Mr Strenversie Goldman has requested our presence at some icon forsaken place, in the middle of nowhere called nowhere. Now where would nowhere be? Because if I went nowhere then I would be somewhere, and therefore I would anywhere other than nowhere.
Beads of sweat trickle down my face as I try to work out the intricacies of this conundrum, I do not notice Chrono my mechanical servant pick me up and carry me to nowhere. No it’s starting again!!!!
The headache I had when I got to …… the place with no name (this really is a most stupid place) but on the plus side it was nice to be reunited after a couple of weeks with
Hurl Rees, a wood elf but with a dark heart, he calls himself a rogue but he really is an
Dun
Dun
Dern
ASSASSIN
He wears black, all the time. Never a shred of colour other than varying shades of black, and only black. Black, dark as the night, which when you need to go out and kill someone is a good time to do it, and let’s face it black lends itself to the shadows quite nicely. But during the day not so much, but he loves it, he has even had his blades blackened so any tell tale glints of light are not given off. He takes his profession seriously; I have even heard tale that he killed somebody who somebody else said looked at Hurl the wrong way, possibly. This is unconfirmed of course.
I am also a little envious as he is the only one with his own bards song
“I am the assassin Hurl
With tongue forged from eloquence
I am the assassin
Providing your nemesis
On the sacrificial altar to success, my friend
Unleash a stranger from a kiss, my friend
No incantations of remorse, my friend
Unsheathe the blade within the voice, my friend
My friend, my friend, my friend, my friend
Who decorates the scarf with the fugi knot?
Who camouflaged emotion in a thousand yard stare?
Who gouged the notches from the family tree?
Who hypnotized the guilt in career rhythm Trance?
Assassing, assassing, assassing, assassing
Listen to the blade
Feel the blade
Listen as the syllables of slaughter cut in calm precision
Patterned frosty phrases rape your ears and sow the ice incision
Adjectives of annihilation, bury the point beyond redemption
Venomous verbs of ruthless candor, plagiarize assassin's fervor
Apocalyptic alphabet casting spell, the creed of tempered diction
My friend, your friend the assassin
A friend in need is a friend that bleeds
A friend in need is a friend that bleeds
Let bitter silence infect the wound
Let bitter silence infect your wound
I am the assassin
I am the assassin
I am the assassin
Assassin
You are a sentimental mercenary in a free fire zone
Parading a Hollywood conscience
You were a fashionable objector with a uniform fetish
Pavlovian slaver at the cash till the ring of success
A non com observer, I assassin the collector
Defector
So you resigned yourself to failure, my friend
And I emerged the chilling stranger, my friend
To eradicate the problem, my friend
Unsheathe the blade within the voice
Within the voice, within the voice, within the voice
And what do you call assassins
Who accuse assassins anyway, my friend?”
(Credit to Marillion, for an awesome song)
Rasmus Dragonborn an affable enough fella and a Paladin to boot , although greatly deluded as he thinks he was hatched, that’s right hatched as if, a human could be born from an egg. He really doesn’t understand that human mammals are born, live from the placenta, yummy!! Where would the world be if we could change how we are born? Think about this, if he came from an egg, where did the egg come from, eh? Tell me that, where did the bloody egg come from!! A ruddy great chicken!!!
Breathe,
Breathe,
And relax….
He has long golden hair and from the back looks like a woman, he does tend to look after his appearance rather more than most, I believe they call it metrosexual, but who am I to cast aspersions on his nature. He has a loathing for Demons, and that is the one thing you need to know about Rasmus. Do not, not ever, not even a little bit, not even the slightest, not even the merest mention of a demon lest you be sat there for a good eight (sometimes more) hours of demonology, the best way to kill each type, and what they taste like. Now when we see a demon one of us has to say “Look at that horned insert name of natural creature Cat, my how very dangerous it looks. Take that kitty and that ohh a breath weapon how about that for feline cunning” and such like. Never ever, ever mention the “D” word
Meerevus Snage, (Brian as I like to call him) a Cleric like no other, he like our Paladin does not believe in healing, he will do so but begrudgingly, but he does believe in stuffing his face and grabbing what he can, when he can. This is from his days travelling the “Red Wastes” which sounds more foreboding than it actually is. He tells tale of a Magician healing him from a childhood illness, and has an interesting looking birthmark that looks a bit, and I mean a bit, like a dragon scale. He has long brown hair and a nose so long and pointy it is not natural
Nor is Brian the talkative type, he does not go in for long soliloquies or monologues (we have Rasmus talking about demons for that) I once heard him tell his back story thusly:
Born, got ill, magician, dragon scale, parents died, travelled the Red Waste, here. If all he uttered could be bounded in a nutshell, he could count himself a king of infinite space.
He does have a strong sense of justice however. This I shall remember long after I am dead, we infiltrated a bandits camp, with the idea of killing them for a few reasons
a) These are bad people, the kind that would steal a child’s sweets and laugh about it.
b) The kind who would place a burning bag of poo on your doorstep, and then knock.
c) They were terrorising villages, but by the time we arrived there was nothing left to steal and Hurl can testify to that.
d) We were being paid to do so
The normally not talkative Brian, goes into the camp and starts talking to them, asking questions but really leading questions like “Hey, you don’t look tough, I bet you don’t even have a wanted poster” and then with bravado they would show him, funnily enough they were the only ones who survived that night.
