Originally posted 2006/02/03

AN AKOWNT OF SCHMENDRICK THEE MAJISHUN

OR

AN ACCOUNT OF SCHMENDRICK THE MAGICIAN
As Transcribed by Morris Pennes

[Annotation: The original account as penned by Schmendrick the Magician is quite difficult to read, so I have taken it upon myself to transcribe it to be legible to the average reader. The following account is as close as possible to Schmendrick's account, but errors may exist due to his poor grammar, context, and spelling - mp]

Day 1
This morning after gathering my things together in the strange inn I awoke in, I noticed that I had lost my previous journal. So I begin a journal anew. It is sad that I have lost my old journal, as I have no idea what events have brought me to my stay in this inn. To add to my confusion, as I was leaving the inn, I was accosted by the innkeeper, demanding payment, while at the same time someone approached me and handed a bag of coins to me for services rendered the previous night. I thanked the man, and counted out the remaining coins to the innkeeper. Certainly a fortuitous start to a rather odd day, despite the light buzz I was still feeling. Certainly I must have tried using magic again last night while drunk - which always seems to land me in odd situations. I have to learn to control myself better -- either with the juice, or from using magic while drinking.

After emerging from the inn, I overheard some boys talking about some work that involved travel. Not knowing if I had gotten myself into trouble in this town, I thought that getting out of town would be a good idea, at least until I could remember why I was even here - and perhaps I would remember what here even was. At any rate, they were very excited about the prospect of work, so I tagged along at a discreet distance. When we arrived at the Pig & Whistle, we all filed inside, and sat at a table reserved for the people applying for the job.

When the boss arrived and surveyed the group before him, he stated that there were quite a few of us. Several of the others appeared to get nervous at this, but I had every confidence that a great wizard, such as myself, would certainly be brought along... even if the pay was only 15cp per day. The group seemed to sigh a collective sigh of relief when he didn't oust anyone. We were dismissed and instructed to meet back the next morning. Ah well, back to the inn for another night. Thankfully I have enough coin to see me through another day.. I'll avoid the juice tonight and stick to my studies. I'm not too concerned about what the job might be. I'll just follow along and see if I can figure out. I heard something about a time limit, and asked if we were to finish earlier, if there would be a bonus instead of a cap. Appears that there is a possible bonus.


Day 2
We all met back at the tavern, and were instructed to pick up 4 packs. I waited the sufficient amount of time to not be required to lift one myself, as they were all claimed by the remainder of the group, which totals somewhere around 10 people, including our guide. The packs are supposedly full of money and gems and other such goods, and we're exchanging them for flowers. I'll have to see if I can get on the receiving end of this deal some day. A few flowers doesn't seem to be worth these packs full of coin.

We set off, and it was to a brisk march. Our guide reminds me of the unicorn, not ever needing to stop to rest. She acts oddly, similarly to the unicorn, too. I wonder... Unused to trekking overland, several people started collapsing before Griswold (another wizard) finally called for a rest for the night.

During the night, I managed to fall asleep on my watch. Kess, the kidling that seemed afraid of his own shadow, thought it might be funny to attempt to gag and kill me with my beard. Sleeping wizards sleep very deeply, so I did not notice as he managed to slip a sizable amount into the back of my mouth. When I finally awoke, I pulled it out. I was pulling my beard hairs out of my mouth all the next day. I vowed to stay awake the following night, hoping he'd fall asleep.


Day 3
Another uneventful day, aside from that Griswold managed to get our guide to slow down a bit, and allow more rests. Not that I'm complaining, even though I am a great wizard, and rest is sometimes a luxury us great wizards don't have. We gain great fortitude from our late night studies and harnessing powers that were not meant for men to meddle with. I was on watch with Kess again, and I took advantage of him sleeping on watch to slip my own beard into his mouth. I took special care to make sure I got it especially foul and dirty towards the ends of it during the day. Unlike the brute Kess, I only slipped it into his mouth a little ways. It was enough... Kess let fly with a stream of vomit and profanity that surprised even me. Luckily I sidestepped it, and used a little magic to avoid being spattered on my body. I summoned some water (after a few false starts, I admit) and cleaned my beard. I tried to wring it out towards Kess, but think I spattered Mort in the process. I think I'll try to focus my pranks in the future so they only affect the one who tried to kill me.


Day 4
Yet another uneventful day. I can hardly wait for tonight. Kess is looking very weary, like he's not used to the arduous hikes being demanded of us.

