Hook, Line and Anchor - Varga - 7/12
Dec 10, 2021 13:27:09 GMT
Jamie J, Jaezred Vandree, and 3 more like this
Post by Varga on Dec 10, 2021 13:27:09 GMT
An old truth and a new lens
No adventures, no gardeners, only vengeance.
When I was younger, I was told that if you avenge someone from your raiding party, their soul rejoices in the Infinite Battlefield of Acheron. So I was pretty excited when got a summon along with everyone else by the Mage Lady, name's Aurelia I think. We were told that the guy who killed Faust, Langston Farstep, and Jack, a mechanical thing of sorts, decided to harvest the arrow Correllon shot at Lolth, and become gods. Machines, gods, and criminals... People who already got caught once, using devices that are held together by sheer force of luck and accident, trying to get unlimited power – nothing could go right there. Fine with me, been a while since I bashed anything to death.
I already felt the excitement and rage boil in my heart – I've been looking forward to getting even with that bastard Farstep, who, to add to all his sins, was an utter coward, always running away from a proper fight.
Our group was sent to Shadowfell. Nice place. No bright colors, very dim and drab. Everyone else immediately felt down, maybe they prefer Feywild. I felt great. We met another queen. A proper one this time. Other queens I've met are all prissy, expect everyone to bow while they stand around looking pretty. You want me to bow – slay a horde in front of me! I ain't bowing to any tall lady with impractical long hair. This one went to battle with us, had a sword, no shield or armor, and made Yinmaris, Levuka and Derthaad into shadow abominations. That's a proper leader for you!
We went up to the machine. It was surrounded by drones, like the ones Primus makes, only weirder, so double weird. They were making up a shield around the main machine that did... something to a giant glowing arrow. We were told it's dangerous cause more experienced adventurers came here before and faced a shadow kraken. I didn't get that – if they were here before, that means they've killed everything interesting. Made it less dangerous or was I missing something?
The queen of air and darkness started breaking the shield. Very respectful, I'd start with the cowards, too. I made eye contact with one of the drones and showed it that as soon as the shield was down I was going to kill it. The shield went down, and the drone was so cowardly it also died in the explosion. Maybe I shouldn't have been so obvious.
Luckily three other drones survived. The queen and Yinmaris started hitting one, Levuka – another, and me and Derthaad – the third. Most of our hits were just glancing off of the metallic shells. There's a lesson there – never build something that will be too annoying to kill. Even a good pummeling of my flail only managed to sever a single limb. I turned to Sparks, who was the only magician in his normal form at this point, and growled: "Just focus on the machine. It seems we'll be here for a while." He nodded and ran to the machine, blasting the drones on his way.
The drones were really strange – they clearly wanted to die (otherwise why would the one we were fighting keep grappling me and preventing me from leaving?), but also didn't want to die quickly. Prolonging the agony. I'm not into that sort of thing. Anyway, after I hit, the queen managed to sever a limb from hers, too. I sensed some friendly competition. Always good for the morale of the raiding party. So I decided to stay with the drone and see who kills theirs first.
That turned out to be me. As we fought the drones, Levuka and Sparks climbed the machine and started cutting cords keeping it in together with special daggers that the queen gave us. Only those were really bad daggers – they fell apart after one use. So Levuka asked to borrow mine. She was a shadow beast at the moment, and I was being hit against Derthaad by the drone in a weird clapping motion (extremely embarrassing), but as soon as I stood back up, Levuka's dog ran up to me. I turned towards him, and he grabbed the dagger from my belt, threw it up, and Derthaad's familiar caught it, delivering it to the machine and cutting another rope.
After I finally cut my drone in half with the axe, I found myself staring at the marred steel. Ghesh gave me that axe. Helpful. We've just done an impressive feat of fighting as a group, even involving animals. Teamwork all round. I felt my rage… not subside, but freeze over, like a mountain lake that would thaw in spring to flood the valleys below.
