Not All Who Wander Are Lost - 03/08/2023 - Mendal Recounts
Aug 6, 2023 21:41:34 GMT
levuka, Jaezred Vandree, and 2 more like this
Post by Andy D on Aug 6, 2023 21:41:34 GMT
The Day Before the Journey to the Court of Stone…
Kavel was using his goliath-heavy kettlebells in the courtyard while Archie sat with him, catching up on his reading.
“I’m back!” The boys heard the unmistakable voice of their housemate Mendal as he opened and then shut the front door. They could then hear him running around the ground floor as he loudly called for them.
“What does he want?” Kavel asked mid swing of a kettlebell.
“Oh we’ll find out soon,” Archie responded, turning the page of his book, “he’s got quite the pace on though, he must be excited about something.”
Mendal burst into the courtyard. “There you fucks are!” He said to his friends.
“Good day at the temple with the other clerics?” Archie enquired.
“What?!” Mendal was confused by the question. He had forgotten about his morning duty at the temple, as he was so eager to tell his friends about something else that had happened to him while out of the house. “Oh temple shit!” Mendal recalled. “Shite of course. Anyway, never mind that crap.”
What Mendal was referring to as ‘crap’ was the appearance he was obliged to make at a local temple in the Dwarven Quarter. Temple appearances by Mendal contributed to the respect the stout folk in the Dwarven Quarter had for him. You see, there was only so far the esteem the dwarves have for Clan Crafters, such as Mendal, would go. Mendal, despite his revered status as a Clan Crafter, had to keep himself busy to secure the accommodations he obtained for himself and his friends. Accordingly Mendal was expected by the locals to contribute his skills from time to time. Quite often he would help with mechanical repairs with his talent for tinkering. But, equally important, he was expected to make an appearance in the temple on a weekly basis. However, Mendal worked hard to avoid this element of his living arrangement - he turned up at best once a month at the temple and blamed his absences on ‘important adventuring business’. Mendal had never been keen on the priestly side of his clerical duties. ‘A cleric of Moradin forges!’ As he often said to his friends.
“Another one done, Archie. I’ll see how long I can leave until the next one,” Mendal said with the confidence that both his friends were on his side about his avoidant approach towards his temple duties. They were not.
“But anyway! I’m off to the Court of Stone tomorrow, and neither of you fucks are gonna deny me this like you did last time!” This, Mendal said with the confidence that his friends had disrespected his position as eldest in the house a few weeks ago. They had not disrespected Mendal, at least not by ordinary standards people might hold. Additionally, it had never been agreed by them that the eldest among them should be owed any form of tribute or deference. In truth, when dereference could truly be witnessed in the household, it was in direction to Archie, who coincidentally, when factoring in the differing humanoid lifespans among their racial differences, was in fact the eldest. More importantly, Archie was by leaps and bounds the most intelligent of the three friends. Although, when Mendal was being sensible, and less agitated by perceived disrespect, he could often be proved to be the wisest among the friends.
Archie closed his book and pinched the bridge of his nose before speaking to his wound up dwarven friend.. “Mendal… we’ve been over this. We simply thought your talents were better suited to Miss Seraphina’s excursion, and at the same time, it was mere coincidence that I happened to find an adventure to join that involved travelling to the Plane of Minerals. No one was intending to deny you the chance to obtain magical metals. And! Yes, there was mithril, but, as I told you, there was not enough for me to bring any back for you.”
“Well there’ll be no taking my rightful place this time!” Mendal fired back, as Archie slowly blinked in response. “It was your abjurer friend, Calla, who invited me. I told her you were too busy making spell scrolls to come along. Ha!”
“Well, that is true actually,” Archie admitted, “Lord Vandree’s Dimension Door scroll is the most powerful scroll I have yet to make, and it is taking a little longer than the other ones.”
“I could go Mendal?” Kavel suggested mid swing of his kettlebell.
“Fuck off you will! I’m going!” Mendal fired back. “Not enough tribute gets paid to me in this household. I’m the eldest!” Point made, Mendal turned around and headed to the kitchen for a bite to eat, and then to pack his gear for his forthcoming adventure.
