Vigilante Game Thirty: Riddles in The Savanna or A Warm Reunion
Somethings have a way of following you, though, I am being insincere. What I mean to say is some people. Ever since Martin vanished in a burst of green flame, we’ve found him in things. Every locked door is a reminder of Martin’s way of “knocking” that sent hinges flying off their frames, every price negotiation is haunted by the memory of his inpatient and effective bargaining style. Even as a monster falls under one of my blows, he’s there, in the back of my mind, chiding me about our combating kill/death ratios. I still keep count. I wonder if he would find that funny.
Maybe that’s why it didn’t seem strange when, in a savanna deep in the Feywilds, we felt like we were being watched. We’re used to the sensation by now, that little tingle you get on the back of your neck like grazing fingertips. That shiver that lets you know that something, someone, is there.
As we entered the vast savanna of the Plains of Rolling Thunder we saw no clouds in the sky, only grackles as they hopped with disdain across the baked dirt. It didn’t take us long to learn why. From the rocks and dust rose the form of a gnome, made of living earth.
It wasn’t a warm welcome, but the nameless gnome introduced us to Plains of Rolling Thunder. Here, his master Lord Suzaku lived, and here Suzaku was the only thing allowed to fly. Anything else with the hubris to try would be punished. We explained that we were there to seek council with his lord and asked the way. The gnome smiled.
“I’ll tell you where my Lord’s castle is if, if, oh I know, if you solve a riddle!” The gnome paused, then clapped his hands in excitement. “Okay, I fly without wings and cry without eyes. What am I?” Our group exchanges glance briefly. “A cloud?” The gnome’s face dropped in acutely telegraphed disappointment. “Aww man,” he said “it took me forever to come up with that one.”
Feeling sorry for the gnome, Berthok offered him a riddle in exchange for his, “A box without hinges, lock or a lid, yet inside golden treasure is hid.” Our bard Ereden, in the spirit of charity, offered a second, “What turns but does not move?” Excitedly contemplating his new puzzles, the gnome pointed the way to his master’s castle and then sunk into the dirt that formed him. Together, our party began out trek through the savanna.
After a short hike, we saw clouds of dust rising in the distance, and then a sound like thunder. Four centaurs charged at us, their eyes glazed and unfamiliar. They would not reason, and we were forced to fell them quickly, darting and cutting through their furious charges. As we did, they didn’t bleed. Worms shot from their torn limbs and writhed with blind purpose into the earth. The presence that hung on us remained as the last creature collapsed. There was something sick in the savanna, something else.
After dispatching the diseased centaurs, we resumed our hike to the palace. To our concern, we saw no castle appearing in the distance, but eventually ran into a simple sign. It read: “Lord Suzaku’s palace” and had a thick arrow pointed straight up. Following the sign, our party raised our gaze to a small dot, high, high up in the sky. Then we heard laughing.
Emerging from the dirt with glee, our gnome friend appeared and chided us. “I told you I’d tell you WHERE his palace was, I didn’t say you could get in it!” I wish I could tell you we were surprised, but at this point we were expecting hoops to jump through. The gnome stated that he was aware that something wrong was in the storm planes, this fact made evident with the infected centaurs and other recent incidents. If we could solve that problem for him, he’d get us to the castle in the sky without flight, which, we confirmed through brief experimentation, was indeed not an option. Our party agreed, and Suzaku’s servant sunk back into the (savanna?), opening a staircase in the dirt that spiraled into darkness. Together, we entered.
This was far from the first time we had walked into the depths of some underground tower or another, intent on eliminating a force of destruction. You could say we were pros at finding trouble in the dark, and Uluthrek portrayed that prowess by kicking in a metal door that our bard had carefully de-trapped, the booming noise alerting any nasty thing that may or may not want to pick it’s teeth with our bones. Lucky, or not-so lucky for us, the things we found didn’t have teeth.
