Prologue
The Worst Hangover Ever
He opened one eye, reality swam into focus in a perfect world. In this not so perfect world it merely sludged together. His mouth felt like something had relieved itself in it and his skull was certainly now host to a small horde of demonic drummers. After a moment of contemplation in which he was certain his own thoughts were far to loud he attempted the only word he could think of at that moment.
“Argh”, he uttered with a rasp spitting up a mouthful of blackened blood.
When his vision cleared and his mind no longer insisted that he was the sole occupant of a private pandamonic pit. He considered his course of options, he decided that if what did not work the first time might be due a second try. He opened his mouth again and attempted the previous vocalization, whilst nothing actually came out he was certain it was still to loud.
With the option of speaking truly out of any plan he decided to try another tactic to establish that he was in truth alive. With some difficulty he stood up, brushing himself off he casually toppled back over landing without any real ceremony into the muddy pool he had been laying in to begin with. This was a marginal improvement now that he was certain that the universe was not infract a brownish green. But in truth a grey with green and brown. One more colour was a certain sign of improvement.
Then riding its chariot of blazing retribution, pulled by the horses of ‘Did I do that last night?’ and its infamous twin ‘Who is this?’ the vindictive memories of the night before returned in full swing. However as the chariot has many stops to make in any given morning, it supplemented reality with just the joys of thinking to loud with your hangover still present.
After several minutes of quietly thinking about not thinking he attempted to recall the events of last night. For some reason it had involved seeing an evil pond, this didn’t make much sense. Ponds were ponds, they had water in them, holes in which water lived so to speak.
“Argh”, he uttered it seemed in place for this kind of situation. It was also a mistake, several minutes later after the pain passed and his vision was no longer filled with dots he resumed his contemplation of the night before.
He remembered that he never drank unless he had something to put it on first. It was always a bad idea to drink without something to go with it. Judging by the feeling of a demon army in his skull clashing with a Baatezu insurgency indicated that what he had in fact put his alcohol on was in truth more alcohol. For a moment he wondered what exactly was it he drank before deciding to drink out of a swampy pool.
A few painful minutes later he recognized he had a rather comfortable pillow. It was scaly, and breathing. Turning he looked into the slightly baffled eyes of a Mistonian swamp lizard. Without bothering to go through that tedious, unnecessary and sometimes fatal action of contacting his brain. His body took the initiative and hurtled him from a laying position into a full sprint not actually requiring the engagement of anything but raw spontaneous adrenalin.
The scream that echoed through the swamp as the brain caught up with current events and the pain that followed would of not only shattered glass, but reduced it to its monatomic state. The few lurking birds, hapless swamp dwellers and unfortunate trees were either killed, rendered deaf or splintered. The bard himself was really regretting the scream next time it would just be a whimper of protest and misery. The swamp lizard couldn’t be as bad as this. However without the benefit of a brain to steer his body inopportunely chose to run directly into a tree.
This in itself was fortunate, it allowed him to work off the rest of his hangover completely unconscious. Unfortunately it also meant that anything curious as to why a blood curdling scream had occurred would find a very unconscious, mud, algae, blood, vine covered bard.
That said it is to be considered that creatures of nature, generally do not move towards such sounds and the primitive lizard-folk known to sometimes inhabit such regions chalked it up to something they didn’t want the answer to. Including but not limited to the vengeful return of ancestral spirits that are annoyed about certain observances being ignored in recent decades.
Opening one bleary eye he tried the second, this is a perfectly normal act and in a perfect world, this should work. One eye followed by the second, nothing difficult here, today was not a perfect world day it didn’t work. Reaching up he wiped blood from his forehead and acknowledged the high chance that he would have to scrub a bit to get his other eye open. Fortunately in his lifetime being reduced to mono-optic capabilities was nothing new. Standing up he looked down at himself appraising the situation, he was covered in muck, mud, swamp fronds, and things he had no name for this early in the morning.
‘Argh’, he said tentatively, this seemed to work. The stab of pain in his eyes was only moderate. Things were beginning to look up.
