A Milil-ion Ways To Travel - Wil - 22/08/19

There exists a time between the revelry of night and the unforgiving work hours of the morning fishermen that relative silence falls over the town of Port Ffirst.

Relative being the operative word, especially in this case, for on that sandy shore, as the dark waves undulated in the dark of night, there remained one man, still awake, still half drunk, and still very incensed. He strode up and down the beach in short circles, gesticulating with his hands with an aggression that seemed to be directed at nobody in particular, or at least, nobody visible.

"Yeah so I know you sent me here cos you want to know what this place is like, so I bet you thought I was gonna hole myself up in a library or go adventuring proper, didn't you, you slimy fuck?"

The waves gently continued to crash onto the shore.

"And so yeah, I thought 'hey, maybe I should do that' but then I got to thinking, 'Hold on Wil, your life has literally been destroyed before your fucking eyes, maybe it can wait a bit'. And you know what? It can. You know why? Because I have no fucking clue how I'm supposed to be doing all that!"

To punctuate his exclamation he reached for a rock on the floor and swiftly dashed it towards the sea, whereupon it disappeared into the foam without a trace. Wil stood there, heaving for breath for a little while before electing to sit down, withdrawing his coral wand and drawing shapes in the sand with it.

"So here I am at fuck-off hours giving a report that you obviously don't need but still want for some reason on just what in the Hells I've been doing here, so here I am. It started at the Seashank, a dive and a half if I do say so myself, reminds me of home. Anyway, I'd just stopped by for a drink or five when this sceevy tiefling comes up and starts talking to me. Now let me be clear here, it's not like I'm saying he's sceevy cos he's a tiefling, I'm just saying he's a tiefling and sceevy. As a rule I don't trust people that take more than ten seconds to introduce themselves. I barely remember the guy's name, something like Menace or whatever. Anyway he was actually with others so I decided to entertain the guy and if this was a scam, hey, I'm walking out of there."

He took a moment to examine the shapes he had been drawing, the alphabet of a language he had no concept of yet knew clearly now, like an old memory that only comes back when you see something that reminds you of it.

"So then there was one of the little ones, but not a halfling, a gnome this one was. Are gnomes always that hench? Cos I swear they're supposed to be a whole lot less jacked then that. Mad tats too. I didn't know gnomes had tribes like that. Anyway, her name's Tiny, which don't make much sense cos they're all small, right? Weird, but not as weird as that damn cat! Talking cat, you know anything about that? Cos I was there thinking 'oh no, this is some wizard illusion bullshit right here' but he kinda responded to my telepathy so I don't know. I'm gonna grill that cat when I get the time."

He attempted to write the word 'cat' in the strange language and quickly realised there wasn't a direct translation, as he ended up landing on 'small beast'.

"So it's Menace, Tiny, Greebo and myself around a table and they're talking about a party boat or something. Now, when I hear party, that has a lot of meanings from massive piss-up to 'somebody's gonna die' and a lot of the time it's both but I thought I might as well take the risk because if anything, after all I've been through I deserve all the free booze I can get. So we leave the Seashank and head over to this temple and we run into even more weirdos, yet another tiefling but this one was dressed to the nines with this stupid hat and she would not stop hitching about how I smelled like fish, like darling you're in a port town, forgive me for trying to hold down a fucking job! I liked her friend a lot more, another little one, a halfling I think, but she said she was from the Feywild, so, what, a fairy halfling? Is that a thing? Cos I mean she had these wings and her hair was pink like flowers and she spoke this weirdly beautiful language. Why don't you let me speak like that instead of this weird crap, I feel like I'm gargling stones. Now that was all well and good, but turns out there was one more, and what else but a drow prick? I thought I'd left those bastards behind back in Luskan but I guess not, because why should anything go right, right? He was dressed a lot finer than the ones back home though but his attitude was probably worse, like way way worse. I don't think I ever got his name. I hope he hasn't got mine."

He tried writing 'drow'. He got 'dark elderfolk'.