As the door flew open, we were set upon by Mindflayers and Mind Witnesses, wicked things that set out to crush our bodies and our minds. With concerning efficiency, Bertok turned one entirely to stone. We struggled to defend ourselves, but were able to destroy the remaining creatures one after another, finally shattering the last stone monster out of sheer spite. With the fight behind us, we went deeper under the earth, eventually finding our target.
Deep underground and far from home, we found a vicious room lined with hundreds of jars filled with hundreds of brains. Out of all these loose organs, one brain stood out. In the center of the room and in front of a particularly massive tank of brackish fluid was an elder brain, flanked by flayers and witnesses. Far from excited, our party took to work.
We dispatched the minions slowly, stumbling under their psychic assaults. We hadn’t faced a battle this dire in a long time, and even with our cleric’s healing spells, which really isn’t his magic of choice, many of our members struggled to stay on their feet. Still, one after another of the monster’s fell until we faced only one lackey, and, of course, the brain. What do you hold onto when something attacks your mind, piercing your thoughts with whispers? For me, it’s this night we spent at the spa before we left Martin’s room empty, before the moon opened its eyes. We were gathered around a table that we stole from a bar, joking about how lady Erochnein almost smiled at us after we crash landed a city. Didn’t someone say it, “Anything’s possible?” I think it had been a warm night.
Sometimes, the simple things are enough.
With my last bit of strength, I struck the elder brain and fell backwards into a murky pool. The creature didn’t scream as it died, but deflated, collapsing slowly onto itself. The cry we heard was from it’s remaining servant, who, distraught or enraged by the elder brain’s death, snapped his black staff over his knee.
We narrowly withstood the creature as it lashed out in rage. finally, as the creature died, it whispered something into our minds. “We were only the distraction. Our master’s other servant has already completed his goal.” As we resurfaced in the bright light of the savanna, we tried to shake off its last warning. Maybe they had only been the petty words of a monster already beaten. Anything is possible.
Thankful that we destroyed the monsters underground, and even more thankful for our earlier riddles, the stone gnome created another staircase. This one climbed into the sky towards Suzaku’s castle. We had earned council with the Fey Lord, and a collection of magic presents. Our day, and our party, was looking up.
It didn’t take long for our ease to vanish. Part-way up the staircase tower, we saw a plume of green flame burst from the castle above. We rushed up the staircase in the sky though, surely, we were much too late.
By the time we reached the summit, the castle was strewn with Fey corpses, charred and still. Slumped in a grand throne was Suzaku, Lord of the Plains of Rolling Thunder, a dagger coated in his drying blood.
We knew, we all knew. It was Martin’s dagger, and in it, a light faded and blinked away.
Our friend had found us again.
End of Game Thirty.
-- Arlyn LaBelle is a poet, flash fiction writer and legal assistant living in Austin, Texas. Her work has appeared multiple times in the Badgerdog summer anthologies as well as The Blue Hour, LAROLA, JONAH Magazine, The Oddville Press, Songs of Eretz, Grey Sparrow Press, Cease, Cows and The Southern Poetry Review.
Thoughts on the game: Wow. Holy crap, wow. What a game I missed. I want to thank my brother, Ezra, for running this part of the adventure for our group, it sounds like it went exceptionally well. I also want to thank Arlyn for continuing to write recaps for the games. I really do appreciate both of them for all the work they put in to help make these games great. The hunt for the blessings continues and with more and more hoops to fall, jump, fly and stumble through MED inches closer and closer to their end goal. But what of Martin? Without his dagger he should be free, what could this mean? With the Blessing of Wind gone, MED now heads towards the Worlds Tree: A massive tree rumored to have portals to every possible realm of existence. Here the blessing of earth resides in the hands of a fey lord named Genbu.