It Was Just The One
It was the day after Mendal’s excursion to the Court of Stone and he was recounting the whole thing to his housemates, Kavel and Archie…
“When I woke up I didn’t know where the fuck I was! I looked around. Couldn’t see more than tall stone walls, and I had no idea how I got there. I thought to myself, ‘I’m sure I never drink that much travelling brandy - I couldn’t have passed out?’ And later, of course, I realised I was right - I had barely started on the other flask!”
“The other flask?” Archie thought to himself, unimpressed with his friend.
“But you were in a maze?” Kavel asked to check his picture of the story being recounted.
“Yes! Walls 20ft high and made of stone!” Mendel replied, happy to answer questions about his story. “At that point I could remember I went to Portal Plaza and met; Calla, Boosya, Levuka and Mittens - and that was about all I could remember. So, thinking they all might be about somewhere in this maze, I used the Thaumaturgy cantrip to augment my voice, so that when I spoke and said, “anyone else here? It’s me, Mendal!” The sound would boom out across the area.”
“Your voice booms already without magical enhancement,” Kavel said with a straight face, causing Archie to laugh lightly, Mendal too.
“You’re right!” Mendal said, agreeing with a smile, “but you know what? Something in the place was suppressing the sound, and not even thaumaturgy seemed to carry my voice above the walls. It was dark there too! You two,” Mendal pointed at his goliath and his human friends, “would have been blind as a bat there. Anyway, I shot up in the sky a nice, bright Sacred Flame to try and alert people to my presence - but that too was snuffed out! So, no way of shouting or signalling. So, I picked a direction and marched forward.”
Kavel wasn’t sure there was nothing left in Mendal’s repertoire that he could have tried. There’s one spell that Kavel was aware of, that for some reason Lord Moradin blessed Mendal with the ability to cast, even though Mendal’s application of said spell seemed to be constrained only towards pranking.
“Did you not try your Sending spell?” Kavel enquired, having been Mendal’s victim for a Sending prank many times before. You see, Mendal had once noticed that when he would use the Sending spell on Kavel from an adjacent room where he had line of sight on the goliath, Kavel would look around for the owner of the voice he heard in his head, as if the person was in the room. Mendal would then enter the room laughing, saying, “how many times do I have to do this for you to remember the voice is in your head, moron?!” After Kavel had acquired a pair of Sending Stones, and given one of the pair to Nathalie, so he could speak to her more easily across the Planes, Mendal had taken to casting the Sending spell to Kavel and pretending to be Nathalie with a not too convincing imitation of her voice, or indeed her character. Mendal had the decency to stop this prank after Kavel and Nathalie had to forsake their soul bond.
“Ha ha, yeah that spell, heh?” Mendal giggled in response to Kavel’s question.
“You didn’t have it prepared did you?” Archie enquired, certain of the answer.
“Of course I didn’t,” Mendal confirmed, not the least bit embarrassed. “It’s boring. Except when used for pranks. Boosya prepared it though! I discovered that later. But anyway, as I marched on, I didn’t want to accidentally retread my steps in this bloody maze, in case I got lost. Turns out, the others - who were indeed in the maze with me - had the same idea, and they marked their steps with magic or paint. I didn’t have anything like that to hand, so I just scratched the wall with my warhammer, until I came across a small clearing in the maze with a stone hand holding a large amethyst.”
Marked Presence
“So, I touched the stone, and some of my memories came back. I’d forgotten everything after meeting the others at Portal Plaza. I’d even forgotten telling Calla to not bother finding you the day before,” Mendal pointed at his human wizard friend, “I told her, ‘fuck him! You don’t need him for the Court of Stone, you need me.’” Mendal laughed remembering what he had said. Archie himself couldn’t help but smile recognising that what he had heard did sound very on brand for his dwarven friend.
“Turned out there were more of these stones!” Mendal continued, “Mittens found one, and I found another. Calla too also found one. I marked the ones I found with my chisel, and wrote on the plinths, ‘Mendal was here.’” Both of Mendal’s companions gave him a quizzical look.
“You hadn’t defaced the maze enough with all the wall marks with your warhammer?” Archie asked sarcastically.
“What?! I didn’t mark the hand of the stone, just the plinth! And anyway, it meant if one of my companions saw it, and I wasn’t there, they would at least be reassured by confirmation telling them that I was definitely in the maze with them.”
