Xylund Character in Iyith | World Anvil
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Xylund

Master Xylund Shrillsteel (a.k.a. Sloth, a pirate; Klazham "Limpy" Slazaramh)

Physical Description

General Physical Condition

Compact but muscular in a ropy, unhealthy sort of way.

Body Features

Very pale.

Apparel & Accessories

Night owl goggles. A wooden flute with most of its holes stopped up with mud, so it can be used for smoking druuuuugs. A toolbelt full of various tools and doodads, with a grapple gun tucked into it.

Specialized Equipment

Wields a greatsword most of the time but also carries a mace and shield.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

An ex-soldier who joined the military as a teenager, Xylund was exposed to more savagery than he could handle at such a young age and now strives to master the chaos within himself by imposing order on the world outside. His preferred weapons for that task are fear and intimidation, especially when the hip flask he constantly carries is running low.

Sexuality

Open-minded

Education

Pretty much everything he knows, he learned from the Sarge.

Accomplishments & Achievements

Killed a dragon, made a Nenmetal fall in love with him, travelled halfway across Vokari in less than twelve parsecs, joined a super secret society that may or may not rhyme with Shmudwell Shmard.

Failures & Embarrassments

Was known as Xylund Whiffsteel for a while, due to his tendency to never hit anything. Shoved a bracelet up his butt one time, and its retrieval was a literal shitshow. Set himself up for a pretty solid burn from Ulric La'carde.

Mental Trauma

Has an irrational fear of "contagions," regardless of the fact that he's impervious to disease, being a paladin and all. Doesn't seem to enjoy skin-to-skin contact unless sexytimes are going on; rarely seen without his armour on. PTSD resulting in insomnia and night terrors, which he treats with copious alcohol and whatever drugs he can get his hands on. Does not enjoy sobriety at all, it makes him cranky... er. Crankier.

Intellectual Characteristics

Logical in his own loopy, paranoid, drug-addled way. Isn't afraid to dream big. Has a fairy that, when it's not pretending to be a ping pong ball, flies around his head in a halo and makes him smurt.

Morality & Philosophy

Believes in order above all else. Human nature contains the seeds of its own destruction and must be saved from itself. Those who don't understand this, who don't see what needs to be done, are asleep.

Personality Characteristics

Motivation

Keep moving forward. Don't stop. Just keep going and it'll all make sense in the end.

Savvies & Ineptitudes

Enjoys playing dragonchess even though he's not the best player. Usually gets along with other military types. Extremely bad at impersonations. Surprisingly good at drawing horses.

Likes & Dislikes

Likes Snoffunfx, his horse from Grennan heaven, and Nysali. Doesn't mind some of his current travelling companions. His opinion of the rest of the world fluctuates wildly depending on which substance he last consumed.

Virtues & Personality perks

Generally doesn't care what other people get up to as long as they're not hurting anyone, or annoying him.

Vices & Personality flaws

Alcoholism, if you consider that a vice rather than the only rational response to the bleakness of an uncaring cosmos. Holds grudges.

Hygiene

Keeps himself pretty clean, due to his fear of diseases, but his distaste for taking off his armour has been known to make things a little ripe in there.

Social

Family Ties

Doesn't talk about his family.

Religious Views

The gods are real, obviously, but they're mostly bastards. Grennan's the least worst of the bunch, probably? At least he knows what's what.

Social Aptitude

Some people find his bluntness and absurdist sense of humour disarming, while others don't. Not a smooth talker. Tends to become drenched with flop sweat in situations which require any kind of discretion or pretense.
View Character Profile
Birthplace
Greyloch
Children
Gender
Male
Eyes
Blue
Hair
Grey
Height
5'7"
Weight
165 lbs
Quotes & Catchphrases
"Great goat-buggering Grennan!"
Known Languages
Common, Dwarvish

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Eighth Letter to Nysali

Your Grace,   The others are trying to solve a life-or-death puzzle. We're trapped in glass cages and are running out of air and each cage has a mythological beast associated with it. My beast is a centaur and Davynn's is a pegasus so the beasts seem associated with the specific person inside each cage. And so, logically... no, that's all I've got.   Puzzles aren't really my jam. Riddles, I mean. Figuring out mechanisms and such, yes, that's where I shine like a crazy diamond, because there's no human element gumming up the works. To solve a riddle you have to kinda think like the riddler, put yourself in their shoes. It's too much like empathy, which isn't very useful in my line of work.   You know how I so hate to be presumptuous (teehee), but you could take a lesson from me. Still not clear on what triggered this meltdown but if I have this right, your grief over the deaths of Annie and Corrin gave this evil dream-eater you had imprisoned a sliver of an opening, enough to slide into your brain and start fucking shit up. It was a bummer, for sure, but... they were just two people, you know? People are dying by the thousands every second of every day. A constant, global waterfall of corpses pouring into the abyss. You can't let it get to you. That's life.   What we need, you and me, once I rescue you, is a holiday. Fuck Greyloch. Lorholt! The sanitation is subpar but I'll make us breathing apparatuses apparati apparatoises masks and leather suits so that our skin isn't exposed to any free-floating contagions, and we'll find a little hovel to call our own and we'll just study things that make sense, gears and doodads and gizmos. We'll take things apart and put them back together and if anyone knocks on our door we'll tell them to fuck off, sicko and we'll only go outside in our plague suits to pick up take-out and to sniff disapprovingly at the chaotic lifestyles of all those who don't live according to clean, mechanistic principles. No more of this communing with dead queens and keeping the lid on evil dream-eaters and, you know, caring about shit. We will find a box to call home and we will poke some (rigorously filtered) air holes in it and then we will shut the lid on that box and never go out again. Except for take-out.   How's that sound? I will answer for you, since you are currently mind-melded to a tower of geshal stone or whatever. Perfect. It sounds perfect.   My ambitions were too grand before. This is the answer. I see it now.   Yes, it means going east, which is closer to Valwall rather than further away, but Lorholt is as far as we go. There's nothing in Valwall. Don't even ask. Valwall is a shithole. No point in going there. Fuck Valwall.   I wrote letters to the others. Thought I'd given up, thought I was ready to die, so I wrote them all individual notes to say goodbye. But you know what? Turns out, I hadn't given up. NOW I've given up. I am goddamn coming apart. Don't think I even have it in me to die well. Feeling, like... feelings. ME! I tried to hug Kern! Just need to find some hole to crawl into where I can catch my breath, stop my brain from jangling, get my shit in order. Wash off the smell.   Gotta kill this bastard Tem. I don't go back to that day. It's at the bottom of the Blackest Chasm, where I keep all the other days there's no point in revisiting. Lot of coffins down there, but that one's got the most chains wrapped around it. And he just fucking... he slipped in there, like he must have done to you, and he just, like magic... popped it open. Gonna smite that smug smile right to the other side of his face.   Then, a holiday. Maybe even an early retirement. You in?   Rhetorical question. Of course you are. If this whole debacle hasn't taught you the futility, no, the FATALITY of caring, I don't even know what to say. You're an intelligent woman. You must get it by now.   Just gotta escape this cage first. Hope the others with all their vaunted empathy are making some progress on this puzzle.   Oh shit. Irony!   Disregard that last part. Come to Lorholt, where the air tastes like ass but at least no-one pretends it doesn't.   Xylund   PS. It's starting to feel weird, calling myself that. Just another sign that I'm wearing out. You and me, we gotta get out of here.

