MP Game - Yarnspinners

[puffyn]

---- Arcoscephale, Turn 59 ----

If I still clung to the hope that this war, though great and terrible, is just another campaign against mortal armies like my own, it is gone now. We left Stavang in the early morning mist and were set upon by a horde of riders, pale and thin as ghosts. Inded they were ghosts: the archaic swords, the ancient battle raiments, the barbaric war cries from tongues long dead... as if they rode out of a battle from before the world began. A ragged mercenary captain named Gynter was leading the way; he was trampled by eighty pairs of hooves as substantial than dew on the grass. Yet we stood against the ghosts, and we fought them down.

By midday we had been attacked again by another unholy horde, this one from hell.

Tell me this: if the devils sent to drag your soul into infernal torment instead surrender, and offer their services in exchange for your protection, is this a bad sign? Does it mean that I am on the wrong side? Or is the hell toward which this world is spiraling such an exceptionally bad variety that even demons fear its coming? We left the three of them behind; no man would stand guard over them, and no mage would dare try to control them.

Stavang is a port city; we are by a wide body of water now, too wide for a proper river, too narrow for a sea. I can see white sails on the horizon, and on a clear day, the spires of castles unlike any I have seen till now: and there is smoke rising from them. I am told that way lies Abysia, a fair sized realm that has repelled the concerted advances of both R'lyeh and a race of flighted people far to the south. I am told that Man lingers still, has erected a fortress even, and will not give in to the tide of darknesss. I am told that the spider people still have a small enclave and have been almost untouched by the conflict that roils my part of the world. I am told this means there is yet hope; but I cannot feel it myself. It has been too long since I have seen anything but stormclouds, even in my dreams. Except for the one where I was dead.

We have made our camp by the water, near a small glade of trees. The land is deserted except for our ever growing armies: people know that a terrible battle is about to burst forth. On a small hill nearby, in a clearing, there are seven tall pillars, built in a previous age, impossibly white though etched with wind and sand and several ages of man. The pillars look like once they used to reach to the clouds; but the tops are all broken now. It is painfully clear how short they fall.

Limmy had a hammock strung up between two of them. I heard giggling voices disappear into the woods as I approached and from the disarray of goods around his clearly under-used tent I guessed he had been here a long time. He greeted me warmly, like a beloved brother, and invited me to share some food with him. I was surprised to note the bread was still warm; he laughed and said, "If you think that's good, you should try some of the freshly churned butter the milkmaids left." Limmy is like the old gods in stories -- content to string up his hammock and toy with milkmaids as the world ends around them. It's a somewhat irresponsible attitude I feel, but it does have that advantage of producing some top notch churned-milk product.

There is an island just across the water; there used to be a bridge to it, but it seems to have disappeared. Nobody likes to look at the isle for very long; you travel enough with Todd and phrases like "and on that blessed isle shall there be the death of hundreds, and the world besides" tend to rattle around your mind until you learn how to let your eyes slip past the uncertain motions on the distant banks. Those tentacles you imagine you see are only overgrown vines...

I had been here three weeks before I noticed Maude. I would have thought this hard to accomplish; Maude is taller than the two younger Firbolgs. But the camp keeps swelling, as more mystics trickle in, some leading small forces of hoplites and vinoghers, most with only a few tattered scrolls in hand.

"Oh, there you are, Pandokos," Maude said. "My boys have been telling me so much about the great adventures they've had with you. I hope they haven't been filling your heads with the silly nonsense they're so fond of spouting." I was about to say something about how nice it was to meet someone who didn't buy into all that prophetic mumbo-jumbo, when she went on, "They're always making a big fuss over the little things, like reclaiming ancestral homes, and forgetting the little details on which the world turns. 'Then shall the waters rise from below and fall from above to reclaim the earth, and the imprisoned shall break their chains, on the isle of a hundred dreams...'"

I guess there is no such thing as only believing in the sensible bits of prophecy. Either this was all written down a thousand thousand years ago, and we are but acting out our parts... or some theatrical hack is making a lot of money on false old scrolls. Actually, I've seen at least three apocalyptic-scroll vendors lurking around the camps. They always have a crowd.

[Sedna]

R'lyeh, Turn 60

Auluddh has come.

To me, this has more import than world freezing over as the giants awake. Auluddh is the leader of the Aboleths, whose empire once spanned the Persei arm of the galaxy, before it was brought low by a stellar collision with their homeworld, which I don't know anything about that and at which time I have several eye witnesses who can provide me with an incredibly solid alibi.

