Session 19 It seems that it has fallen to me to
maintain the group’s journal for this particular incident. I confess that I am
unsure whether this is because I possess the greatest sense of literature among
the group, or whether this is their idea of revenge out of envy for my skill,
good looks, and position. Regardless, I have given my word that I shall
complete this task, and I shall fulfill this vow!
The day began on a high note when we
entered the main temple of the lizard folk. Upon entering the ostentatious edifice,
we met with the chief and their Starseer, a priest of Desna. While we were
beginning to converse, a freak accident occurred which left Garbador and I
holding some sacred artifact that had fallen into our hands. Despite my obvious
innocence, I expected harsh and immediate retribution; however, Garbador and I
were hailed as Ravogar and Bkhakul, immortal demi-gods who seek to win Desna’s
hand and favor.
On a personal note, my being an immortal
demi-god with memory loss would explain so very much about my own life. It
would also explain why I was so instrumental in discovering the gold stones
that led us into this city again.
Anyway, the lizard folk decided to throw
a party to celebrate the return of their demigods, and, of all things, they
have a goblin minstrel by the name of “Zug Zug” perform. Though honestly, why
the lizard folk would hire a goblin is beyond even my mental prowess to
explain. Admittedly, he far surpassed all my expectations, though he clearly
knew nothing of my exploits as Bkhakul, which was truly a pity.
In any event, Garbrador and I are
clothed in fabrics of exquisite quality, and ushered up the steps to the top of
the greatest temple. This temple was absolutely colossal in height, and I fear I
must confess that I struggled partway up the steps. However, the vista from the
top was gorgeous: not only was this a commanding edifice from which to gaze
down on my new subjects, but there were women, wine and gold!
As an aside, the wine was of a vintage
surpassing most of those which I have encountered. I must remember to acquire
some on my next visit.
Here, we are informed of a great contest
between my followers and those followers of Garbrador. I am the Lord of Gold,
as is only fitting, while Garbrador is the Lord of Glory. Perhaps if he wins I
shall pay the artisans to construct a monument in my image instead, claiming
glory as my own also.
In any event, Zug Zug and Fizzle talk
their way up the steps, but are forced to sneak up after the guards change
their minds. Unfortunately, they are identified at the top of the tower, and
questioned by the chief. I take this opportunity to wield my newfound
authority, and claim them as my loyal followers. The druid Chulky is eventually
added as my third and final follower for the games to come.
I depart with the Starpriest, who briefs
me on the tournament and gifts me with the Amulet of Zalz, a very nice amulet
of gold. I truly appreciate the gesture.
The first contest in the tournament is that
of strength, and I confess that my team simply has no opportunity of besting
our foes in this particular arena. At least, not via conventional brute force…
However, as there are two additional contests, I must allocate someone to this
unenviable task. As a result, Chulky finds himself attempting to subdue a furious
triceratops before Kiradin accomplishes establishes dominance over her own
dinosaur. Things begin to fall apart rather quickly for my team, and they
narrowly avoid being trampled by the triceratops’s charge, but fortunately
nobody is seriously wounded. Unfortunately, my teams efforts to assist Chulky
via magic fail utterly, and he is reduced in size to that of an ant. His own
magic is apparently blocked by the arena itself, which I could not have been
reasonably expected to foresee. This leaves the unfortunate druid with very
little opportunity to overpower the ancient beast, but he quickly hatches a
plan and draws the triceratops into charging the Starpriest. Unfortunately,
before the Starpriest was forced to act, Kiradin subdues her triceratops,
claiming victory for the Lord of Glory. Bah.
Our next competition was that of magic,
and I chose Fizzle to compete against Finnick. They are tasked with locating
the trigger blocking the magic and destroying it. Fizzle finds it first, though
her magic rebounds and injures her. Truly a nefarious magical device! Finnick
succeeds in breaking the magical orb negating magic device, and out pop three
lizards! One lizard is on fire, one lizard appears to have grass growing on it,
and the third appears to be composed of water. How very quaint. Fizzle
unfortunately decides to pet the fiery one, perhaps believing it to be an
illusion. Based on her reaction, it was not. Finnick responds in righteous
anger against the beast injuring my champion, and slays it with an ice bolt.
Not to be outdone, Fizzle casts magic missile at the remaining two lizards,
seeking to kill them both, but the lizards eat the missile and end up
multiplying! After some quick and dirty spell slinging, these odd foes are
vanquished, but as each champion has slain the same number, the contest is a
draw. Truly unfortunate, for this means that I cannot win the contest outright,
but I am certain that Fizzle did her best.