Preparing for the Morrow

Each of these letters is rolled up and tied with a strip of grey cloth torn from an ash-stained cloak which was already ragged before Xylund started ripping it to bits. They're tucked into a corner of his pack where they won't be crushed too badly if his lifeless body happens to fall on them.   Davynn,   If you're reading this, I've gone to Grennan Heaven. Unfortunately, even though we're famous for our mighty deeds, I don't think I've done quite enough yet to be preserved for eternity in gem form. But don't be sad, Grennan Heaven sounds Okay, and that's better than most places. Snoffunfx will keep me company.   I want you to have the Sword of NoOoOoOo. Maybe it'll keep you out of trouble. Just in case it doesn't, stick with Kern. He'll look out for you, and he's basically a Sword of NoOoOoOo in human form anyway.   Also, the Argent Order should have that dragon helm somewhere. You can have that too, if you can track it down. If they try to charge you for it, don't pay! Take them to court! Nysali said it would be free.   Speaking of Nysali, once you and the others have liberated her from the bonds of despondency, there's gonna be a risk of her being rebound by them when she finds out I'm dead. You'll have to step up here, Davynn. I bequeath to you my role as her paramour, her guiding light in the surrounding darkness. It's up to you to lift her spirits, and to perform any tasks in the carnal department that are required of you to achieve that goal. I believe in you.   I know that I'm leaving big empty shoes to fill so if it'll help you rise to the challenge, and if you ever get tired of being Of Whitfeld, you can take my last name. You don't have to. But I wouldn't mind.   Don't make this weird!   You should really consider ditching Ryldis, for so many reasons. I'd suggest that you consider switching over to Grennanism, so that you could join me in Grennan Heaven, but I don't think it'd be your speed. Too grey. So this is probably it. See you never.   Take care, Davynn Shrillsteel.   See? It sounds badass!   Xylund   ----------------------------------------------------   Kern,   End of the road. I expect you to keep your word.   I want you to have that magic bracelet you helped shove up my butt, that I keep forgetting I have. Whenever you pluck a bead from it, please think of my butt.   Also, if my body isn't already burned to ash or eaten, I'd like to be cremated while wearing my night owl goggles. I wanna be able to see what's what in the afterlife.   To be honest, I'm not 100% confident that I'm gonna make it into Grennan Heaven. My understanding of what's expected of a paladin of Grennan is, ah... sketchy. But I figured if he had any complaints, he'd let me know eventually. Maybe that day has come. Bah, not too worried. There's probably not much difference between Grennan Heaven and Grennan Hell. Both varying degrees of Adequate.   Shit, maybe I won't even make it into Grennan Hell.   I know you'll disagree when I say this, but this is for the best. I don't want to get into it too deep but I've never really been any good to anyone. I've tried, and I've failed. Repeatedly. So eventually I stopped even trying.   Travelling with you and Davynn kinda snapped me out of that. We've seen some cool shit, right? Good times. Things started to seem a bit less dire. Then Beamo the Grey torched Corrin and Annie and I was reminded of the way things are. Oh well, that's what drugs are for!   All in all, things have been good. When I first met you guys, I never thought I'd feel genuine pleasure at anything again. I wouldn't say that our travels have filled me with hope, because I'm not... you. But maybe something hope-adjacent.   Still, there are some constants that can't be outrun. Some fundamental currants that are baked into who you are. And I'm tired of pretending otherwise. I'm just goddamn tired.   This was the best possible way for me to go out. So it's all good. If you want to wish me well, imagine me as a sort of wisp of unthinking nothingness wafting in oblivion.   A wisp of unthinking nothingness with a sweet, sweet ass.   Don't ever forget my butt!   It's been a trip. Good luck with your family stuff.   Xylund   ----------------------------------------------------   Lili,   I'm sorry I threw your fucking cat into the acid, okay? OKAY?! When things settled down I had every intention of buying you a new cat, a real one, and naming her Real Cat so that no-one would ever mistake her for a soulless homunculus. You would've been bowled over by my unexpected sensitivity. It would've melted your goddamn heart.   But now I'm dead so you're just gonna have to believe me when I say I'm sorry and fucking DROP IT!   I'm not Kern, I can't be all, “oh, I hurt your feelings, I feel so baaad,” because... I mean, let's get real. If I understand things correctly - and there's a VERY high chance that I don't - the cat is fine. It was decorporealized in a rather unpleasant way but it'll bounce back, right? No permanent damage... aside from the psychological scars of being eaten alive by acid....   But do ethereal spirits even have psychology? Given that they're not bound to a physical form or possessed of biological humours? Who are we to presume that their minds are circumscribed by the same limitations as ours? How dare we project our inadequacies on the boundless cosmos!   DAMN YOUR HUBRIS, LILI!   Just kidding. If I had more time I'd draw for you how I pictured Real Cat. But I don't.   I think you mean well. You're just prickly sometimes, and you hold grudges, like me. It's probably a waste of time. There's no point in keeping score if no-one upstairs is. And even if they are, who are they to keep score? Aloof bastards!   (Grennan excluded, obviously.)   It's a way of protecting yourself, being in control. I get that. But your solitary tower's gonna crack some day, no matter what spells you weave to uphold it. Best to embrace it and ride the falling rubble.   You can trust this crew of goofs, is what I'm saying.   Listen or don't. It's no Real Cat but it's all I've got.   I bequeath to you that spell coin of Twilight's Something. And my book of schema. Don't know if you'll be able to use it but you'll probably find it interesting, at least.   Okay. Sorry about the fucking cat already. Great goat-buggering Grennan! LET IT GO!   Xylund   ----------------------------------------------------   Lana,   I really wish I'd gotten to know you better. You seem cool, and I feel like there's this whole tortured story between you and your sister that I'm kinda - in spite of myself - curious about. But if I ask too many prying questions, people feel like they have license to ask the same kinds of questions in return, and we can't have people taking liberties of that sort, now can we.   I want you to have my Hat of Vermin, but ONLY on the condition that all of the rats it summons are accounted for. None should be allowed to roam free to spread the plague. If you summon a rat that's Your Rat now, and if it spreads the plague that's Your Plague. It is a heavy responsibility, this title of Rat Mistress that I bestow upon you, and I expect you to wear it with the gravitas it deserves.   Furthermore, you can have my Notebook of Doodling, so that you can use it to keep an accurate Rat Tally.   Watch out for Davynn. He seems to listen to you. I know his enthusiasm can be contagious but if you could act as a sort of brake on some of his wilder ideas - like, oh, I dunno, beating the shit out of unconscious people or threatening to cut the throats of random gnomes - I'd appreciate it, because I won't be around to do that anymore.   Also, I don't know what the future holds for Gayle, maybe he'll go back to serving Daralei like a dork, but if he decides to honour my memory by travelling with you guys, please keep an eye on him. Also, he should have some good material compiled about our travels so if the mood were to strike you, I wouldn't HATE it if you wrote a tragicomic opera commemorating my thrilling exploits. “The Legend of Limpy” ... nah, I'll leave the title up to you.   Farewell, Rat Mistress.   Xylund   ----------------------------------------------------   Mushroom dude,   I gave away the last of my bloodmoss but if you go through my stuff you'll find a couple packets of silvertea. They're yours. Enjoy.   You don't seem like the sort who's seen many cities. People are gonna recoil from you, and call you a noxious pile of walking garbage, and that's even before they find out about the undead thing. Don't listen to them. What you do is goddamn amazing. Those who are capable of great things are always gonna be misunderstood by the commoners. Just remember: you are Royalty of the Mind!   Later.   Xylund   ----------------------------------------------------   Gayle,   I left you to last, because this one's the hardest, and now the sun's coming up.   Where to even begin.   I know I'm not an easy person, and I know it seems as though I delight in tormenting you.   But a lot of that torture is accidental! Let's say... 70 percent.   Okay, fine, so I kinda “bought” you from the Church of Daralei. But you know, the most beautiful flowers need fertilizer to grow, and you know what fertilizer is? It's poop, Gayle.   Our friendship is the beautiful flower in that analogy, is what I'm saying, Gayle.   I'm attaching a piece of my Limpy cloak to this note so that you can dry your eyes because I imagine there are some waterworks going on right now. Don't feel embarrassed. You're only human.   Blow your nose. There you go.   Don't let your brothers give you shit. Don't even let ME give you shit. My counsel at this crossroads in your life would be for you to continue travelling with Kern and the others. Expanding your horizons and learning new things and growing as a person. But ultimately, it's up to you. If you'd rather hang out with the dead and dying, that's totally your call. You do you, Gayle.   You do you, even if what you choose to do is dumb.   Just so you know that our connection is Deep and True, I'm gonna tell you something only a couple other people know (and neither of them are Kern): I'm gonna tell you my real name.   It's [redacted].   If you tell anyone else, so help me Gayle, I will haunt you like a motherfucker so don't even test me.   Take it sleazy.   Xylundius Shillsteelium IX

The Bloodwell Chronicles

Many of these notes appear to have been written under adverse conditions, perhaps on horseback, and thus are largely unreadable. The illegible bits are indicated by ellipses.   Day 1   Not sure how … Gayle’s notes … haven’t seen him writing for … and this is all good stuff! … goat-loving teenagers. Secret underground society … hidden order beneath the visible … preserved in gem form for eternal posterity … all cuz I bled into the well. And they thought I was mad! But not supposed to talk … it. Gripping stuff though.   … pick up the slack. Need something to occupy … Snoffunfx steers himself … can’t talk … Bloodwell Guard but ideas are rushing like a vast rushing … a sideways ocean of ideas … with just the tiniest adjustment … nudge, all the leaves and twigs and angles and planes in the forest around me would fall into … the naked Monkinator! … trick is finding the pressure point … where and when …   Egads, I love brocaine!   Day 2?   … kinda blurring into a mash … hours or days since I last wrote … bit of a comedown … paid attention to Sia, I suppose. Still vertical though! … want another hit but probably … Gayle’s not a fan of … no stopping! Have to protect Amra’s secrets … no time, no time. If I can eat in the saddle, so can … don’t snort at me, Gayle!   Day 2.5ish   So apparently those weren’t just stroppy teenager noises. Gayle puked all down Snoffunfx’s back and into his tail. Mental note: kids and road trips don’t mix.   We found a mining camp where we washed the crusty sick out of Snoffunfx’s tail. I helped because I’m SUCH a WONDERFUL HUMAN BEING! Write that down, Gayle. “XYLUND IS A CHAMP!”   Actually, Snoffunfx is the real champ here. Super mellow, never complains, just keeps moving forward without ever looking back. He’s kinda my hero.   Shaved my head to adopt the guise of Klazham Shlazharam, mul messenger for the Augmented Eye, to slip through the gates. Bought a raggedy cloak from one of the miners. One whole gold piece! Just need some ashes from the miners’ fire to smear into my skin to fully disappear into the role. But a short nap first. Then one more snort of brocaine and the final push into Lorholt.   Day 2.7598547   … burns all over my arms … goat-loving miners … radiant mace, blood and brains … dove into the fire … ashes, so victory? … lesson: don’t fuck with a holy man’s horse!   … walls and smoke ahead … brocaine to focus … be like Snoffunfx, don’t look back … past is the past … Lorholt ho!   Day 3.9234897001715098715908715897568907367, approx.   Well, that was a day.   Room is spinning. The mother of all brocaine comedowns. Only moments before I pass out. Hope Gayle is getting some of this down when I’m not looking.   Trouble at the gates. Had to extemporize. Didn’t go well. Main problem: my plan was fucking absurd. Scolded Gayle for not alerting me to that fact in a timely manner. But not too harshly, since he kinda pulled my ass out of the fire.   Met with the Marked. Didn’t learn much, other than that “Uther” is some kind of enlightened sage. No hard feelings at all for us hanging him and robbing him of his voice that one time. Super chill, like Snoffunfx in human form.   Had to send Snoffunfx back to Grennan’s horse heaven, sadly, cuz of the whole no-magic thing. He assured me that horse heaven is alright, even if the other horses there are kinda dicks. But the grass is flavourful and grey, at least.   Oh, whatserface of the Marked, I wanna say Stella? Uther’s sister. She showed me where the manor from whence the super-important magical doohickey, probably the dragon orb, was stolen. Vochan symbol on the gate! Significant.   Gayle and I infiltrated the place. Held at gunpoint by Not-Auron the Not-Bard, out of his mind on vapor wine. Gave him a toke on my flute-pipe (goodbye, last of the bloodmoss) to send him to dreamland and continued searching the place. Not much to find. No dangerous arcane lore to keep from Ulric. Haste unnecessary, turns out. Information though: Not-Auron is the public face of Faergar Vochan, who is the true creative genius behind the persona of Auron, the famed Bard, as well as the owner of the manor; the place was under the protection of the Falarun until the dragon orb was stolen by kobolds; Faergar left Lorholt in pursuit of it; Not-Auron, being an illiterate dunce, has been freaking out alone in his big draughty mansion ever since.   Ffffffffffffffffffff… I should’ve taken his gun to study.   Day 5 or 6   I slept in.   Fun day though, aside from the continued aftereffects of my brocaine bender. Hired a gnome to fix the door I smashed in Vochan Manor (I’ll just board up the window myself, no need to go crazy with the coin). Informed Not-Auron of my repair arrangement only to find that he was SO out of his mind when last we spoke that he didn’t even remember me. Thought I was there in response to an ad he’d given the town criers, looking for someone to chronicle his adventures. Didn’t realize it at first but he TOTALLY stole that idea from me. Is there no end to this dude’s shameless plagiarism?   But I feel bad for the guy, all alone, drugged out of his mind, watching his world fall apart around him. Because I am a SAP! Write that down, Gayle. “XYLUND HAS A HEART AS BIG AND MOIST AS THE GODDAMN OCEAN!”   So I thought I’d hook him up with Rana, a dwarf acquaintance of Gayle’s who works for the Augmented Eye in a sorta quasi-slavish capacity. Was gonna offer to free her but she seemed cool with the arrangement? I dunno, dwarves are weird. A mul wouldn’t stand for that shit. Just one of the many points of cultural friction which preclude any true understanding between her kind and mine. I AM LIMPITICUS!   Anyway, she’s a fan of Auron (not knowing that he’s a FRAUD) and she’s a scholar to boot, so I figured she’d jump at the chance to write his biography. Turned out I was right, but UNFORTUNATELY my own genius outpaced me for I was ALSO right about Gayle having a crush on Rana. I’d been teasing him about it but I didn’t suspect that he ACTUALLY…. I mean, she’s a dwarf. She’s probably, like, fifty years old. Not to mention the beard…. Which, okay, no judgment if he’s into beards but I think he might be getting his wires crossed? Like, maybe it’s not so much the beard as it is the siren song of the, ah, lower bits which usually come packaged with beards that he’s heeding? Or, setting that to one side, how about someone closer to his own age? Someone with some overlapping life experiences? Or is this some kind of weird mother issue…? Ugh, I don’t wanna know. Keep your psychodramas in your pants, Gayle!   Long story short, my arrangement worked out beautifully for everyone except Gayle, who is now extremely jealous and pissed at me.   Still, lovely evening. We went to a theatre beneath the streets of Lorholt and saw a play called The Song of Silence (by a playwright named Varyan who turned out – surprise! – to also be Faergar) which was very moving as well as being very pertinent. If the play is to be trusted – and it hews close enough to the truth that I think it can be, especially considering its source – the dragon orb was made from the heart of an ancient dragon named Avracrys the Mighty, slain by an elven sorceress who seems a dead ringer for Amra Maran. His mate, Sugo the Voiceless (whose throat was slit by the same sorceress), still haunts the high wastes, vengeful and cunning. I’m guessing she isn’t too fond of anyone who’s had their filthy paws on her beloved’s heart. Something Kern and the others might want to know as they head into kobold country.   I paid for the meal after the play because of course I did. Oceanic heart and all. Did they hang around outside the restaurant to thank me for showing them such a lovely time? And for basically fixing their lives by fitting them all together? Of course not. No, instead I had Gayle glaring daggers into my back as we returned to the inn. He stomped up to bed and I thought, “You know what would cheer that boy up? Whores!” So I sent for a couple – a dwarf woman and a human male so that he could maybe sort out his proclivities once and for all – but then realized that could be interpreted as overstepping the bounds of propriety, and might seem a bit crude to him in his fragile emotional state, so I sent them away. Told Gayle about it in the morning but did I get any points for my tact and emotional sensitivity? Of course not!   Teenagers! They’re impossible.   Day(s) 7 and/or 8 and/or 9   … helluva drug … sluggish as fuck … phantasmagoria, tied to Snoffunfx, slipping in and … sun and moon skipping … hills and trees streaming … awake or asleep …   A day of indeterminate denomination   Whitfeld! It occurred to me that Sir Segar might be able to help me shake off this druggy malaise. Also… maybe seduce Davynn’s mom while I’m there? Become his step-dad. Give him a step-brother. Decided against it though.   Don’t wanna think about Davynn. Giving him that note was a mistake. Moment of sentimentality. Kid’s still an idealist, after all. Still doomed.   And then he wrote back some nonsense about fake notes? What the fuck was that?! Even oceans (and hearts the size thereof) have feelings! That’s what Inelene’s for: to make sure that no-one takes the ocean for granted because THE OCEAN DOESN’T NEED YOUR SHIT, DAVYNN!!   Segar did a cleansing thing on me but he charged five gold. Five gold! This is why all the other gods think Ryldis is a dick, guy.   Gayle and I had an argument about whether or not paladins are equivalent to priests. Guess which side Gayle took? Shut up, Gayle.   Departed Whitfeld, lest I be tempted by the sensual wiles of Davynn’s mom, and stayed the night at The Ding ‘n’ Sich, where I found solace in the arms of another. While thinking of Davynn’s mom.   Gayle wanted to hear nothing about my amorous conquest, even after I brought him breakfast in bed. I should track down Gayle’s mom and seduce HER, just to make it official, since I’m already basically his step-dad. Can’t do anything right by this kid. How can I understand if you won’t communicate? LET ME IN, GAYLE!   The day after that one, or maybe the day after that (see, this is why I need someone else to do the chronicling)   It’s been some amount of time. Some time has passed. We’re in the mountains, in Uthalu’s cave, which we found after no small amount of blundering about. Gayle was on the brink of insulting the dragon by turning his nose up at her home-cooked meat but I salvaged the situation by convincing her he’s a vegetarian. We had some fun at his expense which probably did little to repair my deteriorating relationship with the boy but I’m just putting out the fire you started, Gayle.   Told Uthalu about the death of Annie and Corrin because it’s a cold, dark world out there and if I’m going to leave Gayle in her care while I venture deeper into kobold country, she needs to be aware of the dangers we face. She didn’t take it well so Gayle and I performed one of Varyan’s plays to cheer her up. Don’t quit your day job, Gayle, that’s all I’m saying.   I seem to be at least a few days behind Kern and the others. No telling what I’m gonna find up there. Gayle isn’t too stoked to be staying behind with the little dragon but it’s a helluva lot better than taking him to meet the big dragon. You’d think a researcher would be more keen to interview a dragon, even a small one like Uthalu, but… not so much, it turns out. I blame teenage hormones. Probably daydreaming about women with beards.   So off I go on the morrow, to save or bury my former companions. Trying not to care too much either way. Still feeling a little fragile though. The lingering brocaine? If so, I want a refund, Segar! Although Sia said the Bloodwell could have this effect too.   Not sure what comes after I save or bury… well, burying sounds like a lot of work. Cremation will probably do. What comes after I burn them. Gayle isn’t taking to the life of the road as I’d hoped so I should probably get him back to Greyloch. Think I’ll leave these notes tucked under this rock here, for him to find later, so that he can complete the chronicles of my adventures if I don’t make it back. And also so that he knows that even at the end, my highest priority was making sure that he was safe.   BET YOU FEEL LIKE SHIT FOR NOT BEING NICER TO ME NOW, DON’T YOU, GAYLE?!   Yeah, you’re gonna miss me when I’m gone.