If any deus ex vacuuma was going to appear and challenge me for supremacy, it should have been him, with a legion of shock-troops at his back. And he should have appeared here, at the caves. But instead he wandered through the void gate, somewhat lost. There, he cowers under the sieging force of birds, led by that erstwhile god: ghost-of-the-wingless. I will have my priests drag him out of his cave- use his raw power to smash the feathered ones, and make sure Auluddh also dies in that struggle.

And so... I must accept that Sammy is right. Tomorrow, before sunrise, Pandokos will march across that river which separates the isle from the mainland, claim his right to fulfill the ancient prophecy, and challenge me to combat. And I shall issue forth from my cave with a thousand spawn and slaves at my back, and score upon score of evil tentacled things from the void, and a hundred woefully misguided humans who think they are fighting the infidels who insulted their god, and a gaggle of starspawn for magical support, and two queens of water, and an ice devil (captured in a distant land)... and if the prophecy holds we will both die tomorrow and both time and the world shall end, but whichever side wins and maintains possession of the caves from sunrise to sundown during the carnage- that "god" shall return from death and rule this world and countless others as God.

And what of this human? What madness drives a mortal to attack a god? What twisted belief system causes a wanderer, far from home, to lay down his life in defense of strangers in a strange land? What love or hate causes him to struggle against forces he cannot possibly comprehend, much less control? And when did humans acquire the permission of the gods to challenge the order of things- to imagine a different world?

It scarcely matters. The world ends tomorrow. And no matter what happens, Pandokos' frame cannot possibly survive the transition to god-hood if his side should (by some miracle) win. But I have become quite attached to these caves, and the glimpses into forever which they provide. This has been my home now for some months, and I would hate to see my home broken into by another with his hands full of butter and the salesmen... those men! and their -- sales!

For now this is my house. I shall lie here until dawn, dreaming...

[puffyn]

---- Arcoscephale, Turn 60 ----

The waters are rising every minute, and every hour it gets noticeably colder, though spring is long overdue. Scouts from the north say that giants have awokken there and are rampaging through the lands unchecked. The river which separates us from the isle is choked with the tentacles of random spawn-things which have been constantly harassing our army. Their ichor turns the once clear waters black as the Styx.

The symbolism is not lost on me. Tomorrow, Maude tells me, I must cross that river before dawn and seize control of the isle, or the world will be lost to the gibbering madness that crouches there. I will not be alone. My army has been reinforced several times over by mystics who suddenly started walking out of the laboratory with phalanx after phalanx of troops. I tried to get in there to talk to Balachandra and figure out how he had managed to pack so many men into such a small building, when the doorway was shattered with a deafening roar and a long string of elephants wandered out and started munching on the grass. I decided I didn't really care to know.

Anne (a magician from the Sinking Lands who I had not previous met), ran up to me, sopping wet, with shellfish and seaweed in her hair, and clutching a pair of those blasted flying boots. "The army in the sea has arrived, Pandokos!" she exclaimed with a huge smile, as if I would be glad to find myself talking to a crazy person. I attempted to smile and back away slowly, but she grabbed me, and dragged me down to the shore (which was even closer than I remembered). She pointed out into the chilly, crystal clear waters, and it seemed as if I could see men moving under the sea in full armor, along with some huge, ghostly giant.

Maude startled me when she snuck up behind us. "For is it not written, 'and, in an hour unlooked for, those who took the paths of the deep shall arise and claim their part on the isle'?" To which I could only reply that if it was "written" no one had ever showed it to me, and it seemed mighty convenient that I was only ever told about most of these prophecies after the fact. Maude looked at me with a little sadness in her eye and told me in a soft voice that I am going to die tomorrow.

I already know that.

I feel it in my weary bones, which have marched on too many rugged, dusty paths, too far from home. I see it with the eyes of an old soldier from the great campaign (may you have found rest Alexandros, though I did not) when I look at the scuttling opposite shore and realize that everything there waits to kill us. I smell it in the chill sea air, harsher and piercing than the warm waters of Pagasae. I hear it in my dreams, as Thymbre urges me to come home to her. I taste it in the butter - does this pinnacle of food exist on the other side of the river Styx?

I will bury this book, along with the "Collected Sayings" before marching tomorrow. At least then it will survive, though for what hope I do not know, if we should fail. At least it will have the proper burial I will be denied. Yet these is some solace... Andron epifanon pasa gi tafos... For heroes, the whole world is their tomb.

