The Tower of Dissent - Glint - 17/08/21
Aug 21, 2021 10:26:02 GMT
LukeJ Kantas DM, Merla, the Daughter of Summer, and 2 more like this
Post by Varga on Aug 21, 2021 10:26:02 GMT
Dearest Sunshine,
How have you been? Well, I hope. Do tell me of your exploits, I am in need of good entertainment!
I myself am working diligently on my research at Daring Academy. Don't laugh, I'm actually doing some work! Lately, I've been even rather fascinated by a book. And before you ask – no, it's a book about plants.
But not everything is a bed of coals for me here, in this new land. Only the other day, I came across a man crying his eyes out and drinking himself into a stupor. It was a local blacksmith. His son, Arthur, was missing, the man believed him to be kidnapped by goblins. I wouldn't look further into it, but my more worldly companions got a bit more information out of the man. He was clearly planning to leave his smithy to his son, but the boy's willingness to take over was… unclear from his father's words. You can probably already imagine how I felt about meddling in this, but we were asked by the merchants to put the smithy back on track, so there we went.
And weren't we a sight to behold! We tracked the boy to a large dilapidated tower. I sent my familiar to have a look at it, and, true enough, there were goblins. Unfortunately, the tower was on the other side of a large clearing, about half a mile from us, and there was no way for us to approach it discreetly through the clearing. Why didn't we just walk around it? Sunshine, if you are asking this question now, you know nothing of the life of an adventurer. We came up with a rather cunning plan. Alces, the only druid in our group, made a thick patch of fog, we all took cover in it, and I was edging it slowly across the clearing with gusts of wind. When I tell it like that, you might even think it was almost discreet. But imagine for a moment what goblins saw: a huge cloud moving in 10-foot-long jerks, uttering mashav!* with increasing annoyance, and a fiery-red pigmy owl maniacally circling 30 feet above it. I was surprised they haven't opened fire on us immediately.
They were merciful enough to notify us of our failure not a hundred feet into the clearing: they rang a gong and closed their portcullis. We kept our charade going just to save face. Well, at least they didn't know what was attacking them! We came up to the door, and Alces touched the stone wall with their staff. Flowers bloomed out of it, strong vines dislodging the gates immediately. We haven't made one step inside the tower when we saw the lever that would have opened the gates. It was less than a foot away from the entrance. We could have easily reached inside if our own fog cloud wasn't blocking our view.
As we descended down the stairs, we found nothing interesting in the tower's foundation other than a goblet with some offerings and words in Draconic on it. We decided to leave it until later, just in case it was enchanted. Never read Draconic in dark ominous-looking dungeons, it's just common sense. Our rangers led the way, and triggered a trap that was installed there. I consider myself a nimble person, but I was a bit envious looking at how nonchalantly Angier side-stepped a bloodied scythe falling on him from the ceiling and helped Sorrel around it, as if they were avoiding a puddle on a summer day.
We reached a bigger hall shortly. There was a hobgoblin, surrounded by goblins, and a heavily-armored Arthur with them. It became quite clear to us that the young man was there voluntarily. Before we could start a conversation, Angier and Sorrel started shooting everything in sight. I swear they seemed rather nice when we first met, I would expect such bloodlust from an orc, or from some of our own relatives, not from a couple of elves! Alces barely had the time to turn into a giant elk and pick Arthur up. Breeze, our handsome bard (you'd find a kindred spirit in him, I'm sure!) put a couple of goblins to sleep with a spell of his own, yet most of them remained awake.
Now that I think of them, the goblins were remarkably accommodating towards a group of people who have just besieged their home in a fart cloud, vandalized the door, barged in on their meeting, kidnapped their ally, and were in the process of turning them into arrow cushions for no better reason than that it was a slow day in the city.
While Kelne, our cheerful Halfling cleric, managed to charm Arthur into at least going with us, the scene was very quickly turning rather horrid. A couple of goblins tried to shoot us, and were immediately exploded by Angier with swarms of insects, just like in some of those fiction stories they tell about Zakharan tombs and mummies. Sorrel killed another one, and I realized that with such powerful fighters, it was a matter of minutes before the scenes from my past would repeat themselves. All I could do to prevent it was to jump in front of our party and with something unintelligible along the lines of 'a million apologies, I'm trying to help you, really, it's complicated!' put the hobgoblin and his minion to sleep with a spell.