‘ARGH!’, he half shouted, this made him feel marginally better after swaying and getting his breath back. There was something right when you could say Argh.
A twisted half smile approached on his face, and he recalled after leaving the Stormcrest shack that he had went in search of his own ears. In doing so he had encountered the joys of a barrel of dwarfs head ale in Vhel. Afterwards he speculated that he had decided that the wild world of swamp wandering was for him. Digging into his vest he pulled his spare set of spectacles from it and put them on. The world sludged more so into focus on the scale of focus it was now perhaps a three or three point five of ten.
After several false starts he rediscovered the joys of ambulation without his staff. He wondered where it had gone, he didn’t wonder long before it fell on his head. Picking it up he didn’t bother to wonder how it got up in a tree or why it chose to fell on his head now. Like most of his gear it had been cursed at some point, to never leave him alone. Sometimes it pays to have borderline paranoia, other times this will result in big sticks falling on you.
Limping and cursing he wove his ways between the trees, over the deadfalls, past the quicksand, through the swamp muck and gradually retraced his steps to the road. It was a mighty twenty paces, perhaps twenty one. Looking right then left he turned and walked with the regality of royalty towards the Stormcrest shack. Never mind the muck, never mind the possibilities of a banana peal in his hair. Regardless that he looked like something that crawled it’s way out of the primordial ooze of early evolution then took a look and crawled back into said ooze. He strode with the confidence some idiot, somewhere would think he did it intentionally and seek to mimic him.
The mud was fully caked on, and the grime was soaked through to the bone past three layers of cloths and bandages when he got to the shack. There he saw looking smug in the sadistic way only parchment can manage, his book. It floated there with the habitual smarminess that said ‘I don’t need vocal cords to tell you, that you look manky and there is no way in this life or the next, I am going to let you touch me till you have had a bath. Coincidently I tattled about this little incident and you have a very angry woman on your hands in a few moments.’ Without bothering with the normal things a man says when he walks home after a night of drinking, to a very annoyed courting partner whom does not approve. He turned around, smiled and said with conviction ‘Hello, lovely day isn’t it?’ then toppled over, his body having decided that here was a convenient place to go back to vacation.
Sometime past noon Ozymandias tugged on his new vest and wondered if his old cloths would ever be properly cleaned. Perhaps they would be best reserved for situations where he didn’t care if he was filthy. His hair freshly braided, his skin scrubbed until the pallor absolutely gleamed he smiled and grabbed the still floating and flapping book.
‘You treacherous, backstabbing, conniving, vile, creature. Explain why I should not chuck you into the very furnace from which I got some other item of mine. Better threat later when I’ve had time to think open up book.’ He uttered in his normal rasp.
Finding his normal favorite reading chair he slumped into the high backed monstrosity. It was not that it was a large chair, it was perfectly normally sized if one were a human. In the case of a short, thin elf it was positively monstrous. The overall effect he quietly suspected was that of a hermit crab with a inferiority complex.
Levering open the book and uttering curses about treacherous parchment he dug a quill out of his pocket and began to write.
‘The Stormcrest shack seems to be an able place to set up business now. The traffic of adventurers will keep me well on my way towards the final goal. If this does not fulfill what Ozlo desired of me in the first place, then nothing will.”
Sucking on the end of the quill he paused for a moment glaring at the page.
“Events are unfolding on many circumstances, adventurers seem to be forgetting that values of caution and foresight. Preferring to squabble amongst themselves than to actually put some effort into things. I wonder how is it that foundations are not yet publicly known. If in Hempstead the new nexus for weird insane adventurers they have not been heard of until very recently after peasants guilted some adventurers.”
Tapping the quill on the page he coughed softly spitting up a bit of black blood.
“I am falling apart at the seams here, I wonder how many more years I can keep this up. The next time after this someone suggests I act the bard, I am going to kick them so hard they will spend the rest of eternity in the pit they threw Bloodstone.”
As if recalling something from an entirely different point he began to write once more.
