. I don’t know.

I have been in the revenge business so long; now that it is over I’m at a loss for what to do with myself. Were it not for this quest My Lady has given me, I expect I would change my name to Roberts and take up piracy.

Our travels down the Great River continued. We made it through The Gauntlet to Hadrian’s Cove, where we met a man who had a touch-it glass so large and powerful (he called it a tele-scope) that I was able to look at the moon!

Close-up, and in great detail!

It was one of the most spectacular things I have ever seen!

It cost me 50 gold, but I would gladly have paid twice that amount to have such a singular experience!

While we were at Hadrian’s Cove, Overkill learned that someone he knew was living there, and we spent the large part of a day trying to find her. Apparently, the Gods tasked him with finding his old shipmates and sending them to Bizantium, I and this dwarf was one of them.

It turns out, she worked at some sort of top-secret botanical garden that nobody wanted to say much about. After we looked at the moon, we took a chance and hit up a tavern. Overkill bought the owner a drink to soften him up, and it turns out he knew where she was: a Dark tavern on the other side of town.

So we went there, and the place was thick with Taut. We checked our weapons, went in and found her, and immediately they started to argue.

I guess she hates him. Who woulda guessed?

They got close to trading blows and went outside to reclaim their weapons, presumably so they could do the thing properly, but when she swung her axe at Overkill, Roggan turned her to stone. We were going to return her to flesh so Overkill could convince her to go to Bizantium, but I thought, “Screw it. It’ll be a lot easier if we just stuck an address on and shipped her there.

So we did.

Speaking of Overkill, we stopped by Halzard’s Blade, the swordsmith’s shop, where he immediately started looking for another sword! I said to him, “Look. You already have two. Unless you also have a prehensile penis, another sword’s not going to do you any good!”

He wasn’t very amused.

The next day, we went through the Great Canal.

Truly, this was a marvel to behold! I was in awe, but it was nothing compared to Roggan’s reaction. His head swiveled around so much that I thought it would loosen and fall off!

All too quickly, we were through the Canal, and we stopped for the night at a little place called Neven. As soon as we arrived, we were met by a snotty little knight by the name of Thurgood.

Remember Robert the Just? This guy was worse.

Much worse.

He very haughtily declaired that he was there to “escort” us to Llorn as ” Duke Githeon VasPasseon was most displeased” with us, and we had to “answer for our misdeeds.”

Or some such.

We arrived at Llorn, and were immediately surrounded by knights. They “escorted” us around the city as we paid the entry taxes, then took us to the “Hall of Right” to meet with the Duke. It was all very impressive, I’m sure I was intimidated at least once during the whole procession.

In the Hall of Right, we met with the Duke (who was very shouty), a dwarf who looked like he knew how to handle himself in a fight, and a strange elf-woman who whispered things into the Duke’s ear every time he looked to be winding down, and started him off yelling at us again.

I’ll summarize his shouting by saying that my extreme political acumen and polished silver tongue had once again saved the day, as the Duke’s son was one of those “diplomats” I oh-so-gently rebuked in Haven.

Oh dear.

This insult was made worse by the fact that the Duke absolutely hates religion of any stripe because one of
Rurga’s people was caught with his hand in the till. I have met Rurga, and I have a very hard time believing this, especially in light of the fact that this man is still alive.

Come to think on it, I think the elf-woman has the Duke under some kind of spell because she would whisper into his ear the most whenever anyone brought up the Church.

Fortunately, Roggan was able to talk the Duke down, and he told us he would accept our written apologies, published in our next book, in lieu of attempting to jail us for life.

Much calmer at this point, and at Roggan’s request, the Duke escorted us on a tour of Llorn’s fabled Sun Stone Garden. Personally, I don’t know what the fuss was about as it just looked like a flat mosaic of stones, but everyone else there wandered about with their eyes wide open and their mouths gaping as they were gazing on the most beautiful scene they had ever sceen.

From how everyone there acted, I’m wondering if it isn’t home to some kind of evil creature that’s eating everyone’s brains.

Improbably enough, one of the people wandering around the garden was Overkill’s wife, Mary. I guess he wrote and asked her to meet us in Llorn.

Looks like ol’ Overkill had the itch.

I fully intend to investigate the mind-controlling she-elf and this magical, brain-eating rock garden. Perhaps we can free Llorn of some great evil and the Duke won’t insist on an embarrassing published apology from us.

Couldn’t hurt to try.

This is as far as we’ve gotten. If you have any information that could help us as we continue on our way to Timiro, I would be grateful. Also, I’m beginning to run low on arrows. Perhaps we could meet up somewhere on our way back up the river and refill my quiver?

Hope to hear from you soon,
Cava

Posted by Cava on 27 Corg, Dominion 341.

Picture from JPL.

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