Letter to Davynn

Somewhere in the bottom of Xylund’s pack, underneath the torn leaves of narcotic plants and the loose dragonchess pieces, beneath the screws and springs and bits of deconstructed automata, deeper even than the half-completed sketch of Corrin riding bear-formed Annie into battle, can be found a crumpled wad of paper on which is written the following:   Davynn.   First of all, don’t get the wrong idea. This isn’t an apology. Wipe that smirk off your face!   But there’s no denying that you saved our collective ass back there. Credit where credit’s due.   And just in general lately, you’ve really been pulling your weight. And I’m not just saying that cuz I think Featherstone would make a cool base of operations, although obviously it would. You can think the worst of me if you want, that I’m just buttering you up for some of that sweet, sweet haunted manor action. Doubt I’ve given you much reason to think differently.   But you stood your ground in our battle with Beamo the Grey, or whatever his name was, you know, that dude who fried our (well, your) friends friends friends. And you didn’t back down during the fight with your undead aunt. And today, if you hadn’t let the sunshine in, we’d all be mist food. No question. You’ve come a long way since the days of hiding under tables and squawking like a big ol’ chicken.   Remember when you came down that chimney as Future Davynn, all grizzled and world weary and cool? I figured that must be Davynn from an Alternate, Even-More-Than-Usual-Dystopian Future cuz I couldn’t envision how the potato boy I’d been travelling with and rolling my eyes at for weeks would ever radiate such quiet confidence and grim competence. Honestly, in those days, every week that passed without you dying was a surprise. Not always a pleasant one, to be perfectly frank.   But now I can see it. You ARE the tuber from which Future Davynn might one day grow. Potato boy is becoming potato man.   Even if we all die tomorrow, even if what causes our deaths is the fact that you threw the fire-caster to Ulric WITHIN SECONDS of me giving it to you   The sentence disintegrates into a ball of enraged scribbling before it continues.   even so, if Grennan asked, I’d still say that I’m proud to have fought alongside you.   …   Well, maybe not if that EXACT situation came to pass, but anything short of that, yeah, the sentiment holds.   So here’s a picture of Snoffunfx (never Brisket) running wild and noble and free to serve as your inspiration on the long road ahead. Channel the sleekness of his muscular form as you shed your disfiguring tubrosities! Scales > warts!   A surprisingly accomplished and subtly shaded drawing of a horse galloping across a field, mane streaming in the wind.   I lied. It’s not Snoffunfx. The horse is you, buddy. The horse was inside you all along.   Not in a sexual way. Get your mind out of the gutter, Davynn!   Semi- or demi- or quasi-sincerely,   Xylund   PS. I’m a LITTLE disappointed that your first impulse was to toss the fire-caster to Ulric, but there was a lot going on at the time so maybe you got flustered. Forgive and forget. Well, more forget than forgive, probably. Eventually.   PPS. Similarly, I understand that you were rattled and there were loud noises coming from everywhere, but just as a general rule, FYI, if you ever find yourself holding a cleaver to a gnome lady’s neck, you’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere. That is not the path to Future Davynn.

Seventh Letter to Nysali

Your Grace!   The irony! That splintering into book report teams (Davynn’s idea, obviously) was what led us to finally working together like never before! More or less, give or take a tiefling “researcher” and a “charming” “deadbeat.”   Er, that last one wasn’t supposed to be in quotations.   Wait… no, it’s nothing.   I’ll admit, I’d given up on it ever happening. Davynn is crucial to my ever-evolving plans, sure, but it was kind of a relief to be part of a sleek, stripped-down unit with Kern and Gayle (although Gayle seems to be having some difficulties with adolescence lately, judging by his attitude) and it started me daydreaming of riding off into the sunset with them. The Tribulations of the Trinity, that could be the name of the adventures Gayle would write about us. Honestly, I did everything I could to ditch Davynn and Lana when we ran into them again. But Davynn’s getting wily, harder to trick. Maybe those scales of his come with dragon cunning.   But then we were almost immediately split up again when, in the course of our investigations, someone misjudged the size of a trick trapdoor and we all tumbled down a slide into very sturdily built cells, attended by mechanized jailers. Gayle landed in the cell with the other team, which… whatever. Maybe they’ll be able to figure out what’s wrong with him.   Because that is not my jam. My remedy for the challenges and frustrations of puberty was the liberal application of bloodshed and booze, neither of which I would prescribe as solutions for Gayle. No, MY particular area of expertise is GODDAMN MECHANIZED JAILERS!   !!!   Stomach got excited for a second there too, decided to chime in. It’s been talkative recently. No reason. What? You’re the prophet, YOU tell ME why! Smart guy!   But how cool is that? Actual walking… or rolling, and er… not talking, but barking, at least one of them… I feel like I’m not making this sound as amazing as it was. Clockwork automatons, your Grace! Little beetle weirdos on wheels full of fiddly interlocking bits to pick apart! And this other one that understood Gnomish, sorta!   Actually, that IS very impressive…. In hindsight, maybe I shouldn’t have smashed its sophisticated brain open.   But there’s no such thing as progress without blood, no enlightenment without gears strewn all over the cell floor of your imprisoned mind.   They were powered by these blue crystals, blue like the skies of possibility I could feel opening up before me as I examined them. The plan was to take the crystals and connect them in series to increase the maximum… has anyone decided what a unit of magical energy is called? Some of those books back at Featherstone might have mentioned something along those lines but I was mainly looking at the pictures, to absorb as much knowledge as possible in the limited time available. It seems like the sort of thing I’d remember though, even taking my vodka-rotten memory into account. Sorry: potato ale.   (That’s what they call vodka in Whitfeld. It’s hilarious. Also, Whitfeld exists. I know, right? Kern made a guy shit excrementate his pants.)   Operating on the assumption that no-one with a mind as orderly as mine has studied these matters yet, a unit of magical energy shall henceforth be called a shrilling.   Returning to my tale: I connected the crystals in series to increase the maximum shrillage in the hope that the resultant Super Beetle would be able to tear our door off its hinges? I think? I dunno, that part was Kern’s idea, I just wanted to make a Super Beetle. And it worked! More or less. I mean, it exploded… but explosions are the flowers of the mind’s understanding or some shit. Defecate! That was the word back there. Sorry, your Grace, my mind’s going in a thousand directions. I’m a bit keyed up. And distracted.   Oh, whoops. Embarrassing!   No, false alarm. Phew. Actually, on second thought, my feelings on that are mixed.   Really, Gayle should be writing this, but I think he might be broken. After the explosion freed him and the others, they ran into some trouble in the next room and he totally froze. I’m not saying he should be more like me… well, he could stand to be a LITTLE more like me. Come on, Gayle, it’s only life and death. What’s the difference, cosmically speaking? And besides, worst case scenario, you’ll get to see your goddess! Won’t that be nice?   Death is part of life. Nothing to be feared. For instance, if Corrin and Annie hadn’t died, would we have ever found ourselves playing hot potato with a magic bomb to defeat an advancing robot, in the FINEST EXAMPLE OF TEAMWORK IT HAS EVER BEEN MY PRIVELEGE TO BE A PART OF? Who can say? Who can untangle the vicissitudes of fate? All I DO know is that in dragonchess you can’t subtract a single move without altering the character and potentially the outcome of the entire game. I’m not saying that, if their deaths brought us to this moment in time, it was somehow a fair trade….   I’m just saying that apparently I can make magic bombs now. Make up your own mind.   The upshot of all this is… I apologize. I lost faith in you. I thought we were irreparably broken and that you were to blame. But I see now that it was all for a purpose. Our old system was dysfunctional, it needed a couple of gears replaced, as distressing and unexpected as that was. But now at least all the pieces FIT. Even Ulric, maybe? Hmm, let’s not get TOO crazy.   I dunno, I’m all aglow with… what is it. A feeling of fellowship or some garbage. I guess having someone help you cram conceal a magical bracelet in your ass bunghole can’t help but lower your defences a bit. Speaking of… no, alas, ‘twas naught but the wind. But it’ll happen in the fullness of time. I have faith.   Ponderously yours,   Xylund

