Florida to San Jose in a 1964 Corvette. My buddy spent every penny he had buying it with nothing left over for a tune-up or fresh tires before we took off. (Mistake #1) He picked me up @ Hartsfield in Atlanta at 2 a.m, (long before cellphones....coordinating my late arrival was difficult) we ate at a Waffle House at 3 a.m. and off we went. It was to be all blue highways, back roads, 2-lanes, no interstates or national chain restaurants from that point forward.
A copy of “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” was to be our Bible.
We saw innumerable "See Rock City" signs and drove through the apparent fireworks capital of the free world @ the Georgia/TN border.
The damn Vette kept breaking down, first a clutch in Nashville, later a U-joint near Clarksville. Carb troubles in Nevada. I remember we saw “Weird Science” at the Clarksville theater, long before theaters were all 24-plexes. Afterwards at a bar we told a pair of local ladies we were “Location Agents” in town scouting sites for a film that was going to be shot there. Remember, this was pre-HIV... We were looking for a LAKE that the SUN came up over in the East.......\snicker, snicker**
What surprised us most were the full size satellite TV dishes behind every farmhouse across America. From nothing to 250+ channels with nothing but a check and a bootleg converter. Rural America had gotten wired. Well, dished. News, or what passed for it, was now broadcast 24 hours a day. (Mistake #2?)
Mosquitoes ate us alive at some state park in Arkansas where we’d foolishly chosen to camp rather than get a cheap motel room. We had a cassette walkman to pass the time before sleep came. The waitress at the one cafe in some lonely small town in Kansas assured us “Charlie,” the Frito Lay guy, came by EVERY DAY to refill the rack. We've joked about "Charlie" ever since.
We trailed a shiny stainless Kraft tanker truck across the loneliest highway in America, drafting for better fuel mileage, until he locked up the brakes and turned down a deserted dirt road. Trust me. There were no cows, and no dairies down that road. Must have been Area 51, or something else, cause a “milk truck” had no business being there. Fortunately we just missed creaming his rear bumper.
By this point we were getting around 7 mpg's belching black smoke , until a “19 year Chevy dealership mechanic” in a tiny town in the middle of east nowhere, Nevada, told us “No problem, one bowl on your Holley double pumper has sagged, I’ll file it flat and double gasket it and we were on our way again having barely finished lunch, back into, barely, double digit gas mileage. It was AS IF he had been placed there, just for us.
We camped among the stars in a mountaintop State Park near Eloy, Nevada, decided THIS was the place to hang out after nuclear war. You could see cars approaching from 50 miles away. Big cave, glacier full of icemelt pure water, deer everywhere. Survival city. The gubbmit was inexplicably stringing wire and fiber-optic cables into the cave. Maybe they had the same idea. A tiny casino with two slot machines and some serious alcoholics was Eloy's entertainment offering.
It seemed at every breakdown we ran into JUST the right person to fix the ‘64 for us, although the 10 pound metal glove box door continued slamming into my knees all the way to San Jose. @#$@!!!!
Everywhere we went there was someone wanting to talk to us about the burnt orange, white-striped Vette. Either a parent had owned one, a neighbor or their friend had owned one, or a good friend / cousin had died crashing one. We heard, or shall I say endured, endless Vette stories. (As I do again today, it’s the price of admission).
A fourth and final flat occurred near Lake Tahoe. I was ready to pull my hair out at Dave's frugality. Stopping at endless gas stations looking for ANY used tire that would fit. We were running for home at that point, late on our schedule. I think we did the final 200 miles without a spare.
A fly fishing trip on the South Fork of the North something river outside Denver had been the hi-light of the trip, along with an impromptu color TV repair at the cabin. My buddy pulled a trout out on his first cast, having never fished before. "To catch a fish one must THINK like a fish" he had pontificated,..... and then proceeded to JUST DO IT. Rest of us were amazed. I got skunked by a noob!
A cold solder joint in an old TV was repaired with a nail, held in Vice-Grips, heated red hot over a stove burner. Instantly the football field was green once again. My companion impressed the shit out of me with that piece of wizardry.