So, on watch, Kess fell asleep on watch again, as I expected. I took a small dish of water, and warmed it by the fire, and carefully placed his fingers in it. This is a prank I never tired of back in Mommy Fortuna's carnival... the impish man Ruhk never did figure out why he wet the bed each night. Sure enough, after waiting a while, I saw the familiar wetness dripping from Kess's clothing. I carefully removed the bowl so that Kess wouldn't know the source of his embarassment, and I let him sleep the remainder of the cold night in his watch position. I hope he catches cold.


Day 5
Today we finally saw some action. While hunting, Jimbo came back with a peach, and offered it to Mort. After showing us where he found the peach, I immediately noted several peculiarities about the area: it was warm around the peach trees, where elsewhere it was frigidly cold; the peach trees were meticulously arranged in a triangle; and finally, peach trees should be growing this time of year, even if the clime was acceptable. This reminded me a lot of the Faerie circles that Mommy used to hunt to try to capture stray faeries. Of course, any time Mommy actually caught some, they always came back at her with a vengeance until she cursed them away. She warned Ruhk to never eat food from a faerie circle or the faerie realm. She didn't warn me, but I didn't need the warnings myself -- I was bright enough to know when not to touch an obviously magical thing.

I warned the group that it was a faerie crop, and that it would be dangerous to eat. Chivalry muttered something about selling the fruit to unwitting people, and started filling his packs. I warned him that it wasn't a good idea... but they'll be dust before he gets them back to town, so I needn't worry. All he's going to do is anger the faeries that care for this circle, and leave a trail of dust for them to follow. I'll be sure to set up my wards, and have my wards point in his direction so that no one else gets caught in the crossfire.

Shortly after, we came across a wagon with fresh blood all around and a few broken bronze weapons. I seem to recall Mommy saying that iron or steel (or something like that) would hurt a faerie, so it makes sense that they would use bronze weapons. And the bodies were carried off. Certainly not the work of bandits.

Vance went ahead to scout out the area, when we heard him cry out in surprised pain. I rushed forward to see what was happening, when I saw several small blue man-like creatures jumping around in the snow, hurling spears at him and trying to take him down. I rushed forward to try to divert their attention, and hopefully get close enough to Vance to keep him from dying, but alas, the creatures cut me off. I smacked one on the head with a decent smack, when I was joined by Crespin. Crespin wasn't much help immediately, though, as he managed to get hurt himself. I healed him instead of Vance, and it was then that a rain of freezing ice fell upon the few around me and smashed their furry little bodies into lumps of bloody matted hair.

I ran past the dying pygmies to Vance, who had finally fallen from his wounds, and managed to restore some of his health before he teetered into the dark abyss of death. Looking up, I noticed that the pygmies were fleeing our merry little band. Some pursuit was given, but I called out that it would be unwise to pursue them unless as a large force, as any smaller forces might be led off and dispatched easily. Thankfully, I think they listened this time.

The snow was starting to really come down now, so we retreated to a cave and set up camp for the night. Apparently Mort and Vance both fell asleep, no doubt overcome by fatigue from our exciting day. When Mort finally woke me up, I noticed that the fire had burnt down to about the point that it was normally at when I finished my watch, and that the snow had piled up to an appropriate level to indicate the same. Being fatigued myself, I didn't bother waking Kess. I waited for Mort and Vance to fall asleep, then woke Chivalry for the next watch.

I don't know how long I slept, but I was wakened to the sounds of a boy knocking at death's door. While we tended to his wounds, he related a story about how his wagon was attacked by these creatures, and that some of his company were being kept below. We snuck below, and came to an area that we heard the revelry of the foul creatures. Despite Chivalry's assertion that scouts weren't necessary, and that we should all charge in, I managed to point out that scouts exist because they are useful. In vain, really; I don't think that Chivalry listens much. Hopefully he'll live long enough to get past the age of impetuous invulnerability... before he gets someone else killed. At any rate, Vance snuck ahead and then related the scene back to us. The creatures were feasting on a human leg, and there were couples going at it on the table... when I saw into the room, I was reminded of the time I walked in on Mommy and Ruhk going at it -- except that was much more horrifying.

As we rushed into the room, the archers let fly behind us, and the room was conquered in seconds. We made too much noise, though, and another pygmy came in to investigate. He was slaughtered, but raised the alarm for the rest of its kind. We made our way into the next cavern, and chased off the remaining pymies into a pit. We freed the captive people in the room, and used their cages to cover the pit.

Alarmingly, as I was treating the freed captives, the cages began to move around...