The
final trial is that of dexterity, and the Starpriest conjures a swamp full of
alligators. In the middle is a pedestal with a golden sphere, and three hoops
are arranged by the starting position of both champions. In order to succeed,
the champion must simply place the sphere thru the correct hoop on their side. The
enterprising goblin minstrel Zug Zug is named my champion to face off against
Zeketon, a truly tall task for my diminutive friend. With the magic inhibitors
of the arena disabled, my team works together in a truly inspiring fashion in
hopes of securing me the victory. Zug Zug begins by casting invisibility upon
himself, and Fizzle casts illusion upon herself to take up his appearance.
Although the Starpriest is aware of the situation, he rules favorably toward my
team, and my two clever champions enter the arena. Chulky also attempts to aid
our cause by inspiring one of the alligators into violence against Zeketon.
Admittedly, this seems truly nefarious, especially given that Zeketon is a
valued friend; however, the brilliance of Chulky’s scheme is that Zeketon is a
mighty warrior, and the beast couldn’t possibly do more than slow him down.
Which, of course, is all we need.
On a personal note, I must remember Chulky’s
impressive ability to quickly hatch schemes on the battlefield. I, of course,
am a master of schemes, though I am more suited to plotting on the bigger
picture. Chulky’s quick thinking may prove invaluable to me and my allies in
the long term, and I clearly must treat his ideas with due weight.
The final trial finally begins, and “Zug
Zug” successfully bounds across the back of one of the gators, moving closer to
the golden sphere. Admittedly, I could have done better, but her success was
commendable nonetheless. Zug Zug wades thru the swamp, leaving a trail in the
water, but the onlookers must have mistaken his wake for something caused by
one of the beasts in the swamp. Unfortunately, Zeketon is a true master of
agility, and bounds across the swamp with as much ease as though he were on
marble floors. Even the alligator that Chulky encouraged to attack Zeketon was
no match for the monk, and in truly ironic fashion the reptile was slain when
Zeketon threw the terribly venomous snake guarding the golden orb. He then
bounds back across the arena, and throws the ball thru the middle ring. After a
few seconds, Zeketon’s entire half of the arena is completely immolated! I
cannot possibly see how anyone could survive such an inferno, but the monk’s
supernatural agility once again proves to be impressive, and he leaps above the
danger. Zug Zug continues his way across the arena, and conjures an illusion of
an alligator in heat in order to distract a portion of the swamp unimpeded.
Fizzle, unfortunately, entered the water and was almost immediately attacked by
the vicious swamp reptiles. With nobody close enough to aid her, death seems
certain for my brave champion, but Zeketon retrieves the golden sphere and
successfully throws it thru the correct hoop. This resulted in some magical
goings on, the end result of which is that the alligators and swamp
disappeared, saving Fizzle. Although I wish to dislike Zeketon for winning the
tournament for Garbrador, I cannot help but be relieved that he saved Fizzle
when I myself was unable to. After all, a lord must defend his vassals.
With Garbrador’s victory at hand, the results
are almost unimaginable. Simply, they are truly and absolutely unthinkable. The
Starpriest transforms part of the arena into a whirlpool, and the lizard folk casually
destroy untold fortunes of gold by pouring it into the swirling vortex. A truly
disgraceful waste of a valuable resource… if they wanted to get rid of it, I
would have been more than willing to take it from their city. Perhaps sensing
my mood, Fizzle throws herself into the whirlpool, no doubt to rescue some gold
for me. Although truly kindhearted, I would not care to cast a vassal’s life
away so recklessly. Zeketon again proves useful, and plucks the child out of
the air before she can complete her dive. With the gold disposed of, Garbrador
leaves with the chieftain, heading back to the pyramid temple for artists to
begin painting portraits and crafting statues of him.
At this point in time, the Starpriest
seeks to speak with me in private, and I follow him back to his quarters. Upon
entering his domicile, I must say I felt that something was amiss, because his
quarters were filled with a large variety of caged animals and a variety of
potions. Most priests with which I am familiar do not have such… odd decorative
choices. In any event, the priest is quite incensed, because apparently he
seeks to expand the borders of the city state and Garbrador’s victory ensured
that the chief’s policy of non-expansion would continue. He informs me that he
is well aware that I am not a demigod, that he allowed my team to “cheat” in
the tournament, and that I need to correct his problem by slaying Garbrador.