Forty years ago and I remember it like it was yesterday. We ultimately had to do about 17 miles on an Interstate somewhere in Utah. No way around. There are no road trips to be had, no stories to be gained, blasting 80mph on a superslab and eating in chain restaurants. Never have been, never will be. 2-lanes, diners, cafe's, that's where you see and talk to America.
We learned to take the road less traveled and to take ALL the time needed with everyone who had a story to tell us. We didn't take nearly enough (film) pictures. Mistake #3.
submitted by Part 1: Inferno Write-Up Here This thing's long- read on Google Drive
here. No offense is intended to any of the players whose characters Jovakri may insult in this. You Know What You Did.
(This report is written in cramped handwriting which packs the page. In the margin of one of the pages there is a detailed pencil sketch of a spear with intricate filigree work up the shaft. There is a messier sketch of Jovakri’s horse Starfall on the back of the first page.) Party: Jovakri, Paladin (Self)
Starfall, Celestial Warhorse
Okko, Monk
Vierna, Cleric
Lance, Rogue
Hammer, Paladin
Blingo, Barbarian
We arrived on the island at ten in the morning and climbed until noon to reach Dasmond’s hut. He told us about an invisible wall that stopped him while he was trying to climb the mountain to do his job. The mountain became rockier as we climbed above the treeline. (Most likely 12,000 feet by my estimate of the climate.) We eventually came to the “wall,” a barrier which yielded as we pushed through it and transported us to a massive stone room with eight portals leading out in front of us and one behind. There was a crowded bar in the center of the room, built around a massive stone spire. I sensed that, unlike the undead and whispering ghosts which populated the Inferno, the patrons at this bar were celestial.
Our party spoke to an incredibly useless human man, who refused to answer any of our questions. I then called over one of the bartenders, who was slightly more useful but refused to believe we were mortal and laughed at us when we asked which direction we should go and simply said that we needed to “earn our way out” but that no one had ever done so before. After several minutes of arguing, he phased into the stone spire and disappeared.
Hammer slipped off to speak to a different bartender, and discovered that we were in
Purgatorio and that the currency used here was “soul gems,” found within the different levels beyond the portals. When we caught up to Hammer, he relayed this to us, and Okko- the only member of our party who could interpret Celestial runes- discovered that each of the portals was labeled with the name of a sin. The original bartender returned, much more politely this time, and tried to explain that there had been a mix-up before urging us to go try to win our way out through the different levels.
Both of the bartenders we spoke to agreed that the only way out of Purgatorio was to collect the stone with the symbol of each level by defeating the challenge within, and once we had eight stones we could progress to Paradise.
Okko finally managed to convince Hammer away from the bar. I think we could well have gone on without him, but he hadn’t managed to buy a drink yet so he was at least halfway useful.
In the level of Pride, we found a garden full of statues, and a temple. Many of the celestial-ghosts were staring up at statues of them, in great puzzlement. We talked to the first person we saw, a dark-haired human man who told us we had to destroy our statues. Vierna and I went out and found our statues, and I asked Starfall to strike the statue with his hooves. When he did so, rearing and bringing a hoof down onto the arm, I felt a crushing pain in my own arm. I considered simply powering through and continuing to destroy the statue, healing myself as needed, but I saw the rest of the party heading towards the temple and decided instead to rejoin them.
Inside the temple, we met the Sage of Pride, who told us we needed to give up something we were proud of. Starfall and I decided to go through with it first, because if there were negative effects he had withheld from us I would rather they fall upon me so I could warn the rest of the party. I found myself in my memories, watching myself fight the vampire which had been corrupting the population of a wilderness island. Suddenly, I was back in the temple, with the vampire still in front of me. My friends had been silenced, and when I investigated to see whether it was an illusion I sensed that it was celestial in nature. I moved to extinguish Wavebreaker and draw my silver sword instead, but the vampire sprang and I rekindled my sunblade just in time to block its blow. It crumbled into ash, and when I properly awoke I found that nearly half of the notes in my journal had been wiped away. I had to rewrite the description of this quest from scratch.