I think you know how this works by now…. But! Vigilante is a group cooperative world gaming experience. A combination of several D&D groups are all active in the world and all of them influence the events of the town of Bastion and surrounding area. The guilds allow everyone to exchange items and it also allows players to switch parties to pursue different quests and be part of events. The story continues to progress in cool and inventive ways and I am so grateful to the collaborative Dungeon Masters for putting it all together, but there are still a ton of things to do and uncover and I look forward to more interesting and exciting adventures.
Maybe that’s why it didn’t seem strange when, in a savanna deep in the Feywilds, we felt like we were being watched. We’re used to the sensation by now, that little tingle you get on the back of your neck like grazing fingertips. That shiver that lets you know that something, someone, is there.
As we entered the vast savanna of the Plains of Rolling Thunder we saw no clouds in the sky, only grackles as they hopped with disdain across the baked dirt. It didn’t take us long to learn why. From the rocks and dust rose the form of a gnome, made of living earth.
It wasn’t a warm welcome, but the nameless gnome introduced us to Plains of Rolling Thunder. Here, his master Lord Suzaku lived, and here Suzaku was the only thing allowed to fly. Anything else with the hubris to try would be punished. We explained that we were there to seek council with his lord and asked the way. The gnome smiled.
“I’ll tell you where my Lord’s castle is if, if, oh I know, if you solve a riddle!” The gnome paused, then clapped his hands in excitement. “Okay, I fly without wings and cry without eyes. What am I?” Our group exchanges glance briefly. “A cloud?” The gnome’s face dropped in acutely telegraphed disappointment. “Aww man,” he said “it took me forever to come up with that one.”
Feeling sorry for the gnome, Berthok offered him a riddle in exchange for his, “A box without hinges, lock or a lid, yet inside golden treasure is hid.” Our bard Ereden, in the spirit of charity, offered a second, “What turns but does not move?” Excitedly contemplating his new puzzles, the gnome pointed the way to his master’s castle and then sunk into the dirt that formed him. Together, our party began out trek through the savanna.
After a short hike, we saw clouds of dust rising in the distance, and then a sound like thunder. Four centaurs charged at us, their eyes glazed and unfamiliar. They would not reason, and we were forced to fell them quickly, darting and cutting through their furious charges. As we did, they didn’t bleed. Worms shot from their torn limbs and writhed with blind purpose into the earth. The presence that hung on us remained as the last creature collapsed. There was something sick in the savanna, something else.
After dispatching the diseased centaurs, we resumed our hike to the palace. To our concern, we saw no castle appearing in the distance, but eventually ran into a simple sign. It read: “Lord Suzaku’s palace” and had a thick arrow pointed straight up. Following the sign, our party raised our gaze to a small dot, high, high up in the sky. Then we heard laughing.
Emerging from the dirt with glee, our gnome friend appeared and chided us. “I told you I’d tell you WHERE his palace was, I didn’t say you could get in it!” I wish I could tell you we were surprised, but at this point we were expecting hoops to jump through. The gnome stated that he was aware that something wrong was in the storm planes, this fact made evident with the infected centaurs and other recent incidents. If we could solve that problem for him, he’d get us to the castle in the sky without flight, which, we confirmed through brief experimentation, was indeed not an option. Our party agreed, and Suzaku’s servant sunk back into the (savanna?), opening a staircase in the dirt that spiraled into darkness. Together, we entered.
This was far from the first time we had walked into the depths of some underground tower or another, intent on eliminating a force of destruction. You could say we were pros at finding trouble in the dark, and Uluthrek portrayed that prowess by kicking in a metal door that our bard had carefully de-trapped, the booming noise alerting any nasty thing that may or may not want to pick it’s teeth with our bones. Lucky, or not-so lucky for us, the things we found didn’t have teeth.
As the door flew open, we were set upon by Mindflayers and Mind Witnesses, wicked things that set out to crush our bodies and our minds. With concerning efficiency, Bertok turned one entirely to stone. We struggled to defend ourselves, but were able to destroy the remaining creatures one after another, finally shattering the last stone monster out of sheer spite. With the fight behind us, we went deeper under the earth, eventually finding our target.
