Garwin does not fawn over the princess as the others are. Instead he gives her a brief look of disappointment and then heads to find a place to quietly contemplate with his God.
"Ancient followers of Kord hear my words and answer me truthfully. I feel a stronger connection to Kord than ever before, but I don’t know from where the connection was forged. Please tell me what has happened. How have I come to lose my memories and can you help to restore them?"
Assuming Garwin has the components needed to perform his ritual He will be using Consult Mystic Sages to try and commune with ancient dead priests of Kord to try and understand what has happened.
Jethri glanced at the sudden congregation of eager helping hands around the Princess and reflected, not for the first time, on the shortcomings of her companions. Wiping her brow while she leaned heavily on the ship's rail, Jethri gathered herself.
The Princess shakes off the myriad of helping hands as she climbs to her feet. "I'm fine." she says, her voice sounding quite raw and shaky. "Tell Bryon to turn us around and head for home. We're done here." She seems to be doing her best not to look at the party, but at Garwin's glance she visibly flinches, and without a word she rushes towards the captain's quarters.
Above you the storm is actually weakening. The sky clears, and the waves subside. In another hour or so the storm should be all but gone.
The storm subsides as expected, leaving the seas rather calm. Byron gladly offers up a store room for the men of the group to use as a makeshift bedroom, while he offers the ladies the use of his room whilst he stays with the rest of the men.
"The least I can do for you after killing that creature."
Illen sifts through the wreckage of their once fine quarters in dismay. Ripped-up pillows, broken glasses, and most disconcertingly of all, smashed flagons of wine, their contents even now mingling with the spray from the ocean.
He has a haphazard look around their former quarters for anything else that might explain what is going on, or indeed, anything that might prompt his memory to come up to speed, but nothing appears to present itself. He grunts in frustration and raises a hand to his forehead, kneading his brow; the strain of the fight catching up with him now.
Hearing Bryon's offer called out, Illen trudges to the storeroom and collapses on the softest item that immediately presents itself - in this case a sack of rice.
"Someone wake me up when this all makes sense again", he grumbles. He then remembers that he needn't sleep in this armor, clicks his fingers, and poof - his armor disappears. His eyes closed, Illen has a satisfied grin. "Niiiiiiice"
Thrush considered the dark ship lashed to their own.
"What do we do with this? Search it? Sink it? Pilot it to shore? Is the hole in the back end of this one going to be enough of a problem that we should abandon it?"
Gwen slowly walked over to the side of the deck, gazing out over the ocean that, as far as she could remember, she had never seen before. She stretched her arms out over her head, enjoying the view now that the storm was clearing.
Deezle sat in the corner of the store room with the rest of the men.. Taking off his bulky helmet and shield, he props up the shield in front of him and starts scratching at the inside of it with his claw. While doing this he starts talking to himself, dictating.
"Deezle's journal, 19AD (after Deezle), warm season. While sailing today.. attacked by pirates. Somebody the princess already knew. Some count.. La brooge? Something like that. There were lots of bad guys, and also a giant skeleton bat. Of course I killed the bat for the glory of the kobolds and ended up saving the day and the princess gave me a kiss-"
He continues babbling to himself, lost in his little world, but he can't keep up with his own thoughts so he just ends up scribbling doodles into the back of his shield of the past events. A stick figure of himself standing on top of a dead bat.
The night passes uneventfully. Come the morning, the sun is high and the sky is clear. A perfect day at sea.
"Relax and enjoy the cruise while you can," Bryon tells them at breakfast, "We'll be back home in a week, and I'm sure there'll be pressing business for you lot to manage when we get there."
After finishing breakfast Garwin makes it points to walk around the boat and commend any of the sailors that he saw take part in the battle. Making sure to let them know their bravery and courage in the face of such an evil being was noticed by Kord. He offers to lead any of the sailors that are willing in a devotion to Kord after lunch.
He then makes his way to the princess room to offer heran invitation to the devotion as well.
