Ragnarr: Whenever

Woman. That's what's missing from this adventuring nonsense.

I mean, you listen to the stories, and you figure that a lot of it's got to be shit. I mean, it can't possibly all be grand heroics, charging blindly into battle and defeating the enemy no matter what the odds, and no mention of nearly starving to death and sleeping on rocks every night.

But the stories always have elven princesses getting rescued from savage dungeons. Now I haven't got too rosy of glasses, so you figure it's not really elven princesses. Perhaps it's really average looking, fully clothed bar maids who were being paid incredibly little to do the bandit's laundry, who will be happy just to see her hated employer skewered. And perhaps she won't exactly fall into her arms, but she's got to have a sister or a mother or something who's happy to see her free.

And even if it doesn't happen every time, there's still got to be enough ladies that one, just one, might pass over the swarthy, shiny, stick up the arse paladin for an the older, shorter type. I know most tall women don't go for the type, but some do.

But where are they? I never would have thought I'd spend all of my adventuring days in places where it's impossible to even buy myself a woman.

I never thought I'd find that I'd be in a position that would give me less opportunities to interact with ladies than being a servant of Pelor. I mean, sure, I spent the huge majority of my time healing folks. And it would have been wrong to bed any of the women I healed, though every now and then they, too, had a sister who was happy for the healing. Of course, Pelor knows I always did my best to resist that kind of entanglements. Surely Pelor gives credit for trying.

But there was always that certain sort of noblewoman, usually widows, who wanted to give to the cause of Pelor but wanted something more, wanted to feel like they were participating. Usually women trying to work off the guilt of having themselves cured of a particularly strong parasite they'd picked up from a lover. The kind of woman who didn't want to just hand over a bag of gold, but who wanted a night out on the town, so to speak, visiting the sick and the poor incognito (though never touching them. That would have been too much to ask.) before returning to their homes, where they wanted nothing more than to feel like they'd touched the poor second hand, through you.

I bloody hated it. Raising funds was the worst part of the job. But if my discomfort would buy a hundred peasants food for the winter, I wasn't going to say no.

I never would have thought I'd miss that. But at least it was something.

Out here there's been nothing but that gnome woman (a bit short for my taste, and needed to calm down a bit) and the ranger who's with us now (whatever it is that makes her so damn crazy. Besides, I think she prefers the wolf).

And now we finally meet a few women, and what do we find? They're monks. Literally. And we tried to kill them earlier.

I should have found some whores before we left the city. At this rate, I can't wait to meet some undead. I feel like I'll demolish them with nothing but the fire shooting from my loins.

It's enough to make me miss my ex-wife. Bastards.

Giornale di Aurelia

That was an awful fight. Jacob and Tupper went in the Fortress. I should have gone with them. I was almost useless outside. My arrows were not flying true this day. Maybe that is a good thing though, with all we have learned.

Arcadius, Fflam, and Chris were up on the battlements. Ragnarr was healing from a distance, and I was at a distance with my bow. Mayhap I should learn some hand to hand. At any rate, they were taking out the Mages on the battlements when all of sudden, the men we were fighting dropped arms.

It turns out, the Monks and Mages have not been here all that long and a certain gnome had come here hoping to find his allies. These fine folks were fighting us to protect what we had come to retrieve so that we may protect it. All this came about because they had put Tupper and Jacob in a cell with the gnome.

The Monks handed the gnome into our hands. It took a lot of discussion, but we eventually agreed that the only way to stop this gnome was to execute him. After much ritual, Arcadius carried out the sentence.

The staff is being kept here for safe guarding and we shall keep in touch with the Monks.

It appears now that our journey shall carry us across the deserts. I did not expect this task from Hercules to take me from the beautiful green and occasionally snowy forests, to both extremes of a desert of snow and deserts of sand.

Journal of Lt. Tupper, Day 205

Day 205
The gnome is dead.

I never even knew his name.

We debated it at length. Ragnar wanted to put him under a geas, I wanted to bring him back to a real jail, and Arcadius wanted to behead him (well guess who the hells' in charge here). For all the good it does us, it's the best plan of action. He already proved capable of escaping common imprisonment, he's clever enough to work around any sort of geas, and if he had gotten back to his allies he could have told them where the staff is. At least we didn't make light of the deed. Arcadius held a long and somber ceremony before hacking his little head off and burning the corpse. I just can't shake the feeling I'll suddenly come up with some humane solution that would have kept him alive and the staff safe. There had to have been one.

As for one of our myriad missions… The cliff from the vision, the one where the soul of Herakles' bastard child is being held, is close to the fort, or at least closer to it than Izmir. The major cities of this region are to the south, and so south is where we are heading.

Wonder how Cogmer is doing.

