PBEM Game: Yarnspinners 2 (Running)

[The Panther]

I am having difficulties with the yarnspinners site. My Turns 6 and 9 show up only in edit mode. Am I doing something wrong? I have not really looked at all the editing features, being somewhat computer illiterate. Some of you guys have pretty darn good stuff in there (like pictures) Me? All I can handle are words. I suppose I ought to study the site throughly some day when I can find the time. But work and play are always getting in the way!

Anyway, I am off to France! Our host Tauren will make the next several turns for me. I sent him detailed instructions on what I want to do, which does NOT include fighting any wars this early in the game.

Cheers,

Panther

[Sedna]

It's just the refresh bug-- they show up okay for me, and probably will on your computer shortly. Enjoy your time in France.

[The Panther]

One thing I forgot to mention. Send all diplomatic email messages to Tauren with a copy to me. He has my instructions to follow, but one can never prepare for everything.

[Sedna]

"Come on you raver, you seer of visions,
come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner..."

----------
Marignon, Turn 9

Esclave

"Esclave."

I awoke with a hand on my shoulder. I had been working on cross-referencing a particularly tricky passage from Encyclopedia Illwinter with St. Quantum's Gvide to Bvffing , and must have fallen asleep on my pages where I sat working in the library.

"Esclave."

I turned, and beheld her. Close up, she was... and her voice was the soft glow of sunrise, and... she knew my name!

"Um, yes my lady?"

"I need you to make me a sword."

I hesitated, fearful that my pounding blood had made me mishear. "I fear a blacksmith might serve you better."

She laughed with a twinkling of bells. "I don't need you to forge me one, just put these," she poured five fire rubies from her hand onto my pages, "into this." So saying, she drew a short sword of common design and also balanced that on my books.

I was somewhat flummoxed by this odd request, not least because I had no way to fulfill it.

"Perhaps... my lady, you would be better served approaching the Archbishop Marignon with this request. He has many fine magi who could help you with this, while I, a lowly cleric, have most scant knowledge of magick. What I do know is purely theoretical..."

The golden-haired one paused, but her eyes twinkled. "Everything required is in St. Wordscigam's Compendium. Beyond that, all that is required is a pure heart, a keen eye, and a steady hand."

In the face of such beauty I was not about to deny any admirable trait. "I am at your service, my lady."

"I would be glad to show you how to begin." She moved closer and put a hand on the back of my chair.

"I...I believe I can make it work," I managed, hastily gathering my books and preparing my retreat, "But now, I think, I hear the call for morningsong, so... uh..."

"Then I will see you again tomorrow morning, oh, and Escalve?"

"Yes?"

She reached out with her pure-white sleeve and wiped my cheek with a smile, "You have ink on your face".

Ghost

The smell is overpowering and it has been 2 days since my last proper meal. In the dark, I clutch Aftial's gift tighter and a faint fire glows along its sharp edge, lighting my enclosure. I think back to that last conversation with her:

Father Muszinger is using the lord's rebellion to build his support. In each province he deposes the current lord for not accepting the church's new doctrine, but replaces him with a leader loyal directly to Father Muszinger.

A lurch! For a moment I panic. I calm my heart, and quiet my breath. I am not here. You cannot notice me. We are underway at last.

Spire Woods is the last of the old provinces on Father Muszinger's path of conquest. The prince, Leric, is defying the church's commands. The throne after him passes to his wife, Manthe, and after her to their son, Pagobar, but the fourth in line for the throne is a good man: loyal to me and well liked by the church. With him on the throne, Muszinger will have no grounds to attack.

The servants grunt on the stair. I feel a little sorry for them. If I fail, they will surely be put to death for their involuntary participation.

But removing the top three will not be easy. The royal family is paranoid about assassination. Worse, they cannot stand each other, and are rarely in the same building. If you kill one, the others will tighten security even more.

The door is open now. I can hear the servants being roughly searched and yelled at, for no reason other than that the guards hold swords and the servants do not. But everything is in order, and now I am moving again.

Your only chance is the midwinter feast. They will gather to celebrate together-- but not in some great hall where an assassin might be able to intrude. They will dine together in their private hall with only one set of great doors, nowhere to hide within, and a pack of their most faithful guards outside. Every dish will be sampled for poison, and every servant who enters will be thoroughly searched.