There were still two drones left – one with the queen, and another going after the others, all of whom were already climbing the machine. On one hand, showing my meddle to the queen would be nice. But the drones hit hard, and nobody can take a hit like I can. And I've already lost a party member when dealing with Farstep. Perhaps there are things more important than a good kill sometimes. Sometimes.
I dashed towards the machine, and stood between Levuka and the last drone as she cut the final rope. The entire machine started collapsing, and we had to jump off of it, just in time for the queen to be done with her drone.
The final drone was crushed with the machine as it crumbled. The queen thanked us and offered us tattoos as a mark of her association. I didn't like the design, looked a bit feywild-y. But I liked the queen, so I accepted.
We returned back to Fort Ettin, where Coll said that all went well. Then Taz appeared with Farstep's body. Looked like Taz was doing fine even without his flail. Well, it serves me rather well. A Lady of Pain appeared to give us some nice daggers. Good loot today, overall. Coll offered everyone free drinks.
As I caught up with Kelne, and was listening to how they turned into a whale to knock something off a ledge (reasonable and excessive – the best kind of reasonable, overkill is just another type of kill, after all), my eyes caught on Farstep's coat and hat that were being paraded around before going to a special place reserved for relics of this sort at Fort Ettin.
When I was younger, I was told that if you avenge someone from your raiding party, their soul rejoices in the Infinite Battlefield of Acheron.
I doubt Faust, wherever he was, rejoiced at Farstep being dead. If anything, he probably rejoiced at the fact that nobody else died on this mission, the old man could never read the room. And maybe it was just my new ring, but I felt warmer at that thought and the memory.
I thought I'd be more emotional. Perhaps I'm getting old myself. A 25-year old orc is not exactly a blooming youth. I thought I'd be upset at not being the one to kill Farstep. But I wasn't. I didn't feel the boiling rage of the fight, or the excitement of the battle, or the glee of bringing death to those who are too weak to fight. But I was content that the right thing got done, and that I helped. And that feeling was somehow more cathartic than the white-hot hatred I felt only that morning.
Perhaps that's what they mean when saying that revenge is best served cold.
No adventures, no gardeners, only vengeance.
When I was younger, I was told that if you avenge someone from your raiding party, their soul rejoices in the Infinite Battlefield of Acheron. So I was pretty excited when got a summon along with everyone else by the Mage Lady, name's Aurelia I think. We were told that the guy who killed Faust, Langston Farstep, and Jack, a mechanical thing of sorts, decided to harvest the arrow Correllon shot at Lolth, and become gods. Machines, gods, and criminals... People who already got caught once, using devices that are held together by sheer force of luck and accident, trying to get unlimited power – nothing could go right there. Fine with me, been a while since I bashed anything to death.
I already felt the excitement and rage boil in my heart – I've been looking forward to getting even with that bastard Farstep, who, to add to all his sins, was an utter coward, always running away from a proper fight.
Our group was sent to Shadowfell. Nice place. No bright colors, very dim and drab. Everyone else immediately felt down, maybe they prefer Feywild. I felt great. We met another queen. A proper one this time. Other queens I've met are all prissy, expect everyone to bow while they stand around looking pretty. You want me to bow – slay a horde in front of me! I ain't bowing to any tall lady with impractical long hair. This one went to battle with us, had a sword, no shield or armor, and made Yinmaris, Levuka and Derthaad into shadow abominations. That's a proper leader for you!
We went up to the machine. It was surrounded by drones, like the ones Primus makes, only weirder, so double weird. They were making up a shield around the main machine that did... something to a giant glowing arrow. We were told it's dangerous cause more experienced adventurers came here before and faced a shadow kraken. I didn't get that – if they were here before, that means they've killed everything interesting. Made it less dangerous or was I missing something?
The queen of air and darkness started breaking the shield. Very respectful, I'd start with the cowards, too. I made eye contact with one of the drones and showed it that as soon as the shield was down I was going to kill it. The shield went down, and the drone was so cowardly it also died in the explosion. Maybe I shouldn't have been so obvious.
