I am the third of six children in my family, three girls and three boys. Not the adopted one here on Golarion, the one I was born into back home on Earth. Mom and dad are Irish Catholics, so they don’t believe in birth control, which is complicated by the fact that they’re smitten with each other still, even after so many years of marriage. I’d probably have quite a few more siblings, but a bit of a cancer problem ended their ability to reproduce.
I get along well enough with my sisters, though my eldest sister disapproves of many of the decisions I’ve made in my life. My younger brother and I have always fought a bit. I think I always tormented him to take out my frustrations with my older brother. If I can ever make it home, I think I’m going to make sure I apologize to him for that.
My eldest brother, Michael junior, however, is a piece of work. He once beat me so severely it put me in the hospital. And he became a local hero for it. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
We never got along. I don’t know what it is, but somehow I always seemed to rub him the wrong way. Mom tells me that I used to look up to him, but as far back as I can remember, I’ve always seen him as something to avoid, rather than someone to look up to.
He has always been stronger than me. Which isn’t saying much, but still, he’s at least as strong as Aurora, if not stronger, which is saying something. I doubt he would stand a chance arm wrestling Lenn, though.
In high school, he was on the football team. He was even captain his senior year. He was immensely popular. My older sister, Katie, was a cheerleader and big in school government. She was also immensely popular. She was also a black belt in Tae Kwan Do, which is why I kept getting into martial arts, since I wanted to be a badass like her. I was bookish, a gamer and always getting into fights, mostly because I couldn’t stand seeing someone get bullied. Probably because I’d put up with it so much at home.
This wasn’t to say I was unpopular. I’ve always been a bit of a natural charmer and made friends easily. But in the shadow of those two, I certainly felt a bit unpopular.
Have you ever heard of the baseball analogy for sex? You know, how the bases all correspond to certain acts? Well, at some point, I got it into my head that each base was a guideline for each successive date. Yeah, I know. Looking back I can see how dumb I was being, but at the time it made sense.
I also assumed that those guidelines were followed by everyone. So if a girl didn’t go as far as was expected, I assumed she wasn’t really interested in me. Don’t get me wrong, I never pressured a girl to go further than she was ready. I just didn’t want to waste time on girls who I thought weren’t interested. So I broke up with them. Yeah, I know, I was an asshole. I broke a lot of hearts my freshman year.
One girl I dated also happened to be the younger sister of one of my brother’s teammates. I broke up with her after our third date. The fact that we got that far tells a much older, wiser me that she really was interested in me, but a young me with a screwed up notion couldn’t see that. I hear she cried for a week after that. Seems excessive, but as a teenager, that kind of thing felt like the end of the world.
I deserved a beating, but the one I got was excessive.
I was walking home from school on the Monday after that weekend where I broke up with her. I was supposed to be driven home by Mike, but he didn’t want to give me a ride, and I didn’t want to get one from him. Mom and dad still thought I was getting rides from him, but I only did so on days where I absolutely had to. It was late April, so it was nice out anyway. I always took the same path, so it wasn’t hard for Mike to find me. Oh, as a note, he hates being called Mike, which is why I do it.
I was cutting through an old abandoned construction site when he pulled up, tires screeching. I think it was going to be a store or something, but they only got as far about knee high on some brick work when they stopped for reasons I never looked into.
He told me I was going to apologize to the girl and beg her to take me back because my actions had made him look bad to his teammate. I told him to shove it up his ass. Then he hit me. Bam, right in the face. I swung back and connected a hit to his chin. He bit his lip. The pain and sight of his own blood drove him into a rage.
The next part is a bit blurry, but I remember being knocked to the ground, tripping over that half constructed wall. Then he was on top of me. He just kept hitting me. At some point, I blacked out. When he couldn’t get me to wake up, he called 911. The paramedics took me to the hospital, which is where I woke up to hear the story he had told them.
Apparently, as far as everyone knew, I had taken off without waiting for him, and on my walk home had mouthed off to some gang bangers. When he got to his car and I wasn’t waiting for him, he came looking for me. He arrived to find them kicking me while I was on the ground. He said he jumped out of his car and starting hitting the closest banger. They fled after a short fight with him. That’s when he called 911.
The police detective asked me about it. I had several broken ribs, a fractured collarbone and a concussion, so I wasn’t exactly coherent. And I didn’t really remember what had happened. Not at the time. Since I had been in a number of fights that year and my brother had an outstanding record, his story had the ring of truth to it.
It was only a few months later that I really started remembering what had happened. I was determined to tell everyone what had happened, but I told Katie first. She didn’t seem surprised. She didn’t believe Mike’s story. She went and spoke to him about it. He favored his ribs for a week and skipped football practice for a few days. She also told me that she was disappointed in how I had behaved as well, then explained to me what I had done wrong.
