Images and memories....
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"The twin helix of realities
continues to embrace itself,
turn, gyre, turn,
and still, which reality is truly real?"
- Andorian Poetmistress L'iludra
2214 A.E
Andros' Penultimate Point of View
(with a couple brief intrusions by some old friends)
The map that "Tinderbox" (I still can't believe that name!) showed us is true in pretty much all details. Standing on the hillside overlooking the sorcerers' academy, I am preparing myself for what may be my final battle. I am a solider on a mission. Now that I am within sight of the objective we so long sought, I will accomplish my objective or perish in an attempt as may be worth a song.
Such is the wish of all common foot soldiers, although it is only lately I have begun to wish to be named in such a song. Up until now my career has always been just a faceless grunt, and I would have been content to know the battle which killed me made it to some bard's notice whether or not future generations knew that I was among those who died that day. I'm starting to think I've earned more than that by now!
There! There goes Dag's new pet. Or is that the illusion? I heard our illusionist talking about sending in an illusion of a dragon first, but that was mage stuff and I don't relish it the way our spell casters do, so I left it to them. I've got a job to focus on:
The way I see it, no one else in this blasted party is likely to remember what we're even here for. We've got a brightblade who's apt to go berzerk, a dwarf who talks to sock puppets...
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"NO SOCK PUPPETS!" Lisa shouted, threatening to dump a hot cup
of coffee over Gordon's head. Gordon cringed back and waved his
hands in a conciliatory gesture even as he sighed deeply.
"Alright, alright! Why do you hate sock puppets so much anyway?
Did you have a bad experience at a birthday party as a kid or
something?"
Kevin slapped the table with one hand. "People! Can we we
stay focused? We're just about done with the final episode here
and there's a vague chance we might make the production schedule.
Let's not blow it."
Lisa glanced down at the papers before her, suprised at the sudden appearence of a curl of parchment. "What on earth is this?" she asked.
Kevin glanced over, annoyed that he was so rudely interrupted just as he was warming up for a world class pep talk. "What did you say?" His eyes narrowed suspiciously as he glared at the scroll Lisa was carefully smoothing on the desk. "Where did you get that?" he asked.
"I dunno. It was just here." Her eyes widened. "Isn't this..." Silently she held up the paper, revealing an ornate symbol, vaguely resembling a stylized "P"
"Hey, that's..."
"Yeah." Lisa looked around, the beginnings of a frown forming like thunderheads on her brow. The other members of the staff, long familiar with the inevitable storm to follow, suddenly became intent on their own papers.
"Well, read it." Kevin prompted. He had worked with Lisa on other projects and was used to her temper. The only way to divert it was to give her as much lead as she needed, schedule be damned. He sat back and with the skill of a magician palmed the Gameboy Advance he kept for just such an occasion. "Read it."
"Well, Okay. It starts with the usual greetings to......
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High Bishop of the United Combat arm
The Church of the One True God
I continue to strive for an accurate recital of this holy mission for the glory of God and the honor of the church, in this my mission log. Today we breach the infidel's lair. The rest of the party remains convinced that the recovery of the skull is the first priority, and I have said nothing to sway that belief. I feigned reluctance as the (in my opinion, already of questionable loyalty) magician Dag puts together a carefully crafted plan of attack, based on subterfuge and other ethically weak tactics.
As for myself, I have my own plan of attack, and (with assumed reluctance) agree to the parts of his plan that run parallel to my own. The fortunate acquision of a lightning bow, which I have named "The Finger of God", with apologies for my boldness, has enabled me to simplify my own plan of attack greatly.....
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Lisa looked up from the parchment, eyes smouldering. "All right. Who wrote this tripe?"
Gordon groaned, "Yeah. It reads like an episode of "Touched by an Angel", if the angel was psychotic."
Laura nodded. "I agree, it's not in the style of what we've covered so far. So who wrote it?"
A general silence descended. Everyone looked at Lisa.
"Oh, no. Not me. I'm the one complaining about it, remember?"
"Read some more." Kevin muttered, fingers flying over the miniature controls......
Lisa sighed and continued.....
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With a roar the first of the smaller buildings in the front of the compound erupted into dragon-created flame. I loosed, and was annoyed to manage a glancing blow. Before the guards could react from the double threat of dragon and lightning I drew and fired twice more, managing to topple the tower. In my peripheral vision I saw the other members of the party toss ropes over the side of the cliff and begin climbing down. I gritted my teeth, this was the difficult part of the mission, one that I had revised upon acquiring the bow. The honor was in hand to hand, not artillary, but I didn't have the luxury of an honorable death. Total and complete destruction of the skull and the sorcerers was my mission, and I intended to reduce this compound into it's component stones.