“Better threat for book later, something involving flensing and lice. I have found my ears, although I am not certain why I at any point thought I had lost them. Why I even felt this necessary to note I will no doubt have no idea why even in ten years from now.”
Staggering up he stumbled, half limping towards the window and undoing the latch pushed it open feeling the blast of freezing air flow over him. He smiled out at the snow dusted landscape, and the dark grey clouds humming his normal peaceful tune. Unconsciously his gaze left the fields surveying his home on the outskirts of Dalanthar and traveled upwards to a place of darkness familiar to any in the region. The Great Rift, a place of darkness that predated any apocalyptic cloud, and with a small sigh he wondered if he had seen the crackle of lightning or just his imagination acting up. With a deep breath he slowly closed the window latching it and replacing the bolts once more. People had grown to know better then to rob him, it was the contents of his house he didn’t want escaping.
Turning he slowly walked across the room his high boots clapping against the stone with a familiar and comforting echo. The chronometer on the far wall began to chime its asthmatic rhythm marking noon, it never kept proper time it wasn’t meant to. Lifting a white sheet off a stand he gazed at a half completed painting. Upon it was a single figure, garbed in deep red robes with a helm black as coal. The face of the figure was obviously once human, but now twisted in a peculiar way with the shadows of demonic wrath. The sneer was lifelike and within it held contempt and superiority that nobles would never achieve but dream of nevertheless.
The work was yet incomplete, but lifting the top of the nearby desk he assembled his tools and spent a few tedious minutes completing some small details. Painting had been once a simple hobby of his, but he had grown to love it as a way to capture past moments. Some might prefer magic, as the sole device for recalling the images of the minds eye or illusions to fashion fantastic things. Yet he found they alone did not provide like a well enchanted painting.
Covering the painting once more he turned and looked at the others high on his walls, Bloodstone was the last of those he painted and the only one he did from memory. But still he could feel the mans lingering corruption crawling across his mind and soul. If he left the viewer unnerved, frightened and uncomfortable as he himself was at the memory then the picture was perfect to show the greatest villain the realms had ever known.
“Sometimes, I wonder how dead you really are Bloodstone. This I wonder because what greater way to take your revenge, and at the same time save this miserable world then as what has come to pass.” He rasped unheeding of any possible being overhearing him. With a deep sigh he slumped once more into the chair opening the book and began to write. The quill scratched across the pages in the normal twisted writing in the odd language the bard preferred. Under his breath he uttered as the first words began to take form “Yes Bloodstone, I do. Yet it I whom still live, and you whom are dead. I suppose my regret is justified but at least I exist.” Into the pages he continued writing.
‘This infernal darkness continues to hold in the skies. I don’t mind it much as it reminds me of home. However it continues to cripple the peoples of these lands, I can only hope they will be able to withhold the wrath of the dragons. I worry sometimes, will the heroes just expect events to unfold on a silver platter, or are they willing to make events happen? I do not think we will have Shifter helping us this time, but perhaps we will not need him.
I will continue to guide them, it is the most I can do perhaps I should start keeping record of whom has consulted me in the past. But that would take a horrendous amount of time to organize. So I think I shall start from here, let this be a new beginning. My place is where I can carve a notch to fill in, such a way to survive.
Events are slow, so this would be the best time to start this new series of records. The war against Bloodstone is over, let a new era commence. New words, new stories, new heroes and even the old if the old chooses to remain. Events around me have unfolded as so, as of late.
There is something out there, a relic of some sort, a book that produces a dust that seems to warp reality. How chaotic this warping is, how controlled I do not know however it seems to occur. The heroes have contacted me about what to do multiple times, I am not getting involved though. My advice is given, let them use it as they please, I’m the guidance not the one whom holds their hands.”
Slowly he staggered up closing the book and tucking it into his coats pocket specifically added for the purpose of holding that particular tome. Looking about the room and smiling at the soft rustle of books and the echoes of magic he turned and walked down the main hall to the glimmering portal and stepped through.