The voices are muffled, but I can hear. The servants leave the room. The royal family drink and eat noisily, bickering with each other. A knife intrudes near my face, and it is time to move. The calf's carcass is sliced from nose to tail and I arise. They fall like leaves, my sword and my arm in perfect harmony. My shield does not come off my back. Now it is quiet. I can have a quick meal before figuring out how to escape.

Esclave

I awoke in the bitterly cold morn. Careful not to disturb her, I incant to the candle, which flickers briefly in the stillness, then goes black. I decide it is not important to see anyway, and return to warm slumber.

In the morning the bed is empty and she is gone, leaving only a note about how she must go out to fight, but that she loves me. To fight! I gesture to start the fireplace and the room explodes into flame.

[puffyn]

Oooh, turn 9 already. How time does fly. This time in Yarnspinners 1, it was just me and Karacan and this odd new person named Sedna whose idea of a good post went something like this:

"I believe I've come up with a winning business plan:
Step 1: Prophet
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Rule the world"

YS1: Turn 9

[puffyn]

And on to the good stuff...

---
C'tis, Turn 9

The late summer sun beat down as the lizards crossed the parched plains. Ruli couldn't imagine finer weather for a hike. Many kinds of lizards lived in the kingdom of C'tis – Ash'embe and the others were children of the damp swamps, and clearly unhappy with the dryness of the air – but Ruli was a desert lizard. And the plains were almost desert, this time of year.

Especially with the recent drought. Nothing green, and almost nothing brown, could be seen on the horizon, the only relief being here and there an interesting rock formation. They were walking on an ancient lava bed, Cole said one night at camp. "A very long time ago," the dragon had told them, "the Rim Mount used to glow for miles with molten rock." Ruli thought his use of such archaic units something of an affectation.

"Was... was... was the mountain killed by the frost giants?" asked one of the troops, a timid little fellow whose name Ruli really ought to remember. Clearly he at least had been listening to Laph's yarn.

"No", said Cole. "It was dead long before then. Even mountains grow old and die," he said, almost wistfully. "But we may find something interesting if we pick through its bones."

A few of the little swamp guards swiveled their heads around to look, nervously, at Ruli. Cole had been teasing him like this ever since the incident with the mouse, which for some reason he thought was highly amusing. Everyone else thought it was one more reason to be wary of the weird winter egg.

---

They had paused by a dry riverbed to rest. Ruli wandered off to explore. Smaller than most lizards in his cohort, he'd been pleased to discover he could easily keep up with and outlast these specially trained, elite lizards (except for Ash'embe, who was always running ahead, trying futilely to keep up with Cole). Of course, I'm not carrying a full suit of armor and a falchion like everyone else on this "camping trip", thought Ruli.

He wandered up the river bed, to a place where dead bushes lined the shore. How long has this river been gone? he wondered. A season? A year? A hundred years? Plants decayed quickly when they died, he knew, but it was hard to shake the feeling that these skeletal bushes had been there for aeons. He looked at the shriveled bark on the stubby trunks, the thin brittle tendrils that must have once held leaves, and fed and sheltered small creatures like... mice. There, in a mat of dried grass and twigs, a small nest. He counted three, no, four little mouse skeletons curled up in the nest, huddled desperately against the cold. They had failed; now they were only bones.

It was enough.

Ruli thought back to something Great Grandfather had said, during his brief apprenticeship. Lugal-zagesi was an ancient shriveled lizard who had journeyed to C'tis from somewhere very far away. There were other lizard nests on this world, of course, small enclaves surrounded by warmlings, but Great Grandfather had come from much further away. Lizards lived on thousands of different worlds, scattered across the galaxy, and it was not uncommon for some few to travel far from their home nest, the way Aetonyx had. But Great Grandfather never spoke of his travels, and the young lizards could only guess how he'd gotten all his scars. Rumor had it he had lost his tail four times...

"I really only know about living things," Great-Grandfather had said. "Some people say, when a thing dies, it's gone. But I've seen enough death... as long as there's something left – leaves, a tooth, bones – it's not really dead." When Ruli had asked him to elaborate, he had claimed ignorance, declared his joints were bothering him, and given Ruli a dozen musty books to look through. Most of them were in indecipherable scripts.