I would try to be mindful of my companions, but my instructions were clear. During the last few hours of planning I had been fletching arrows at a furous pace, I was now equipped with well over sixty. They were of poor quality, but seeing as they turned into lightning as soon as they left the bow they would suffice. Grimly I turned the bow on the rear of the main building, taking aim at a tall tower.
Before this day was over this compound would stand no more.
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Lisa looked up soberly. "Who wrote this? This changes the tone of the whole thing! Up to now we were forging a "Romancing the Stone" kind of comedic adventure-fantasy, this turns it into someting like "The Terminator beats up Frodo and destroys the Lord of the Rings" kind of thing. What are we going to do with this?"
"MMmmmm?" Kevin said, looking up from his game. One glance at Lisa's face made him pocket it quickly. "Well, I don't really see a problem as of yet. After all, he didn't kill anyone else. Maybe we can work out his, er, additional mission without compromising the storyline."
Lisa grimaced and dropped the parchment on the table as if it were hot. "Well, I just want everyone to know that I didn't write it."
Kevin sighed. "Anyway, getting back to things before we all die of old age......
...a brightblade who's apt to go berzerk, a paladin who just wants to bash everything evil that he sees (and man is he going to be busy today!) our mage is totally focused on using the dragon without getting him killed, and the rest... I'm not sure what they're totally focused on, to tell the truth. Kiley is going crazy trying to find out what we face before we face it, but in a battle, I know, the future changes with each decision you make, so we may have gotten to the point where seeing the future isn't going to help much anymore.
So that leaves me. I'm a soldier. I've been drilled for years and I still remember: when you're in the very heart of enemy territory, you've got just three rules:
- Accomplish the objective.
- Get the hell out once you've got it.
Anyway, the dragon is swooping on the academy buildings... Tinderbox said those are housing for students, but when the academy teaches sorcery, I don't think even the students are innocent bystanders. The dragon sweeps overhead, and breaths an impressive lance of flame that straifs as he passes, igniting the rooves of both of the student housing buildings. Real flames? The students shouting and the charred holes in the roof would see to suggest the fire is real. Either that wasn't an illusion dragon, or it was Garon's finest illusion ever!
That's our cue: I, Goroc, Loki and Xorn are rappelling down the cliff face to strike them from behind the cover of the large building. I had a chance to talk to Goroc, and he has agreed to go where I go, so I am planning to take out that back door and get inside the large building while everything without is in chaos. The others will probably follow, since the only alternative right now is to step out into the courtyard where, as I understand it, the dragon will be breathing fire, five of Tinderbox's nightwings will be striking, Dag will be casting spells, and Ruby and Hunter will be firing bow shot (and Hunter with a lightning bow, no less) so the courtyard would be... er, unhealthy for ground troops.
I didn't catch where Valguard would be, but I sincerely wish he were with us since he has that spell absorbing sword. Oh well. The best laid plans or pawns and generals...
We race across the small stretch of open space behind the building. There's no damned cover back here, but I suppose that can't be helped. We'll have to hope the others are making enough of a mess out front to keep the sorcerers' attention elsewhere.
When we get to the door, Goroc offers to hack it open the way he always does, but I have my mace of impact out anyway, so without waiting, I simply smash the door...
...big mistake...
...When the ringing in my ears caused by the explosion stops, I am flat on my back. Loki and Xorn are picking themselves up and seem to have noticed something I haven't, but my head is still ringing too much to tell what it is. Goroc took what for him is minor powder burns, but he's sitting beside me shaking his head as well.
Gods damn those sorcerers and their exploding doors! I suppose the sorcerers either borrowed the trick from whoever rigged up all the doors in that dungeon where we found the dragon, or else they are one in the same. No matter. As I shake my head to clear it, and groan slightly as I pick myself up, I notice that the door I just blew up was a decoy. There's nothing but a powder burned bare stone alcove where there appeared to be a door.
That really burns me! I leap up, run up to the wall next to the alcove (there's probably nothing wrong with the alcove now, but paranoia is always a solider's best friend...) and I mace the wall. As always I feel the mace of impact's strange sense of double swing, like a much larger ball of force following my own swing, and in a moment, the wall caves in, leaving a person sized hole next to where the fake door used to be. Since stealth is a pointless waste by now, I call out to my companions to follow me, but Loki and Xorn have vanished somewhere ... I didn't see where, but they slipped off around the back side of the building for some reason.
I weigh going after them, but they aren't soliders, and I am certain they are letting themselves get distracted from the mission -- perhaps time will prove me wrong, but I can feel the stubborness welling up inside me, so I won't admit right now that they probably had good reasons. I just know if this were a military unit, they'd probably face a tribuneral for going off like that in the middle of a mission. Goroc at least is still with me, as stalwart a friend and ally as I could ask for, so the two of us proceed into the building. (sighs) Alone.