I felt pretty ashamed, since her opinion of me mattered to me. I didn’t end up telling anyone else about what Mike had done, but I wrote it down and hid it, hoping someone would find it if anything happened to me. I just couldn’t see there being any good coming out of telling. If I had remembered it right away I probably would have said something, but now it could only serve to hurt mom and dad. Maybe I should have told, but I was a confused teenager and Katie had already made sure Mike had gotten his lumps for it.
I kinda withdrew socially for a couple years. I didn’t date. I rarely went out unless required to by school or family obligations. I just played video games and watched anime. I probably would have stayed that way if my younger sister Molly hadn’t found my invitation to a Halloween party at the local rec center. I had thrown it away, but missed the trash can. She told our parents about it and they insisted I go.
I met a girl at the party. It was a pretty classic meeting. We dressed up as characters from the same anime. We had even both taken artistic license with the outfits, both going for black instead of the colors the characters actually wore, though mine was because I already had a coat that would work and didn’t want to spend any of my summer job money on a red one. We hit it off and dated for most of senior year, until her brother skipped his econ class at the community college and came home early to find us well on our way towards complete and total disrobement one afternoon after school. I fled out a window while he grabbed a shotgun, her parents forbid her from seeing me and that was that.
Anyway, I’m getting off topic. I brought up my brother because it’s relevant here. You see, even as screwed up as my relationship with my brother was, it’s nothing compared to Ameiko Kaijutsu and her brother Tsuto. For instance, my brother may have put me in the hospital, but at least he never tried setting off a plot to destroy our hometown. At least, not as far as I know.
We found that note where Tsuto had wanted Ameiko to come meet him at the family glassworks and immediately I began getting a bad feeling. We rushed over right away. It was early evening when we finally arrived.
The place looked at once deserted and active. There was smoke coming from the chimney, so the furnace was still going, but there was no one to be seen. We tried the doors, which proved to be locked tight. It was an impressive structure. It had to be, since it was how the Kaijutsus had become local nobles, by offering a major service to the area. I wonder if they’d give me land and a local title if I opened a Chuck E Cheese. There’s a serious dearth of pizza in the area. Hell, I could even hire an actual ratfolk to be the mascot.
Finding no way to get in and because Geo couldn’t find his thieves’ tools, we decided to climb the building and look down through the skylights to see if we could see anything inside that would give us a justification for smashing in the door. Lenn scrambled up the side and lowered a rope. He was pulling me up when Aldern showed up.
That man is starting to get on my nerves.
He had apparently followed us to give us that reward he promised. I tried telling him that the roof of the glassworks was the best place to get a moon tan, but he didn’t seem to believe me, so we told him the truth, that we were worried about Ameiko. Lenn invited him to join us. He declined and ran off, once again forgetting to give us that reward. Dammit.
We peered down through one of the domed skylights onto the main manufacturing floor. We could see the light of the open furnace, but not much else. Well, not much else aside from several mutilated bodies. Figuring that whomever had done this might still be in the building, we opted to go in hot.
I tied a rope to a vent. Aurora, Paulie and Geo shattered the skylight and Lenn fast-roped down into the room. Once inside, he spotted goblins hiding in the shadows. God dammit I hate goblins. Aurora tried to climb down, but ended up falling almost fifteen feet. Two of the goblins tried to grab at her while Lenn dealt with others.
Paulie and Geo launched arrows at the goblins attacking Aurora and I laid out a patch of magical grease in the path of more goblins who were rushing across the room. This turned out to be hilarious. The rushing goblins slipped and slid around, bumping into each other and falling prone. They started getting mad at each other and began fighting amongst themselves.
This allowed my companions ample time to dispatch the group that had started closer. They then advanced on the others and brought them down swiftly, but not before the final goblin realized who we were.
Once the fighting was over, I was the only one left on the roof. I tossed down the rope and jumped down into Aurora’s arms. I gave her a wink and she quickly set me down, averting her gaze. I thought I saw her blush.
We inspected the bodies and found that the goblins were making some kind of strange artistic “upgrades” to the bodies by attaching molten colored glass to them. The most well complete one belonged to Lonjiku Kaijutsu. “Well, I guess you can say…” I said as I put on a pair of glasses, “…his ass is glass.” Everyone groaned. Guess my humor isn’t appreciated.
With Lonjiku dead, I realized that Ameiko would now be in charge of the glassworks. I’d heard that she wasn’t too keen on the idea and just wanted to run her inn. Well, it could be worse. She could have found out that she was the last of some far away royal line and have to travel across the world to ascend her throne. Thank God nothing like that would ever happen to the poor girl.
We searched the rest of the building, and found evidence all over that there were goblins about. It was kinda like reading the last chapter of the book before going back and reading through the rest. We also found stairs heading down, so down we went.