Journal of Lt. Tupper, Day 204b

~
Well, that was unnecessarily painful. Needless to say, I am very much alive at this point (though it came in doubt several times in short succession during the past few hours). The plan was for Jacob and I to infiltrate the rear of the fort through a teleport spell and grab the staff, and for the rest of the group to provide a diversion at the main gate. Naturally this led to a rhinoceros and then imprisonment for both of us. The others fared a lot better. Eventually we all stopped hitting each other long enough to figure out the other side wasn't all that nasty, and a truce was called.

The fort belongs to a secret and ancient order of quasi-monks who task themselves with keeping the balance between good and evil. They came into possession of the staff after that illusionist came to them with it (apparently he thought they were someone else). They've been securely storing both the staff and the gnome since then. Oh yes, and they're not actually keen to kill us. That's my favorite part of all of this.

Only snare is, we can't take the staff with us. Admittedly, they've proven capable of guarding it far better than we did, and so we've agreed to keep in touch with each other by means of a communication rod. They are willing to relinquish the gnome to our custody. We've been debating on what to do with him, Ragnar says he's going to pray on the subject tonight.

Now, if you will excuse me dear spellbook, I will find a nice flat area to not bleed out on. The novelty of that may well shock me into unconsciousness.

Aurelia's Grand Adventure! or: How she came to join the party! Pt 3

The weather while sailing has been smooth. Well, for the most part. I, however, have stayed below decks with a bucket by my side. Being incapacitated by my inability to move without disgorging the contents of my stomach is really not a pleasant feeling. It does, however, give one time to think.

I remember when I was little, my Mamma always said I was destined for a life bigger than a shepherd's wife, which is what I would have become had I not followed Diana. I always thought a Ranger in service of Diana, a close relationship to my Goddess was what she had meant. I never had dreamed as a little girl that my life would lead me away from the world I know and love to this frozen, forbidding land.

When I pledged myself to Diana, I knew that my will would be as hers. I knew I would never take a husband. I knew that for the rest of my life, I would honor the hunt and the wilderness. While I knew of and respected the rest of the Pantheon, I did not expect that their wills would also be as closely tied to mine.

I pray that Diana assists me in keeping the beauty of nature in my heart, but also does not let me forget the danger that that beauty keeps.

From The Journal of Jacob Cayle

Well, alls well that ends well, or so they say. No one died, and it seems that the staff is in safe hands (or as safe as we can hope). This means I can reflect on recent events.

I really must make a point of summoning more rhinos in the future. Summoning monsters to do my fighting in general seems an excellent strategy, and I see the key is to know what to summon in what situation. I've relied too heavily on elementals, when I should be making more careful choices, since I can only summon one creature per day. Perhaps I should try summoning each of the creatures that I can summon on days when we take pause and are unlikely to need such for fighting purposes. This way, I can see what their various strengths and weaknesses are.

In other matters, we're heading off into the desert on another quest. One of these days, however, I really must investigate this "Valley Between Many Places" which we have visited a number of times now. How such a place was created, and why, are matters I would greatly like to know more about. And where else does it reach to? Perhaps it's purpose is one that may aid us? Could each exit place one near each of the fortresses that we seek? I could see a mage such as Chris making great use of such a valley. Teleport, as I understand it, can only cover a distance of around 1000 miles, generally. And these fortresses may be many thousands of miles apart. But if they are all within 1000 miles of an exit from the valley, one could travel between all of them within a day and using only two uses of the spell.

While that may not be the exact purpose of the valley, I'm sure that it's exits are not placed haphazardly. Whoever (or whomever) created it, it required a lot of time and energy to create. And I'm sure the various exits and entrances are placed for a reason. Although I must also consider, based on the differences between the two tunnels I have used thus far to enter or exit the valley, that the valley may be the work of a great many entities. Perhaps whenever a wizard of enough power want's access to an easy method of travel, they simply create their own entrance to the valley.

Hypothesis aside, once I get a chance, I will have to take some time to do some serious investigation of the valley (I must make note to get some Roc repellent. Like a necklace of fireball spells). I will no doubt have to take my leave of the paladins, but perhaps it's for the best. I don't entirely like or trust their ways. Far quicker to violence than I like. And that's saying something when it bothers me.

From The Journal of Jacob Cayle

So, I'm sitting in a jail cell with Tupper and that blasted gnome illusionist (I haven't let Tupper beat him, yet, because I don't want to piss off the monks, but it sure is tempting...)

Anyway, as soon as I saw the gnome, I realized that these monks we were fighting weren't the enemies we thought they were. I mean, we thought they were in league with the gnome, and here he was, imprisoned the same as we were. Which means they no doubt thought we were his allies and are fighting us on the assumption that we're part of the forces of evil that we thought they were part of. In other words, it was a complete misunderstanding. These Paladins seem to live by the philosophy "attack first, ask questions later" because I seem to have noticed this scenario happening a number of times. Ah well, hope they've learned their lesson this time.

So hopefully a guard will listen to calls for discussion, and we can end this battle before someone dies...