baloonworld

So, apparently, I write TL fanfic these days.
Inspired by my interpretation of the result of Steve's idea for an apocalyptic system setting reset.

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Amongst other things, last weekend I LARPed, and I promised one of the other monsters that this classic informative pamphlet would be seen again:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/38337779@N00/5122884136/in/photostream/

HOLYGLITTERCRAP THERE ARE NORMAL PEOPLE IN THE SHIRE. I met one called Linte. He claimed to be a Bakers's son. A son! Bakers are people who use sensible rirual materials, like flour and water to make bread, using a mundane process which involves an `oven'. He was born and grew up with "siblings", a sister and two brothers and none of them have died or avenged the others or anything. There are 4 of them, The sister is even a set number of years older than him and always has been. During the day he works as a bread-delivery boy; he takes the `freashly baked' bread from the `ovans' and to different people in the town who want to eat it. His girlfriend has an AUNT, and lives with her extended family who are all sort of merchent who trading rope, cloth and other mundane items!!. They go merchenting again and again and just trade things, rather than being captured by bandits or turned into undead!!! There was anther guy at the contest who knew how to fix a roof! If he'd had said he was a great mage-architect who had built great souring cathedrals of rock with the power of his mind, I'd have beleived him, but fixing a roof is just laughable.

Travesty tried to put a good spin on things, by saying that maybe they wern't his parents, but were in fact some sort of shape-shifitng abomination pretending to be his parents, as part of a naferious plot, and eventully Linte and Kadja (such plausable names, you;d never guess that she had an Aunt) addmitted to haveing fay ancestory, but I think they were making that up so I'd stop freaking out.

Its proberbly a trap to lure adventuures, but like always I can' just walk away. I've been invited: to a meal with his familly where there will be home-cooked food. If I'm not back the day after, or if I come back changed, Travesty will get the location of the town and a box of matches. I'd worry about him burning down an innocent town even if it does check out okay, but the odds of it being for real are farcical.

Also: Nab is a wer-might avatar, and we rescued another bride from a demon-groom. Time to make a prospectuses for Artificer-Pope Biscuit's Circus Skills and Finishing school for Young Ladies of Quality and Freaks

I found some people hanging arround in the barony. Gish was there so I tagged along. We were taking Bride-Bride to meet Earl Gray, to whom she was to be married. There were defenders there and everything; we were meant to stop at nothing a bull through all who stood between us and delivery of Bride-Bride and apprently dowery. This weant against aall of my experiances in the borderlands, whihc are pretty much to talk to everyone and never start fights you don't have to. There wern't may from the borderlands posse present, so maybe they didn't know about dealing with things vastly beyond your capacity.
Still, it was a bright moolit night and the air was still and cool, so it was just as well to be out side to enjoy it.


Druids had sacred grove on the highway. Violance nesued. Orchid started it. Some were dark, druids others either wern't or hid it better. Killings, loss of interest, return for futrher violance later. Hunter shares my opinions on those with whom he shares a faith who insist on being dense.


Earl Gray's guards tried to stop us, and we didn't pile into them, although I did remind everyone of our orders. Was in trouble with Morrigan, so I lied that I was trying very hard. Is there anything lieing can't do?

Gish told me there was a joke waiting for when we got there. Joke was that Bride-Bride was secretly Jarak all along. Not-Jarak Bride-Bride had already come through with Blackwing and Rain. It was Blackwing's time of the month, so his allegies were playing up.

The Earl's party was boring, and the guest reception was shit. I'm sure I knew the earl's hair from somewhere.
There was a juggler (mediocre) -guitarist
(lack of screaming feedback) and a stage magiction who used excitng skills of deceptiona nd slight of hand rather than boring old magic to obtain mediocre acheivements with packs of cards. Iusslss bullied her for lack of skill in her deception. I imagine that when you decieve an order god into thinking you are his or her or its preist, other people's deceptions look common place. Naismith was asleap by this point, which gives a good indication of how boring the party was.