But one book... Ruli dredged up the memory. Yes, that was it, arrange them like so, mumble this... He closed his eyes, searching, reached out...


It was the most bizarre thing Ash'embe had seen in his entire life. They were all ready to march, until Cole had suggested that someone really ought to fetch Ruli, and then he'd looked right at Ash'embe. If Ruli were so bloody clever, he'd know not to disappear when we're about to leave, he'd thought to himself. But he wouldn't dream of refusing a request from Cole. Just last night, the dragon had confided in them that there was an outpost of men up ahead, stealing something that was rightfully his, and that they should... how had he put it? "We must be prepared for any eventuality." Ash'embe wished he could get his voice to sound like that.

So then he'd asked around, and little Zu, who Ash'embe privately thought shouldn't be there, too weak, always asking questions – just like another annoying lizard, come to think of it – had piped up that he'd watched the winter-egg go up the dry river bed. As usual, this made no sense: if there'd been water in it, of course, Ash'embe would gladly have gone to the water's edge, anything to be damp again. But who cares about a dry river? Nothing there but a bunch of rocks.

And then he'd seen the mouse. It was dancing, its skull bobbling on its bony limbs, its tail bones swaying despite the complete lack of breeze. A tiny little voice in Ash'embe's head admired the artistry, the way the joints fit together, the way Ruli was keeping it under control. The loud voice in Ash'embe's throat said, "What the scale-leaver's-feather do you think you're doing?"

The winter-egg startled, broke concentration, and the mouse fell to the ground, just a bunch of bones again. "We're leaving," said Ash'embe, as icily as he could manage in the thirty-degree heat, and strode off while the winter-egg sputtered something behind him. We're late, and Cole's going to be upset, thought Ash'embe, because Ruli was playing with a dead mouse. No wonder the guy gave him the creeps.

---

They reached the foothills an hour before dark. Cole had refrained from darting ahead, though it pained him to be so close and not swoop in; but it wouldn't do to let them know he was coming. He forced himself to trudge at the slow speed of the small lizards. They mean well, he thought. But what I wouldn't give to have Dagda or Alagon along... At least young Arruli was shaping up nicely. Cole was pleased that he had figured out how to work with skeletons without the aid of a mentor. He would have to arrange for some better lessons, to see what the hatchling was capable of. After they dispensed with the current interlopers, of course.

He could almost smell it, from here. The sound of hammers and carts and other man-noise came to him, and he signaled to Ash'embe to move his troops into position. The miners were completely surprised by the attack, though they fought back bravely, with their picks and shovels and a few swords. Cole noted with some sadness that the little questioning lizard, Zu, had gotten disoriented in battle, run straight toward the men, and been stabbed through. Ruli, who had looked a little shocked at the sudden onset of violence, was the only group healer, and rushed up to Zu's body. Then Cole flew out from where he'd been hiding, drew his wings out to their full length, and breathed fire onto the closest group of warmlings. They made pleasant crackling noises as they burnt up. He breathed on another group, and smiled thinly at the growing terror in their eyes. That's what you get for disturbing dragon hordes. The Rim Mountain stash of volcano-gold had always been one of his favorites.

The battle was over quickly; the warmling miners were no match for swamp guards, even if they were only children, nor the enraged fire of a dragon with a cause. Cole noticed with some interest that what finally got the men to turn and run was not so much that they were being cut down by Ash'embe's forces, but that the corpse of the small lizard Zu, the only lizard to fall, had gotten up, and was marching toward their lines with a purposeful stride he'd never had in life. Ruli's eyes blazed as he watched the dead lizard march down his murderers.

That went well, thought Cole. There was a cave in the next mountain range over, where an elderly dragon had lived long ago, fondly carving his gem garden until the chasm walls gleamed with a thousand glittering roses. The old dragon had long since disappeared, and nobody else had dared move in so close to Cole's dominion. Perhaps it would be time to pay the mountains a visit. Cole was very fond of roses.

[PashaDawg]

Wow! Time does fly. Well, I finally took the time to write my yarn for Turn 6. I guess I better get cracking on Turn 9 tomorrow!