Inside what appeared to be some sort of storage room, we found Ameiko. She was tied up and looked to have been beaten severely. Paulie attended to her wounds and she awoke. We told her what we had found and she confirmed for us that Tsuto was working with the goblins. She told us that he had wanted her to join him in his plan to destroy the town, but that when she refused he had struck her and had the goblins tie her up. She had sustained most of her injuries during that.
We heard a noise from one of the nearby rooms, so we rushed over to find a very drunk man had fallen out of his chair. Aurora lunged at his bow but missed. He struck Lenn, stunning him as Geo entered the small room. I tried enfeebling him with a spell, but missed.
Lenn came out of his induced stupor and struck the man with his axe. Several times. Probably two or three times more than necessary. Getting a good look at the body, I concluded that it had to be Tsuto. I mean, how many other half elven Tian-Min are running around Sandpoint?
We took what we could from his corpse and found a journal. In it were multiple naughty drawings of what appeared to be a demonic woman. He identified her by name as Nualia. We recognized the name as being that of the adopted daughter of the local saint whose bones were recently stolen.
The journal detailed how Tsuto and Nualia were working with the goblins at Thistletop to prepare to attack Sandpoint. They were planning to bring a force much larger than the one that had attacked earlier, around two hundred when the earlier attack had only used around thirty. Nualia was also working to rid herself of her Aasimar side and becoming demonic in the process. Lamashtu, an evil goddess of the highest caliber, was also somehow involved.
Someone was going to have to go deal with Nualia as well, not to mention the leaders of the goblins at Thistletop. I got the feeling that someone was going to be us. But that would have to wait. The journal also mentioned a quasit living in the catacombs under Sandpoint that was also a threat. We had found a tunnel leading further under the glassworks, so we decided to investigate that further before we headed up. We sent Ameiko back to town and ventured further.
As we headed into the tunnels, we ran into a creature called a sinspawn. I had read about them in my studies of ancient Thassilon, so I recognized it pretty quickly. It may have been a powerful foot soldier at the height of Thassilon, but the Thassilonians had apparently never met a man like Lenn. He cleaved the thing in twain with a single blow. Maybe they were better in large numbers.
We explored further. Geo went on ahead to stealthily scout for us. Have I ever mentioned that his skin can change color like a chameleon? I probably haven’t because this was the first time I’ve ever seen him do it. I think he may have been drinking his own chemicals. He better be careful. He’s gonna end up with a huge tumor or a tentacle or something like that.
He returned from scouting ahead and told us that he had found the quasit. I enchanted everyone’s weapons with my magic wand and we rushed in. I wish I could properly describe how the fight went, but it happened so quickly that I can’t really do it justice. To give you an idea, let’s go with a metaphor. It was like trying to swat a bee that’s buzzing around your head. Only you’re allergic. And the bee can summon fire elementals. And it can turn invisible. Also, it can cause a magical fear to manifest in you, though I’m proud to say I managed to resist that fear. So did Lenn. He swatted it. Paulie summoned an eagle to try to deal with it, and it did some damage, but the wounds healed up faster than the eagle could do damage.
During the fight, the quasit dropped some blood into a well in the middle of the room. Once the sinspawn rose from it, I immediately recognized it as a Thassilonian Runewell. Geo tried to destroy it, but I knew we would have to drain its power first. That could wait til after the fight.
Once the fight was over, I had the others prepare to down some sinspawn and kept dropping blood in the well. Two arrows, an axe and a sword blow felled several sinspawn in succession. Then the well stopped glowing, meaning it was deactivated and safe for us to return to later to properly destroy.
We continued on and encountered a red marble statue of a rather hot woman with a very angry face. She was holding a tome with a sihedron emblazoned on the front. The sihedron is a seven pointed star and a symbol of ancient Thassilon. She was also holding a well-made polearm of some kind, which we immediately stole. We decided to come back later and take the statue as well, since we were sure some kind of collector would pay a decent amount for it.
We continued on and encountered more sinspawn. I attempted to take one out with direct application of a spell intended for entertainment purposes only. Damn fireworks did nothing. Looked cool doing it, though.
We continued on to find a torture chamber. Looked a bit archaic and out of date. Hell, they didn’t even have a car battery and jumper cables. What kind of proper torturer doesn’t have a car battery and jumper cables? Oh, right, one on Golarion. Well, they also didn’t have a Spanish Donkey, so my criticism stands.
What they did have were deformed skeletons. Lots of those. Having learned our lesson back at the dwarven ruins, we smashed those pre-emptively.
Our fears of undead were proved correct as we continued on, finding a number of zombies trapped in pits ahead. As we were checking those out, we were attacked by a large deformed goblin. When I say large, I mean he was almost man sized. And when I say deformed, I mean “more than Quasimodo”. He attacked by vomiting up a bunch of stomach acid. I tried to retaliate in kind by conjuring a bolt of acid of my own.