“You showed great bravery and courage yesterday,†he tells her “but a true warrior must learn to temper that zest with knowledge and experience. Come to my devotion this afternoon and perhaps we can speak more on how we can make our Gods happy while keeping ourselves alive.â€
A calm sea with two titanic obelisks, each inscribed with three simple runes that insist on being unreadable. The tern coyly screams a song of enamorment - does it like pigments? An arrow from the sea pierces my left hand, but at least its not my leg. The elf smiles at the yapping dog, and gives it a dagger of its very own, blue with the blood of ancients. Why am I wearing an apron, and why do I know this kitchen? Why can I smell breakfast?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Awakening from yet another of the bizarre dreams that had visited him since he swore himself to Sehanine, Illen is in the usual raw state that he is in every morning - hair messed up, red eyes, and terrible, terrible breath. Silently he shuffles to where breakfast is being served, glaring at anyone daring to make eye contact, and take a seat. After a moment at the table, he can't hold back any further, and spits out his discontent.
"I'm sick of this. Sick of it! Whats going on? When I wake up none of this makes any more sense than anything else. I've suddenly got fancy gear but no money, people are saluting Garwin, and I'm sleeping on bloody sacks of bloody rice in the middle of the bloody ocean!"
He squints at Jethri, continuing in the same grouchy manner, disguising a pleading note. "Come on, Jeth, wizard me this: what the bloody hell is going on here?"
Gwen doesn't sleep for the entire night, sitting on the railing on the ship and watching the stars, high above the sea. At breakfast, the warlock remains quiet until Illen's outburst, and then she sighs patiently.
"We're heroes now. Whatever happened in the time since we agreed to work together... turned us into this. We're better than we were, our gear is better, and people respect us, rather than laughing at you or hurling rocks at me."
Gwen looks at everyone else to see what they think, ignoring the food going cold in front of her.
Eiredalte slept soundly and chats up the sailors and crewmen as well as his comrades at the breakfast table.
"Gwen's right; we need to live in the here and now, rather than worry about the past. We need answers, but I don't want to cry about what we've missed out on." He chewed thoughtfully.
"Anyway, whatever did this-it's magic. Chances are, we'll find some mystical amulet or statue that will give us all our memories back. We just need to be patient."
Garwin returns to the group after speaking with the crew just in time to overhear Gwen and Eirdalte.
“I don’t know that I’d put too much faith in finding some magic fix for our memories, but I for one will put my faith in Kord.
If he decides my memories will help me to serve him better then so be it, but the memories we’ve lost don’t change the people we are.
Seeing each of you in action out on the ship yesterday just reaffirms my faith in each of you as well. I am sure we can handle anything else this world can throw at us, with or without those memories.”
With that Garwin grabs a large slab of bacon off Gwen’s cooling plate and takes a large bite. Then gives her a wink and a look that says… well you weren’t eating it.
“I plan on leading a devotion later up on deck if any of you are interested you are welcome to attend.”
He then heads back to the cramped quarters to double check his equipment and sharpen his axe.
Illen scratches a bit of gunk out of his eye and continues, "Here and now is fine for some, but when I get back to town, how the hell am I going to know which of the ladies I've doinked and which I haven't?"
As smirks start to form on the faces of those around, Illen asserts his view, "Hey, its not funny! How do any of you know that you don't have a little Gwen or Eiredalte or whatever running around back there that you don't know about? What if you owe a large amount of money to someone dubious? Maybe you've got a sworn enemy, and he's just waiting for the chance to off you when you don't suspect it!"
Gesturing with a toasted roll, globs of crumbs and butter dropping with each emphasis, he continues. "As for respect, well, we'll see about that. For all we know, the crew may be playing us - this boat may be headed for some forbidden temple where the crew will try to sacrifice us all to Vecna. A week of travel is a damn long way to be out at sea, thats for sure."
Thrush winced at the bright sunlight pouring into the cabin as he regarded his breakfast skeptically.
"The only thing worse than seasickness is undead pirates, this gruel, and whatever swill the sailors were drinking last night - in that order." He opted for a hunk of bread, frowned at the mold, and ate it anyway.
"So, what's the plan once we're on land again? Any ideas?"
Jethri chewed her food unenthusiastically and sipped at the tepid water.
"Magic must be involved somehow: that much is obvious. But we don't need to rely on it exclusively. The crew here, the princess, and whoever else we've been in contact with between the last thing we all remember and now will be able to fill in the gaps. From those we will be able to gather where we've been and who we've crossed. The list of suspects for causing our collective amnesia can't be that long."
Apparently oblivious to the jibe, Illen responds "Well, obviously, but that doesn't really narrow the field much in such a large town."
