Summary 06: Dragons Unleashed

Captain’s Log. Entry number 86: Glaive Gangsworth

I wonder each day now whether my writings will ever be reflected through another’s eyes. Whether I write for nothing. Which pages might survive all that has already happened to my crew and I. Or for that matter, what has already happened to so many others. Perhaps things would have turned out differently had we all known the truth back then. And if you are a survivor reading this, then you already know of what I speak of. Yet your brain is likely filled with holes regarding unanswered questions. It is for this reason that you sought this manuscript you now hold. It is for this reason that I hope to help you, so that you might be prepared for when it all happens again.

I will start not from the beginnings that were personal to me. Instead I will begin with something that should have been brought to the attention of everyone, but which was kept secret. For every God there is a case of this, but for conservation of ink and parchment, I will write now of only one that I know of. The details of what I write now came quite unexpected to my ears. And sadly, far too late. I refer to a meeting between the God of Secrets, and an archmage named Verodemocrium. Their meeting brought forth a revelation of catastrophic ramifications; Alpha and Omega. According to Vecna, the universe was to come to an end. In fact, this was a reality that was prevented many years ago thanks to a unification of gods and mortals heroes. By their destruction of the Omega entity, they thought that the wheel of Creation and Destruction had come to an end. Now, many years later, we see that the inevitable was simply delayed. The End was coming again, and would be arriving soon. The only way to save everyone was to become the Alpha, the Creator, the Shaper of All. A position that everything ever created would want to be. Imagine a dryad turning the world into a giant forest, or a demon summoning up the fiercest of fires to create an endless scorched earth.

With this ultimate secret brought to light, Verodemocrium and all the other Chosen denizens of each God, sought a way to exploit this, rather than amalgamate in order to prevent this apocalypse from ever happening. Perhaps by pooling all their resources, they might have saved so much death from happening. As I write this, they still seem to have yet done so. But perhaps it’s not too late. I’ll write on that in future scriptures. For the moment, I at least want to spend some time describing where my personal roots in this epic part of our history.

There was a time when I was a bad man. Not a murder, steal, espionage man. I was a person whose moral was corrupted by his surroundings. I take you now to an altercation between myself and my brother Garland. A messenger unkindly delivered a bill to me in the amount of 1000 gold. This was to be paid to my arch enemy Mr. Dractus. The reason behind this was that my brother made this donation to the church of Amalgamation, using my name, through Dractus’s financing agency. Basically, at that moment, I had a dept of 1000 gold that I was being forced to pay out.

Given this betrayal, I first went to see mother Seoni. After her smiling greeting (the first I ever recall seeing) I explained to her the farce that Garland had committed. Her anger at me was like an erupting volcano, yet through her eyes, I clearly saw the intended lava path was through Garland’s heart. After agreeing to become a self-pointed Witchwarden floor scrubber, and ambassador messenger to Ms. Seoni, I ran off to retrieve my swindler sibling. I was treated much like a tax collector by Garland’s fellow crew members, but did indeed get brother’s word to accompany me to Draktus’s manor. Once the fish food, that was the cartographers ashes, were thrown into the waters, it was to the manor we did indeed go.

As predicted, Emil was as black-hearted as I knew him to be. In no uncertain terms would he let fall the dept. He also took the time to remind us of the 10000 gold bargain our father had made, that still was pending after all these years. After some intimidating from me, Garland agreed to speak with mother with me present.

The confrontation with Seoni was delightfully filled with anger towards Garland, and sadly unbelievably towards me. I was suddenly the bad guy. I, who had the courage to ask for, and was granted, a larger part of the bounty for Anzak’s incarceration. Because of Garland’s jealousy over this, mother was again being billed, thanks to the contract annulment only just conducted by brothers and Emil. But I was no pansy to be crushed on. I was a blomming war mage, someone to think twice upon when trifling with. And so a bargain was established. Garland would contribute 90% of the loan, while I generously offered the remaining 10%. From there, Garland and I established an unspoken truce. I decided to aid his captain’s whaling vessel the odd time, while continuing my labours on the floors of the Witchwarden tower. Not to much later, we found out that a notable confrontation had transpired in the walls of the Elmherst academy of dance.

Gustave, our previous partner in justice, was disrobing the dance students with his eyes, when suddenly he had heard a crash. After spending two full minutes pondering whether he should pretend he heard nothing or go investigate, he resigned himself to the former coarse of reaction. Gustav ordered all the ladies to stay put while he inched his way to Lord Vanderboren’s office. The ever brash Crimson, decided to follow, rather than cower. Opening the door, Gustav saw his employer slumped over his desk, bleeding from his head. An open window showed the entry and exit of the assailants. Taking out his rapier, Gustav quickly poked his head outside to see if the attackers still loomed in the shadows. Crimson shrieked as he suddenly reeled back, having been struck in the face by an unseen club. The wielder of that stated weapon climbed through the open pane, saying that this was all a message to stay away from the Lotus Dragons. Gustav, knowing there was a lady present did not dare show any colors of a coward. Nor it seemed would Crimson. Thinking a ballet pirouette might down the attacker, she sadly realized her meagre fight skills as she did not but sprain her own ankle. Fearing only for Crimson’s life and not his own, Gustav lunged forward to slash a warning slice across the enemy’s check. Cursing, the Lotus Dragon quickly back-tailed out the way he came in. After ensuring that Lord Vanderboren would be okay, he helped Crimson reset her ankle, before checking on his other livestock to ensure that none of the dancers were hurt.