I told the rest of the party that I was fairly certain the Sage of Pride was showing us illusions, and once I saw the others undergo the test I was sure of it. The only one who concerned me was Vierna, who began to back away from whatever it was that she saw. I am Kalashtar, and whether we like it or not we are subject to influence by the emotions of others, and I could feel the fear of death radiating off of her. She appeared to calm down afterwards, and I did not bring it up.
The Sage gave us water to pour on our statues, which crumbled to reveal soul gems and, in Blingo’s statue, a smooth, palm-sized stone marked with a glowing celestial symbol which Okko translated as “Pride.”
In the level of Greed, the Sage of Greed met us at once and told us that we could trade him 5000 soul gems for the stone. As the rest of the party progressed, he pulled Starfall and myself aside and told us to be careful, for it would be easy to become trapped in this level. I said nothing, but went after my friends and told them through my mindlink to be wary.
We found ourselves in a massive casino packed with people, and there were solid walls of slot machines filling one half of the cavern. I swung onto Starfall’s back to get a better look around, and saw that a crowd was gathered around a shallow pit on the other side of the cavern. Most of our party went in that direction, and found that there were lizard races going on in the pit. I contributed most of my soul gems while the party gambled on the lizards and promptly lost most of our gems. I secured the Pride stone from Blingo to keep him from gambling it away, and put it in one of my interior pockets.
(This passage is accompanied by a detailed pencil illustration of an iguana-like lizard, with notes written in Quori pictograms on the edges of the picture.) Okko and Lance left to bet on the dice games, where Lance attempted to use a minor illusion to cheat. Unfortunately for him, the host was a celestial and did not even notice that he had tried to cast an illusion on the dice.
Vierna, Starfall and I began to investigate whether we could win some soul gems using Vierna’s Probability Coin. Starfall nosed my shoulder and pointed me towards a door which had opened in the side of the cavern, into which some of the celestials were wheeling carts loaded with soul gems. We went to find Okko and Lance, and then after about ten minutes managed to drag Hammer and Blingo away from the slot machines. It’s a wonder to me how Hammer is as highly ranked in the guild as he is.
Once we explained that we knew where the vault was, we sent in Lance to investigate. I mindlinked him and told him to be careful and not take more than we needed, because it was likely that either he would be trapped or that we would fail the test of Greed.
As I understand it, he did not listen to this warning at all.
After about three minutes, Okko went in to find him. Vierna, Starfall and I waited to see whether there was trouble. As I understand it, they had to kill several mimics in order to access the vault. After several more minutes, they reappeared with two chests full of bags of soul gems.
(This passage is accompanied by a quick sketch in the margin identifiable as Vierna.) Once the party reconvened, we brought the 5,000 soul gems to the Sage of Greed, who gave us the Greed celestial stone and then cautioned us to leave any other earnings on the level of Greed and not to try to take them past the portal. I saw Lance trying to pull out a chest containing our surplus soul gems, and Okko and I tried to convince him to leave the chest and come through the portal with us. Eventually, I gave up and sent Starfall to block the rogue’s way while I made sure that everyone else was able to make it through the portal. Once I was through, I recalled Starfall.
Okko and Vierna worried that Lance would be trapped inside the level of Greed, and I said that it was his own business whether he tried to pull the chest through or not. Lance suddenly reappeared, and all six of us felt a stabbing pain in our chests as the bags of soul gems melted out of his hands. He asked Vierna for healing, and she refused. Then he said it was “worth it,” seemingly not noticing that his soul gems had evaporated. At this point I punched him.
I will strongly advise Bureaucracy the next chance I get not to send Lance on any more guild quests. He is a danger to anyone else on quests with him and has not seemed interested in actually accomplishing the objective of any quest I have seen him on. Having said that, I am prepared to make reparations to the guild if need be for punching him.