Sixth Letter to Nysali

Your Grace,   There’s a long version and a short version.   Short version: I don’t know what qualities Katt looks for in a prospective employee but her hiring policies, particularly where they apply to her messengers, could use a rethink.   Long version: Some things were said, perhaps with more fervour than was necessary. But this Stanley guy….   Let’s backtrack a bit. I’d just spent the entire boozeless day in a bone-rattling cart with Ulric blathering and bloviating behind me. At this point, every word out of his mouth hits my ears like the blare of a triton’s horn distorted by layers of sea water. My mind has so swaddled itself in protective layers that even if I WANTED to pick a few scraps of sense from his endlessly self-aggrandizing proclamations, I wouldn’t be able to. We forgot to inspect Vochan’s coffin before we left Featherstone, and didn’t remember until we were already an hour out, so he made a great hullabaloo about going back, arguing that we should leave it for now and take a look when we returned, whenever THAT might be. An hour versus some indeterminate period of time that could very easily be forever. And the others were taking his side! Made me wonder if Amra Maran’s experiments with other planes of existence had shunted me into some up-is-down, black-is-white alternate reality. Of course, when we got back it became clear that his reluctance arose from the fact that he’d pilfered all the rings from Vochan’s fingers. Didn’t shut him up though. Not even close. And that’s everything you need to know about Ulric right there.   So there’s that. Then there was the aforementioned lack of booze, which was leading to some pretty foul psychological and intestinal difficulties. Hadn’t slept in days and the smell wafting up around my collar was starting to make me gag. Would’ve soaked a rag in alcohol and breathed through that but, like I said, NO ALCOHOL! Guess Lana might have let me use some of hers but the last time I took a swig of her booze she thought it was worth a pair of dimensional shackles.   Still, she doesn’t seem so bad. I can be socially awkward too, on freakishly rare occasions. Maybe it was just the stress of meeting new people that made her go for the shackles. She DID restrain Ulric, after all, which shut him up for a solid five seconds. Five seconds of heaven. And she plays dragonchess.   But that’s beside the point, for now, which is that I may have overindulged when we finally got to the Ding ‘n’ Sich. Not sure, but didn’t I meet this Makaria at another one of these places…? Who knows, it’s all a blur. But anyway, this fucking guy came up to me and Gayle while we were enjoying our meal, and all I wanted was a few seconds of peace to get properly loaded before washing the stink off me, so I waved him in the direction of the others. Then immediately thought better of it when I remembered who the others are.   So yeah. I was a little bit frazzled and rough around the edges, lacking in a few of my usual social graces, when I caught up with Katt’s messenger. But please, before you judge me too harshly, summon this Stanley into your presence and try to have a conversation with him on any topic and if you don’t want to flatten his nose after five minutes… I guess I owe you a beer. Well, you probably don’t drink. The fruit-based beverage of your choice then.   I’m not saying that your prophecies AREN’T bullshit, just that I don’t think it’s your fault. Either the Seven Sisters have their own agenda that you’re not privy to, or we’re dealing with someone powerful enough to warp the future you’ve foreseen. Both options are Not Good, so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when I heard that you shut down Greyloch. But I was. Didn’t occur to me that you might take our losses so much to heart. I mean, I’m over it. Still don’t feel like smoking Corrin’s flute but other than that, just more bloody water under the bridge. It’s happened before, it’ll happen again. You shouldn’t learn from my example in ALL things (definitely not) but maybe in this ONE thing you should. We’re all just sleepwalking slabs of meat. Corrin and Annie woke up. That’s all that happened.   Anyway, if you’ve read the report from that Stanley idiot, just remember that I was not at my best when I said what I did. Didn’t mean to add to your troubles. I’ll make it up to you.   Like, your prophecies don’t HAVE to be bullshit, ya know? We can fix that. It might take some creative editing but I’m sure we can tweak the flow of events so that it all fits together somehow. Not outright LYING – I don’t think Gayle would be okay with that – but we DO have a bard now who seems comfortable abiding within a fluid definition of the concept of “truth.” Those Glammies might be out of the question since the Glamoured are a little bit, uh, less receptive to my vision than I was hoping, but the Monkinator could still work. So it’s not ALL lost. And we’re still on track to getting the dragon orb, more or less. Maybe you’ll know how to use it and the story will end with us all flying dragons into battle against some monstrous, world devouring Ulric. Yeah… cuz I’m pretty sure he’s not on our team. I mean, I hate to harp on this, but on that point you should REALLY take a look at the potential bovine fecal quotient of your prophecies.   Okay. We’re cool, right?   We’re cool.   Steadfastly yours,   Xylund

Jury Rigging the Engine of Destiny

Jury Rigging the Engine of Destiny   See, that’s what I’m talking about. A clear, unambiguous victory. Finally!   Fine, so what we’ve managed to put together concerning Orlatrin Vochan is a little bit depressing, but there was nothing to be done about that by the time we got to her. The best she could hope for by that point was the sweet release of death, and we obliged her. And stomped the shit out of that golden snake.   Although if…. I still haven’t sorted out which is Lily and which is Lana. But if Liliana 1 was right and the snake was Amra’s familiar and Amra is the banshee lady, then we might have to do some more smiting. I poo-pooed the idea when she first brought it up but what the fuck do I know about familiars. And as much as she tries to hide it (even though she’s crazy bad at it), she’s definitely a wizard. “Oh no, this is a… cookbook, yes, that’s what it is. A cookbook. For foodstuffs.” Uh huh. Anyway, it’s possible that she might know what she’s talking about.   I’ve seen her and Liliana 2 giving Gayle the ol’ side-eye every now and then, particularly when he’s taking notes. He really showed his mettle today. Hope the glow of victory doesn’t make him uppity like Davynn. Never really had a conversation with him regarding his feelings on magic, but he’s a pretty straitlaced temple boy so I can probably make an educated guess. Think I’ll just let that situation simmer for a little longer before I step in, to see how the Lilianas deal with it. Give me a reason, tieflings. I’m a fiend-smiting machine.   Hasty sketch of a wheeled, strangely equine engine of war (precise function unknown, but something to do with spikes), decorated with horned skulls and dead snakes.   They were background noise until today. But really, we might not have survived without them. It was close. I assumed that once we were done exploring Featherstone and they’d found whatever they were looking for in the library, we’d part ways (with some bladed encouragement, if necessary) but now… I mean, our fated apparatus has fallen apart. Maybe we could use a couple of replacement parts. Sure, the Lilianas weren’t part of Nysali’s plan, but either she was withholding information or she was flat-out lying. We’re on our own now. We have to extemporize.   I know that Kern has that sending stone, and we could check in with Katt at any time, get her to ask Nysali if what happened to Corrin and Annie was all part of some grander vision she chose to keep to herself… but what if she just spins another gossamer web into which I am inexplicably, unexpectedly drawn? Really don’t know how I let her get me so turned around. Gotta keep an eye on that. It’s a weakness. Kid stuff.   The downside to letting the Lilianas tag along is that it means we’d probably be stuck with Ulric.   Doodle of Ulric sleeping, with a very stupid looking mohawk.   The upside is that if Davynn ever gets himself in any magic-related trouble, we can always point at the wizard and say, “It was her!” as we make our escape. And if Ulric’s behaviour in battle today was any indication, he’d probably stay behind to help her. Two birds, one betrayal.   Sure, a little bit ruthless, but we are (possibly) saving the world here. Sacrifices have to be made.   And Davynn is VITAL to whatever comes next. Somehow his grandmother is at the centre of all this. Not to mention the estate he stands to inherit if we can sort out the legal stuff in Greyloch. Might have to touch base with Nysali for help there….   No rush on that score though. A quick side trip to Whitfeld to gather more evidence to support Davynn’s claim, then maybe to Mirstone to see if we can find out more about the Corrupted Conjuress. Wouldn’t mind investigating that stew lady at the Nenemeth church too. Pff, stew lady. How stupid does she think we are? Shiftiest stew lady I’ve ever seen.   Yeah, Greyloch can wait a little while.

