The Two (Ivory) Towers (07/01/20)
Jan 11, 2020 18:55:36 GMT
Milo Brightmane, Markas Virnala, and 1 more like this
Post by BB on Jan 11, 2020 18:55:36 GMT
BB trudges up the familiar path into New Hillborrow, though the rains have ceased to be quite so overwhelming this past week or so, BB’s feet are still coated in a thick layer of mud. Blue is contentedly snuggled between BB’s cloak and the crook of her neck.
‘You know Blue, if you really want some peace and quiet, I can send you back home for a little bit’
A quiet and sleepy squawk comes from the bundle of magpie feathers.
‘Okay, okay, sorry for disturbing your nap’
Though apologising, she can’t help the grin that crosses her face.
As BB finally crosses the bridge and makes her way through town towards the flower field, waving to everyone she meets, a small group of halfling children that were waiting on the grass jump into action and run towards BB.
‘BB! BB! You’re back! We heard you went on another adventure, can you tell us what happened this time. We promise we’ll sit and listen quietly!’
‘I wonder where you heard that from? I hope you haven’t been waiting for me too much and making your parents wonder where you went’
‘Noooooo’
BB kneels down to get closer to eye level with the kids jumping around her.
‘Well if you pinky promise to sit quietly I’ll tell you about my adventure, and show you all the new ribbons I got for the shop’
As she says this the group erupts in whoops and shouts of ‘Pinky promise’ as they all lock pinkies with BB one by one, and then run full speed towards the flower shack. Blue zooms through the air above them all, making their own whooping sounds.
Once all inside the kids all settle on the gnome sized bed at the back of the shack while BB places her belongings on the table and gets the small wood burner going. Once finished she pulls up a chair facing the bed filled with expectant kids and gets started on her story.
This time I started in Daring Heights, at this building called the Daring Academy. It’s this new stone tower right in the middle of town full of smart people. Before I went inside I met up with Sheryl and Markas, but there were two ladies I hadn’t met before. One was Bubbles, she’s a very well dressed lady with immaculate hair, and there was Augustine, she had this super cool leaf tattoo on the side of her head. Both lovely people. So Markas strides in with us following behind, we tell one of the students who we are, they go off to find the people we’re meant to be escorting, and then we’re left to our own devices.
They had a great library, with books of all sorts of subjects, and as I’m looking for one for myself I notice Bones has been sitting in an armchair there the whole time! Guess he got there a bit early to read some books himself. I managed to find one on chaos magic and Limbo, I’m hoping it’s a good read.
By this point Aurelia came downstairs with one of the professors, a dwarven man named Professor Clubhead, and they introduce to us the student also coming with us, a halfling girl named Rosie Hoppensfield. Apparently they wanted to do an information exchange with the professors of Kul’Guran, help them understand what exactly happened at the end of the war with the fiery lights deep in the ground.
So off we go to the teleportation circle with Professor Clubhead and Rosie, and soon after we were rapidly approaching the meet up spot just outside Zut Goran in one of those cool land surfers. Once there we saw a bunch of heavily cloaked students and two more professors moving some sticks around in the ground, the heavily singed ground. These professors were Misty Strongroar and Gasp, and they were trying to reconstruct the image the mysterious fires had made in the ground. Hence the sticks. But because all the trenches that had appeared were now gone they only had eye witness accounts to use as information. They said they had to go allll across the country to get hundreds of accounts so that their reconstruction could be as accurate as possible. Sounds exhausting to me.
Because they were trying to get as many accounts as possible they also asked the members of our group who had been in the war lots of questions as well. Now at this point I tried to tell the professors that maybe they could have learned about the situation with the fiends and the fire in the ground beforehand if they had just communicated a bit more with everyone, like the giants and the elves. They didn’t seem that intrigued by that idea, but I couldn’t talk to them about it more because then Sheryl and Augustine reminded me that the ground was super scorched, so I got distracted by repopulating it with flowers.