Inside the dust and rubble stewn place, we find a long hall, empty except for us, and we look for another way out. We see a door across the room and move to investigate. It leads to a corridor running up and down the length of this particular wing of the building.
Suddenly the floor jumps and the walls shudder as we hear an explosion outside which causes a huge chunk of masonry to fall somewhere off to our right. It takes me a moment to connect it to anything in particular, and then it hits me: Hunter.
When we entered, the paladin was up on the ridge in just the right position to be showering this place with lightbolts from his magic bow-- AND HE COULDN'T SEE US GO IN FROM WHERE HE WAS STANDING.
Great. Now we have our choice... get killed by sorcerers, or get killed by our own teammates by going in the wrong room at the wrong moment. This mission is going more and more wrong by the second. At this rate, I reluctantly hope he runs out of arrows while there's still enough of the place left to find what we came for. At least then he'd have to draw a sword and charge the evil doers in single combat which would at least not take us with them.
We turn the other way, hoping what we're looking for isn't in the tower currently under bombardment since it might not last long enough to search it. Somewhere to our left and then left again is another tower. What we need is to find a ritual room or something. That's where they're likely to be keeping the skull. But of course, Tinderbox's maps only showed the outside of this place, as he no doubt drew them while spying from atop the ridgeline surrounding the place, so we're on our own finding this ritual room.
Suddenly there another shuddering thud, much closer, and for a fraction of a second I am tempted to curse the paladin out loud, but then I realize it wasn't him this time. Another of those damnable vaccuum spells has gone off directly in front of me. Goroc, who was leading down the hall, took a major impact from it that spun him slightly while smashing him up against a wall. I took a light thump that knocked me over, but I was able to stand up, albeit painfully.
Goroc grunts and clutches briefly at his ribs. That really worries me. Goroc doesn't clutch at painful wounds, typically. He just grunts and says "ow" mildly. If it hurt bad enough to make him react for real, he probably has a broken rib or something. Now I have to admit, I'm having doubts about our mission's chances.
So, do we procede and confront whoever threw the vaccuum spell, retreat into the tower that Hunter is trying to flatten, or just run like hell out the way we came? If we run, we'll likely never get back in again. We had the element of surprise this time. Gods damn it all, we HAD the element of SURPRISE, and this is how well we're doing. If we leave planning to return later, we don't stand a chance, I figure. And if I must die I'd rather it be in a fight than by valiantly having a roof fall on me. Well, that was an easy decision.
I pull out one of the healing leaves Ruby bought us back in town and start chewing on it, and make Goroc take one too, and although the orc glares at me and complains about "rabbit food" he does actually chew and swallow it. We start to feel slightly better as we move forward again, although, since Goroc is now wounded worse than he wants to admit, I take over the lead, getting ready to pound anything I see... assuming I get a chance...
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Keith snapped his pencil angrily pounded the table with a fist
and complained, "Do you realize how mismatched we've made the
foes our protagonists are fighting? Valguard has the spell
absorbing sword, yet we have Andros infiltrating the sorcerers'
lair... meanwhile, Andros had a mace of impact which would be
so much more effective against what Valguard is fighting
right at this moment..."
Gordon shrugged, "Hey, luck of the draw! What are we gonna do
at this point? Ask the Harry Potterites to kindly stop fighting
for a moment while our mighty heroes trade places?"
"We don't even have a blueprint of the layout of this place
yet! Why did we send Andros and Goroc in so early if we don't
even know what they're facing yet? That's where we went wrong."
"Don't look at me," Lexa snapped, "You didn't tell me you'd
be needing the blueprint for this session. If you insist on
departing from the preliminary storyboard..."
"Oh, oh, I know!" Gordon quipped, "We could have Andros and
Valguard both click their heels together three times and say
'I wish I was you for ONE day!' You know, sort of a Freaky
Friday type deal."
"A what?" asked Brent.
"Freaky Friday... it was this movie back in the age of classic
films..."
"To you, everything from the 20th century was classical..."
Lisa argued.
Gordon smiled his best ironic smile, "...said the woman with
the 20th century music CD collection in her apartment."
"Okay, okay: moving.... on. " said Kevin before it could
escalate, "Why don't we describe what was happening elsewhere
for a while... maybe tell up through what it was Valguard is
in fact fighting, then we'll come back to the sad final battle
of Andros and Goroc..."
"Heeeeeeeyyy!" Laura complained, pouting. She always sided
with lost causes and wounded animals.
"... OR their stunningly improbable victory!" he sighed, "Anyway,
we'll get back to that after we tell ---"
Gordon finished his sentence, " --- the REST of the story..."
