Dinner and Desert

The journal of Alvis, Lord Torc, Envoy in Extraordinary from the Land of Summer’s Twilight, pt 22

Well. There is always alcohol, I suppose.

Constance’s departure with the away party left me in a more precarious position. I had slid into my Ranger personae easily enough but now she had left me with the Army and – her Father. I was volunteered to join another away party, led by Darig, which had the Grace to remove me from Prince Julian – but I think at this point we just play the Glamour game out of courtesy, that Prince and I. And getting out of his view is a safer prospect than being dealt with…

All I really want is to get to a Portal. Once located I would actually have choices: get back to Faerie immediately and/or – and it was an and or, as there was a potential to offer a much faster route to Arden to those whose favour I may need to seek at a later date.

Hector of Zigo casts his sorceries accompanied by really quite unpleasant forms and faces and brings us first to an untouched area, filled with a collection of bloating bodies and smell of an old battlefield with a hint of brimstone. I start to yearn for the Rangers! Sooner the scent of horse shit and human sweat then the stench of decomposing bodies and brimstone. My senses are rescued by Hector and the unpleasant forms and features that accompany his sorcery.

We find ourselves in a Sea of Sand with a couple of Reptilian creatures overhead and a number of their land based relatives approaching over the dunes. We each respond in our various ways. Mostly with a combination of Magic and Spells. The Chaots among this party take to the skies and I watch the approaching land creatures leap across my newly Glamoured ditch in the sand and I accordingly switch weapons from bow to spear. Their plated hides may quiver with laughter at my arrow. My aim through the nearest’s eye to its brain with my spear is true and very swiftly it, and its fellow creatures, are soon lifeless on the ground.

A third casting from Hector and WHAT NEW HELL IS THIS?! Damn these places for being so removed from the essential essence of my very being. Damn their existence. Frankly. Woe is me! We are in a high building, apparently owned by Hector of Zigo. Full of iron! So full of it! We arrive in his Chambers in some form of techno Hell and as we enter the Chamber my Glamours desert me. I’d anticipated this but don’t find myself under immediate threat. Darig looks a little surprised and addresses me as Lord Torc. The others look at me (I am used to this) then care for the injured young warrior. I reapply Glamours reflecting my usual colours and costume. Clean, hygienic and looking like Lord Torc. I greet Lord Darig politely and incline my head politely to the other travellers.

There is wine and Creation often looks more pleasing after a few glasses of wine. I inform Darig that if I were given access to a Fey Portal, I could in quick succession move us through to the Forest of Arden (providing it has survived). Darig reminds me that we are so very far away from anywhere that there was likely to be a Fey Portal and I realise just how far away I am from my Power Sources. As a barrage of purple and blue lights shine into Zigo’s Chambers from the City below, I realise that just a few glasses of wine are not going to make this Creation look any more pleasing. Oh Summer’s Twilight, I yearn for thee!