Anyway, after some intense flower planting I was going to join Augustine on the edge of the field when suddenly a massive flock of harpies descend upon us! In a V-formation obviously. As they approached us I could hear them singing this eerie song, it had a beguiling magic to it which I managed to shrug off, but many of the researchers and even some of my friends didn’t. But this meant that Rosie ended up walking into the middle of the fray! Before I could march in and get her out of there, I noticed one of the researchers was approaching Sheryl with a knife in their hand! Now I know she’s very capable, but I wasn’t going to not help her, so I sent Blue over to go and get in the researchers face. Unfortunately this distracted me enough to not notice the intense magic song sent my way by the harpy matriarch, and I got stunned as I had a vision of my family giving me a big ol’ hug.
We managed to eventually stop the harpies with Augustine summoning a massive tree spirit with arms, Markas’s crazy fast weapon skills, Bones sending in long range fire, me sparking off some lightning, and Bubbles summoning a bloomin’ demon.
Now don’t worry, we didn’t forget about the researcher trying to stab Sheryl, we all made it very clear they weren’t getting away. Turns out Sheryl has mind reading magic and was able to find out there was actually two of them and they had been bribed by someone in the History department to sabotage the research. The professors were not happy at all and escorted those stump heads away.
Now with no more setbacks the research team were able to make some big progress in the next day or so, with our help as well. Seems the lines were a massive seal or lock in abyssal words, what they were a lock to we couldn’t figure out. It all made us quite nervous I must say.
Slightly shaking herself out her sombre tone, BB claps her hands together cheerfully.
‘Now who wants to look at the ribbons I got?’
Some kids jump off the bed and run to the table, others are too distracted trying to do their best impression of the demon and tree spirit in the story.
‘BB can we have some of the ribbon with flowers on please, I think Sheela Peryroyl would like it as a present’
‘Yes of course, I think it’s very nice of you to think of someone else first’
BB gets to work cutting up bits of ribbon and tying them on various wrists and heads, listening to the kids' own stories of what’s been happening in New Hillborrow, all with a big smile on her face.
Once the kids are satisfied with their choices of ribbon BB shuffles them out of the shack and sends them on their way back home. She leans on the outside wall as she waves them goodbye, their excited chatter fading into the distance.
Back inside she crouches down to retrieve an item she’s been hiding under the iron legs of the wood burner, it’s flickering green glow now illuminating her face.
‘Today I finally stopped having that draining sickly feeling, I think it’s a sign I can finally use this properly’
Blue, perched on her shoulder and also illuminated in green, nods their feathered head in affirmation.
‘Before we do, I’ll tell Ranulf I’m back again. And when we do this I think I’ll go far into the woods, I don’t want any of this coming back here, to home’
‘You know Blue, if you really want some peace and quiet, I can send you back home for a little bit’
A quiet and sleepy squawk comes from the bundle of magpie feathers.
‘Okay, okay, sorry for disturbing your nap’
Though apologising, she can’t help the grin that crosses her face.
As BB finally crosses the bridge and makes her way through town towards the flower field, waving to everyone she meets, a small group of halfling children that were waiting on the grass jump into action and run towards BB.
‘BB! BB! You’re back! We heard you went on another adventure, can you tell us what happened this time. We promise we’ll sit and listen quietly!’
‘I wonder where you heard that from? I hope you haven’t been waiting for me too much and making your parents wonder where you went’
‘Noooooo’
BB kneels down to get closer to eye level with the kids jumping around her.
‘Well if you pinky promise to sit quietly I’ll tell you about my adventure, and show you all the new ribbons I got for the shop’
As she says this the group erupts in whoops and shouts of ‘Pinky promise’ as they all lock pinkies with BB one by one, and then run full speed towards the flower shack. Blue zooms through the air above them all, making their own whooping sounds.
Once all inside the kids all settle on the gnome sized bed at the back of the shack while BB places her belongings on the table and gets the small wood burner going. Once finished she pulls up a chair facing the bed filled with expectant kids and gets started on her story.
--
This time I started in Daring Heights, at this building called the Daring Academy. It’s this new stone tower right in the middle of town full of smart people. Before I went inside I met up with Sheryl and Markas, but there were two ladies I hadn’t met before. One was Bubbles, she’s a very well dressed lady with immaculate hair, and there was Augustine, she had this super cool leaf tattoo on the side of her head. Both lovely people. So Markas strides in with us following behind, we tell one of the students who we are, they go off to find the people we’re meant to be escorting, and then we’re left to our own devices.