We ran away, not before adding pilferage to the list of our misdeeds (it was mostly Kelne, but I did get a very nice pearl out of that goblet). If these goblins learned anything from their interaction with us, they won't go anywhere near Daring Heights anytime soon, no doubt believing it to be an asylum for dangerous lunatics with an open-doors policy.
However amusing you might find my blunders, it's been a while since I saw so many deaths at once. I hoped I wouldn't have to see them again after joining the college. So I was understandably misty-eyed on our way back to the city. On route, Arthur, still under Kelne's charm (which I have no doubt would have held even if she dropped the spell, I'm sure they'd get on like a house on fire, both of them being young rascals), told us that he ran away because he wanted to do something other than smithing, and his father was having none of that. I don't know if it was the trauma of the day, or the memories of my own youth that were so similar in sentiment, if not exactly matching in the parties involved, but I gave the blacksmith a rather more heartfelt putdown than I intended. In fact, I all but begged him to just talk to his son. I saw that I had an effect on him, although whether it was my little speech that got to his sensibilities, or a sight of a grown man crying after seeing several corpses made him understand what life could hold for his son - that I don't know. Nor did I care to ask, for I left shortly after. I kept the reward money, although more out of necessity than desire – scrolls aren't cheap.
I'm sorry if I put a damper on your day with this story, hopefully you've had a couple of good laughs at my expense, little Sunshine. But it made me think of you, and so I wrote you this letter. Feel free to retell it back home, maybe just leave out the more upsetting parts.
Anyway, you can see I am currently in desperate need for a change of pace, and so I'm planning to spend a couple of days on pleasurable nonsense. And then there is still that book I need to sort out. I heard there's a knowledgeable researcher of herbs and plants here in Kantas, perhaps I shall go to see him one of these days. And with that, I should probably go before they leave for a shopping tour without me.
I remain, as always,
Your favorite idiot,
Glint.
*Glint's spells are all in Primordial
How have you been? Well, I hope. Do tell me of your exploits, I am in need of good entertainment!
I myself am working diligently on my research at Daring Academy. Don't laugh, I'm actually doing some work! Lately, I've been even rather fascinated by a book. And before you ask – no, it's a book about plants.
But not everything is a bed of coals for me here, in this new land. Only the other day, I came across a man crying his eyes out and drinking himself into a stupor. It was a local blacksmith. His son, Arthur, was missing, the man believed him to be kidnapped by goblins. I wouldn't look further into it, but my more worldly companions got a bit more information out of the man. He was clearly planning to leave his smithy to his son, but the boy's willingness to take over was… unclear from his father's words. You can probably already imagine how I felt about meddling in this, but we were asked by the merchants to put the smithy back on track, so there we went.
And weren't we a sight to behold! We tracked the boy to a large dilapidated tower. I sent my familiar to have a look at it, and, true enough, there were goblins. Unfortunately, the tower was on the other side of a large clearing, about half a mile from us, and there was no way for us to approach it discreetly through the clearing. Why didn't we just walk around it? Sunshine, if you are asking this question now, you know nothing of the life of an adventurer. We came up with a rather cunning plan. Alces, the only druid in our group, made a thick patch of fog, we all took cover in it, and I was edging it slowly across the clearing with gusts of wind. When I tell it like that, you might even think it was almost discreet. But imagine for a moment what goblins saw: a huge cloud moving in 10-foot-long jerks, uttering mashav!* with increasing annoyance, and a fiery-red pigmy owl maniacally circling 30 feet above it. I was surprised they haven't opened fire on us immediately.
They were merciful enough to notify us of our failure not a hundred feet into the clearing: they rang a gong and closed their portcullis. We kept our charade going just to save face. Well, at least they didn't know what was attacking them! We came up to the door, and Alces touched the stone wall with their staff. Flowers bloomed out of it, strong vines dislodging the gates immediately. We haven't made one step inside the tower when we saw the lever that would have opened the gates. It was less than a foot away from the entrance. We could have easily reached inside if our own fog cloud wasn't blocking our view.