In the Wrath level, we were faced with a wall covered in intricate wrought-iron carvings of agonized faces and pressed-together bodies. They seemed to move as we looked at them, and I was unable to produce an accurate replication of them in my sketches. Unlike the first two levels, there did not seem to be any of the celestial ghosts here- although the wall stretched infinitely far in all directions, so they might have simply walked along the wall out of sight. Okko and Lance began to race up the wall, and were rapidly lost in the mists which ringed the top of the cavern. Blingo struck the wall with his whip, and at once a lash of liquid metal hit back at him and knocked him to the ground.
I pressed my hand against one of the faces on the wall and attempted to heal it, and at once the faces warped into a more relaxed cast. Beside me, Vierna cast a spell onto the wall and the interlocked limbs and faces began to loosen slightly. Blingo poured a health potion onto the wrought metal. Meanwhile, Vierna knelt beside the wall and pressed her palms against it, murmuring to herself in Elvish. Okko and Lance returned, reporting that the wall seemed to rise infinitely high, and as they stepped off of it Vierna finished her prayer and the entire wall opened to reveal the Wrath stone on the other side.
We continued on to the level of Lust, and I could tell that many members of the party were feeling more confident about our ability to secure all eight stones. In Lust, we came through the portal into a plain white room, and the Sage of that level told us that we would have to give up our greatest desires to receive the stone.
At once, the room melted away. I know a little about what some of the other members of my party faced- Lance says he was in a room full of gold, but he ascertained that it was an illusion. Vierna found herself in the town and the great hospital-temple of Bahamut which she had wanted to build since she was young, and when she entered the temple she found herself in the presence of the soul of the dragon god. Blingo only said that he saw his father.
The only thing I can say for sure is what I saw in my vision. I was in a field filled with the corpses of vampires, flaking into ash beneath the rippling light of the Wavebreaker. There was a vampire lord in front of me, smiling a wide gash of a smile from ear to ear, and I saw my family chained behind him. I struck him down, but he turned to mist and fled westward and I did not follow. All my family was unhurt, unbitten, though bruised and blindfolded. I broke apart their chains. My mother seemed confused at what had happened, and a little surprised to see me- but she was there.
I did not ask if they were proud of me, because I was afraid to know what the answer might be.
I will admit it now, that I would have stayed in the dream forever, or until my body gave out. I do not feel it a breaking of my oath- if my family were unharmed, if I still lived in a farming village on the edge of the Empire of the Hawk, if I were- the point is. I would have nothing to swear vengeance upon. The Oath and my family exist in the same space in my heart.
And then my mother melted away, and I found myself again in the white room, on my knees and alone again save for the Oath and the voice of warrior Vakri in my mind. I felt that Vierna was resting her hand on my shoulder, but I did not have the strength to look over at her. There was great turmoil coming off of her as well.
Before vanishing, the Sage told us to
“Seek out the Sage of Cosmos.” When we finally made it out of Lust, we had to take a moment to steady ourselves before pressing onwards. The level of Envy was, again, simple in its layout. There was a floating orb of light on a plinth, and when I passed my hand through it it seemed to solidify into the hilt of a golden sunblade. Hammer at once said it was a hammer, and began to draw nearer to me with a clear look of interest. Vierna said it looked to her like a symbol of Bahamut, so I at once asked each of my companions what they saw. We all saw something different- a sword, a whip, a holy symbol. (Starfall said that, like me, he saw it as a sunblade.) I replaced the sunblade on the plinth, to see whether it would turn into the Envy stone. Someone suggested that perhaps the trial of Envy required us to fight, but I said instead that any kind of competition would work. I carry a dragonchess set in the bottom of my pack, and I did not remember it until just then. In the end, though, we ended up playing rock-paper-scissors for the mysterious item. Hammer won, but when he picked up the item nothing happened.
Finally, Vierna suggested that we all simply walk back out through the portal. As we did so, the Envy stone appeared in the pocket of the robe she wore over her armor.