Luckily three other drones survived. The queen and Yinmaris started hitting one, Levuka – another, and me and Derthaad – the third. Most of our hits were just glancing off of the metallic shells. There's a lesson there – never build something that will be too annoying to kill. Even a good pummeling of my flail only managed to sever a single limb. I turned to Sparks, who was the only magician in his normal form at this point, and growled: "Just focus on the machine. It seems we'll be here for a while." He nodded and ran to the machine, blasting the drones on his way.
The drones were really strange – they clearly wanted to die (otherwise why would the one we were fighting keep grappling me and preventing me from leaving?), but also didn't want to die quickly. Prolonging the agony. I'm not into that sort of thing. Anyway, after I hit, the queen managed to sever a limb from hers, too. I sensed some friendly competition. Always good for the morale of the raiding party. So I decided to stay with the drone and see who kills theirs first.
That turned out to be me. As we fought the drones, Levuka and Sparks climbed the machine and started cutting cords keeping it in together with special daggers that the queen gave us. Only those were really bad daggers – they fell apart after one use. So Levuka asked to borrow mine. She was a shadow beast at the moment, and I was being hit against Derthaad by the drone in a weird clapping motion (extremely embarrassing), but as soon as I stood back up, Levuka's dog ran up to me. I turned towards him, and he grabbed the dagger from my belt, threw it up, and Derthaad's familiar caught it, delivering it to the machine and cutting another rope.
After I finally cut my drone in half with the axe, I found myself staring at the marred steel. Ghesh gave me that axe. Helpful. We've just done an impressive feat of fighting as a group, even involving animals. Teamwork all round. I felt my rage… not subside, but freeze over, like a mountain lake that would thaw in spring to flood the valleys below.
There were still two drones left – one with the queen, and another going after the others, all of whom were already climbing the machine. On one hand, showing my meddle to the queen would be nice. But the drones hit hard, and nobody can take a hit like I can. And I've already lost a party member when dealing with Farstep. Perhaps there are things more important than a good kill sometimes. Sometimes.
I dashed towards the machine, and stood between Levuka and the last drone as she cut the final rope. The entire machine started collapsing, and we had to jump off of it, just in time for the queen to be done with her drone.
The final drone was crushed with the machine as it crumbled. The queen thanked us and offered us tattoos as a mark of her association. I didn't like the design, looked a bit feywild-y. But I liked the queen, so I accepted.
We returned back to Fort Ettin, where Coll said that all went well. Then Taz appeared with Farstep's body. Looked like Taz was doing fine even without his flail. Well, it serves me rather well. A Lady of Pain appeared to give us some nice daggers. Good loot today, overall. Coll offered everyone free drinks.
As I caught up with Kelne, and was listening to how they turned into a whale to knock something off a ledge (reasonable and excessive – the best kind of reasonable, overkill is just another type of kill, after all), my eyes caught on Farstep's coat and hat that were being paraded around before going to a special place reserved for relics of this sort at Fort Ettin.
When I was younger, I was told that if you avenge someone from your raiding party, their soul rejoices in the Infinite Battlefield of Acheron.
I doubt Faust, wherever he was, rejoiced at Farstep being dead. If anything, he probably rejoiced at the fact that nobody else died on this mission, the old man could never read the room. And maybe it was just my new ring, but I felt warmer at that thought and the memory.
I thought I'd be more emotional. Perhaps I'm getting old myself. A 25-year old orc is not exactly a blooming youth. I thought I'd be upset at not being the one to kill Farstep. But I wasn't. I didn't feel the boiling rage of the fight, or the excitement of the battle, or the glee of bringing death to those who are too weak to fight. But I was content that the right thing got done, and that I helped. And that feeling was somehow more cathartic than the white-hot hatred I felt only that morning.
Perhaps that's what they mean when saying that revenge is best served cold.
. 