It was about that time that I recall knocking on the front door as I had a request for Gustav. I was hoping he would lend me some money so that I might buy a superior wand to protect myself. He refused my demand, but did offer some great advise. The first was to invest in two lesser wands, while the second was fashion advice for the wedding. Given Gustav’s encounter, I took him up on both his suggestions. With his help, we picked out a wonderful vestment that was sure to impress Crimson, who was my date for the wedding.

As it turned out, it would be a waste of money for the rental but more on that later. The attack on the dance school was a concern in most part due to a “message” being delivered possibly to myself in the future. Since I would likely be billed the 900 gold owed to Dractus should my brother die, I decided to fill him in on what happened. Together, we decided to scope out the dance hall for a few days, in case the Lotus’s came back to finish the job. To his day, I still don’t know what possessed me to that act of bravery.

And so as you the reader presume; the obvious happened.

I and Garland were spotted by the dancers, who thought we were voyeurs. This led to a confrontation with a patrol of guardsmen. My brother had however recently joined the Dawn Council, in an obvious attempt to show-boat me. Thus we were allowed to continue. After only three days we became insanely bored, and decided to resume our daily chores.

Soon came the wedding of Lavinia and Anzak. It would be a night that would be a low-light in my life. It wasn’t the fact that Lavinia was marrying a known murderer. Nor was it the fact that, after my advice to her, she still refused to marry her true love Gustav. No, the cancer spot on the night was that my beautiful date Crimson, ignored me the entire eve. She spent more time dancing with Anzak for Hades sake! Anyway, there was plenty of drink to make the depressed feel and remember little if they were not having a good time. I do have a slight recollection of yelling at Gustav to take me to the temple of Palor for a detox (remove poison) spell. There I unthinkingly threw all my gold at the priestess’s feet. I think I ended up sleeping on the deck of Captain Shadwick’s whaling vessel, but I honestly can’t recall.

The following day was when I found out the true stupidity of my brother Garland. It seemed he had developed a superiority-self-righteous complex with his entry level status as a member of the Dawn Council guard, and this only to one-up me of course. He had come up with this brilliant idea of having the criminals Rowyn and Vanthus transferred to an unsecured restaurant overlooking Lavinia’s excuse of an honest wedding. Garland thought that by giving into this plan of his own devising, that the Lotus Dragon’s would quiet their activities for the months leading to the wedding, and then the prisoners would agree to go back nicely to prison afterwards. Personally I knew the wedding would be the perfect distraction for the town, so that a prison break could take place. My brother simply made it so much easier for them.

Garland had twelve whalers and twelve soldiers guarding Rowyn and Vanthus, with he and his captain Shadwick also on hand. Garland greased the stairs of the restaurant, impeding any of his entourage from fleeing, but also should the enemy take such an obvious path to reach the prisoners. Even I never would have suspected a beholder and his goth minions to disintegrate their way through the restaurants wall. Garland told me later that he personally negotiated the prisoners release in exchange for he and his mates lives. Captain Shadwick took that one step further and offered only one of the prisoners, resulting in a retaliation death ray. I’m convinced though that the ray was meant for Garland, but that my brother pulled Shadwick in front of the spell. This of course made first mate Garland the new captain of the whaling vessel. What is fact is that Rowyn and Vanthus walked away freely to the beholders side, while the goths sent a barrage of sleep rays around the room to render every surviving soul unconscious. Thinking back on that event, only now do I wonder whether Garland was in fact working with the Lotus Dragons. It seemed such an easy breakout resulting in Garland gaining his life long dream of captaincy. All the witnesses, including Garland’s crew were spared. Had I been the beholder, I would have slain everyone. Wouldn’t you? Curious.

With that event came a slight bond between myself, Gustav, and Garland. We three came to the realization of the demi-lich skulls that we had ultimately kicked when we helped incarcerate the two Lotus Dragon masters. Thus, for the next two months, we tried to maintain a low profile. Gustav surrounded himself with more female dancers to use as body shields against hidden arrows. While myself and Garland started a loosely named, “ Gangsworth and Gangsworth Whalers.”

It was on such a hunt that we came upon a vessel aflame at sea. All of us were a little unsure if we should aid or not. Already a caravel had been sent from the Sasserine docks to put out the blaze. Reasoning that it might be good for business, I obeyed the call of Captain Garland to steer along side the pyre of fire on water. Had we not arrived, the ship would have sunk, taking all evidence with it. Thanks to our bucket brigade and harpoon launcher, we easily towed back the wreckage to port so that the authorities (Garland included), could peruse the crime scene.

And what a crime scene it was.

The crew had all been slaughtered by a great axe, with the most notable dead being Verik and Larissa Vanderboren. The only person unaccounted for from the crew manifest was that of the axe-wielding Anzak. After rummaging through the decks, I found an accelerant to the fire, which I effortlessly identified as alchemist fire.

Garland and I went to Lavinia’s house where there I gently broke the bad news; that all the people she loved were now dead or murder’s. Strangely she feinted at the news and it took the care of Gustav and Crimson to bring her around to reality. Still of course, she denied the sudden “revelation” that Anzak was indeed the criminal we had proved him to be time and time again. The only thing that finally did convince her was when we asked a priest to perform a speak with dead spell on Larissa. That ghostly voice said true that she had been murdered by Anzak. Lavinia then balled up in tears, saying that it was all her fault. But as I was about to voice a confirmation of that truth, Gustav cut off my phrase with his own lying words, saying that she had no control over any of these past events.

From there, ideas of potential profit began invading my head. Since all of Sasserine’s authorities were corrupt, I figured perhaps Garland and me might be just what Lavinia needed to bring all the traitors to justice. At that moment I decided I would join Garland in an investigation into this matter. And all that I would ask for in return would simply be the Sea Nixie; Lavinia’s wedding gift from the Vanderborens.