Then the stage magition treated us to an explosion of blood and horror by sawing Orchid's hand off. The Earl was impressed, and rightly so- the saw was clarly in contact with his chest.
She was possessed, several maids teleported 5 feet forwards and Bride-Bride vanished in the excitment. I grabed her once things had calmed down a bit. She was full of horror and scaredness and crisis, so we had a chat about her possible future and her newfound terror of cards. I helped her overcome this through poking, and took oppertunity for brief magical adventures in the back rooms of castle gray, but it was boring. Hopefully, she will take my advice, change her name (possibly to `The magnificent Grobe') , get a wig, some platform shoesand tour the countryside for a few months. Otherwise my instinct is that the earl is going to make her saw off arms all day. He really liked that trick (and by trick I mean bloodshed). One of the Gray's advisors had also vanished or was otherwise implcated in the plot, and we decided to go and poke his temple/monestry thingie at some point.

All of the gladiators on his lands are shit too, as they are forced to fight to the death at all times, which I immagine makes practice retarded. I susspect that most htings on the Earl's lands are retarded. Anyhow, a quick scout around later revealed a recall point, which we suspected was part of Bride's escape/abduction procedure. The Earl was content, as the dowery was intact. Earl is a poor noble; I hope he either gets better or flips out and stomps off crushing everything in his path. Fishie gotta swim, hidiously nails might preists gotta crush everything in path, birdy gotta fly.

Morning arrived, and with it sprite hunting. This had nothing to do with anything; I think the Earl hadn't seen anything die for a few hours and was suffering withdrawel. Breeze turnned up and told us that we now had to recove Bride at all costs. That that phrase is one that Captin Randor will proberbly never dare use again. The sprites had cool hats; I tried to trade information ("If you start running now you might live to see tomorow") for one,
but it attacked Brend instead. Brend is apprently a lot more dangerious than he was when we were in the dungion of endless argueing about sticks.


For reasons beyond my understanding, we wandered off into goblin teritory. Thee were goblins cerimonying or somthing it was massivly destructive. This is the first I saw of it, but Trantis spent the whole weekend dedicating deaths to his irrritating triple god. I say irritating, because it insists on inappropritely timed and possitioned ceremonies. I sware, when he started doing one next to the troll it was so tempting to cancel the shrivel that was keeping to down. The Fire mage seemed to think that igniting th e troll would keep it down. Now I'm no fire mage, but I'm pretty sure that that the ignite spell would say, light a fire, but I'm pretty sure that you make fires out of flamable things. Like wood. Trolls, I have learnt from my extensive studies (occasionally refered to as 'looking') are, like guards, made out of meat, which is differently burnable from wood. But like I say, I'm no fire mage, so maybe I'm just ignorent about the secrets of meat-burning.
Someone said that Trantis had taken up with Interfector, forming a guild almost as insignificent as me and Rain (I might recruit breeze any day now, but only if I relax the membership criteria :D ). I always thought better of Trantis; he certainly seemed better than that when I was chatting with him.

Anyhow, past the goblins Nab found a recording in a crystal ball in a box in a circle on the dunes. THE SPICE MUST FLOW It was a ransom demand, so its possible the Bride didn't escape but was kidnapped, although its equally possibly that she escaped and wanted profit from it. Thre recoding was made outside the temple of the sacred virgin(didn't recognise this till we wenrt there; it was full of vampires) , so we told the earl about the ransom (he refused to pay) an d went there. Or did we do somthing else first? We might have pontificated about how we were going to break into the bank. I think it was dodgy Hel who decided to create an elaborate plan about how to break into the bak without first gathering any information about either the bank set up or the skills of the people avalible. Like I said, eveything was retarded. Dodgy Hel further informed us that there was not other way to gather the money than doing the bank job. After the bank job, we read some of the papers recovered, and it became very very obvious that drugs pushing, extortion and prostitution would have obtained
us at least as much, have involved fewer dwarfs.


