Kantas Journal I - Imp - (A Test of Compre-hen-sion 14/01)
Jan 17, 2020 11:58:43 GMT
Milo Brightmane, Markas Virnala, and 2 more like this
Post by Imp (Dan L) on Jan 17, 2020 11:58:43 GMT
Journal - Kantas I
Look, I’d be the first to admit when I’ve made a mistake. Alright, that’s not strictly true. My tutors and fellow scholars were always happy to be the first to point out when I’d made an errant calculation or one of my spells didn’t take. Yes, coming to Kantas has all the makings of a classic mistake - the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, an encounter I was completely unprepared for, and so on - but I need to let it play out. If you’re sitting on your arse safely casting Prestidigitation in a classroom, the only thing you’re going to get really good at is casting Prestidigitation. You may also get piles, which no amount of Lesser Restoration is going to help.
I mean, today nearly became my magnum opus of fuck-ups, my raison d’etre, the biggest cock-up of all: I nearly died. Sing it from the rooftops. Actually don’t. It’s a bit embarrassing.
I’ve had brushes with death before, of course. Who hasn’t? I once ate a cheese rind that must have been older than some of the newer students, and spent the evening retching into a chamberpot and convulsing on my mattress. I had no misgivings about being a battle-hardened warrior, no delusions of any tactical nous or prodigal warmongering, but I thought I’d be more… useful. It turns out that illusion magic that’s made to distract and deceive isn’t particularly useful when you’re faced with zealots made of pure fire that are a force of will incarnate.
I’ve always considered illusions a form of purity, a trick of the light manifest through the Weave, the not-real made very-real, as fleeting as the wind and as permanent as the earth. I realise now - or rather, I realised as soon as a fire-monk threw a throwing star into my head - that there is no greater purity in life than hitting something really, really hard. In a way I’m envious of those whose only spell is the common cantrip “Hit man with sword.” The simplicity is to be both sought and feared.
What I’m saying here, I guess, is that you don’t realise how useless you are until you’re knocked unconscious and you have to be revived by a tiefling shadier than a back-alley dealer and twice as charming. His name was ‘Mace’, although I heard someone call him ‘Menace’, which is either his nom de guerre or his actual name. I’m not sure which one is more unerring. Charming guy.
For the purposes of this as a ‘journal’ and not the sad ramblings of a lost scholar and self-proclaimed meandering bastard of the highest order:
I got lost in a very strange forest.
I found some very strange people:
Mace (see above)
Milo, a dwarf blessed (cursed?) by a phoenix
Wil, a very… intense guy dressed in all black that smelled faintly of fish
and a very capable eldritch fighter in a very tight catsuit
We went into the Feywild.
We met fire-zealots that tried to kill us.
I hallucinated a postwoman.
I nearly died.
We managed to kill all the fire-zealots.
I can’t promise this isn’t all just a hallucination caused by residual teleportation magic. I can’t promise that half my neurons weren’t teleported somewhere else entirely, and that this is all the result of some arcane neuroplasticity rewiring my brain, sending out arcane axons in every direction like fireworks in a café. But, assuming that it’s real (what else can I assume? That I’m three-plus sandwiches and a sausage roll short of a picnic, and that I’m actually confined inside a sanitarium, and I may as well treat this hallucination as dreamworld playground? Can’t do that, because it would be terribly embarrassing if I were mistaken. I guess the real defence against encroaching madness is shared decorum) I need to get better at defending people.
Up until the point that I spluttered back to life and managed to paralyse one of the fire-people laying into Milo, I’d only managed to levitate a monk. Levitate? The first-year spell? I’d say my wits left me, but the truth is that I was paralysed with fear. I even threw a firebolt. A firebolt. At fire people. I was lucky that my first foray into proper magical combat was with such a capable party, or I’d be an ex-Imp.