Then we have Karl Dreghorn, a more pitiful life has never existed, I dare anyone to listen to this tale of woe and not reach for a hanky. He is barely a Dwarf, I say so because he was captured by the Drow. Captured, held captive, tortured, beaten, lived on scraps, for fifty years, which must have been hell. They removed fingers, an eye, and as far as he is aware all the time asking questions he did not understand let alone have the answers for. Much of this Dwarf was left in those cells, and what stands before us is a hardy resilient creature, but a little unhinged. A more fierce and loyal friend you could not ask for, well you could and it’s called a familiar but anyhoo….
Karl jumps at the slightest sound and is afraid of the dark, mistrusts beds and clean sheets, and food that is not rotten or tainted in some way. However I and I am not 100% sure about this, I swear he has the patch over the other eye sometimes, I could swear it moves.
Then there is me of course, the natural born leader of this rag tag bunch, Gandolt The Magnificent (so good the “T” in the is a capital) I am a homunculus and it is true I do get carried around by a mechanical man, but anything else you heard is not, unless it was about me being brave or doing something heroic then it’s all true. I was never in that back alley with that genetically mutated centaur (the body of a woman but the head of a horse) ahem! Yes me who radiates more power, than the Archmage.
Enough about me I could go on all day.
So we met with Mr Goldman who had a small job for us to perform. His client the Archmage has an issue with one of his prison towers in the North East, the wards are failing and he needs me to reinforce his sloppy magic. The Archmage even sent instructions on how to do it. But I have cast my eye over it and believe that I can improve upon this and the Archmage has stolen
Sorry Stolen? Stolen what precisely your ideas?
What is going on, where did that come from?
You were belittling me
Who me, I don’t think
Precisely you don’t think
Listen here buddy boy, this is my text and you shouldn’t be butting in on it
And you shouldn’t be saying things about me that aren’t true, so how were you going to improve upon my spell.
Errr, stop bullying me in my own literary genius
I would hard call it genius and it is only literary because it contains words
Right I’ve had just about…
That makes two of us Gandolt, I’m watching you
I don’t even have you as an icon
I know and how rude of you especially since the ones you do have don’t like you either. Bye bye
The Archmage’s spells will suffice for the task at hand.
We left in the morning after a decent feast, and Brian had filled his pockets with leftovers. We have decided to go through the Blasted Wastes, as the other way is longer and is for little girls.
Nothing worthy of note happened till we arrived at the edge of the Blasted Waste.
It is like nothing I have ever seen before and the tales of it weirdness do it no justice at all. On the one side is rich arable land and wall of white mist obscures vision through, but it is a simple matter to put your head through and see a bleak tundra where little grows, the air is stale and cool. We are just marvelling at this when a man with a clip board approaches us.
I hasten to add nothing good has ever happened when a man with a clip board does anything.
“Names?”
“Why replies Hurl”
“So we know who has died and who to notify of your deaths, should you not make it through to the otherside” says the man.
“Does that happen a lot?” asks Brian
“More often than you would think”.
“No need for me, no one would mourn my passing” says a despondent Karl
“I’d miss you buddy” I reply trying to lighten the mood
“Yes, but you’d be dead with me”
“Not necessarily, I may survive where you perish and then I would be sad, and all I would have to remember you by is your eye patch.”
“If I died you would take my eye patch?”
“Yeah, it is one of your most distinguishing features, as by its very nature it is there, where as many of your other distinguishing features are distinguishing because of their absence.”
“But my eye patch, surely my sword”
“Yeah because I look like I could wield a sword that size”
“No, I just mean it is like my calling card, it is what I do”
“So you don’t do an eye patch”
“I do”
“Well as fascinating as this is gentleman and baby, still going to need your names” says the man impatiently banging his board.
“I’m Dave, this is Dennis, the woman with her back to you is Dean, the man making a fashion statement for the Goths of this world is Darren and that there, yeah the one with the face that scares children he is Dick and is an honouree member of the five D’s”
“Dave, Dennis, Dean, Darren and Richard”
“We have to call him Dick otherwise we would be the four D’s and one R”
“But his name is Richard.”
“One man’s Rich is another man’s Dick”
All that sorted we head off into the “Blasted Waste”, which at its first appearance is not as scary as it sounds.
An uneventful first day for us, but we did not get much sleep, Karl is the only one who appears to like it here as the sun never sets so it never gets dark, there is a distinct lack of beds and clean sheets, and we are eating rations.
The next morning we are travelling when a large Lizard erupts from the ground, I hit it with Magic Missile and move up Rasmus hits it as does Hurl and Karl. Brian is building up to something good.
The ground trembles and another of these beasts appears behind me, I clap my hands together blowing the creature back and make my retreat. The party split to fight the two, the first one moves and strikes me and the ground opened to reveal a third creature. It bites me before I can react and my last thought before I am knocked out is they went for the one they were most afraid of first.
I woke up and Chrono is defending me, I get back up and get knocked down again, this time I feel a healing wave as Brian has cast magic over me, I survive the next attack and cast a lightning bolt as two of the creatures fall, leaving just the one. This is made short work of by Karl and Rasmus.