Anyone who has ever fired a gun at a shooting range knows what I mean when I say the following. It was the perfect shot. It hit smack between his eyes. The force of it made his head snap back. For a moment, I thought he was dead. Then he just looks at me with a grin and continues fighting. I don’t remember who killed it. I was too busy being upset that I had wasted my perfect shot on something that was immune to acid.
After he was dead, I took out my frustration by turning the zombies into acidic zombie soup before we continued on. Aurora tells me that while I was doing that, Geo took a blood sample from the goblin. I’m not sure I want to know what he has planned for that.
We pressed onward and found stairs leading down. They had been covered by rubble. Further down the hall, we found a freaky spherical room with strange gravity effects and lightning coursing across the wall, forming into Thassilonian runes. Inside, we found a few items of interest, including some kind of bestiary written in what I think was Abyssal. We then headed back and searched a room we had bypassed earlier.
Inside we found a Vargouille. If you’ve never seen one, it’s a head with bat wings. They can turn people into one of them by kissing them lingeringly. Maybe even with a little tongue. I don’t know. It let out a shriek and paralyzed several of us. I don’t recall what happened next, but it was killed pretty quickly. My money’s on Lenn swatting it, since Lenn is really good at that.
Beyond the Vargouille was some more stairs, which led up to a chamber. From the chamber, we could see light filtering in through cracks. We couldn’t find a way out through it, so we gathered up some wood and set a fire. Once we made our way out, we looked for the smoke. Seems the chamber was directly under an alley between Tower Street and Junker’s Way. Might have been how they planned to surprise everyone.
Ameiko safe and the immediate threat ended, we headed back to our rooms. Before we went to our beds, Aurora told me that she had heard I had been propositioned by a lovely young woman but had turned her down. She told me that she hoped that I hadn’t done so on her account. I let her know that had been part of it, but that I had also been feeling a bit paranoid. Didn’t explain my dominoes dream to her, but she understood.
She told me that she wished that she could be what I wanted, but that she was afraid that might never happen. She wanted me to not let her hold me back in case it never did. It hurt, but I understood. She has too much baggage with the opposite sex for her to feel comfortable dating me. I could live with just being friends. Who knows? She might change her mind one day, but if not, she was right. I couldn’t keep myself off the market indefinitely. It’s not who I am. I made a resolution to look up Shayliss or perhaps one of the other lovely young ladies of the village after we had dealt with the threat from Thistletop.
We spent the next several days preparing. I paid several wizards from town to teach me some spells and then spent the rest of my time crafting things to help us later. I began by making a magical pearl to allow me to recall some of my lesser spells. I think I’m gonna make an entire strand of them. They’ll be like my prayer beads. Then I made a magical cloak for Aurora, to protect her from many various effects. Also to keep her warm. She’s kinda tiny, so she gets cold. And winter is coming.
God I hope that I didn’t just turn this into Game of Thrones with that line.
When I needed a break from crafting, we went with Father Zantus to boil the hell out of the Runewell. That is how you make holy water, right? You take regular water and boil the hell out of it? I dunno. Anyway, Runewell destroyed, we took some time to remove the statue. It now sits in my room at the inn. I think it watches me sleep. Gives me the heeby jeebies.
Today’s the day we do something about Thistletop. I’m not sure why we’re going personally, but I get the feeling it has to be us. I woke up several hours before dawn. I climbed up on to the inn’s roof to look at the stars and work on this journal by conjured magical light. I’ve been contemplating the lyrics to an old Mighty Mighty Bosstones song.
Have you ever had the odds stacked up so high
You need a strength most don’t possess?
Or has it ever come down to do or die?
You’ve got to rise above the rest. No?
I worry about whether I can. I mean, what if this was why I was brought to this world? What if my presence cascaded into a domino effect all its own, bringing Aurora, then Geo, Lenn and Paulie here? Maybe we’re the ones supposed to take care of this. Is this in God’s plan?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not making the same mistake Samantha did. She was broken by this same question. I don’t have quite the inflated sense of my value to the cosmos that she does. So while I suspect that I have a purpose for being here, I don’t have any delusions that it has to have been all that great. Maybe whatever it was has already happened, but to me was so small that I didn’t notice it. If we fail, we fail. I’ll feel bad about it, but it’s not like it’ll cause an existential crisis. But it’d be nice if we succeed. A lot of folks are counting on us. We may not be able to do much, but at least we can try. This Nualia is a bully. I hate bullies. You can thank my older brother for that.
It makes me wonder if I’ve never had to, but I’d better knock on wood. ‘Cause I’m sure it isn’t good. And I’m glad I haven’t yet.
That’s the impression that I get.
0 Comments