They had a great library, with books of all sorts of subjects, and as I’m looking for one for myself I notice Bones has been sitting in an armchair there the whole time! Guess he got there a bit early to read some books himself. I managed to find one on chaos magic and Limbo, I’m hoping it’s a good read.
By this point Aurelia came downstairs with one of the professors, a dwarven man named Professor Clubhead, and they introduce to us the student also coming with us, a halfling girl named Rosie Hoppensfield. Apparently they wanted to do an information exchange with the professors of Kul’Guran, help them understand what exactly happened at the end of the war with the fiery lights deep in the ground.
So off we go to the teleportation circle with Professor Clubhead and Rosie, and soon after we were rapidly approaching the meet up spot just outside Zut Goran in one of those cool land surfers. Once there we saw a bunch of heavily cloaked students and two more professors moving some sticks around in the ground, the heavily singed ground. These professors were Misty Strongroar and Gasp, and they were trying to reconstruct the image the mysterious fires had made in the ground. Hence the sticks. But because all the trenches that had appeared were now gone they only had eye witness accounts to use as information. They said they had to go allll across the country to get hundreds of accounts so that their reconstruction could be as accurate as possible. Sounds exhausting to me.
Because they were trying to get as many accounts as possible they also asked the members of our group who had been in the war lots of questions as well. Now at this point I tried to tell the professors that maybe they could have learned about the situation with the fiends and the fire in the ground beforehand if they had just communicated a bit more with everyone, like the giants and the elves. They didn’t seem that intrigued by that idea, but I couldn’t talk to them about it more because then Sheryl and Augustine reminded me that the ground was super scorched, so I got distracted by repopulating it with flowers.
Anyway, after some intense flower planting I was going to join Augustine on the edge of the field when suddenly a massive flock of harpies descend upon us! In a V-formation obviously. As they approached us I could hear them singing this eerie song, it had a beguiling magic to it which I managed to shrug off, but many of the researchers and even some of my friends didn’t. But this meant that Rosie ended up walking into the middle of the fray! Before I could march in and get her out of there, I noticed one of the researchers was approaching Sheryl with a knife in their hand! Now I know she’s very capable, but I wasn’t going to not help her, so I sent Blue over to go and get in the researchers face. Unfortunately this distracted me enough to not notice the intense magic song sent my way by the harpy matriarch, and I got stunned as I had a vision of my family giving me a big ol’ hug.
We managed to eventually stop the harpies with Augustine summoning a massive tree spirit with arms, Markas’s crazy fast weapon skills, Bones sending in long range fire, me sparking off some lightning, and Bubbles summoning a bloomin’ demon.
Now don’t worry, we didn’t forget about the researcher trying to stab Sheryl, we all made it very clear they weren’t getting away. Turns out Sheryl has mind reading magic and was able to find out there was actually two of them and they had been bribed by someone in the History department to sabotage the research. The professors were not happy at all and escorted those stump heads away.
Now with no more setbacks the research team were able to make some big progress in the next day or so, with our help as well. Seems the lines were a massive seal or lock in abyssal words, what they were a lock to we couldn’t figure out. It all made us quite nervous I must say.
Slightly shaking herself out her sombre tone, BB claps her hands together cheerfully.
‘Now who wants to look at the ribbons I got?’
Some kids jump off the bed and run to the table, others are too distracted trying to do their best impression of the demon and tree spirit in the story.
‘BB can we have some of the ribbon with flowers on please, I think Sheela Peryroyl would like it as a present’
‘Yes of course, I think it’s very nice of you to think of someone else first’
BB gets to work cutting up bits of ribbon and tying them on various wrists and heads, listening to the kids' own stories of what’s been happening in New Hillborrow, all with a big smile on her face.
--
Back inside she crouches down to retrieve an item she’s been hiding under the iron legs of the wood burner, it’s flickering green glow now illuminating her face.
‘Today I finally stopped having that draining sickly feeling, I think it’s a sign I can finally use this properly’
Blue, perched on her shoulder and also illuminated in green, nods their feathered head in affirmation.
‘Before we do, I’ll tell Ranulf I’m back again. And when we do this I think I’ll go far into the woods, I don’t want any of this coming back here, to home’