"So we walk in and like half the temple is completely hungover, and I literally mean half cos the building itself had like two halves. Strangest architecture I've ever seen. Anyway, we met this Prime Speaker lady and she was… Nice, and a bunch of other things that mother, Kelemvor guide her, would beat me for saying. For a second though I thought she was one of yours with the blueness and the translucent skin but yours can't go on land. Yet another race I was unsure of. Super hungover, and couldn't, or didn't, do anything about it. Drow dude kicked up a fuss because why wouldn't he and a whole bunch of magic was thrown around before we were thrown out on our arses to find the ship. And this was a ship to contest with the Bitch Queen's waters, all neatly constructed and fancily done up that it was. Much better than the last one I was on, but you know all about that. Bird people are a thing, cat people are a thing, elemental people are a thing and I met some minotaurs too but I was there for one thing; that bar, and let me tell you, one, that gnome can drink and two, the stuff those minotaurs give will put hairs on your chest, but you already know your boy firmed it." He ended that last statement with two beats to the chest to affirm it.

"And then it all kicked off when we weighed anchor, Tiny wrestled a minotaur and almost took him, the tiefling girl Bubbles and I were throwing spells around, the cat was doing cat things, not sure what Menace or the drow were doing but it can't have been anything good but Sheryl! I have no idea how someone can even play like that but it was like I was reliving memories all over again. Better times. I miss the shack man…"

He tried writing 'home' in the sand. It seemed that at least that was a universal concept.

"Shit man, bards are something else. I mean I tried one of my stories, the one about the whirlwind romance with a sea elf girl that totally, definitely, absolutely happened… I mean the way you tell it matters way more, right? Anyway, didn't quite stick nearly as much, but hey, it's always hit or miss with these things. At some point I lost Tiny so I went looking for her and fella, I saw some shit. Now I'm not that innocent but if someone's clapping chains on you back home you're getting robbed so I can't vibe with that like that, but obviously Bubbles and Tiny can, as I witnessed. I reckon Tiny was in it for the tabaxi lady with the flaming whip, guess her thing is she can't resist a pretty lady, which I get but it's not everyday thirst, sometimes chill, you know?"

With a chuckle, he rose to his feet and walked closer to the shore, close enough that the waves lapped at his feet. He closed his eyes and took deep breaths; the air here wasn't the cleanest but it was much improved from the River Mirar.

"That's when things got out of control. Well, more out of control than they already were, cos we got boarded! Funny how being on the receiving end isn't nearly as pleasant. I asked Tiny if I should let loose but she didn't give the signal. Probably didn't help that she didn't know I could do telepathy but it was probably for the best cos these guys were armed to the teeth. Once they'd cleaned out the place they were gonna leave, but the cat! I thought he was screwing us all when he told the pirate captain to return all the loot but he must have used an enchantment cos he actually went and ordered his guys, which didn't go down all too well if the sword in his back was any indication. The time for talk was over, but half of us were wasted so it already wasn't looking good. Some of us tried to deal with the guys sailing off with the stuff, Greebo with some magic missiles and Menace with some questionable crossbow skills, but again, wasted so I'll allow him that one. Turns out Bubbles has a similar deal going on to me, which makes her a whole lot more suspicious even without that thing where she was looking more wild. Is it that ring with the enchantment I saw or is she just a savage? Tiny is definitely just a savage, and thank goodness cos we needed all muscle we could get against those minotaurs. I tried to help by using my net, which looking back, was a horrible, stupid idea that nearly got me killed if it wasn't for the healing singing from Sheryl. Seriously, bards man. She can also throw down when she needs to cos I saw her straight up blast a guy onto the railing of the ship. The drow turned out to be plenty magical as well, cos he straight up turned a guy into dust and had this weird weapon swinging from a distance. Tiny got some clean hits on the captain but I had to bail her out cos I watched that guy behead his own so I hit him with the whispers and sent him packing. Then he said he'd remember us. That's bad. So quite reasonably, we all tried to kill him. We didn't. Fuck. Couldn't even last one week without becoming a marked man."

Wil took one more deep breath before his voice raised once again to a shout.

"And where were you during all that?! You could've stopped that so easily! I nearly died! Where would that have left you?!"

The waves washed against his feet once more and realising his indignation was near useless, he calmed himself as best as he could.

"Cape Za'Suul is an interesting place, almost entirely stone with these weird whistling holes in the walls and there's no people, like human people, it's almost all minotaurs or genasi or strange mixes of the two. I would've explored more but I needed to return after a couple of days. Can't stretch hospitality for too long. So yeah, that's what happened, but you know all that. Guess I'm far from the only weirdo here."

Wil stood and pondered for a bit longer. In 24 years he had never left Luskan but in the space of a week he had been to two different towns. He'd met more kinds of people than he had ever known. Perhaps, just perhaps, this wasn't as much of a curse as it first seemed.

But that could wait. He slung his rod over his back and headed up the shore. It was time to fish.