November 5th, 2010
DAY (Continued)
We eventually found the undead monster, who turned out to be an undead Gnoll, and quickly dispatched him. He didn't have all of the remaining rods, so we had to continue through the entire complex until we finally found them. The last one was found with some sort of demon that had no qualms with attacking us but would start to cower when we fought back. Strangely, I didn't quite have it in me to strike him when he cowered. Fortunately, Crash is immune to such pleas.
Crash is an interesting person. I admire him as a warrior and am honored to fight at his side, but his actual character is a bit disturbing at times. With such great abilities and the ability to takes lives away so easily, he seems to have little respect for life in general.
Elric isn't much different from Crash when he's on the battlefield. Though, he does seem to have more restraint in common situations. For example, I don't think Elric would have killed—or even attacked—the priest in Krant's competition back when we were undercover.
DAY
We returned all of the rods to the new High Priestess of Adanos and the storms with their floods were soon under control. With everything back to normal, we all returned to enjoying the remaining events of the flood festival. In fact, every member of the company—even the newcomers—were given an invitation to the Demonskar Ball.
Our invitations indicated that we were to attend as demons. Apparently, the ball is a sort of reenactment of a great battle between the founders of Cauldron and demons. The guests are given assignments to dress accordingly so that the story may be told through their dancing and singing. All of us that plan on going to the ball decided to take some lessons to teach us these dances and songs.
I remember performing war dances back at the citadel. I never put much effort into learning them and was never all that great, but I wasn't bad either. I thought that background might help me learn this ball's dances, especially where some of them were supposed to depict us fighting. Instead, I was singled out by the instructor as "unteachable" and not permitted to continue in his lessons. The singing instructor didn't react much better.
I've never tried to make of myself a performer, but I'm certainly not unteachable. I have little respect for the teacher that refuses to teach a willing student after only trying once or twice. It's amazing to me that she, Madam "Pompous"—or something like that—is actually a professional instructor at the university. Such pride and lack of foresight never would have been permitted in a master of the citadel.
DAY
I found a less prominent but far more patient instructor to teach me the dances for the ball and, after a few days of practice, I think I've got them down quite well. I also rented a demon costume. It comes with stilts, a scythe for balancing, a horned mask, and a fine suit to cover me. It was expensive, but I think it'll be fun to go finely dressed. I've never done anything like this in my life.
Preparing for the ball only takes up so much time of the day. I suppose I could practice the dances from morning until night, but I can only do so much before I need a break. It's not like my training that actually serves a purpose outside of this one event.
Eloc and some of the others have been thoroughly interested in reconstructing Razmir's temple into something more suitable for our base of operations. Furthermore, we're working to convert the entire main floor into a sort of market where we allow certain merchants to setup shop.
The Happy Dwarf, now known as Johnny Griff's, has also needed some work. I've tried to make myself available to help out there and in the renovation of our recently acquired home. When I still find myself without something to do or needing a break, I got out into the town and look for Flood Festival events in which I can participate. I wonder if they have a marathon or some other great feat for testing endurance. I'd enjoy something like that.
DAY
The Demonskar finally arrived and was extremely upscale. Having lived in extreme poverty when I first arrived to the city, I never would have expected to attend anything like it; especially at my age. I think I was the youngest person there! In fact, I often feel a little out of place with this group when I think of how young I still am. At least in this case I had a horned mask to hide my youth.
I don't quite understand the Stormblades. Aside from being competition, what do they have against us? Are they really just bitter rivals or is there something more to it? At the beginning of the evening, Zachary Aslaxin, approached us and said that everyone would see us as fools at the end of the night. All throughout the evening, three of the four Stormblades were constantly scowling at us whenever we received any sort of recognition. The fourth, Todd Vanderbone, didn't seem to have any problem with us. He was busy flirting with one of our own.
Near the end of the ball, there was a large dance in which a "demon" would be paired off with a "founder" to "fight" in a choreographed dance. Crash was paired off with Cora Lathenmire—the swordsman he had beaten in a duel—and Eloc with Annah Taskerhill—the leader of the Stormblades.
Both Cora and Annah attempted to embarrass us by making my companions mess up in the dance, but both ended up making fools of themselves instead. In Crash's case, he decided rather than be outdone in a dance that he probably didn't care about in the first place, he simply grabbed Cora and mocked her publicly when she attempted to tangle him up in the dance. Annah messed herself up. She attempted to trip Eloc and, not only did she fail and make her attempt obvious, but she managed to fall flat on her face and get a bloody nose.
The festivities conclued with the Stormblades publicly being awarded a medal of valor. However, almost as a sort of justice for their petty actions against us, our group was also called up to be given the same award. Only, in our case, we were also each given Cauldron's Shield and the Flaming Crest.
I find The Stormblades' vendetta against us distasteful and often find myself competing against them, but when all is said and done, I personally have no bad blood against them. After receiving our rewards, I sincerely congratulated each of them.
On another note, I've heard a lot of people say that Cora is beautiful. To me, she looks butch and rather mannish; kind of like Triel, someone else that was supposedely pretty. Perhaps this is beauty in Cauldron.