I wanted to escape, be free of the shackles of academia and the expectations of a parentage that are either missing or dead, but you can’t do that if you’re charred to death on a different plane of existence. Here lies Imp, part time scholar, full time kebab. Lower me to the ground in a flatbread. Gods, I’m hungry.
Look, I’d be the first to admit when I’ve made a mistake. Alright, that’s not strictly true. My tutors and fellow scholars were always happy to be the first to point out when I’d made an errant calculation or one of my spells didn’t take. Yes, coming to Kantas has all the makings of a classic mistake - the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, an encounter I was completely unprepared for, and so on - but I need to let it play out. If you’re sitting on your arse safely casting Prestidigitation in a classroom, the only thing you’re going to get really good at is casting Prestidigitation. You may also get piles, which no amount of Lesser Restoration is going to help.
I mean, today nearly became my magnum opus of fuck-ups, my raison d’etre, the biggest cock-up of all: I nearly died. Sing it from the rooftops. Actually don’t. It’s a bit embarrassing.
I’ve had brushes with death before, of course. Who hasn’t? I once ate a cheese rind that must have been older than some of the newer students, and spent the evening retching into a chamberpot and convulsing on my mattress. I had no misgivings about being a battle-hardened warrior, no delusions of any tactical nous or prodigal warmongering, but I thought I’d be more… useful. It turns out that illusion magic that’s made to distract and deceive isn’t particularly useful when you’re faced with zealots made of pure fire that are a force of will incarnate.
I’ve always considered illusions a form of purity, a trick of the light manifest through the Weave, the not-real made very-real, as fleeting as the wind and as permanent as the earth. I realise now - or rather, I realised as soon as a fire-monk threw a throwing star into my head - that there is no greater purity in life than hitting something really, really hard. In a way I’m envious of those whose only spell is the common cantrip “Hit man with sword.” The simplicity is to be both sought and feared.
What I’m saying here, I guess, is that you don’t realise how useless you are until you’re knocked unconscious and you have to be revived by a tiefling shadier than a back-alley dealer and twice as charming. His name was ‘Mace’, although I heard someone call him ‘Menace’, which is either his nom de guerre or his actual name. I’m not sure which one is more unerring. Charming guy.
For the purposes of this as a ‘journal’ and not the sad ramblings of a lost scholar and self-proclaimed meandering bastard of the highest order:
I got lost in a very strange forest.
I found some very strange people:
Mace (see above)
Milo, a dwarf blessed (cursed?) by a phoenix
Wil, a very… intense guy dressed in all black that smelled faintly of fish
and a very capable eldritch fighter in a very tight catsuit
We went into the Feywild.
We met fire-zealots that tried to kill us.
I hallucinated a postwoman.
I nearly died.
We managed to kill all the fire-zealots.
I can’t promise this isn’t all just a hallucination caused by residual teleportation magic. I can’t promise that half my neurons weren’t teleported somewhere else entirely, and that this is all the result of some arcane neuroplasticity rewiring my brain, sending out arcane axons in every direction like fireworks in a café. But, assuming that it’s real (what else can I assume? That I’m three-plus sandwiches and a sausage roll short of a picnic, and that I’m actually confined inside a sanitarium, and I may as well treat this hallucination as dreamworld playground? Can’t do that, because it would be terribly embarrassing if I were mistaken. I guess the real defence against encroaching madness is shared decorum) I need to get better at defending people.
Up until the point that I spluttered back to life and managed to paralyse one of the fire-people laying into Milo, I’d only managed to levitate a monk. Levitate? The first-year spell? I’d say my wits left me, but the truth is that I was paralysed with fear. I even threw a firebolt. A firebolt. At fire people. I was lucky that my first foray into proper magical combat was with such a capable party, or I’d be an ex-Imp.
I wanted to escape, be free of the shackles of academia and the expectations of a parentage that are either missing or dead, but you can’t do that if you’re charred to death on a different plane of existence. Here lies Imp, part time scholar, full time kebab. Lower me to the ground in a flatbread. Gods, I’m hungry.
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