Deep underground and far from home, we found a vicious room lined with hundreds of jars filled with hundreds of brains. Out of all these loose organs, one brain stood out. In the center of the room and in front of a particularly massive tank of brackish fluid was an elder brain, flanked by flayers and witnesses. Far from excited, our party took to work.
We dispatched the minions slowly, stumbling under their psychic assaults. We hadn’t faced a battle this dire in a long time, and even with our cleric’s healing spells, which really isn’t his magic of choice, many of our members struggled to stay on their feet. Still, one after another of the monster’s fell until we faced only one lackey, and, of course, the brain. What do you hold onto when something attacks your mind, piercing your thoughts with whispers? For me, it’s this night we spent at the spa before we left Martin’s room empty, before the moon opened its eyes. We were gathered around a table that we stole from a bar, joking about how lady Erochnein almost smiled at us after we crash landed a city. Didn’t someone say it, “Anything’s possible?” I think it had been a warm night.
Sometimes, the simple things are enough.
With my last bit of strength, I struck the elder brain and fell backwards into a murky pool. The creature didn’t scream as it died, but deflated, collapsing slowly onto itself. The cry we heard was from it’s remaining servant, who, distraught or enraged by the elder brain’s death, snapped his black staff over his knee.
We narrowly withstood the creature as it lashed out in rage. finally, as the creature died, it whispered something into our minds. “We were only the distraction. Our master’s other servant has already completed his goal.” As we resurfaced in the bright light of the savanna, we tried to shake off its last warning. Maybe they had only been the petty words of a monster already beaten. Anything is possible.
Thankful that we destroyed the monsters underground, and even more thankful for our earlier riddles, the stone gnome created another staircase. This one climbed into the sky towards Suzaku’s castle. We had earned council with the Fey Lord, and a collection of magic presents. Our day, and our party, was looking up.
It didn’t take long for our ease to vanish. Part-way up the staircase tower, we saw a plume of green flame burst from the castle above. We rushed up the staircase in the sky though, surely, we were much too late.
By the time we reached the summit, the castle was strewn with Fey corpses, charred and still. Slumped in a grand throne was Suzaku, Lord of the Plains of Rolling Thunder, a dagger coated in his drying blood.
We knew, we all knew. It was Martin’s dagger, and in it, a light faded and blinked away.
Our friend had found us again.
End of Game Thirty.
-- Arlyn LaBelle is a poet, flash fiction writer and legal assistant living in Austin, Texas. Her work has appeared multiple times in the Badgerdog summer anthologies as well as The Blue Hour, LAROLA, JONAH Magazine, The Oddville Press, Songs of Eretz, Grey Sparrow Press, Cease, Cows and The Southern Poetry Review.
Thoughts on the game: Wow. Holy crap, wow. What a game I missed. I want to thank my brother, Ezra, for running this part of the adventure for our group, it sounds like it went exceptionally well. I also want to thank Arlyn for continuing to write recaps for the games. I really do appreciate both of them for all the work they put in to help make these games great. The hunt for the blessings continues and with more and more hoops to fall, jump, fly and stumble through MED inches closer and closer to their end goal. But what of Martin? Without his dagger he should be free, what could this mean? With the Blessing of Wind gone, MED now heads towards the Worlds Tree: A massive tree rumored to have portals to every possible realm of existence. Here the blessing of earth resides in the hands of a fey lord named Genbu.
I think you know how this works by now…. But! Vigilante is a group cooperative world gaming experience. A combination of several D&D groups are all active in the world and all of them influence the events of the town of Bastion and surrounding area. The guilds allow everyone to exchange items and it also allows players to switch parties to pursue different quests and be part of events. The story continues to progress in cool and inventive ways and I am so grateful to the collaborative Dungeon Masters for putting it all together, but there are still a ton of things to do and uncover and I look forward to more interesting and exciting adventures.
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