But these are unbecoming thoughts. I have the finest army of friends in the world to lead tomorrow. My sword lies gleaming beside me, ready for battle. And there is still one last sunset to watch, and one more loaf of freshly-baked bread to spread with the finest butter.

[djo]

+10 pearls to both for the last few turns. The sense of doom has been palpable.

Would someone please post the turn file for the apocalypse?

[Alneyan]

I will post this turn (and all turns from turn 6 onwards) as soon as the game is over. Once I get the turn files for Arcoscephale and Caelum, it shall be over, and Cthulhu shall rule over the world. Bow down to the Elder Ones!

[Alneyan]

We have now reached the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. The score file has been attached to this mail, and I will upload all the turn files later, if my connection behaves.

Points given for the ranks:
- Provinces: R'lyeh, Caelum, Arcoscephale
- Forts: R'lyeh, Caelum, Arcoscephale
- Income: Arcoscephale, Caelum, R'lyeh
- Gem income: R'lyeh, Caelum, Arcoscephale
- Research: Caelum, Arcoscephale, Man
- Dominion: R'lyeh, Arcoscephale, Caelum

Which would give us the following totals, for ranks alone:
- R'lyeh: 4X20+1X5=85 points
- Caelum: 1X20+4X10+1X5=65 points
- Arcoscephale: 1X20+2X10+3X5=45 points
- Man: 1X5=5 points

[Alneyan]

All the turn files from turn 6 onwards are attached to this mail.

[puffyn]

---- Arcoscephale, Turn 61: Epilogue ----

It is said, about the final battle of some-or-many armed persons against the some-or-many tentacled things, that the tentacles won the day, and few persons escaped alive, with or without their arms. It is said that when they saw the battle turning against them, the persons of spear did not flee, preferring to die in battle than turn and forsake their friends. But earthworms, in addition to being slimy and having little respect for an important historical document such as myself, do not make the most reliable of sources. Even the most cunning chronicle scroll must wait patiently in such circumstances until whichever side has won realizes their sore need for the brilliant insights of a quality book of collected sayings, and then I will be dug up with much fanfare and charged with writing the history of that epic battle.

A few worms tell a different story, that some men have escaped, like the crafty Odysseus and the lizards-of-many-names-starting-in-Golan. They whisper that even though the rest have not come out of the cave, yet they were victorious (but not in the winning-the-battle kind of way that one normally thinks of as victory): the mad god was turned to stone (some say also to mist and to fire and to frost, but others say that was the other god, who spilled butter on my pages, and who could probably use some time as a statue to atone for his errors). Thus, they say, mad-tentacle-god was prevented from reaching the exact right spot in the caves before the window closed, and failed to gain ultimate power. The worms were unclear why there should be a window in the depths of the caves, but such informants are my lot for the foreseeable future.

I am a very patient book of collected sayings, although spending so many months buried next to the scroll of the sayings of the prophet Sokodnap makes me long to give someone a good paper cut. He likes to go on about how his prophet carried him into every battle, and how he was there at the very last; that he felt the spear thrust that felled his prophet. I say the blood stains and jagged holes make him a much less helpful and informative scroll. The worms say of Pandokos that he stood his ground in the center of the storm for the twelve long hours of that final day, guiding and comforting his troops and friends as they fell one by one, and slaughtering in turn a hundred foul-tentacled-things before the spirit of the river arose and dragged him down. I am sure the mystics will be grateful that my pages were not ruined by the river water when they come to dig me up.

... Hello?.... Is there anyone out there?.... Important book, down here!....

... guys?

(From the lost work The Collected Sayings of Pandokos the Prophet: In his final incarnation)

[Alneyan]

Silly me, I have forgotten to give the master password. It is hoohah; most players should already know the master password, but not our other fans.

[magnate]

[embarrassed cringe]

Sorry folks, I seem to have disappeared into RL for several months, during which time the game has finished. Sincere apologies for this, though I at least have something to show for the busy period (I'm getting married!). Thanks for all your restraint - I was expecting a load of "where the hell is magnate?" posts!

Congratulations to Sedna on winning the strategic element of the game. Shall we leave it there, or would you like the rest of the yarns scored? Sedna has finished 40 points ahead of Puffyn but Puffyn was quite a long way ahead in yarn points, so it could be close ...

Let me know. Apologies again,

CC