"And how about you? How do you know which of your things you've put a magic trap on or not? You might go to open a cupboard and BAM! - toasted wizard. And its not like you'd tell the captain and crew which of your valuables is trapped, is it?"
"This boat is probably the safest place to be right now, and we don't even have proper beds!"
It is becoming more and more clear that Illen is prepared to whinge all day about this.
Gwen rolls her eyes as Garwin steals her food, quietly murmuring "no thanks" to his offer of worship, then returns her attention to Illen.
"It's not our fault if you have no self control, Illen. But I actually think you're right. We might have made enemies on the mainland that we have no inkling of. LaBraunge was a dangerous foe, and we faced him before. There could be more like him out there."
Deezle fixes his large eyes on Gwen. Half closed with those slits like a cat.. and remarks sarcastically.
"More like him? You mean Labrooge's 'friends'? Hah! That is laughable! The evil demons, monsters, and undead do not have friends! Deezle has slain legions of monsters and they were all loners!.. They told me so before I slayed them.. Slew them?"
Shaking his head, trying to not think about complicated grammar rules. Now looking around the entire table and addressing everybody.
"Even if Labrooge had connections with other baddies, they wouldn't risk their scaly necks just to avenge his death. We probably just took care of their competition. They should reward us with their enormous bad guy wealth!"
Gwen gives a condescending smile and nod to the kobold. "Oh, I doubt any of LaBraunge's allies will come after us. There's a good chance that we've tangled with... others." The warlock pauses, ending her sentence on an ominous note. How many answers did I find? What have I lost?
"Stars, we don't even know how much time we're missing!"
Illen chips in. "Yeah, thats true. I don't feel much different though, and you and Jeth still look pretty good, so it can't be too long since we got on board."
Jethri stared at Illen, and idly imagined of grabbing both his ears and then bringing his head hard and often down on to the table until he stopped talking. A dreamy smile spread across her face at the thought.
She shook her head to lose the daydream and spoke aloud. "We must talk to the princess. She's our best bet until we dock."
Illen waggles his hand from side to side to indicate possible disagreement. "I don't know, she seems a bit flaky to me. I'm really surprised we're travelling with her to be honest."
"All of you guys know how to do what you do, and thats why we're travelling together - even Deezle doesn't rely on some fancy gear to get him out of trouble, and I sure haven't seen him sulk after a big hit, but she's a complete amateur!"
Having finished his breakfast, Illen leans back and starts rocking on his chair.
"Probably we can get Garwin to ask for volunteers from the crew at his pontification later on; that might be a good way to go."
Captain Byron wanders over to your table, a mug of something steaming in his hand. He looks for Garwin, spots him, and nods in his direction.
"I'm supposed to relay a message to you from Princess Glorian. She says she won't be able to come to your service later today." Byron takes a drink, then frowns a little. "She gave me some excuse involving Bahamut, but that's crap." He looks around the table. "Truth is she's too ashamed of what happened with La'Braunge to face you lot right about now." Bryon's tone and expression are pretty clear that he is not happy with this situation.
Seeing an opportunity, Illen gets up from the breakfast table and interjects "I'll pass that message on Bryon, you have some breakfast. I have a way with women that the rest of you clearly don't."
Wiping the crumbs off his face-fuzz, Illen quick-steps up on deck and proceeds over to the Royal Quarters, bidding the soldier on guard a good morning as he approaches. "Wotcher there. Urgent message for the Princess, I'll just be a minute."
Garwin makes his to the upper deck and as the sailors gather round he begins his devotion to Kord. He speaks at length on the power and might that Kord represents and makes a strong case to the sailors for converting and following his patron God.
As the devotion winds down he blesses each of the sailors in turn. All the while keeping an eye out for the princess or any of his companions so he can give them a blessing as well.
Gwen sighs as Garwin vanishes upstairs, and props her feet up on the table.
"So we've got a few days before we hit shore, with nothing to do aside from listen to Garwin pray? Being a hero isn't quite as exciting as it's made out to be, I suppose."
Posts
"Princess...I'm sorry for the...outburst. Are you all right?"
"Ancient followers of Kord hear my words and answer me truthfully. I feel a stronger connection to Kord than ever before, but I don’t know from where the connection was forged. Please tell me what has happened. How have I come to lose my memories and can you help to restore them?"