In Sloth, we were required to solve a puzzle by running across tiles. The Stone of Sloth hung in the air on the far side of the tiles, and every time Okko tried to reach his hand out to take it he reported feeling painful paralysis spreading up his fingers and eventually his arm. After trying several patterns, we discovered that to pass the test we had to light all the tiles as fast as possible by running across them and then seizing the stone.
The final remaining level was Gluttony, which seemed to be a great banquet hall with a long table stacked with food. Like the last several levels, this one appeared to be empty except for our party. There was an inscription in Celestial at the head of the table which Okko translated as “
clear the table.” At once, Hammer flipped the table on its side, sending the food crashing to the ground, and we were given the Stone of Gluttony.
Our next step was to secure the eighth stone, and we went back to the central spire to ask where it might be found, since there were no portals left. The bartender took us back behind the bar and told us that we now had enough of the stones to speak with the Sage of Cosmos, and that all we had to do was touch the spire to be transported to him. When we put our hands upon the spire, we found ourselves suddenly in a high-ceilinged room that was not unlike the library on the Argo- there were shelves filled with books, and large chests here and there along the walls. At the far end of the room, a celestial in the shape of a young, red-haired elven man sat at a desk amongst piles of paperwork and filing folders. He was writing busily, and all of us saw golden manacles marked with runes wrapped around his wrists.
The young man introduced himself as the Sage of Cosmos, but nervously told us not to ask too many questions so that we wouldn’t be overheard by a being the Sage only referred to as “Him.” He said that this being had come into Paradise and overturned the hierarchy there, which was resulting in turmoil that spilled out onto the Material Plane in the form of the nightmares of the Inferno and the sudden appearance of a portal into Purgatory.
When we questioned the nervous Sage further, he said that he feared for the souls in Purgatory, and that it had once been easier for souls to pass up into Paradise before “He” took over the system- but as it stood, we were the first to have made it in many years. However, the Sage finally told us that if we defeated him, we would be able to pass into Paradise and try to kill “Him” and set the order of the Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise back to rights. I was a little suspicious of this, and asked if anyone had been in charge before “He” came in and took over Paradise. The Sage of Cosmos said, with some irritation, “It was me.”
(Note: During this conversation, he also tried several times to convince Lance to open one of the chests. Lance seemed unsettled by this invitation, and refused.)
Reluctantly, we agreed to fight him to win the Stone of Paradise. He drew a spear, and attacked at once with a rain of magical chains from the walls and ceiling. The way he moved- was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It was as though the floor itself repelled him, so that he could move and leap effortlessly. When we began to wear him down, he perched on top of one of the bookshelves, and suddenly there was a light like the dawn. I closed my eyes, but I could feel the skin on my cheeks and fingertips burning and starting to blister. When the light faded, I noticed that most of my companions looked staggered, and had the same flashburns across their faces and around their eyes.
Since my radiant attacks did little damage, I took over healing and began supporting Okko and Blingo as they continued to attack the Sage. Lance was struck by the spear and bled out, falling unconscious off the wall that he had clambered up. Vierna revived him, against my advice, but he was immediately caught by the enchanted chains and was unable to break free.
Starfall was caught by the chains once, but was easily able to shake them off. At last, the Sage put down his weapon. I had been worried that we’d wound him severely, but he seemed breathless and slightly bloodied but still in good form. He gave Okko the final Stone, which had the celestial symbol for Paradise inscribed on it, and told us that when we were ready we should gather a group of adventurers to defeat “Him” and fix the anomalies that were leaking into our plane.
This is accompanied by a sketch of an elven man with long, swept-back hair and glasses, as well as a reproduction of some of the binding runes inscribed on the manacles. TL;DR: Our party journeyed through a series of enchanted caverns to defeat challenges related to the different sins. I’m sorry for any ramblings in the text- seeing my family shook me badly. We spoke to and then dueled the “Sage of Cosmos,” who told us that the odd occurrences in our plane were caused by a coup in Paradise by something called “Him,” who had overthrown the Sage. We now have the eight celestial Stones which we need to bring a party into Paradise, and will do so as soon as all our strength is gathered.
(In the bottom margin is written-
Blessed are the children of the sea.)
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