We found some dirt on the king

General Summary

Lili looked around lost in thought, “I think,” and she trailed off for a second, “This feels like it’s tied to my staff in some way, maybe I need,” and she trailed off again, “I think I need to pull something from here.” I stare at the sarcophagus, “Maybe what we need is here,” I said and shoved at the lid trying to get it off. “Cap help me,” and we shoved for what seemed an eternity and the lid flew off landing with a resounding boom. “This is not what I expected,” I said as I peered in. Inside was a skeleton in the tattered remains of clothing with blackened fingertips. “Guys,” Milli said, “Look at this.” She pointed at the underside of the lid, deeps gouges were in the lid as if someone had scratched their way out, “Someone scratched a message,” she read slowly as she translated it, ‘Oh what a jester is the queen, one takes my place, so she insists I take his.’ Alfon Rogar. Who is Alfon Rogar?” “Maybe he’s buried out in the graveyard?” Cap asked. “Romanoff,” Lili said. “Go back into the graveyard and search for Rogar’s tombstone.” “Boss,” he said flitting about next to Lili, “There’s sure a lot of that sparkly stuff that goes boom.” “Not if you are very small and shorter than the tombstones,” Lili coaxed. “Oooohhh, stealth mission,” Romanoff disappeared in a flash, and reappeared a few seconds later, “Found it, boss!” “Lead the way!” we slowly crawled through the graveyard keeping our heads lower than the tombstones to the bouncing flashing light of Romanoff. Lili stared at the grave, “Looks like she found some dirt on the king and we need to blow the lid off of it.” I laughed and transformed into a large dog and dug my way down to the coffin. Through brute strength and a bit of ingenuity, we pulled the coffin out and opened it up. Inside, like he was asleep, lay the king. I changed back into a human and said, “We can make a travois and pull him on one of the blankets back to the mausoleum to figure out what to do next.” They all nodded and we slowly pulled the king back.

A BIT OF BODY-SWAPPING

“Papa Legba,” I said pulling open the lamp. “Whatcha want?” he asked his eyes glowing as he stared at me. “You ready to get rid of your roommate?” “What’s in it for me? Me and the kid are having a good time.” I don’t know how, but it felt like the spirit turned around inside his shrunken head and walked away, “Don’t touch that! That’s my stash.” The voice came back towards us, “I changed my mind, I’m ready for him to leave. Hey! Whatcha got an empty body for?” “Hmmm,” I looked over at the king’s body, “That’s the king, we’re going to get his soul and spirit back and reunite the parts.” “I got an idea,” Papa said. “No,” I interrupted. “You are not going in that body.” “Come on, it’d be fun. Then you wouldn’t have to haul it around,” Papa wheedled. “Addie,” Cap interrupted. “Papa is right, that could work.” I pulled out a barrel of rum from our bag, “Papa, see this.” His shrunken eyes widened. “You have my attention.” I slowly moved the small barrel back and forth. “Help Wolfie get back into his body and you can have some of this rum.” “4 mugs.” “That’s ridiculous, you don’t want him there, 1 small cup.” “We all drink the rum,” Papa countered. “You get a cup, I get two. That funny guy with the fancy hat gets a cup. The tall girl with the scary stick. I mean you really need a drink now that you made those bad deals. Think about it.” “Fine, everyone gets a drink and you help Wolfie get back into his body.” “Done! Pour it out,” I carefully poured the drinks and passed them out. I tossed back my drink and watched everyone else drink. You know, I don’t remember much after that. I woke up later and found Wolfie snoring nearby, Cap was cradling the empty bottle of rum as he snored. “So many lines,” the king said staring at his hands in wonder, “It’s like I’m on a node, and all those lines are tied to me.” “King,” I paused trying to remember his name, “Algara, is that you?” The king laughed, and his deep voice answered in a tone I recognized, “As if. Where’s the rum? You greedy fools drank it all, and that Wolfie guy is hilarious when he’s drunk. I got him to swear to all sorts of things as we drank. It was amazing.” I turned around and shook the fool who probably caused this, “Cap, Cap, what happened, why is Papa Legba in the king’s body?” Cap yawned and stretched as he smacked his lips, “What? Oh, that, it was so much easier to transport the body if we aren’t draggin’ it, so I convinced you to let him into the body and now we just have to find his spirit. Prob’ly on that island in the back.” I sunk to the ground and contemplated just what we had done. “Where am I and who are all of you?” the Prince demanded as he woke up.