I awoke to some rough kicking in my ribs. I sat up slowly with a complaint ready when I realized that my wounds had all been healed. Looking around, I found that most of the others had also fallen, but Ugthar (the troll) had come to an uneasy truce with Mort and the fight had ended. We searched around for a bit, and found Crespin, but found no sign of Chivalry. No one had seen him flee... my thoughts were that he must be faster than he looks, or that he might have jumped up through the holes in the roof. I searched the room that Crespin downed the other wizard in, and managed to find a couple small pieces of amethyst.

We found Ronald chained up nearby, and managed to set him free. He let us know that the sunkist flowers were properly preserved and would last up to 6 years. In the meantime, Vance discovered a trapdoor, and we went exploring. Didn't find much aside from a candelabra and a small wooden ring, neither of which appeared magical. I told Vance that the ring was magically lucky, in hopes that he would feel more lucky by wearing it.

While I was exploring and talking with Ronald, some of the others went to mess around with the shades in the chapel. A few screams later, and they decided that they had had enough, and it was time to leave.

We rowed the boat back across the lake, and found Chivalry and the grey-skinned boy Drahk on the shore. Chivalry was soaked through and still spitting water when we found him. He had lost his weapons, but he did have some sort of amulet on him. He was talking to someone, too, and it wasn't Drahk.

We followed one of Ugthar's previous captors to where Ugthar's baby, Ug, was being held. Two arrows later, and Ug's guards were left quite motionless on the ground. One of them had nicer boots than mine, so I upgraded my boots. It was about this point that Chivalry started claiming that we needed to go back to the temple and cleanse it; that voices in his head told him so. None of us believed him on this point, so Crespin took the amulet and put it on. He started hearing voices, too. Then the punk took off the amulet and lunged towards me, placing it around my own neck. I started to hear the voice, too.

After clearing up the fact that Chivalry was a liar, and not a priest, the voice explained to us how to cleanse the shrine. With me as bait, we made short work of the shade in the chapel.

We went back to Red Cliff, and Drahk wanted to continue travelling with us. He told us that he knew how to get into the strange castle we saw when we first arrived in Red Cliff.

The next morning, we set off for the castle. In the castle, Drahk showed us all sorts of strange doors. We explored for a while, and we found lots of looted corpses. The first door we opened had a kind of orange glow to it, but was easily turned off. Inside, we found a man with a magical sword left in his chest. Certainly, with as easy as it was to open the door, this sword certainly must be cursed. I said as much, and as I anticipated, this spurred Chivalry into master ninja loot action mode. He lept up onto the table and quickly drew the sword from the corpse's body. I have a feeling that the curse will cause the bearer to turn on his companions... we hadn't found any other weapons or anything of interest up until this point.

We found a library, but the books cannot be removed from the library. I'll have to remember to come back to the castle at a future date.

We searched a while longer, and found several doors that couldn't be opened, as well as a black door that actually hurt when I attempted to open it. When we were about to give up the search for anything else of interest, I tried one more blue tinted door. I was able to get it open, but it took quite a bit of effort. I decided to stay manning the portal while everyone else scouted inside. I was too busy concentrating on keeping the portal open to notice what occurred inside.

We also found another portal that was difficult to open, with a fully preserved corpse just inside. We pilfered the body, with Chivalry again leaping forward and removing the sword the body had on it; I somehow ended up with a skullcap, which I foolishly put on; and Vance ended up with the cape. I am a little paranoid of taking off the skullcap, as mere moments after looting the body, the body turned to dust. Ah well, I will remove it now, rather than let the magic settle in and overtake me. Here is me hoping it doesn't kill me. If it doesn't, I'll give it to Crespin. It seems to have helped heal up my arm that was sore from attempting to open the black door, and he seems to be walking stiffly from his near death frying experience. We'll be re-divvying everything back up when we get back to Tristen, although it's okay that Chivalry hold onto the swords for now.. especially that cursed one. He needs some kind of weapon, since the fool lost his swords in his mad dash away from the temple. I'll have to keep an eye on him, both to make sure he doesn't stab us in the back, or run off with the sword that actually might be worth more money than I've ever seen.

After we apprehended Omar, I spent some time lecturing him about how we were going to need to leave him for up to a couple of days in the inn, and that it was in his best interest to not try to escape -- both because the villagers of Midvale would probably like to string him up, and if he fled, then he would be hunted down by mages as well. He seemed sufficiently cowed, so I ceased worrying about him. I instructed Erik, the innkeep - in certain earshot of Omar - that if Omar did any funny business, Erik should break his fingers and gag him. Otherwise, treat him nicely, but don't let him out of the cellar.

I had my own worries to contend with. From what I have pieced together so far, it seems that not only is my entire memory of my past not real, but it seems that it was intentionally created that way. At first, it appeared that I had been involved in casting some spell that had gone awry, and yet.. if that were the case, why have I left myself clues to piecing things back together?