“Fair.” Both Archie and Kavel said, agreeing with Mendal.
“What did you learn then, with all the memories coming back?” Archie asked, curiously.
“Ah! Yes. So, we were in the Summer Court, and the Court of Stone was in a massive mountainous area. We could see where a primordial being had hit the mountains, and that’s where we went and found the Mountain Gate. Sacred ground or whatever. Apparently no one goes down there and comes back. We ended up in the Fey Underdark. Calla seems to be from around there, or a similar place. We came by a large city carved into an immensely huge mushroom about the size of Port Ffirst. Calla was extremely worried about asking for directions from a Drow group she was unfamiliar with. Whatever. No one died and we were given directions to the Amethyst Labyrinth, which is where Calla intended to go. As we entered, next thing I knew, I was all alone in the maze, asking myself whether I had had one too many travelling brandies. And I hadn’t! I remembered clearly that I had barely started the second flask!”
Fey God Stuff
“So, me and Levuka met up first, then Mittens and Boosya joined us, and Calla eventually we met as we all entered the centre of the maze,” Mendal paused and looked at Kavel, “by the way they all had some kind of familiar with them, Kavel.” Kavel gave Mendal an approving nod.
Both Mendal and Kavel share the view that it’s strange how any adventuring group always has a familiar in it. Or atleast, as far as they are concerned, any well put together party has a familiar. So, any group that does not have a familiar in it, is poorly put together, and likely the blame belongs with a caster. Both Mendal and Kavel have experienced, in their opinion, the most perplexing of situations where their adventuring party had not a single familiar.
Mendal continued with his story, “so there was a cavern of amethysts in the centre. Huge amethyst pillars went up to the ceiling, and the largest of amethyst was in the centre. Jackpot! Gem city!”
Archie tilted his head slightly, and was about to interject, but Mendal cut him off before he could. “Yes! I checked with Calla. She felt it was not right to take anything not given. Put a damp squib on my ideas how to get all the amethyst back without this one there to lift them,” Mendal pointed at Kavel. “Turns out all this amethyst is first primordial or para primordial stuff. We did make off with some gems, given to us, of course. Calla had this pretty well-made mithril plate that was enhanced by her patron, who seems to be the amethyst crater blighter themselves. The plate itself though, Calla says she made herself. Really well made to be fair. Would have been better of course had I been able to steer her work with my Clan Crafting guidance, but otherwise it was really good. And to your credit, old boy,” Mendal gestured a hand in Archie’s direction, “Calla also mentioned she did use all the mithril she found in the Plane of Minerals - there was truly none left for me.” The last sentence, Mendal begrudgingly admitted.
“And what was with all the amethysts, Mendal?” Archie enquired. Mendal had, as of yet, not explained Calla’s purpose for actually visiting the Court of Stone.
“Oh. Yeah. I don’t know about that. It all sounded more in your wheelhouse. Seemed to be connected to what you told us about the Court of Sorcery. Whole lot of primordial stuff for you to stick your nose in and learn.”
“I shall look into it,” Archie responded, as he wrote a reminder to himself to do so.
“But, if you find yourself needing to go back to the Minerals place - you send me! No more slights,” Mendal said, feeling it necessary to remind Archie of, what in Mendal’s mind, was poor deference towards the eldest member of the house, when Archie didn’t exchange places with Mendal to go to a temple, so Mendal could go to the Plane of Minerals.
Archie blinked slowly as he continued writing his note to himself. “Of course Mendal,” he said, expecting he’ll never hear the end of this ‘slight’.
“And Archie, if you need to go to the Summer Court, Kavel began, “send me instead. I was not expecting the Court of Stone to be in the Summer Court. And, if I go to the Summer Court, I might be able to get to the Damphenite Tangle and see Nathalie.”
“Of course Kavel,” Archie replied to his half-giant, younger friend with more warmth in his voice to Kavel than he had reserved to his more quarrelsome, older, dwarven friend, Mendal.
“Right. Good stuff lads,” Mendal said, pleased with telling his story, and pleased with the end of their conversation. “Right, I better go refill my travelling brandy.”
End