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
Above you the storm is actually weakening. The sky clears, and the waves subside. In another hour or so the storm should be all but gone.
"The least I can do for you after killing that creature."
He has a haphazard look around their former quarters for anything else that might explain what is going on, or indeed, anything that might prompt his memory to come up to speed, but nothing appears to present itself. He grunts in frustration and raises a hand to his forehead, kneading his brow; the strain of the fight catching up with him now.
Hearing Bryon's offer called out, Illen trudges to the storeroom and collapses on the softest item that immediately presents itself - in this case a sack of rice.
"Someone wake me up when this all makes sense again", he grumbles. He then remembers that he needn't sleep in this armor, clicks his fingers, and poof - his armor disappears. His eyes closed, Illen has a satisfied grin. "Niiiiiiice"
"What do we do with this? Search it? Sink it? Pilot it to shore? Is the hole in the back end of this one going to be enough of a problem that we should abandon it?"
"Deezle's journal, 19AD (after Deezle), warm season. While sailing today.. attacked by pirates. Somebody the princess already knew. Some count.. La brooge? Something like that. There were lots of bad guys, and also a giant skeleton bat. Of course I killed the bat for the glory of the kobolds and ended up saving the day and the princess gave me a kiss-"
He continues babbling to himself, lost in his little world, but he can't keep up with his own thoughts so he just ends up scribbling doodles into the back of his shield of the past events. A stick figure of himself standing on top of a dead bat.
"Relax and enjoy the cruise while you can," Bryon tells them at breakfast, "We'll be back home in a week, and I'm sure there'll be pressing business for you lot to manage when we get there."
He then makes his way to the princess room to offer heran invitation to the devotion as well.
“You showed great bravery and courage yesterday,†he tells her “but a true warrior must learn to temper that zest with knowledge and experience. Come to my devotion this afternoon and perhaps we can speak more on how we can make our Gods happy while keeping ourselves alive.â€
"How is the princess doing?" He looks up at Bryon.
"Hard to say. She ain't said one word since she locked herself in her room, and I ain't gonna force the issue. Not with Her Majesty."
"Greetings sir. The Princess has said that she is not to be disturbed."
".. Well tell her she has the blessing of the King of kobolds."
He asks to him relay his invitation if she becomes available.
"Of course sir. Anything you wish."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Awakening from yet another of the bizarre dreams that had visited him since he swore himself to Sehanine, Illen is in the usual raw state that he is in every morning - hair messed up, red eyes, and terrible, terrible breath. Silently he shuffles to where breakfast is being served, glaring at anyone daring to make eye contact, and take a seat. After a moment at the table, he can't hold back any further, and spits out his discontent.
"I'm sick of this. Sick of it! Whats going on? When I wake up none of this makes any more sense than anything else. I've suddenly got fancy gear but no money, people are saluting Garwin, and I'm sleeping on bloody sacks of bloody rice in the middle of the bloody ocean!"
He squints at Jethri, continuing in the same grouchy manner, disguising a pleading note. "Come on, Jeth, wizard me this: what the bloody hell is going on here?"
"We're heroes now. Whatever happened in the time since we agreed to work together... turned us into this. We're better than we were, our gear is better, and people respect us, rather than laughing at you or hurling rocks at me."
Gwen looks at everyone else to see what they think, ignoring the food going cold in front of her.
"Gwen's right; we need to live in the here and now, rather than worry about the past. We need answers, but I don't want to cry about what we've missed out on." He chewed thoughtfully.
"Anyway, whatever did this-it's magic. Chances are, we'll find some mystical amulet or statue that will give us all our memories back. We just need to be patient."
“I don’t know that I’d put too much faith in finding some magic fix for our memories, but I for one will put my faith in Kord.
If he decides my memories will help me to serve him better then so be it, but the memories we’ve lost don’t change the people we are.
Seeing each of you in action out on the ship yesterday just reaffirms my faith in each of you as well. I am sure we can handle anything else this world can throw at us, with or without those memories.”
With that Garwin grabs a large slab of bacon off Gwen’s cooling plate and takes a large bite. Then gives her a wink and a look that says… well you weren’t eating it.
“I plan on leading a devotion later up on deck if any of you are interested you are welcome to attend.”