So far, I have only two leads... Fort Inasia, which I have discovered is where I put some sort of stone that is key to opening a gate to another dimension - the dimension of the fallen; and the lab in Pangoria. A couple of things are extremely odd, such as the fat woman professing to be my wife (which I know is a cover, but who is she, and why is it that she seems to have been present at the deaths of my previous associates?), and the lack of any other clues.

My companions have proven quite faithful... but I have a feeling that I should proceed carefully. Certainly I had intended these things to remain secret, but I didn't do a very good job impressing that upon myself until it was too late. I must be very careful with how I proceed, because any plans I must have made will probably have been made with only myself in mind.

In my warning to myself, my note said in case of emergency, Fort of Irasia, west of Tristan. So that is where I lead my new companions. I thought about going alone, but the Fallen that leveled Summerville would be expecting me.

I was sorely let down. I don't know what I was expecting to find at Fort Irasia, but it was certainly more than just the key stone. Luckily, I had the proper foresight to tell everyone to get into the pentagram before I messed around, because when I tried the key that I had found, it transported me to another place, leaving the red bull to terrorize the basement of the fort. I removed the stone, hoping that it might help reveal something else, but that was not to be. I realized that it was safe here, certainly safer than my carrying it out of the fort, so I took it back to the room, and reset the wards guarding it.

Mort continued unnecessarily disrupting all the skeletons in the fort, which I assured him was not needed -- I had set the defenses of this fort, and I find undead highly distasteful.

Deep in thought, I followed the others out of the fort to go back to Midvale. Drokk pushed me over, and a searing pain blasted through my leg. Looking down, I saw a crossbow bolt protuding from both sides of my leg. Oskar was quick to react with a spell that removed the pain, and I was able to remove the bolt. I'm told that Pip acted with proper dispatch and managed to wound my assailant.

Still deep in thought after treating my leg, we reached Midvale and I tried resting for the night. I couldn't sleep, so I went to the tailor Jenny's house, to pick up my hat. I was feeling a bit frustrated with the recent events, and flirted a bit. She was quite responsive, and I ended up proving to her that a wizard's staff has a knob on the end.

I took Omar aside the next morning, and told him that I had no idea what to expect from the wizards back in Tristan. I told him that if he played his cards right, no one would have to know that *he* was the problem we resolved in Midvale... merely that we helped the village with their problem and that I discovered a wizard in hiding in the village while we were there. It would be useful to have Omar owe me a favor in the future.

After setting camp on our first night back towards Tristan, a man staggered miraculously into our camp, sporting several arrows piercing him at odd angles. Again, Oskar was quick to respond. Apparently my lecturing him that keeping people alive is more important than most other pursuits seems to have taken root. At any rate, the man was attended to, and told us that not more than a few hundred yards from our camp was a cave that was crawling with undead.

Still deep in my own thoughts, I let the others take the lead, and I followed along as we went to scout out the situation. When we arrived, I was just barely being able to take stock of the impossible odds we faced, and figured it would be a good time to turn around and move camp, when Griswold hurled one of his noisemaker spells uselessly into the side of the hill around which they were congregated. At this, Crespin charged. I missed something.. for a moment I thought I was dreaming.. the absurdity of attacking such an obviously superior force. I pinched myself to make sure I was awake, and was painfully minded that indeed I was. Well, nothing for it than to try to keep the best line we could, so I pulled out my staff, and moved carefully forward with the rest of them.

I managed to place a few strategic defensive spells on people just in time -- Drokk narrowly avoided instant death in the form of many arrows to the head that were stopped by a shielding spell. I wasn't so quick to reach Crespin. He was caught by dozens of the bugger skeletons, and they exploded - and him along with them.. I glanced, and there was nothing but a charring corpse remaining. I turned towards Kess, who appeared near a similar fate. I quickly placed an armoring spell on him, and turned to face.. a wraith. I know I've faced them before, but I couldn't think of what to do. I decided upon a course of action that I doubted would work, but after doing my best to strengthen everyone as much as possible, all I could muster was a mind befuddlement spell... miraculously, it took hold, as the wraith wandered for several seconds unsure of what was going on. In those few short seconds, I managed to clear Kess of the exploding skeletons that were piled on him, and then step back, exhausted.. hoping that we would be able to down this foe.

Mort came out of his stupor just in time to smack the wraith down just as it started to flee.

There are several questions I need answered... why were these skeletons and wraith here? Were they perhaps a surgence of the alleged mage that Omar was masquerading? Or something more sinister? Will my companions try to attack a superior unknown force again? If so, will I throw caution to the wind and join in?