The worst are kept here

“Prince Vasilius?” I asked. “Yes,” he said looking around the mausoleum. “What is going on?” I gave a quick recap of the last few weeks and he listened quietly to all I said with interjections from time to time from Cap and Lili. “I see,” he straightened out his rough clothing, “The only other place is the prison off the coast behind us. That is our best bet to find my Father’s spirit.” We gathered our supplies and followed him out of the graveyard. The journey to the docks was relatively quiet, we didn’t see any of the creatures we had seen on our way over here, and we stared at the large rowboats tied up in front of us. “You realize, they’ll follow us,” Milli said. “Don’t worry,” Cap said, and he commanded the water to rise up and sank the two boats we weren’t going to use. “All aboard,” he cheerfully said, and we clambered in. “What can you tell us about the prison?” I asked as Cap rowed us across. “It’s guarded by gargoyles, they will attack anyone not authorized to enter, but once you enter the prison they leave you alone. My Father had an amulet he wore when coming to deactivate them.” “So, if I run quickly across and into the prison that should stop them?” I asked. “In theory,” he answered. “What will we find in there?” Lili asked next. “The building was here when we came. We believed it is what keeps this land separate from the rest of the world. It appears to be from the wars before man, where the Powers of the Creator kept those who did not belong in Creation, those who were to be cast out. It contains those who are otherwise not containable. They cannot leave their cells unless asked out.” I involuntarily turned to Papa Legba thinking of all the mischief he could do. This was going to be interesting. “We’re here,” Cap announced, “all ashore.” We clambered out, and Cap proceeded to sink our boat. “That was our way off!” Milli said in alarm. “I’ll just bring it back up when we need it,” Cap muttered. “I’m not having another ship stolen by some idiot pirate or a crazy woman trying to turn me into a snake thing.” “That’s my cue,” I said and I transformed into a cheetah and ran across the island through the courtyard of the large stone building. Gargoyles flew after me, flying down and slashing me with their claws, but I ignored them and ran on. One of their claws struck harder and I screamed in agony transforming ack to a human next to the door. I pulled it open and the gargoyles fell back from me. “I’m in, come on up!” I yelled back at my friends. They ran up, but as soon as they touched the dirt, the creatures flew at them hammering them with wave after wave of attacks. From the safety of the doorway, I threw spells at them. I watched as Lili fell and Vasilli scooped her up and kept running. They stumbled through the doorway and I slammed the door shut on the creatures. “That was exciting,” Cap said as he slowly worked his way through healing all of us. “What have we gotten ourselves into?” “Wait,” Lili said, “Addie, please pour a small cup of rum.” I looked at him in confusion, but pulled out the next cask and poured a small cup handing it to her. “Romanoff, this water has been corrupted, please fix it.” Papa Legba watched in horror as Romanoff spun around the cup and purified it back into water. “If you let anything out of these rooms, I will command Romanoff to follow you around for the rest of your life turning all of the alcohol into water.” Papa Legba paled as Lili talked, “Do you understand me?” her voice asked coldly. Papa Legba nodded. “You will not let anything currently in those doors out of the rooms, you need to say your agreement out loud.” “I won’t let anything out of the rooms,” Papa Legba glared at Romanoff. “This place is dark,” Milli said, “It pulls the light out of the air,” she shivered and we walked forward. Cap cast light on his shield and I held a fireball in my hand as we walked forward. I walked over to the first door on the left and looked in to see four dark figures slumped on the floor in worn clothes. I waved and shouted, but they never responded. Across the way, Cap looked in the room over there and reported it held some kind of dark creature, “It’s like the shadows are attacking the light. Lemme throw my light in there,” and he changed his light onto a pebble and threw it through the bars, but as soon as he did the light went out. I walked down to the next door that lay open. “I’m going in,” I called back. “Wait,” Lili said, but it was too late, I had already entered. “Can you come back out?” “What a silly question,” I turned around, but it felt like I ran into an invisible door. “Not a silly question, no, I can’t get out.” “Addie, you are invited out,” he said. I felt the invisible door open and I walked through. “Vampire rules,” she said, “In reverse. Invitation needed to exit. We have