As a quick aside, I must record for the
record that “cheating” is far too harsh of a word; rather, we worked together
as a team in an attempt to overcome problematic obstacles. Besides, as the
referee he tacitly encouraged my teammates to go to such lengths when he failed
to curtail the spectators’ defensive spells against the triceratops in the
first round of the tournament.
Back in the action, I confess that I was
dismayed to discover that not only am I not a demigod with memory loss, this slippery
priest has been manipulating me! I rapidly grasp the situation, and it is truly
bleak. If the Starpriest informs the populace of the city that we have been
impersonating their beloved demigods, they will likely tear us limb from limb
in their fury. On the other hand, I have no desire to climb the steps of the
pyramid temple, and less desire to betray Garbrador, given that he has assisted
me in the past. Clearly, this situation calls for the famous ingenuity of House
James, which I have in abundance! I inform the Starpriest that slaying
Garbrador isn’t necessary; rather, I can either convince or deceive him into
demanding that the city-state expand. The Starpriest appears dubious, but
agrees.
Recognizing that this situation has the
potential to be absolutely ruinous, I immediately gather my allies and explain
the situation. As a druid, Chulky realizes that the caged “beasts” were not
actually animals at all, but rather they were druids who had transformed
themselves into animals. Clearly, this demonstrates that my intuition is as
strong as ever. Partway thru my explanation, Fizzle runs up the temple steps,
and Chulky transforms himself into a pterodactyl and also flies to the top of
the temple. For whatever reason, the rest of the group elect to ignore my plan,
and apparently decide to confront and arrest the Starpriest. At least they have
the sense to inform the chieftain before confronting the priest, and Zeketon
rushes up the temple stairs to execute this plan. I, rather wisely, remain at the
foot of the stairs with the remainder of the group, conserving my energy for
what will surely become a fight for our lives when we reveal to the chief that I’m
not a demigod.
Whatever is said at the top of the
temple, the chieftain doesn’t decide to execute us, and instead decides to
investigate the Starpriest. Before Garbrador’s team runs off, they inform me of
their plan to confront the priest, and ask me to stay behind. Since my
assistance will inevitably become necessary in subduing the rouge Starpriest, I
tell them to signal me when they need reinforcements.
The group returns shortly thereafter,
informing me that the Starpriest has escaped. For whatever reason, I find
myself unsurprised that they couldn’t capture him without my help. Apparently,
the Starpriest was a bigger fool than I had realized, because he admitted to
being an evil servant of some demonic prince before he teleported out. As an
aside, I refuse to muse on the ramifications of being manipulated by someone who
was so foolish as to confess his guilt and run instead of using his legal authority
to have us killed.
Regarding the false priest of Desna’s
escape, the magic users inform me that he used some sort of ritual rather than
teleportation, but the technical magical term for the means of his escape isn’t
that important, and he literally moved from point A to point B with magic, so I’m
referring to it as teleportation anyway.
In any event, the fallen priest also
apparently had been lying about Desna’s teachings by creating false holy scrolls.
I am told that these scrolls were infused with necromantic power, and that they
laid out further proof of the Starpriest’s treachery, and gave us a prophecy regarding
the demon prince’s conquest of our world. Mighty though I am, I would rather
not chance a duel with a demon prince, and I have concluded that I will stop
this ritual from occurring and therefore save the world.
Apparently, Chulky has been unable to
transform back into his normal shape due to some interference from the
Starpriest, so those of us alchemically inclined concocted a cure to the druids’
condition from the ingredients in the Starpriest’s former abode. After successfully
testing it on one of the caged druids, we fed it to Chulky and broke the curse
upon him.
Before we returned to the druid camp to
rescue the remainder of them, the chieftain thanked us for preventing a
disaster from befalling his people, and provided us with rewards. I received a
buckler that had apparently been wielded by the real Bkhakul, which is a mighty
gift indeed, and truly worthy of my contributions toward the eventual overthrow
of the Starpriest and rescue of the druids.
It was at this point that Fizzle confounds
us by electing to remain behind as the city’s new trainee Starpriest of Desna.
Although I agree that it is crucial to insure that the office of the Starpriest
cannot be used against us in the future, I am grieved that such a loyal vassal
will end up leaving my side. That being said, given the severe danger that Fizzle
has routinely faced at such a young age, perhaps it is for the best that she
will remain safe behind the city’s defenses. We all say our tearful goodbyes,
and promise to return if ever Fizzle needs assistance.