Fifth Letter to Nysali

Your Grace,   Sorry I got a bit maudlin there. I’m over it, don’t worry. No hard feelings.   Bit of a shock to the system, sure, but a necessary reminder. I thought we were part of something big. Gears in some grand mechanism. But there is no pattern, no master plan.   Order always starts on a human scale, at an individual level. Some idiot gets an idea of how the world works. Not how it SHOULD work, but how it ACTUALLY works, because people who think in “shoulds” just get old and bitter at being constantly disappointed. No, this idiot thinks he’s got it figured out, that he’s glimpsed a deeper truth, and he acts in accordance with that revelation. So now he either gets himself killed running up against the complexities of reality, or he gets lucky. Let’s say he survives for a while. Now he’s fucking BLESSED, cuz there’s nothing more attractive than idealism that beat the odds. People want to be near him, to rub up against him and steal a bit of his divine charge. They want to follow him. So now he has force. And whaddayaknow? With an army at his back, the world actually DOES work the way he always thought it did. Funny, that.   And for a while there’s Order. Stability. Progress. Then the idiot dies and it all falls to shit.   Not a perfect system, obviously. Wasteful and messy as fuck, just for a start. But it’s the ONLY system. There are no shortcuts. No chosen heroes, no evil masterminds pulling the strings of history, no magical talismans of power that need destroying for the world to be saved. The true battle is between the Awake and the Asleep.   I thought for a long time that I was on the side of the Awake, because I was one of them. But I’m not. On their side, that is. It’s like, I remember this kid named Onk (it was short for something) who was deathly ill the night before a battle, all pale with livid cheeks, ranting and raving with fever, saying he could see the future and we were all gonna die, and he was pointing at everyone who was trying to sleep around the fire and saying through chattering teeth, “You’re gonna die. And you’re gonna die. And you.” I mean, it’s not that he was wrong. Most of those people DID die. But some of them probably died cuz he got inside their heads and freaked them out. So fuck Onk.   What’s the point? Why spread the misery around?   It’s the Asleep who change the world for the better. The delusional, the naive, the charmed somnambulists. Like Davynn. His idealism is dangerous, sure, and not just for himself but for anyone who gets caught up in it. But so what? What else is there? Let him sleep. Being awake suuuuucks.   Ha, we met these tieflings, one of them a bard who gave me this paltry gulp of ale and then thought it was worth a set of dimensional shackles. Girl, I really fucking WISH that was enough to knock me out. Didn’t even get a glow from it.   And the drugs… I think I’m gonna need a new pipe. Activated my magical senses in the library and then got high to bask in the glow of all the enchanted tomes, thinking it’d be like the good old days in the recent past, in the Treaty Woods. I’d just trip out and maybe scream at the stacks if the EPL tried to burst through them to harsh my mellow. But instead I just stared at the pipe. A flute, actually, repurposed by Corrin, still with the same mud in its holes that he forced in there with his stubby fingers. Tried to blow smoke rings. They came out looking like smushed, smeary faces.   And the books… the books work, somewhat. I can lose myself in them for a while. The Marans were an intriguing bunch. I don’t use the word enraptured lightly or often, but I was freakin’ enraptured by their family history. Everything I’ve been hoping to learn is here somewhere. For the first time, building the Monkinator and maybe even the Glamaratus seems achievable, given enough time to study and experiment.   But all I see, as I flip through these technical treatises, are the weapons I could build with this knowledge. The engines of destruction. I try to summon the enthusiasm I felt when I first hit upon the idea of changing the world peacefully, with the power of your inspirational example… and I can’t. I am painfully, irrevocably awake.   And who wants that. So we’ll do this Davynn’s way. Soon we’ll have a base of operations. Walls to protect us from outside threats. Every kingdom needs to start somewhere. And everyone wants a Davynn they can believe in.   It’s Bedtime. We’ll put the whole fucking world to sleep.   Sincerely,   Xylund   PS. Remind me to ask you, the next time I see you, if it’s possible to tattoo over a magical tattoo without wrecking the magic.

Fourth Letter to Nysali

Your Grace,   I don’t know what exactly you saw in your vision but you DID say that we were all needed to save the world or whatever. All of us.   I know that shit happens. It’s not like I thought that just because you saw us saving the world together, we were invincible-   No, scratch that. I kinda DID think that. I don’t know when exactly I went from being a sceptic to a believer. But you play a part long enough and it starts to rub off on you, and in the course of defending you to reassure the others and acting certain of your wisdom, I convinced myself. Or maybe… I felt some affection for these dreamers and weirdos. Believing that we were protected by destiny made it okay to lower my guard a bit, have some fun. Get attached.   Although I guess I can’t blame you for this fucking tattoo. I was very high.   “We can’t just ignore the flare!” I said. “Someone might need our help! Also, hi, I’m Davynn from Whitfeld apparently!” Who AM I anymore? I mean, yeah, you don’t kick people when they’re down, but unless they’re getting kicked RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU, who cares? There are too many people in the world to go around trying to save them one by one. I know this! Keep your mind on the road and your eyes off mystery flares. THAT should be my next tattoo, right under the dragon-skull’ed Corrin jumping over the bonfire… if I flex my pec just right, I can make him move….   Not moving much now though, is he, with his mushed head. Worse than the dream. Not sure there was enough left of him for the Cathal Ros to do much of anything, other than make him into a stew. If, that is, everything is connected and that elf dude with the horse is working with the crazy dwarf buggers. And the Ilithids! How did they get into this?   Yet WE are the chosen ones, you say. Elemental gnolls, cannibal dwarf cultists, dragon orbs, cursed amulets, butterfly houses, death traps, mind flayers, antlered horses that radiate fire, elves who shoot sunlight… yep, no worries. WE GOT THIS, YOUR GRACE! DON’T YOU WORRY YOUR PRETTY LITTLE HEAD ABOUT US! EVERYTHING’S UNDER CONTROL!!   I was NOT very nice to Annie. She probably figured out that I was messing with her before the end, re: the sex friends thing, and I never got a chance to bone her to prove that I wasn’t. Even though I was. But SHE didn’t need to know that! Don’t know what pisses me off more, that she died thinking I was some cruel asshole, or that it bothers me that she did. What does it matter. This “hero of prophecy” bullshit has gotten out of hand, infected my thinking. I’m not even a good person. I am, at my absolute best, not as bad as some people. That’s it.   She tried so fucking hard though. For what? So she could watch her best friend get his face caved in while she held his hand?   And that little weirdo. Infinite energy and ideas. Never did figure out if he was an idiot or a genius, always moving too fast for me to get a read on him. All tuckered out now.   Dead like everyone else.   So thanks for that, your Grace. What I really needed was to start caring about people again JUST IN TIME to fail at protecting them. You read my mind.   I probably won’t be writing to you again. Doubt you’ll ever read any of these letters. But just so we’re clear, from this point on our paths align only because my friends deserve vengeance. Whatever the Seven Sisters have told you is wrong. Your plans are flawed. I say this without rancour. I don’t blame you. It’s easy to be lead astray. But I won’t be again. No more daydreaming. Sticking to things that make sense from here on, and your way does not.   Respectfully,   Xylund

Third Letter to Nysali

A rough sketch of a ball of flesh and feathers that could be a halfling turning into a peacock or a peacock turning into a halfling.   Your Grace,   I probably shouldn’t have smoked more of those drugs. I forget what they’re called already. Bloodweed? Goremoss? Pretty potent, whatever the name. Thought they might allow me to penetrate the visible with my third eye to solve this riddle but nope. So I stared at the faun and the mini-elf for a while instead, grinding my teeth with a blank face, to see if I could break them that way. No reaction. Cool as cucumbers in winter. On the Elemental Plane of Ice. If there is such a plane. Hang on, just gonna try to pierce the veil between worlds with my third eye to see if there’s an Elemental Plane of Ice….   Back. There isn’t. Although, surprisingly, love is an element. It’s all hearts and naked halflings with widdle wings shooting arrows and bouncing on clouds on the Elemental Plane of Love. But then the clouds, like, the way the sun sorta caught their contours, their edges became wires of light that restructured to form your face, brilliant and smiling but also dripping blood cuz of all the widdle winged halflings that got snared in your trapface…. No offence. Shit is weird on the Elemental Plane of Love, is what I’m saying.   Shouted some profanities across the lake to break the spell that my Dread Wisdom of Extraplanar Activity had woven, and also to primal scream the toxins out of my system. Gotta be sharp for this Knavac guy. The others have been giving me weird looks lately. Especially Ulric. Glass houses, guy! But I might not be my best self at the moment. Okay, so I’ve been high for… two days straight now. Assuming that time even works the same in these wild magic zones, which I’m pretty sure it doesn’t. Maybe it’s been two months! Not my most epic bender, but still, not bad.   Obviously, the third eye thing was just a smokescreen. In truth, coming down is the worst. The worst, your Grace! THE FUCKING WORST! Your heart feels like it’s vibrating instead of pumping and every vein in your body is fluttering to catch its breath. Unpleasant, your Grace! And even worse, all the shit that for a few blessed moments you didn’t have to think about, suddenly it all crashes in on you at once and your defences are down, you’ve forgotten how you usually deal with it, so you flail around until the steps come back to you and you can hear the sarge’s voice again. And I like this place. You never know what’s coming next. Keeps you tuned in. Alive. I could live here, I think. You ever been to this part of the world, your Grace? What do you think? A little cottage by a purple brook, maybe raise some peacocks and kids could come round to pet them…. We’d have to muzzle the peacocks, of course, because great goat-buggering Grennan! Annoying. But it’d be no problem, I’d fashion the muzzles, I’m getting better at that sort of thing in my spare time. Did I show you the grapple gun? I forget. Just a sec, need to scream something over this lake….   The Elemental Plane of Love (henceforth the EPL for short) was encroaching on our reality but no fear, I drove it off. Anyway, it seems like a waste of psychedelic woods to be coming down while you’re travelling through them. I mean, granted, I didn’t have to smoke drugs the first time, but the second time was kind of a necessity.   What are your thoughts on the fashion sense of horses? Do they have one? I say no. Agreed? Agreed. So you can stop looking at me like that with those big liquid eyes, Biscuit. You’re not fooling anyone.   I feel bad for running her into a tree but oh man, your Grace, if you could see her hair….   They’re pretty excited over there. Davynn’s cracked the code, I think. Should be nicer to him. Future Davynn was cool.   These aren’t bad people, really. Kern expressed concern for me last night. Totally unnecessary, and I deflected it and kind of teased him, but it caught me off-guard. I know I gave Annie shit for not relying on the others in the group, for trying to do everything herself… but maybe I could stand to learn that lesson too. Maybe I don’t have to have my sword at the ready all the time. Maybe it’s okay, once in a while – occasionally – to sleep.   Oh shit, here comes the EPL again. Be right back.

Second Letter to Nysali

Your Grace,   The plan has hit a snag. At the risk of indulging in racist generalizations – which got me in trouble with a little mouse person earlier today – the Glamoured are assholes.   Yours,   Xylund   PS. Kern took a shit on one of their doorsteps. It was hilarious.   PPS. Are you ABSOLUTELY SURE that we’re the chosen heroes or whatever?

