555/3/44: The
final test was going to be hard -- you could feel it in the air, and
it's not just the sulphuric smell of the mountain either. We were led
up the mountain to the great lake, filled to the brim with evil and
disgusting lava. On the other side of the lake, up on a cliff face, is
the monastery where Ga warriors are made. Ga sentries constantly
patrolled the cliff. Smack dab in the middle of the lake stands an
island with a great castle at its center. This is the castle we wanted
to get into. Closer to us, between the castle and the shore, was a
small strip of land, barely big enough to eat a proper meal in.
"You must bring back some of the sacred sand from the island." "You
mean the island with the castle?" "No, the other island." "That little
bit of land there?" "Yes." And with that our guide left, leaving us
nonplussed about how to do this. That little bit of land was a good 75
meters away and I don't care how much Mobility and Protection you have
up, no one is going to make the run to the island and back. No trees or
anything else to make a boat. No magic to help us at that range.
Really, it seemed quite hard.
"Kite," said the cryptic Nakaro. "No need for name-calling," admonished
Tok. "I think his plan is to use a kite to float a string with a rock
at the end across the lake. Drop the rock on the island, then slide a
ring across to the island, smeared in sticky stuff to grab some sand.
We pull the ring back and we have our sand," clarified Timroth. Nakaro
nodded. Dragon people. You don't have to understand them, just live
with them.
Making a kite and flying it across and using a ring all took time and
lots of practice. Tev loped into town and garnered a ball of twine for
our use. Krelga held up two pikes tied together so as to make a long
pole. The string was tied to the top of the pole, to give us enough of
an angle to slide the ring down it. Timroth flew the kite to the
island, occasionally dropping it too low and burning some string.
Eventually though, with great persistence, we got a bit of sand.
|
555/3/45:
After getting back to our "quarters", we awaited the
council's decision. It was with great disappointment when the High
Priest still denied our petition, claiming that we needed to pass all
the tests. At that point Tev blasphemed in front of the Ga
representative, forcing us to chase the stupid dog away and deny he was
ever part of the party. ("He just followed us into this land. Keeps to
himself, we never talk to him.") That seemed to mollify the sympathetic
official, who divulged a way to get onto the island with the great
castle.
We bade goodbye and met Tev again, then sent him and Reg along with the
wagon and animals ahead of us, heading north. Meanwhile the rest of us
doubled back to the Lake of Fire. At sundown the Ga warriors retired
inside to pray for an hour. We took the opportunity to sneak into the
monastery and onto a ledge directly opposite the island. There seemed
to be no way across, but there was a way for those with faith -- an
invisible bridge. I tried running across and almost tripped over the
edge, thereafter I crawled the rest of the way.
Wow, we were on a rocky volcanic island with a big and silent castle
that we couldn't get into. The smooth doors had nothing to pull on and
pushing met with no success. The wall was a bit too high to climb, so
we tried throwing one of the island crabs over the wall, resulting in a
fiery pop and an alarm. Wards. Luckily the Ga were still droning on in
their ceremony so they didn't hear. Eventually as time was running out
we found a tunnel leading downwards.
We followed the tunnel down down down. Ok, it wasn't that far. Some
sort of lava worm attacked us and we drove it off. We continued and
presently were deposited into the castle, through a broken wall that
the tunnel led to. Obviously we were under the wards protecting the
castle because we didn't die as we stepped inside. But if you think
about it, the tunnel looks to have been made by something breaking out
of the castle at the point we entered, not the other way around.
Mysterious. |