to leave one person at each doorway to make sure we can get back out.” I glanced back at Papa Legba, “And make sure he’s not the last one out.” Lili looked back and agreed. “Milli, come with me,” I shouted, “I got a brief glimpse of another room further in.” We walked in and the door at the back was shattered into this room. Milli walked through and I waited for her. She wandered the farther room and called back. “I found a large black scale,” she tapped at it, “I think it’s a dragon scale. Wait, there’s something glinting in the corner.” She walked over and picked up a silver arrow. “This could be useful.” She looked around the room one last time then walked back and stopped as if she hit a wall. “Try putting down the scale and the arrow, what happens?” I asked. She tried again but wasn’t able to come through. “Milli, I invite you out,” she walked out. “I have an idea,” she walked back in and grabbed the scale, “Now try again.” We experimented, and it didn’t matter what she held or didn’t hold, I still had to invite her out of the room. Slowly we explored further into the prison. At the next level, we found a room with three small children in it. “Let’s leave those alone,” I thought of our adventure with the squogs and how what I thought was a small child was actually an adult squog trying to eat me. “Hey Romanoff,” Papa Legba said. Romanoff flitted over to him, “You should let those kids out. They look sad and tired.” “Oooohh,” he said, “Good idea.” “Romanoff! Stop!” Lili commanded, “DOn’t listen to Papa Legba.” “But the kids, look at how sad they are.” “Those aren’t kids,” Lili explained, “Use your vision and look at them again.” “Nope, those are totally kids,” Romanoff answered. “You’re just being mean.” “They are evil kids,” Lili explained. “Let’s go look and see what else is in here.” She walked over to the next doorway and sniffed. “It smells acrid like something is wrong.” “I feel like that should be telling me something,” I muttered as I walked past her to the far doorway standing open. I peeked around the corner and a dragon launched out at me, old and decrepit, its skin sallow and graying with age. I ran away from the creature desperately back to my friends. “Dragon!” Milli pulled out her bow and shot arrow after arrow into the dragon, and Cap shot magic at it. I dodged as it clawed at me, before turning to stand my ground. I pulled the unmade blade from its sheath and swung at the creature, but missed as its foul breath threw me off. “Give me a clear line of shot!” Lili cried from behind us. I slowly walked foot over foot to turn the dragon as I swung my sword. The first shock of the stench had passed and I started to make contact with the beast. “That’s enough!” A bolt of mage fire burst past me and I felt some of my hair singe as the creature winced briefly in pain. Milli’s arrows caught it near the shoulder and it turned on her in anger. Swatting her bow from her hands. She cried out as she fell to the ground. Cap roared something and a burst of energy came forth striking the dragon, and I threw a spell outlining the dragon in bright light. The dragon turned on me as the flare of light faded and its tail knocked me back. I sat up and gathered myself to move back towards the dragon. Prince Vaselli ran in and a warm light came out from him and I felt the wounds in my body knit back together. Milli drew her short sword and struck the dragon, putting him down. We paused to catch out-breath, and I staggered back towards the wall to lean on it when I heard a scuttling sound from behind us. I glanced behind and saw a clawed arm moving out of the shadows. “We’re not done here.” I straightened up and readied my blade again. The dragon rushed out, and we worked together to take it down. Milli recovered her bow, but as she drew back to shoot, it caught her eye and she stiffened and paled before running away. Cap closed in with it trying to hit the creature with his glaive, and I whacked at him with the sword as I threw spell after spell at it. From the other side of the door, Lili threw magic slowly wearing down the dragon. With a great cry, it collapsed and we all collapsed in shock. “We survived,” Cap said. “T’ank the Creator.” “I do Cap,” I said struggling to pull myself together, “Shall we finish looking through that back room?” “There might be treasure there. Of course.” We went through the back room and found a small dragon hoard. We carefully sorted through the different piles of debris and a real treasure, slowly finding gold and jewels.

HOUSEKEEPING

found 15 diamonds- each of us has 1, and Cap and Lili both have 2, the other 11 are in the bag 2 bracers, 1 ring, and a staff Staff of Power- Lili Bracer- 40 temp HP 1x a day- Milli and I ring of regeneration- 1 pt a round- Cap silver arrow- +3 arrow of returning- Milli

Report Date

23 Dec 2021