In Dreams… part 2
Extracts from the Personal
Diary of
The Night of
We set sail from Dylath
Leen in the “Cura Delle Anima” under Capt Monteverdi, who refused to fly my Hornéd God banner. No-one can say I didn't
try to get it flown, but I cannot say I was genuinely disappointed. The next
day we rescued a trainee sage called Ezekiel Corathan,
who had been marooned on a rock by pirates, who joined our mission.
The day after that we were
intercepted by pirates.
Monteverdi and his crew were prepared to make a fight of it until the pirates
fired a new-fangled ‘bombard’. Faced with this threat, Monteverdi finally
agreed to run up Isobel's flag, which put the pirates to flight, so it does have
its uses. However the crew don't seem too pleased with the association.
After a week or so at sea, we arrived in Inquanok, a city of domes and spires, mostly of black onyx
with gold tracery. We encountered a cat that Alex was sure was sent by Bast to guide us. We followed this moggie
which did lead us to the palace. We had to queue for hours until we were
finally seen by a little fat priest. When we explain that we have been
commissioned by the Hornéd God, we were shown to a
waiting room and served refreshments.
The High Priest turned up 20 minutes later,
apologising for making us all wait while he confirmed the situation by
Divination. He confirmed our identities by having us complete the lines from
the Nameless Cults on the back of the Vitruvian Man.
This done, he handed over the 4 sky blue Shantak eggs with the message that we would ultimately
convey the four eggs to an Elder God, whom we were fated to encounter in Salvação, a new city south west of Rinar.
We managed to arrange passage on the “Äusserengötterdämmerung” captained by Helmut Solo. This
ship carried us at preternatural speed to Salvação in
just 3 days.
During the voyage, we heard whispering from
the eggs. Listening carefully, it became apparent that each egg had the voice
of a teacher giving lessons. At least 2 of the voices could be identified as
belonging to Chris St Clair and Joan Abernathy, who both died in the gym at
In Salvação we
met a young man, bearded and bearing stigmata, appearing much like many
peoples' conception of Jesus Christ. When asked his name, he said he was Yusa bin Yusuf. (Yusa is not a normal spelling of any name, but bin
Yusuf is “son of Joseph”. The whole name is too
close for comfort to Yesha bin Yusuf, “Jesus, son of Joseph”) He was weary and thirsty
but when Eliza offered him water from the nearby fountain he declined, claiming
that was another's task, indicating myself, addressing me as 'John'. I gave him
water, and as I did so felt a compulsion to sprinkle a few drops on his head
while he drank.
Yusa took the eggs and in return gave Alex a
6" glass orb glowing with a silvery light and departed Salvação
just before they shut the gates.
We suspected that the silvery orb contained
Jeremy's soul and discussed whether it should be taken to the
The way Jeremy died his soul should have
gone to Nyarlathotep. So it is likely that Yusa was Nyarlathotep in disguise
or a minion of his. It isn't clear just why we were sent on this
mission. Probably it served some obscure purpose and I suspect that most
of the mission was to keep the purpose obscure.
We decided that we should find out who (or
what) was in the orb before deciding whereto take them. We were reasonably sure
that the orb is created by a powerful spell and that the soul can be released
by smashing the glass orb so that's what we did and Jeremy duly appeared
crouched in a foetal position on the floor. He was in shock since the last
thing he could remember was Isobel sinking a knife in to his chest and that she
was smiling when she did it.
Jeremy was much better after a night's
sleep. He wasn't at all keen to go anywhere near Isobel, which is scarcely
surprising. She was clearly deluded about Jeremy in thinking that he was her “true
love”. All the more reason to steer clear of the temple
in Dylath Leen. Either
Isobel is still a favoured acolyte in which case she is likely to be a
dangerous enemy, or she has been demoted to temple whore, in which case we
would be likely to be roped in to perform another quest as the price of
rescuing her. Having no reason to drag Jeremy to the temple, we instead took
him to Celephais where King Kuranes
congratulated us on our successful quest and gladly undertook to take Jeremy on
as a squire to be trained as a knight.
So we took our leave, and we woke up, back
in Alex's flat. We must have been in the Dreamlands for a couple of months, but
only a night passed here.
We will need to stick around for a day or
two. There are a few things to do in Penrith that HQ
only trusts to "staff". With Belinda and Adam gone, that is Eliza and
me. Eliza is very busy in the path lab so all the other chores fall to me.