First Letter to Nysali

Your Grace,   The pieces are all coming together. You don’t know what I mean by that, and that’s not gonna change right away, because I won’t be sending this letter any time soon. BUT! Some day, when it’s all done, I’ll show this to you and you’ll see how far back I had it all planned and you’ll be like, “Truly, Xylund, you are the shit.” Probably not in those exact words.   See, my original plan wasn’t ambitious enough. Before I met you, it was just a money-making scheme, a way to squeeze some coin out of this world-saving, uh, malarkey (no offence). Get Gayle to transcribe and eventually dramatize our epic adventures while in the background I’d be designing some kind of mechanical contraption to produce identical copies of the same written page, much faster than your traditional monk with his ink and quill. I hadn’t decided on the name… maybe the Monkinator, since it’d be rendering monks obsolete. But anyway, we’d print out thousands of copies of our adventures and, assuming they were exciting and well-written enough, overnight we’d be competing with the holiest of holy texts for the attention of the masses and becoming multimillionaires in the process.   It started off as these self-evidently absurd, drug-induced schemes usually do, with me throwing myself into it more as a distraction than out of a sincere belief that I’d carry it to completion. Almost as a mocking commentary on the flimsiness of plans. But then the deal with Gayle actually worked out and suddenly I was responsible for him, and then I met you and you kinda turned me around on the whole Chosen Hero thing (or at least convinced me that you believed it), and suddenly it was all very real.   And it occurred to me that I could do more with this idea than I’d originally thought. The thing about battling Chaos is that you’re never gonna win. For one thing, it’s everywhere, in everyone, and for another, it’s a concept, meaning that even when you’ve stamped out its obvious signs it’s still there, lurking in the hearts of men. So you can’t kill it with a sword, no matter how many necks you free from the burden of their concept-carrying brains. But maybe you can kill it with words, by attacking it where it lives, in the realm of ideas. And what better weapon in that fight is there than you, heroically shouldering the burden of the Seven Sisters no matter how much pain they cause you, wandering tormented and waif-like and alone through the haunted halls of Caeracht, blond hair trailing behind you like the tail of a silent, moonlit comet… all for the sake of preserving order, for the sake of Greyloch.   And also, by holding you up as an inspirational example, perhaps we could destigmatize magic, at least a little. Not just in Greyloch but all over Iyith. Show people that it’s a tool like any other. A dangerous tool, sure, but capable of great good in the right hands. Hands like yours. How many wars would be prevented if a greedy aristocrat could no longer simply point at his neighbour and accuse him of magic-usage whenever he coveted his lands? How many mage-hunting mercenary bands could we put out of work? Damn, Nysali, it’d be the tits rad.   Great goat-buggering Grennan, I’m starting to sound like Davynn. Where is Whitfeld anyway? Is it one of your holdings? If it is, you’re probably not taxing them enough on their thriving export of potato people.   So anyway, that’s what the plan morphed into. But even that wasn’t ambitious enough.   Because the problem is that words on a page are still just words on a page. I mean, I read about you before I met you and while I certainly admired you, the experience couldn’t even come close to that of actually standing in your aura. And we must present our counter-argument to Chaos in the strongest possible terms if it is to take root in the minds of the ignorant and unwashed.   I was in Camp Venelis, talking to naked Meriel and then General Meda, trying to learn as much as I could about the road ahead, when it hit me. See, the area around Dawn Lake is crazy with wild magic zones… which I’m assuming you already knew when you sent us there? So I’m not too worried about that. But in these wild magic zones live these beings known as the Glamoured. They come from the Other Side (“other side of what?” I asked; shrug said Meriel) and they take the form of super elves, fey as fuck, although in reality they could be bug people for all anyone knows because their appearance is an illusion, a projection. (The elves believe that they come from the same homeland as the Glamoured though, so does that mean that elves are half-bug? I’ll ask Annie when she gets back.) They’re loopy as loons, these Glamoured, with weird obsessive tics, and it’s generally bad news if you run into one, if only because they see all other creatures as lesser beings. But! General Meda met a nice one who was really into kitschy beer steins, so they’re not all bad.   In addition! As I’m sure you’re aware, the wizard you sent us to meet in the middle of Dawn Lake is a gnome named Knavac, a renowned if reclusive inventor and maker of mechanical marvels… who despises humans. Maybe Ulric can whip up a disguise to offset that disadvantage. Didn’t work out so well in Lorholt though, so maybe not. Either way, it seems significant and fortuitous that I’m about to meet someone who could potentially help me toward my goal purely by chance, doesn’t it? I mean, I have utmost faith in your prophetic visions and all, but are you sure that this plan of mine isn’t what I’m supposed to be doing? Sure, I’ll save the world too, if it’s on the way… but a stronger whiff of destiny seems to be coming from my stuff than your prophecy stuff at the moment. Just saying.   So get this, your Grace: how about, instead of a Monkinator, a Glamaratus!   Step 1) Convince Knavac to aid me in devising an apparatus that can capture and record illusions, or at least get him to set me on the path to figuring out how to make one for myself.   Step 2) Make contact with one of those rare, benevolent Glamoured and befriend them, perhaps with the aid of the drugs I bummed from General Meda.   Step 3) Save the world, or at least have exciting adventures in that general direction.   Step 4) Turn Gayle’s notes on our adventures into a series of epic dramas, in which you will be figured prominently, as our guiding beacon.   Step 5) Have the friendly Glamoured bring our dramas to life with an illusion which both exceeds the practical limitations of all other stage productions and bypasses the usual necessity of dealing with thespians and their messy proclivities.   Step 6) Record the illusion in the Glamaratus.   Step 7) Profit! After a series of showings in Greyloch, I imagine the public’s response will be such that we’ll have enough money to produce more Glamarati for anyone with the coin to buy them, and we’ll throw in our dramas free of charge. There might still be a place for our written Monkinations among the educated, but people of all classes and creeds will be clamouring to see our Glammies. Of course, the mass-produced Glamarati will have to be stripped of their ability to record illusions so that we can retain control of our message and it isn’t buried under an avalanche of amateur porn.   Step 8) Celebrate the first true victory over Chaos in the history of Iyith.   That’s how we’ll change the world.   One small problem: Gayle. Not only is he exceedingly fragile, his nerves just don’t seem up to the world-saving task-at-hand. Neither were mine, at first, but I’d rather he didn’t learn the same coping mechanisms I did. I feel… ugh, feelings. I’d just rather he didn’t. Ulric has the gift of gab, maybe he’d make a better dramatist anyway. Although I’d prefer it if our Glammies had at least some passing familiarity with the truth.   I’m risking a lot here, by bringing Gayle along. It could go very wrong. Yeah, from the outside this looks a lot like one of those hare-brained schemes that brought my dad low. But it’s not. I don’t know how I know that, but I do. It’s different. This means something. I see the path ahead, so clear, leading into the light…. One foot in front of the other. Step, swing, step, swing, as the sarge used to say. Until all your obstacles are dead.   Yours,   Xylund

A Reluctant Resolution

That went better than I could have realistically expected. Was worried she was gonna burst a vessel she turned so red. So why am I in such a foul mood again, so soon? These carrion birds aren’t filling me with optimism, sure, but it’s more than that. Handed the reins to Corrin so I can figure this shit out, although this is far from the optimal writing environment, with the bumping and jostling and making sure the little weirdo doesn’t run us up into a tree.   It has something to do with Gayle. That hurt. I asked him not to mention my meeting with Nysali to the others and the first thing he does…. Thought we had a bond. But it’s not a big deal, I can see that. Kid just got excited. Should’ve seen it coming when I told him she had a crush on me. It was supposed to impress the need for discretion on him. Kinda had the opposite effect. Seems like I’m always trying to work people, get them to do what I want without just saying, “Please, could you do this as a favour to me?” Because that would cede some of my power, put me in their debt. Ha! And now, because of that kid, I’m probably gonna be joining dear old dad in debtor’s prison. All my instincts are telling me to turn my back on him, throw up my hands and say, “Grennan’s goats devour you between buggerings!” But I still need him.   Before Gayle it was Ulric. Took him into my confidence and he immediately started dropping hints to the others about buying children. Okay, firstly, I didn’t buy Gayle, he’s not my slave, I’m just gonna owe a shit-ton of money if he dies. Which he won’t. And secondly, who cares? My name’s the only one on the contract, no-one else’s, and it’s not even my real name. So ha! So much for your leverage, Mr. La’carde (a fake name if I’ve ever heard one). And before Ulric it was Davynn. I have a vague recollection of trying to teach him life lessons (while, admittedly, verrrrrrry high, so they may not have been phrased with my usual pith and wit) and opening my heart to him and the little jerk took a big ol’ potato dump on it.   All very trivial betrayals, easily forgivable if you go in for that kind of thing. But I don’t. I mean, I already knew that I don’t, but what I’m realizing is that I really don’t. It’s like there’s this mechanism in my head, constantly mutating towards some ideal that’s a secret even to me. People are real only to whatever degree they serve the purpose of the machine. It incorporates them into its stratagems as it advances towards perfection, but if they threaten its workings, they’re cast out. The machine is merciless. It’s not even about me. Fuck me. It’s about purity or some shit.   But I’ve seen soldiers go wrong. Maybe the evolving engine is born to achieve some ideal, but eventually it just goes and eats and eats and goes until everything’s chewed up and all you’ve got is a head full of snarled gears. Always figured I was immune to that loss of centre because, I dunno, I’m smarter? Meaner? Better at dragonchess? But… let’s get real. Am I really all that smart? Got a bit of schooling when I was young, yeah, but I’ve been on a six year bender, basically. It takes a toll. Who’s in charge of the machine now?   Shutting Gayle out, while being highly impractical since he’s such an important cog in the mechanism’s current incarnation, also… feels… like it would be a drift even further from centre for other, less quantifiable reasons? Ugh, feelings. Fuck feelings! But they’ve been cropping up more and more, like weeds. Like tuberous Davynns. Particularly around Nysali. Maybe I don’t need a centre, maybe she can just be my centre? At least for now, until I figure something else out.   But that makes me look at myself from her point of view. “You believe in protecting people,” she said. “Well, let’s not get too crazy,” I said. “You believe that bullies need to be punished,” she amended. “Sure, I suppose,” I said. But take a look at this situation with Annie. Don’t get me wrong, it was hilarious. But I honestly didn’t expect it to go as well as it did. Kinda threw me off at first, but since then I haven’t been able to resist giving her my best come-hither look every time I feel her bashful eyes on me. There’s something fucking wrong with me. What if she’s falling in love with me? I had no intention of stirring up – or reciprocating – those kinds of feelings, I just thought it’d be funny to mess with her. Yet rather than backing out politely before more damage is done, I’m flat-out seducing her now. How does that not make me a bully? My charm is too powerful a weapon, apparently. Can’t be trusted with it.   So that’s where this mood must be coming from. But I can fix this. I’ve gone too far to back out now, but she never has to know that I wasn’t sincere. If she wants to take me up on my offer, I can oblige her. I will meditate to drive from my thoughts all the weird little forest critters possibly living in her hair and I will do the deed. We shall get it on! That’s all that was offered – I didn’t promise to marry her or anything – so once we’ve knocked boots (or at least feet so calloused from life in the wild as to make a clacking sound resembling that of boots when knocked against my boots) my conscience should be clean. That’s the right thing to do, isn’t it? Pretty sure Nysali would want me to fuck Annie. It might even be, uh… I mean, it’s been a challenging mating season… any oasis in the desert, I suppose?   Oh shit, Corrin’s looking over here. He can’t read, can he? I’ve seen him scrawling something before… nah, it’s cool. Narrow escape. Better take the reins back though, I think we’re getting close.

