“No Hawk, I’m still listening. So as part of this lovely
chat why don’t you tell me everything you can remember about your life up till
now.”
“Yes, everything…”
“No I really am interested. Look, this my interested face.”
“No it doesn’t look the same as my sarcastic face, and I resent that.”
“Okay, good…”
“Damn it Oswald, I said only take down my thoughts, not the
things I’m actually speaking.”
“Well yes, I suppose I technically have to think something in order to speak it…”
“Ah…” “You know what, never mind, give me the parchment. I’ll write it myself and
pretend I’m taking notes on Hawk’s life.”
Right, well then. This is certainly a first in our little
group of chaos. Faelon the diplomat, it has a nice ring to it. Not that I’m surprised
of course, Wizards make natural diplomats. The problem when other people try
and do diplomacy, is that there’s always a chance people won’t do what you want
them to. All that time wasted talking, thinking, and buying expensive gifts
without any guarantee you’ll get the result you want. Much easier to just enchant
them into doing your bidding, which is what, unfortunately, I’ve had to do to Hawk.
You know, I’ve had my fair share of people calling me mad
over the years but sometimes I feel like I’m the only partially sane man in the
world. Our new Barbarian decided he’d rather jump off a cliff then sleep in my
hut, then Drev’nae put on a cursed ring without letting me know, and immediately
got possessed. It seems the others took this madness not as a warning, but a
challenge, and when we got to Valarith’s encampment (teleported by Drev’nae’s
mentor), all hell decided to break loose, start tapdancing and sing: “I may
just be a Wizard’s chimney sweep, but I’ve got an enormous enchanted brush”
To be more specific, they lost their damn minds. Some spying
sorcerer who’s name I can barely be bothered to remember, was brought in
chains. Valarith had captured and tortured her because, for all their holier-than-thou
attitude, Paladins are just Barbarians who can recite scripture. Anyway, when
madness called, Hawk was the first to answer. I understand being uncomfortable
around people who’ve been chained up and tortured. I even sympathise with his desire
not to see her killed, no one likes witnessing executions so soon after lunch.
However, common sense tells you that if you’re in a camp surrounded by devout
Paladins and their own personal army… perhaps hold off on trying to free their
captives until people are at least looking the other way.
After a few botched attempts, Velverin thought that what
this situation called for… was even more madness. As such he starts trying to
murder the captive in front everyone. At this point I had to step in as well. She
may have had information we could have used, and I’d been hoping to have a nice
chat with her to make her tell us what she knew. Before I could do much, things
escalated and she broke free. She was re-captured again, and Valarith attempted
to execute her. Hawk refused to let himself be deterred by his many failures,
or indeed common sense, and tried to free her once more. Then things got
violent. In his rage, Valarith whipped out a flaming flail of all things, and
the entire party looked ready to attack Hawk.
Finally, I decided enough was enough. Some Wizards diplomacy
was called for. I enchanted Hawk to come with me, and led him away from the
camp, telling the others that I was going to calm him down and then come back
when this had all blown over. As I started to walk him out, I turned back to
notice that no one had put their weapons away. I saw the look in Valarith’s
eyes, and it was, ironically, a most ungodly one. I had to get Hawk away from
there, sharpish. And so, I teleported us away and, can you believe it, Drev’nae
tried to counter-spell me? Me? Drev’nae!? If it hadn’t failed, I would’ve felt
the need to check she wasn’t still possessed. I’ll have to have a word with her
about this later, I feel like there’s been a slight breakdown of trust as of
late.
What gets me most is that all this was over a sorcerer. An “Oh
look at me, my great, great, granny shagged a dragon and now I can cast
firebolt, oh aren’t I special.” Sorcerer! Oh they really make my blood boil. They
just don’t see that magic is supposed to be attained through hard study, not
passed down like a glorified STD.
So that’s why I’m now in the middle of a forest trying to
keep a conversation going with Hawk for several hours while I work out what to
do next. Maybe I should tell him the story of Anak thrice-killed and the creation
of the were-newts?