He then heads back to the cramped quarters to double check his equipment and sharpen his axe.
As smirks start to form on the faces of those around, Illen asserts his view, "Hey, its not funny! How do any of you know that you don't have a little Gwen or Eiredalte or whatever running around back there that you don't know about? What if you owe a large amount of money to someone dubious? Maybe you've got a sworn enemy, and he's just waiting for the chance to off you when you don't suspect it!"
Gesturing with a toasted roll, globs of crumbs and butter dropping with each emphasis, he continues. "As for respect, well, we'll see about that. For all we know, the crew may be playing us - this boat may be headed for some forbidden temple where the crew will try to sacrifice us all to Vecna. A week of travel is a damn long way to be out at sea, thats for sure."
"The only thing worse than seasickness is undead pirates, this gruel, and whatever swill the sailors were drinking last night - in that order." He opted for a hunk of bread, frowned at the mold, and ate it anyway.
"So, what's the plan once we're on land again? Any ideas?"
"Magic must be involved somehow: that much is obvious. But we don't need to rely on it exclusively. The crew here, the princess, and whoever else we've been in contact with between the last thing we all remember and now will be able to fill in the gaps. From those we will be able to gather where we've been and who we've crossed. The list of suspects for causing our collective amnesia can't be that long."
She eyed Illen speculatively.
"We should try disgruntled waitresses first."
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
"And how about you? How do you know which of your things you've put a magic trap on or not? You might go to open a cupboard and BAM! - toasted wizard. And its not like you'd tell the captain and crew which of your valuables is trapped, is it?"
"This boat is probably the safest place to be right now, and we don't even have proper beds!"
It is becoming more and more clear that Illen is prepared to whinge all day about this.
"It's not our fault if you have no self control, Illen. But I actually think you're right. We might have made enemies on the mainland that we have no inkling of. LaBraunge was a dangerous foe, and we faced him before. There could be more like him out there."
"Exactly! And some of them might be smart enough to try and murder us in our sleep!"
"Yes. That."
"You sure are paranoid", he comments.
"More like him? You mean Labrooge's 'friends'? Hah! That is laughable! The evil demons, monsters, and undead do not have friends! Deezle has slain legions of monsters and they were all loners!.. They told me so before I slayed them.. Slew them?"
Shaking his head, trying to not think about complicated grammar rules. Now looking around the entire table and addressing everybody.
"Even if Labrooge had connections with other baddies, they wouldn't risk their scaly necks just to avenge his death. We probably just took care of their competition. They should reward us with their enormous bad guy wealth!"
How many answers did I find? What have I lost?
"Stars, we don't even know how much time we're missing!"
She shook her head to lose the daydream and spoke aloud. "We must talk to the princess. She's our best bet until we dock."
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
"All of you guys know how to do what you do, and thats why we're travelling together - even Deezle doesn't rely on some fancy gear to get him out of trouble, and I sure haven't seen him sulk after a big hit, but she's a complete amateur!"
Having finished his breakfast, Illen leans back and starts rocking on his chair.
"Probably we can get Garwin to ask for volunteers from the crew at his pontification later on; that might be a good way to go."
"I'm supposed to relay a message to you from Princess Glorian. She says she won't be able to come to your service later today." Byron takes a drink, then frowns a little. "She gave me some excuse involving Bahamut, but that's crap." He looks around the table. "Truth is she's too ashamed of what happened with La'Braunge to face you lot right about now." Bryon's tone and expression are pretty clear that he is not happy with this situation.
“That is unfortunate.
She fought bravely yesterday and her zeal is to be commended. Her only fault was in her inexperience.
I had hoped that she could hear that from me at the devotion, but perhaps you can relay my sentiments to her if she will receive you again.”
Wiping the crumbs off his face-fuzz, Illen quick-steps up on deck and proceeds over to the Royal Quarters, bidding the soldier on guard a good morning as he approaches. "Wotcher there. Urgent message for the Princess, I'll just be a minute."
As the devotion winds down he blesses each of the sailors in turn. All the while keeping an eye out for the princess or any of his companions so he can give them a blessing as well.
"So we've got a few days before we hit shore, with nothing to do aside from listen to Garwin pray? Being a hero isn't quite as exciting as it's made out to be, I suppose."