As we descended down the stairs, we found nothing interesting in the tower's foundation other than a goblet with some offerings and words in Draconic on it. We decided to leave it until later, just in case it was enchanted. Never read Draconic in dark ominous-looking dungeons, it's just common sense. Our rangers led the way, and triggered a trap that was installed there. I consider myself a nimble person, but I was a bit envious looking at how nonchalantly Angier side-stepped a bloodied scythe falling on him from the ceiling and helped Sorrel around it, as if they were avoiding a puddle on a summer day.
We reached a bigger hall shortly. There was a hobgoblin, surrounded by goblins, and a heavily-armored Arthur with them. It became quite clear to us that the young man was there voluntarily. Before we could start a conversation, Angier and Sorrel started shooting everything in sight. I swear they seemed rather nice when we first met, I would expect such bloodlust from an orc, or from some of our own relatives, not from a couple of elves! Alces barely had the time to turn into a giant elk and pick Arthur up. Breeze, our handsome bard (you'd find a kindred spirit in him, I'm sure!) put a couple of goblins to sleep with a spell of his own, yet most of them remained awake.
Now that I think of them, the goblins were remarkably accommodating towards a group of people who have just besieged their home in a fart cloud, vandalized the door, barged in on their meeting, kidnapped their ally, and were in the process of turning them into arrow cushions for no better reason than that it was a slow day in the city.
While Kelne, our cheerful Halfling cleric, managed to charm Arthur into at least going with us, the scene was very quickly turning rather horrid. A couple of goblins tried to shoot us, and were immediately exploded by Angier with swarms of insects, just like in some of those fiction stories they tell about Zakharan tombs and mummies. Sorrel killed another one, and I realized that with such powerful fighters, it was a matter of minutes before the scenes from my past would repeat themselves. All I could do to prevent it was to jump in front of our party and with something unintelligible along the lines of 'a million apologies, I'm trying to help you, really, it's complicated!' put the hobgoblin and his minion to sleep with a spell.
We ran away, not before adding pilferage to the list of our misdeeds (it was mostly Kelne, but I did get a very nice pearl out of that goblet). If these goblins learned anything from their interaction with us, they won't go anywhere near Daring Heights anytime soon, no doubt believing it to be an asylum for dangerous lunatics with an open-doors policy.
However amusing you might find my blunders, it's been a while since I saw so many deaths at once. I hoped I wouldn't have to see them again after joining the college. So I was understandably misty-eyed on our way back to the city. On route, Arthur, still under Kelne's charm (which I have no doubt would have held even if she dropped the spell, I'm sure they'd get on like a house on fire, both of them being young rascals), told us that he ran away because he wanted to do something other than smithing, and his father was having none of that. I don't know if it was the trauma of the day, or the memories of my own youth that were so similar in sentiment, if not exactly matching in the parties involved, but I gave the blacksmith a rather more heartfelt putdown than I intended. In fact, I all but begged him to just talk to his son. I saw that I had an effect on him, although whether it was my little speech that got to his sensibilities, or a sight of a grown man crying after seeing several corpses made him understand what life could hold for his son - that I don't know. Nor did I care to ask, for I left shortly after. I kept the reward money, although more out of necessity than desire – scrolls aren't cheap.
I'm sorry if I put a damper on your day with this story, hopefully you've had a couple of good laughs at my expense, little Sunshine. But it made me think of you, and so I wrote you this letter. Feel free to retell it back home, maybe just leave out the more upsetting parts.
Anyway, you can see I am currently in desperate need for a change of pace, and so I'm planning to spend a couple of days on pleasurable nonsense. And then there is still that book I need to sort out. I heard there's a knowledgeable researcher of herbs and plants here in Kantas, perhaps I shall go to see him one of these days. And with that, I should probably go before they leave for a shopping tour without me.
I remain, as always,
Your favorite idiot,
Glint.
*Glint's spells are all in Primordial