Thats the other thing we did first, we went to the sewers, where there were man rats and ratmen, neither of which were like the borderlands ratmen. In return for killing the one the other told us about the bank, so we decided up on a new plan, this one less elaborae and inexplicably based on information. Yeah flying shit; Breeze was on crowd controll, and itr worked beautiffully. Mara would have loved it. Breeze was either in, or infront of the front line. I think the warlock who was sworn to protect elves was at the back, protecting burny hel from I dunno, getting her feet dirty or somthing. Did I mention that he also bitches about Zephera behind her back and was all in your face and trheatening to Breeze in times of relative peace? Warlocks
might not be the monolithicly stupid bunch of ass holes I always assumed they were. Still retarded and assholes, but in a more diverse way. And our pet humact for the weekend had a possessed mace, so maybe they're have more than one personallity between them too.
Getting to the sewers we had the retarded troll incident, and the self-healing Tree ent incident. Perhaps one of the mages had the imunity spell and could have made the treent imune to its healing; that might have been quicker; I should have though otf that at the time. The rat fighting and the flying shit left us all diseased, some of us several times over. I wasn't, but Morigan has mighty hugs, and so is a disease vector. (actully it was her 'gather round children and stand very close to each other while I do this ritual trick that got me, but I'm pretty
sure thats why there were hugs too)


On the way out the rat men showned us the bank back enerance,. It was elf-sized, so I could fit people down in with impunity, but running into the rock-hard constructs at the other endwhilst suffering from tiny chests might have been inconvenient. Like The discussion did turn to the possibility of breeze teleporting peole, but we decided that being unable to leave under your own power was a bad thing. Later Burny hel would earth merge inside the bank, presumably because this discussion had clued her into the possibility of getting stuck, arrested and therefore away from the insanity.

On the way back, we met nuns. they were fools; one of them asked about my past, which is the first time that anyones doen that to me on patrol. Then again I only ever ask possessed people. Another beleaved that her flagilations in some way competed with the epic savagery of the beatings that Auriniyan distributes for inapproprite dieing. Morigan thinks that the ones she distributes can compare too. Derision.

The nuns were on their wqay to the temple/nunnery/shrine place. It was full of vampire and undeads. All day I'd been looking at people and seeing the inner smallness of their heads, and in the vampires it was made manifest. Then they exploded with icy wrath. Yay zepherea.

Me an Fidello were left feeling all spinny and ill. I think the vampire had some sort of mind-powers, which it used on Eagalson (`No no stop hurting her, thats the wrong thing to do.' Bless him.), and presumably the slight-of-handest. The nuns fled. Stupid nuns; I was willing to startle them with my bizare physiology, opinions and life story until their minds exploded.

In short, the dwarfs wouldn't give us the boomy stuff until we cleared their mines of drow and duger (and giant bats). Hunter was dispairing due to the mopy disease, and Gish couldn't be arsed either. Breeze kept me a in functional cycle of manic depression by reminding me of past horrors and the unmentionalable retardedness of existance. Anyhow, bespite being elves, the drow were all fighers rather than mages, and all the swords were more protected than I could dispell, so there wasn't anythingin particular for me to mai
m.
It was late, so Trantis was restrained from ritualling everything to death in favor of stabbings. The dwarfs minded for noodles. They were disgusting. They were all stunted and grotesque and short and bearded and short and short. Zephera vanished at one point. Maybe this is what gave burny hel her cunning plan to get left behind at the bank?

Tarrak fitting down narrow crawl spaces looks funny.
By the time we got out, hunter and Gish were drunk or high or somthing, and had told the dwarfs about our plan.

Then we went back to the compound, Iussles clutching the barrel of boomy stuff like it was his baby. Hunter less depressed, and Gish creating wonderful, hidious noises. I suspect that either Gish's flute or the boomy stuff possessed Iusslss, as he then went on a destruction spree. However, see earlier speculation reguarding him deceivng his god. Hooray!