Katt is a Secret Owl: Arguments For and Against

For:   1. She’s a dream eater. Dream eaters can bend minds and alter memories. She proved as much with Davynn. Not exactly a mind wrought from iron there, but still, I couldn’t do that. As a dream eater, she could have made Tuvaris think he’d owned an owl for years while she – or someone else – spied on him in owl form.   2. When I confronted her with this hypothesis, she didn’t deny it. Okay, she didn’t UNDERSTAND it at first – I wasn’t at my best – but Annie translated the gist well enough and she STILL didn’t deny it.   3. She has secrets. One of those secrets could be, “Sometimes I’m an owl.”   4. She knows a lot about Bowyn and Tuvaris for someone who HASN’T been spying on them in owl form.   5. She could have named herself after one kind of animal to distract from the fact that she’s secretly a DIFFERENT kind of animal (this one is tenuous).   Against:   1. She left. I mean, after going so far as to pretend to be an owl to spy on those two, she gave up pretty easily. Doesn’t mean she’s NOT an owl. Maybe she’s just shitty at it.   2. Her warnings about Bowyn and Tuvaris and the dangers of them being together were cryptic and weird. Again, not necessarily an argument against her being an owl. But there could be more going on here.   3. There probably IS more going on here. When I used to play dragonchess with the sarge and suddenly all the moves lit up and I knew exactly what to do next, it always turned out that the game I was playing was much smaller than the game he was playing. This dream eater business… I mean, it’s obvious. It couldn’t be any clearer that she’s a dream eater. But is it TOO obvious?   4. And then there’s the “coincidence” that I got so suspicious of her right after she told us that we’d been summoned by Nysali. What’s that about? Why are we being summoned? I don’t want to sound too much like Davynn here, but if this were a story, it’d be so that she could tell us that we’d been chosen by destiny or prophecy to defeat some ancient, awakening evil. Luckily, this isn’t a story, because I am sooo not up for that.   5. I mean, it’s late at night, I’m the only one awake (with the possible exception of Annie, who just sorta… spaces out… yikes), so let’s get real here, in the darkness, alone. What chance do I have against Chaos? I meant what I said to Davynn, about it being everywhere, in everyone, and that it’s essential – if civilization as we know it is to have any kind of future – to wake up to it and build walls against it. But I, by myself… am I ever gonna see an end to Chaos? No. I’m not an idiot. It’s a freaking concept, you can’t kill a concept. But that’s not what this has been about, is it. Haven’t I just been looking for a good way to die? I mean, even I can’t take my own stated ambition seriously. An army of kobolds? Releasing a dragon in the sewers? And let’s say I toppled Lorholt. What then? I’d put Davynn on the throne and rule it from the shadows? HOW?! I haven’t had a drink for twelve hours and my hand’s shaking so bad I can barely write!   6. “Kern could rule, he’s stable,” a little voice responds, but that just proves my point! I met the guy a couple of weeks ago and already I think he’s qualified to run a city? The whole plan is transparently ridiculous from top to bottom. Yes, I was high as a kite when I came up with it, but that’s no excuse. Chaos is everywhere, that is true. But my quest is fucking bullshit.   7. So what does Nysali want from us? Is she seriously gonna send us on some Davynnesque quest? I mean, questing as a sort of semi-ironic exercise in deconstructionism, aware of its own futility yet fundamentally unbowed by it, THAT I understand. But if she’s gonna ask us to save the world or some shit… that’s a level of commitment I don’t think I can get behind.   8. I’ve heard the stories about her. I drew pictures of her, wanted to meet her when I was a kid. And even now, there’s something about the thought of her wandering through Caeracht, wracked by voices that won’t just shut the fuck up….   9. Enough of this noise. Drinking time.

Perfect Diamond Geniusness

Gonna take a page from Gayle the Burier and pretend I’m writing so that no-one else talks to me.   Rough, wonky pencil sketch of a carriage, scratched out.   It’s simple. No need to make it complicated.   Sketches of trees in a tenebrist style, also scratched out.   You find the angle and you lean into it. There’s only one way in, you have to wait for for it to show itself. When it opens up, you commit.   Quick impressionistic sketch of a grinning bonfire.   You throw yourself into the Demon’s mouth.   A horse, drawn rapidly but with care until apparently the pencil’s point broke and ruined a line and the whole thing was scratched out in frustration.   You go go go and you don’t stop and you don’t look back and you DEFINITELY don’t look to see who all’s dying around you because who the fuck needs that noise in their head. All there is is the path ahead of you and yeah it’s just a trick of the mind to shut everything else out but you keep going and you keep swinging until it IS the only thing, the path behind you that you’ve carved into the world, and everything is finally fucking quiet.   Point-of-view sketch of blurred trees rushing past on either side, heavily shadowed.   And I see the path now. So clear! So simple! 1) Retrieve dragon orb. 2) Make Davynn the half-dragon king of the kobolds. 3) Smash orb beneath Lorholt, or get one of kobold subjects to do it, in the sewers for maximum poetic justice. 4) Sit back, watch Chaos eat itself. 5) Swoop in at perfect moment with kobold army to restore Order and liberate city from foul reek of fecal tyranny.   Very stripped-down, geometrical sketch of a carriage, basically just squares and circles.   And who revealed this opening to me, this chink in the enemy’s armour, this route to the heart of Chaos? Annie! She just wandered past and dropped the last piece of the puzzle into my brain. Of course! Dragon under Lorholt! It’s so obvious now, it makes sense of EVERYTHING.   But then she had to ruin the moment by talking about friendship and trying to make me feel things because Annies gotta Annie. But no, it was a gift and I’m grateful. Should cut her some slack.   Stick figure dangling from a hangman’s noose. An arrow pointing to the figure helpfully labels it as X.   Complications: 1) The Sweetness & Light Brigade are not going to see perfect diamond RIGHTNESS of this path as clearly as I do. 2) Davynn getting uppity. 3) Annie’s officer accent. 4) The healing power of Friendship.   A carriage rushing through a dark forest of crazily leaning trees, the horse’s muscles carefully contoured but everything else very improvisational and haphazard, which only adds to the hectic nature of the scene. The carriage driver’s head is on fire.   Great goat-buggering Grennan, I’m so high right now.   I luv theze drugzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Meditations on a Grapple Gun

It’s like fucking music. You pull the trigger and all these gears move in concert towards a single purpose and blam! Grapple! There’s no arguing, no what-iffing, no yes-butting. Click-whir-sproing!   That’s what I admire about Corrin. There’s no gap between impulse and action. His impulses are completely random and that’s a problem, obviously, but at least there’s no standing around and chin-stroking and hem-hawing. He’s a breath of fresh- ah, well, that loincloth is pretty pungent, but he’s a bracing change in air quality, at least.   It’s obvious that Annie and “Jack” haven’t seen much real action (of any sort). I was never the guy giving the orders, true, but on the ground it became clear that plans aren’t worth spit. Things get improvisational pretty damn fast once the charge is sounded. You wade into the thick of it, you see what’s what, and you start with the smashing until things look more or less the way they’re supposed to. Chaos doesn’t respond to reason or planning. It’s kind of built into the definition of the term.   But “Jack” has all these romantic notions of how the world’s supposed to be, and while his innocence does have a certain appeal, it’s just not the way things are. To make a world like the one in his head, you’d need to start by killing off 99% of the population and going from there. The wider the divide between the reality and the ideal, the more fucking gore you have to wade through to get there. That’s just the way it is. Jack is dangerous.   And Annie… she goes on about how old she is but I don’t know what she got up to for all those centuries. Planning what she was gonna do once she stepped out of her druid grove or whatever? Like, literally drawing intricate diagrams on the forest floor plotting out every step she was going to take once she ventured out into the wider world? Because, holy shit, what a control freak! All the know-it-allness of an officer with twice the out-of-touchness. When I’m feeling charitable I can see that she must have led a solitary life, and that she’s used to doing most things by herself and taking the time to analyze everything in the privacy of her mind and waiting until she’s perfectly comfortable before dipping even a toe into unknown waters. But you know what? There are no known waters! Even the pool in her druid grove or whatever was fed from somewhere. Man-eating fish, man! They exist! At a certain point you just have to say, “fuck it,” and dive in and keep doing so every moment of every day. That’s why the gods gave us man-eating fishwhackers.   So yeah. When I saw them all go charging across the beach – with Annie in giant crocodile form which, fine, that’s pretty cool – I’ll admit it: I was relieved. And I was in no hurry to follow them. It doesn’t technically qualify as abandoning your comrades, right? The last I saw of them as they disappeared over the dunes, they seemed fine. They seemed happy. Look, I’m not proud of it, but that’s what I told myself.   And comrades? I mean, come on. I’ve known them, what, a week? An entertaining week, but still. And I just met the thief today (he seems cool actually, he gets it). So it’s not like we’re bonded by blood. And it’s getting pretty goddamn clear that we’re never gonna have the cohesion or clarity of purpose of a grapple gun. They’re all pretty lacking as gears go.   Kern though. He’s seen some shit, I can tell. He’s got that whole religion thing going on, true, but he doesn’t seem too into it. With some guidance, he could be made to see that it’s just a tool. The gods don’t really care about us. They fill our heads with ideas and bless our swords and pat us on the backs with a, “Go forth, my child, and cleave some shit for my divine kicks.” They should be respected, but all this praying and “my god is better than your god” is nonsense. They’re using us, so we have to use them right back. That’s the nature of the transaction, and the gods admire those of us who figure it out.   Kern and I could do some good. We could beat some sense into the world. I mean, “Jack”’s heroic vision of the world is out of the question, unattainable… but that doesn’t mean some improvements can’t be made.   I don’t believe that the gods speak to us through omens or portents or any of that crap – they prefer to couch their arguments in the form of sharp objects to the face – but the coincidence of finding two grapple guns so close together, and so shortly after I fixated on the idea of buying one in the Lorholt markets, seizing on this ideal of mechanical perfection the same way a rat might cling to a bit of wood in the rushing sewers… ugh. Damn it, flask is empty, brb.   But yeah. The first gun we found was a miracle of gears, pure functionality, as if to demonstrate everything a grapple gun could be. And the second was all cracked and gears missing, just a mess. Not unsalvageable, but fixing it would mean staying in Lorholt and no doubt wading in sewers or swimming in poop rivers because apparently that’s what Lorholt is all about. The cleanest place in this city is the whorehouse and who knows what diseases lurk beneath the surfaces there….   And if that’s not a goddamn metaphor, I don’t know what is (which is possible, I don’t really get what the difference between a simile and a metaphor is… military education, alas and alack). But I can stay with these people and swim in metaphorical poop and hope that somewhere along the line we emerge as a symphony of interlocking gears, all meshed together in unison towards the completion of a clear purpose, OR I can view the situation by the sober(-ish) light of day, wash the shit off my armour, and cut my losses. We’ve basically rescued the priestess at this point. Job done. No reason to stick around. It was fun but later, fools. Back to sproing!ing solo. Kern can come if he wants. Yeah.   That’s probably the way to go.   Hail Grennan or whatever.

