Sane and Back Again by Ingbee Gardenza
Gods Bless the Millow-Marsh- I dearly miss your laughing brooks, your merry folk, and where your biggest worry this time of year is fending off the dire-boar and making sure the villages have proper stores of ale for the Harvestfest. Alas.
Folk here can be terrible and cruel- but I must confess my surprise at how quickly I have taken to some of these strange twigbreaking plodders I find myself with. The Cudgel Lovers are headstrong and brash, but I they are fervent in a scuffle, and even if my kill count has notably surpassed theirs, they may be over-zealous but they fight the good fight. I find myself preferring the company of the forest friend- he came to my aid when the oafenkinds retreated without warning- and I mean to keep the favor returned. But that being said, I even enjoy the inconstant one with the clearly tortured past. He swings a mean blade when he cares to- and is highly competent in the field. I have yet to make up my mind on the eldrich fellow. All who practice the arcane arts are inscrutable in their own way, but being an elf to boot does nothing but further obscure.But I will not be dissuaded that easily.
In our travels today we encountered a startlingly large representative of Viperidae Muy-Grande. She was inhabiting a dark room filled with bats. Highly irregular and yet strangely thrilling on a purely herpetological level. We removed the fangs and venom sacks for further study.
Although today there was blood and fighting, we fought with clearer hearts and minds; though we lost our retarded ranger to a highly acidic ceiling slime, (a truly gruesome sight that no-doubt will haunt my dreams) I was able to dispatch with the over-sized viper specimen with flair, and I personally neutralized at least four zombies to boot. I do so very much prefer the zombies, as morbid as that may sound. I just simply cannot abide the bandits. I can almost respect the otherness of the creatures of the dark. Cutthroats and highwaymen, however? They will kill you in your sleep. They tried their hands on me. Now they lay silent for a thousand thousand nights. Restless. Foul. and yet I am still here.
Living here among the Others, if you can really call this living and not just simply surviving – it has taught me much as to what our kind can do. We may not stand as tall, but I can kill a man as well as man can. My blade is just as sharp, my arrows just as true. And all people are the same height when they’re dead. Ignoble will fear me. Friends will love me. And life will be the better for the singing of my steel and the thrumming of my bowstring. I am in and I am here.
The world of “man” is fearsome, but our kind can make ourselves heard here. We have less to fear than we thought. Man is not the true evil – Evil is. My companions may be strange, but they are fierce. Who is to say? – with some luck and some foresight, we may just make a difference.
Tonight, we retreated back to town. Not all that heroic, though I must say the bed is hard to complain about. With a full meal in our bellies and healing on the way, gods be good- We may just turn up something about those missing paladins – or at least smack some Evil around. Another day, another dungeon. I hope to be writing here in these pages again right soon.
Until then,
by the hand of ~ Ingbee “Incandenza” Gardenza ~
Ojai Gaming Society 