Then everyone hated each other for a bit. I prefered the borderlands, where we hated Interfector,our comand structure, and our surroundings in that order, but not each other. hunter was giving breeze the ability to heal himself if he got separated, so Engalson beat him and gish into unconciousness, and off we went. Before attacking the back, Brend gave us a calming pep-talk, we all forgot about any of the plansand warlock-warlock was astonishingly rude. Trantis apprently went for the entire fight without killing anybody. I avoided it entirely, apart from the abortive effort to extract burny hel. Burny hel, orchid and Engleson were captured, but she was extracted by warlock-warlock and Egalson escaped by playing dead and being a guard, and consequently being made out of meat wrapped in steel. He told me and breeze about his escape and I was very impressed. It will hopefully open up a huge range of occasions on which I can be 'paralysed' by ghouls or 'possessed' by vampires, or simply 'tied up'

`...'


`Yes Master I will obay. Incidently master, your head looks very small from this angle. Like an apple or somthing balanced on your sholders oh great one. I lied! your chest is small!'

`Oh no! how could it end this way? I am helplessly bound by these ropeps! what a terrible fate has befallen me. Woe'

That would be awesome.

Usless wanted to keep all the loots. For a moment, in the moonlight, he looked just like Interfector, so he was shouted down. Zepherea got thr magical ones and told us what they did. Carlsburg got the rest. I shall have to find out whom the comune with daity one called.

paid for Bride. I'm not really too sure why they sent her to us after we gave the the money, but they did. She wasn't possessed or anything; it was very odd of the alliance. took her back to get married; explained to her that fleeing to the baroney was a valid alternative, but she wasn't interested. Then we hung arround in the thingie place again. Compound. Breeze invented baloon vollyball, which is very hard in the wind. It was awesome. I was eventully utterly victorious. Then we went to the wedding, a Bunch of Barony defenders gate crashed and I fled with Bride, Breeze and Hunter. Bride had got to know Earl Gray, and was consequnetly thinking of Lanister. Explained to bride about the bank job, she xplained to me about Earl Gray. Fled. Iussless found us and withdrew her just as Earl came over the horrizon, so popping her out would have been a bad thing. We really should go back for her. I think the Balancers should look after her best, but maybe she'll have better ideas.

"Breeze? Hunter? Are you up for that?"

Trantis made me think of this: why would someone habitully wear a cowl? even when its not raining or cold or whatever?
Because he, she or it, is ginger.
The angel of death is proberbly ginger.
Thats it. I must survive the next 999 years 1 month so I can accuse it. If I ensure that at least one cult member hears my accusation and makes it back to the rest of them, I think the cult should die out within 50 years, or become populated solely by ginger people. Either way, they it will cease to be effective.

Biscuit

Covered Angel of Death in glitter. Died. Started an eternity of torment. Got rescued before I passed out.

Failed to sniff angel of Death. I lose.

Had an adventure again, with wanted a road throgh the forest. got it with the aid of some druids suffereing from a breif moment of enlghtened self interest. Lomax didn't kill them on sight. I was impressed; he really fucking hates druids. Although he an Interfector have been going off together and coming back flushed and happy, slightly odd.
Anyhow I was put to sleep by a really boring bird, met some angels guarding a pheonix, and chatted with them for a bit.
The angels were lovely, they denied sharign a heritage with any of the other angels I've met- Man With Bag on Head and the big flying guy whose name escapes me. Anyhow, despite sharing some sort of para-dimetional bird-czge with a justice daity with pegs stuck to its featers, thwey were lovely. I gave them Names, which they had not previously had. Hopefully being able to distinguish themselfs from other things will lead to changes in their outlook which they claim to be eternal. The second law of thermodynamics states otherwise- it wasn't /that/ cold.
Angelatron, Angleangel and Ezikical all seemed very pleased with their names; Me and R'owl'ra got fethers and Green. I utterly approve of the Green.
The pheonix they were guarding was a arrogent sort of thing, so I snuck upon it and atached things to its feathers. They melted, but it was still utterly defeated by both that and my magic rock. R'owl'ra is a genious.

Protecting druid rituals from things is surprisingly difficult, but not as hard as protecting druids who have finished a ritual.

Then I got a Baron to poke. With a spoon and a baloon.

Inbread madmen thrown: 1