A Meditation on Diverse Natural Processes

Let me seize this fleeting dip between waves to offer myself some words of encouragement.   This is good. I'm happy. It's natural.   Yes, this is for the best. The old mechanism wasn't working anymore, that much is obvious. In Greyloch, with all the schemes and wheels within wheels and Nysali losing her mind - no centre in the storm of gears - it was up to me to make sense of it all, to rise above it and survey with cool dispassion the manifold errors of the system and fucking FIX things. I tried, sorta, but it was like squeezing myself into a too-small suit of armour that was also trying to eat me. I tried, and it crushed me.   I hid in my workshop. I failed her.   I mean, I THINK the others managed to smooth things over, kinda? But it's all a bit of a blur. At least Greyloch wasn't on fire when we left...? Pretty sure I'd remember that. Pretty sure....   That was MY job though. I'm her protector. And I fucked it up like I fuck everything up.   So this is good. No, whether it's good or bad is irrelevant. It's adaptation, a NECESSARY adoption of a new system of being.   Nature is full of things turning into other things. I mean, there's the obvious – caterpillars into butterflies – but there are shitloads of other examples. I assume. Realizing now that my knowledge of nature is perhaps a bit limited. Oh, come on, there's... slugs into... crusty mush? No, seriously, nature is all about transformation, isn't it? Aha! Eggs! Into birds and reptiles and such. There's... um... dolphins into mermaids? Is that how that works?   Are mermaids real? I always assumed they were just sailors' stories but who the fuck knows now, all bets are off, anything is possible. Do they evolve from dolphins? Do they come from eggs? Or do the dolphins sorta flop themselves up the beach to force themselves upon unsuspecting sun-bathers and nine months later, out pops a mermaid? Ugh, gross. Although I suppose it could be a beautiful thing if it was consensual. Maybe it's natural?   Note to self: ask Kern if mermaids are real and, if they are, how they work.   MY POINT BEING there's nothing to be afraid of, transformation is natural, and what kind of LUNATIC is afraid of nature?   Erg, shit oh shit, the wave's cresting again and flashes of the place Nuffunfxs was talking about are assailing me. Pretty sure it's the EPL* again but the way he described it was not like this. It's like the colours at the heart of a star have been separated into strands and woven into a place. Everything is fire. A momentary gasp of the sun.   The butterflies are burning.   No, it looks like the apocalypse because you're resisting it. It's fine. It's FINE. Let yourself go. Dissolve into it. Release the machinery of your self. Abandon all systems.   what is punctuation anyway let it go nothing but a construct of the man imposing meaningless distinctions on nature everything is one fire flowing wordless wisdom to the silent soul   speak without speech like the butterfly with wings signalling nothing but joy   *a page of crude butterfly-themed hieroglyphs follows*   what the shit is all this no seriously WHAT THE SHIT IS ALL THIS?!   Get a grip, man! You need STRUCTURE! What's next, doodling unicorns? Yes, you're undergoing some changes but you're only going to freak yourself out MORE if you abandon ALL sense of your self. Sure, it's gonna be painful, and the others are gonna look at you weird but you're used to that, you like it, you ENCOURAGE it because no matter how ridiculous they find you, you know you're even more so and deep down you hope that their eyes will somehow tear strips from your armour to reveal something else, something more genuine, but it doesn't, it never has, it only makes you dig your heels in, so you're gonna have to do it yourself but in STAGES, not all at once, you crazed goat-fucker. The EPL can't devour you even if you want it to.   fuck im so high   Who are they to look at you sideways anyway? To judge you? Pupation is a messy business! Let THEM try it and see if they can come out the other side all sparkling and clean and not covered in goo. Fuck them! If they have a problem with what is an ENTIRELY NATURAL AND BEAUTIFUL process, you will broaden their minds and teach them the error of their ways by force if necessary for you are XYLUND SCYTHEWING!   Or maybe XYLUND OF THE WINGED SCYTHE! With an accent over the E in WINGED so it's two syllables, you know?   Waaaah and up we gooooooooooooo   my wings are scythes is what im getting at but perhaps thats not the point   *sketch of a butterfly with a skull for a head and an eye on each of its wings, one of which is winking*       EPL = the Elemental Plane of Love

Ninth Letter to Nysali
16/9/2019

Your Grace,   This will probably be the most circuitous break-up letter you'll ever receive.   I'll try to lay the pieces out for you, make them fit together. Schematize it all. But this time... this time I'm not sure there IS a hidden order behind it all.   It started when I asked Kern to scry for my sister, Illfin. I don't know what made me do it. I never saw her body, sure, but I figured she crawled off and found some other hole to die in. I mean, I didn't look for her, I wasn't thinking clearly at the time, and afterwards it was easiest to just put it all behind me by assuming the worst. Ever onward, don't look back. I guess I didn't fully consider the consequences of her survival.   Because wow, I REALLY let her down. I let them all down, sure, but her most of all. She was alone. I could have done something for her. But instead I was buying a fucking suit of armour (with the money I was supposed to be sending to THEM) and pretending to be something I'm not while she was- Well, who knows what she had to endure between Greyloch and Valwall. I'll let you in on a secret, your Grace: the world is not a very nice place. The safe bet is that she did things and had things done to her of which it is best not to speak in polite company.   My sister. My SISTER.   So, yeah. Maybe I wanted to destroy myself. Maybe that's why I asked Kern. Because that's what the knowledge did to me.   I went into Caeracht with a death wish.   And my wish was granted. I died an honourable death, sacrificing myself so that another (Kern) might live. I ascended to Grennan Heaven and taught Snoffunfx how to play dragonchess. Just me and my horse with gently undulating grey in all directions. No-one getting in my face, making me feel shitty for not being what THEY thought I should be. It was everything I'd hoped for.   Which is a bit suspicious. I mean, I can understand getting a few details right but I was bang on, and it's not like I'm some oracle. I don't think.... Hmm. No, probably not. And my awareness was sorta split, I could sense something else going on concurrently, which I later found out was Lana meeting with this Tarkin fellow and retrieving me from the afterlife in painting form? It was a whole thing. But anyway, there's some doubt as to whether or not I was actually dead or if the Seven Sisters were just fucking with me.   This is probably not news to you but the Seven Sisters have Issues, your Grace.   Even so, dead or not, I got exactly what I thought I wanted and it suuuuuuucked. Grennan Heaven was boring as shit! THAT'S what I want? THAT'S my ideal? An eternity of what, being left alone? With my imaginary horse? Who I'm pretty sure was LETTING me win? (Because he's the best horse, yes he is, such a good horse.)   It's crazy how fast heaven turned around and became hell. Literally crazy. Like, there's something wrong with me. I mean, duh, of course there is. But seriously - for reals - my mechanism is all busted up.   So I can't go back there. But what's the alternative? I talked with Sia about getting my consciousness preserved in gem form (which she was not overly enthusiastic about) and in the process expressed some reservations about my designated afterlife and she was like, “Maybe you have the wrong god?”   And I was like, haha, sure, yeah, I have the wrong god, get the fuck outta here with that Sia. But here's the thing:   WHAT IF I HAVE THE WRONG GOD?!?   And then, not more than a week later (probably... time is a bit slippery down here in the Schmudwell), freakin' Davynn suggested the same thing. Yes, that Davynn! From Whitfeld! POTATO BOY! Is it so obvious that even the tuber can see it? Am I that exposed?   I consider myself someone who has better-than-average spatial awareness. I examine things from all angles, I consider the possibilities and play them out to their logical conclusions so that I'm not caught off-guard when things come flying at me. But this... I never saw this coming. And it's big. It's not a small thing. I left a gap in my defences that a beholder could have floated through.   Let's step back and take a look at the situation: I am in the middle of what I shall call, for lack of a better term, a spiritual crisis, and my response to said crisis is to bury myself underground to manufacture a helmet whose SOLE PURPOSE (aside from looking cool as fuck) is to put up a permanent wall between me and the world (this sucker even has air filters), to erase my identity, my very SELF from existence so that I NEVER have to look my sister in the eye should our paths happen to cross. I rationalize it by saying I'm honing my skills before I take on the True Work of the Monkinator and/or the Glamaratus but let's be real: I'm building this helm because I'm compelled to. This all reeks to Grennan Heaven of psychology. I'm as bad as the Seven Sisters.   I can see all this clear as day... but I'm still gonna finish the damn helm. I mean, come on! Look at this thing!  
  However, something has to change. My current methodology seems to be narrowing my awareness to a dangerous degree. It allowed me to be blindsided by a possibility which, I'll be honest, is resonating with me much more than I would have expected if I'd ever even conceived of the possibility in the first place. Great goat-buggering Grennan... what if I have the wrong god?!?   The optimal, healthy response to my spiritual crisis would be to face my sister and wring whatever peace I can from the wreckage of my past. I will not waste your time or mine by even pretending to consider that. Not gonna happen.   But there are other valid responses. Sub-optimal, maybe, but not worthless. I could embrace the lessons offered by this lapse and adopt corrective measures. Seal the chinks in my armour. Broaden my perspective, see myself as others do. Think outside my own mind. Abandon the narrow parameters of law and logic. Plunge into the irrational.   None of which are very Grennan sentiments. But this internal schism isn't really a new one. It's been clear for a while now that my most inspired ideas don't come from a strict adherence to systematic thought. So which is it gonna be? Am I a traditionalist or a revolutionary? If you think about it, this duality kinda mirrors that of Nenemeth and Lyranelle, who are probably the same person, two sides of the same coin, in case you didn't know that, pleasedontkillmewithyourmind   But if the two halves could only reconcile... think about it.   They have a library here in the Schmudwell and I've been reading up on alternate gods. This Lior guy has an interesting story. I'm not saying I'm gearing up to be a Lioreteer or whatever they call themselves, I'm not cool with his nenmetal-killing policy just for a start... but he gets shit done, you gotta give him that. He has a code of his own and he fucking lives it. He's not about perpetuating the status quo, the broken systems of mankind. He doesn't trudge from one day to the next under a grey cloud. He has passion, yet not at the cost of ORDER. I'm not gonna lie, there's a certain allure to that.   Liorifices, I bet that's what they're called, his worshippers.   I dunno. It's something to think about anyway.   All of this is a roundabout way of saying that I probably won't be breezing through Caeracht any time soon. I asked you to bring my sister under your protective wing, and I believe that you will, which means that there's a solid chance I could run into her there. Even with the helm on, she could recognize me. “Are you running away from your problems, Xylund?” Absolutely! But that doesn't preclude the possibility that I'm also running toward something. I can do both things. There are big changes in the works! Fundamental changes!   So I think we should allow ourselves to explore our options by seeing other paladins/nenmetai. I don't think I can be what you want me to be anymore. My devotion to you hasn't wavered and never will (disregarding a few depressive blips along the way) but whatever path I take from here, it might seem a little... erratic to you. Maybe not, we'll see. I just can't carry the burden of your silent worry as I walk it. Sure, I flatter myself that you care enough to worry. But did you take a good look at that cool-ass helm?! How could you NOT fall for me? I mean, seriously.   Let's be real here.   Ever yours,   Commander Xylund Shrillsteel   PS. Obviously I'm not going to send this letter any more than I've sent any of the others, in case you were worried.
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Character
World
Iyith
campaigns
The Book Report Club
Author
Iri
Publication Date
2 Dec, 2018
Creation Date
23 Nov, 2018
Last Update Date
2 Dec, 2018
Visibility
Public
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