Your Grace!
The irony! That splintering into book report teams (Davynn’s idea, obviously) was what led us to finally working together like never before! More or less, give or take a tiefling “researcher” and a “charming” “deadbeat.”
Er, that last one wasn’t supposed to be in quotations.
Wait… no, it’s nothing.
I’ll admit, I’d given up on it ever happening. Davynn is crucial to my ever-evolving plans, sure, but it was kind of a relief to be part of a sleek, stripped-down unit with Kern and Gayle (although Gayle seems to be having some difficulties with adolescence lately, judging by his attitude) and it started me daydreaming of riding off into the sunset with them. The Tribulations of the Trinity, that could be the name of the adventures Gayle would write about us. Honestly, I did everything I could to ditch Davynn and Lana when we ran into them again. But Davynn’s getting wily, harder to trick. Maybe those scales of his come with dragon cunning.
But then we were almost immediately split up again when, in the course of our investigations, someone misjudged the size of a trick trapdoor and we all tumbled down a slide into very sturdily built cells, attended by mechanized jailers. Gayle landed in the cell with the other team, which… whatever. Maybe they’ll be able to figure out what’s wrong with him.
Because that is not my jam. My remedy for the challenges and frustrations of puberty was the liberal application of bloodshed and booze, neither of which I would prescribe as solutions for Gayle. No, MY particular area of expertise is GODDAMN MECHANIZED JAILERS!
!!!
Stomach got excited for a second there too, decided to chime in. It’s been talkative recently. No reason. What? You’re the prophet, YOU tell ME why! Smart guy!
But how cool is that? Actual walking… or rolling, and er… not talking, but barking, at least one of them… I feel like I’m not making this sound as amazing as it was. Clockwork automatons, your Grace! Little beetle weirdos on wheels full of fiddly interlocking bits to pick apart! And this other one that understood Gnomish, sorta!
Actually, that IS very impressive…. In hindsight, maybe I shouldn’t have smashed its sophisticated brain open.
But there’s no such thing as progress without blood, no enlightenment without gears strewn all over the cell floor of your imprisoned mind.
They were powered by these blue crystals, blue like the skies of possibility I could feel opening up before me as I examined them. The plan was to take the crystals and connect them in series to increase the maximum… has anyone decided what a unit of magical energy is called? Some of those books back at Featherstone might have mentioned something along those lines but I was mainly looking at the pictures, to absorb as much knowledge as possible in the limited time available. It seems like the sort of thing I’d remember though, even taking my vodka-rotten memory into account. Sorry: potato ale.
(That’s what they call vodka in Whitfeld. It’s hilarious. Also, Whitfeld exists. I know, right? Kern made a guy shit excrementate his pants.)
Operating on the assumption that no-one with a mind as orderly as mine has studied these matters yet, a unit of magical energy shall henceforth be called a shrilling.
Returning to my tale: I connected the crystals in series to increase the maximum shrillage in the hope that the resultant Super Beetle would be able to tear our door off its hinges? I think? I dunno, that part was Kern’s idea, I just wanted to make a Super Beetle. And it worked! More or less. I mean, it exploded… but explosions are the flowers of the mind’s understanding or some shit. Defecate! That was the word back there. Sorry, your Grace, my mind’s going in a thousand directions. I’m a bit keyed up. And distracted.
Oh, whoops. Embarrassing!
No, false alarm. Phew. Actually, on second thought, my feelings on that are mixed.
Really, Gayle should be writing this, but I think he might be broken. After the explosion freed him and the others, they ran into some trouble in the next room and he totally froze. I’m not saying he should be more like me… well, he could stand to be a LITTLE more like me. Come on, Gayle, it’s only life and death. What’s the difference, cosmically speaking? And besides, worst case scenario, you’ll get to see your goddess! Won’t that be nice?
Death is part of life. Nothing to be feared. For instance, if Corrin and Annie hadn’t died, would we have ever found ourselves playing hot potato with a magic bomb to defeat an advancing robot, in the FINEST EXAMPLE OF TEAMWORK IT HAS EVER BEEN MY PRIVELEGE TO BE A PART OF? Who can say? Who can untangle the vicissitudes of fate? All I DO know is that in dragonchess you can’t subtract a single move without altering the character and potentially the outcome of the entire game. I’m not saying that, if their deaths brought us to this moment in time, it was somehow a fair trade….
I’m just saying that apparently I can make magic bombs now. Make up your own mind.
The upshot of all this is… I apologize. I lost faith in you. I thought we were irreparably broken and that you were to blame. But I see now that it was all for a purpose. Our old system was dysfunctional, it needed a couple of gears replaced, as distressing and unexpected as that was. But now at least all the pieces FIT. Even Ulric, maybe? Hmm, let’s not get TOO crazy.
I dunno, I’m all aglow with… what is it. A feeling of fellowship or some garbage. I guess having someone help you cram conceal a magical bracelet in your ass bunghole can’t help but lower your defences a bit. Speaking of… no, alas, ‘twas naught but the wind. But it’ll happen in the fullness of time. I have faith.
Ponderously yours,
Xylund