The Drunkard's Tale

A Story Told in an Unnamed Tavern, Part 2

Damn fine drink that was, I must say. Ehm, wonder if I should get anything to eat.

Story? What story? Oh! That story! Sorry, was just feelin' a might cozy and plum forgot I was tellin' y'all a story.

So, I woke up the next mornin', ass over teakettle somehow. Laurent's friend Luc ended up dying sometime between me being drunk and me being asleep. Not sure how or when. I seem to recall some argument. That's about all I remember from the night I spent.

The next morning we had some horses thanks t' Diagoro's sense for horseflesh and Laurent's moneypurse. We headed off for the Monitor's village so he could look at his books and all that.

His village was too small for an inn, so I stayed with some crotchety old fuck. Reminded me of my Uncle John, but not as mean in a fight if you know what I'm sayin'. My Uncle John taught me a lot, y'know. Stuff like, "Gouge out a guy's eyes. If he can't see, he can't fight. And then the kicking begins." Fucking brilliant. They broke the mold, I tell ya.

So, I went off into the... well, I wouldn't really call 'em woods. More like "brown grass with the occasional fucked-up tree." But I found a patch with some mushrooms, found the ones I was looking for, and spent some time at the old fuck's place dryin' them out. Went by the Monitor's place to let him know I might be out late, and then set about doing my whole vision quest bit.

There were two parts to my vision. One was more visiony, the other more dreamy, if ye know what I mean. Like I was awake for the first bit, and sorta sleepin' for the second bit.

So, I was sittin' there, looking at the sky during the first part, and I saw this dark red clouds cover the moon and made the moon look red. And I felt kinda queasy. Thought I was gonna chuck and was ready to lean forward so's not to get any on my clothes (gotta make 'em last, ye know!), but then I realized that the whole universe felt sorta wrong. The moon looked like it was fallin' at me, and I thought maybe I could catch the moon if it fell far enough. Or at least before it bonked me in the face. Instead a white bird came and snatched up, puttin' it back where it belonged. Still felt like shit was wrong with the universe, but the moon was okay for the moment.

So, then I had a little lie down time, figgering that the vision was over. And then I had the dream. I dreamed I was awakened by a guy with chestnut colored hair. He didn't say nothin', but led me back to the village. But there was no village. It was like what the place would look like before the village was there. And then there was a rocky outcropping I came up against, and then around the corner there was this cave that chestnut lead me into. I was inside some sort of big library; lot bigger than those shelves that Monitor Meridian wanted to study. Laurent was there, but he didn't seem to notice me. Guess that sort of confirmed that this was a dream bit. He couldn't ignore me if he tried.

I never really learned how to read much outside my name and all. So flipping through one of the books didn't help me much. Had maps, big fuckin' deal. Laurent laid down one of the cards he was looking at and chestnut passed it to me. The card changed from a card to a goodly sized map. Tried a bit of question an answer time with chestnut, but he couldn't seem to talk. Hell, I couldn't even touch him. Did some other strange tricks with the map/card. I made sure I could remember the card in case it wasn't with me when I woke up.

And, sure as shit, it wasn't with me when I woke up. Went back to the village just as the Monitor and Laurent were having some breakfast. Grabbed myself some while I was at it. Laurent was futzing with some cards like those he had in the dream. Saw some cards that looked a wee bit like my ma and Uncle John, but that's about it. Had Laurent draw up a picture of the map I saw in my dream, and I reckon they'd been looking at that area in their books in hopes of finding the library there. Fuck, I was leading them straight to it! Also found out that Syrone was getting sick for some reason. Shit, the group was dropping like flies it seemed!

We rode the next day through a lot of villages that had been abandoned forever. It was also fucking hot as all hell. Fucking southron lands. We rode for a good long while till we hit a village that the Monitor didn't know about, despite having lived in the area all his life.

The village was a decent place. Had some good salt-of-the-earth types livin' there. Swapped pipeweed with some gents, and had some watery beer with stew in a bread bowl. Finally some civilization, know what I'm sayin'?

At the inn we stayed at was some rough looking guy and a well-dressed woman. The woman, Zadrine, was apparently guiding the man. Reckon she must have been one of them Wayfinders. For all the money they charge, I'm certain they can afford whatever fancy clothes they like.

Zadrine noticed that Syrone was feeling ill, and dragged her up to one of the rooms to check on the Monitor chick. Meridian nearly shit his pants and went chasing after them. I went, too. So did some others. They wouldn't open the door for Meridian, so he surprised me and kicked it in. Meridian talked to Syrone, and she seemed fine with whatever was going on, so we just waited outside. Meridian pulled out his little scrying crystal and watched what was going on. From what he described it sounded like what my uncle used to always called "unnatural sex acts" with a fond grin. I'd only heard rumor of such things, and here they were going on mere feet from where I stood.

Later, after I'd had a bit more of the water they tried passing off as beer and everyone else had gone to bed, I tried my luck with Zadrine. She wasn't particularly interested, so I went to cool off in the hail storm.

The next they we continued on, finally coming across something I might even call a forest. As we went things started to seem familiar, and we eventually came to my little outcropping. Except around the outcropping there was just a big fucking wall.

Somehow Brother Peter figured out to use something that the Monitor was carryin' to open a magical doorway. And here the Monitor'd been going on all suspicious about magic and shit.

So, we go through and there's a big castle past the walls. Inside the castle was the library. And inside the library there was this little woman named Anne that helped us with questions. I got myself some of the local vintage and headed up to look at some art. Couldn't fuckin' read, so why bother pretending.

The wine was strong shit, and I was had to scoot down the stairs on my arse later. Spent some time wandering about. I noticed that some of the maps looked summat like the ones of the realms, but it had an extra bit tossed in. Got Anne to read it off as "Amber". Never fuckin' heard of it, y'know?

So, dinner came, and I ate a damn fine meal. Weren't no stew, but it did the job quite fuckin' well. Remembered that I wanted to do another magical experiment, so I spent some time working off my buzz and went to the coatroom to find some symbols of people in the group. The items all arranged themselves in a certain order, and had different colored glowing balls above them. The balls had lines going from them up to a silvery bar, and then there was a big sun-like fireball above it all. It lapsed into a bit of visiony bit then as I saw Darwin, the storyteller, with a big long sword running it through everyone like a big meat skewer, just addin' people on. I got my own turn on it pressed between a couple folks I didn't rightly know.

Told Laurent about the symbols, not including the sword bit, and he said it looked like a family tree of sorts. We looked through some family tree books, but didn't find anything useful. I finally went to Anne and asked her if she had any books that taught ye how to read. I didn't know how long we'd be in this place, and I was getting pretty fuck-bored. She suddenly seemed all friendly towards me, so I naturally suspected she had something awful in mind for me.

So, by this point, I didn't reckon how I should feel about having the library turn out to be useful. The others were learnin' all sorts of shit. On the bright side, I helped them get there. On the other side, it wasn't fuckin' Parad. And I reckon if those maps were any indicator, we'll have little cause to go there anytime soon.