| NOTE: This is Liz Henry's summary of some events from one or two of the campaign sessions, sent out to Mike Lefebre (who had missed the session). It was originally sent on 8 Feb 1999. It was intended to be worked into an in-character journal, but as presented is more player notes. |
We met with the Regent, Theral. He was sort of pale yellowy-green, over six feet tall, and didn't blink "Obviously a robot" said Martin later... When we said we came through the tower he said "Yes, as it was predicted..." We told him we were explorers, that in our own world we were exploring unknown territory and ended up in their tower. Like a big dork Martin said we would like to explore their world and "report everything back to our world" making us sound like spies. Theral seemed to take us seriously and said we had permission to explore world except for certain restricted areas, and that our room and board would be arranged. He dismissed us...
Captain Nauben escorted us out and told us that the entire Government House was now "restricted". Then said "Run along and play now". We fussed about where we could eat and sleep. He said go ask around at the other end of the Palace in the craftsman shops.
We ran along... We talked to a potter named Etane and she said we could stay in a nearby loft. She got someone to get futons for us. In the room were 4 chests - one full of old really well made tools - the others with some blankets, canvas, lumps of metal, and other misc. junk. Noriko frantically mopped the dusty room. Soapy water stays in a bucket ... but after mopping, the floor dried really fast and the ceiling became a bit wet. We ate with the tinker (I forgot his name, he was not talkative) and his friends. There is a shower and a sort of outhouse outside.
During this conversation with Etane revealed that when someone does somethign or gives you something, you don't have to make a note of it, but you should mention it to two or three other people... i think she said two or three strangers but I don't remember quite. We kept pressing about this and finally she said If you need more complete information then you just talk to a Register. There is a Register at the library. Later conversation told us that the Registers are not people but look like potted plants.
(we slept at some point here)
A teenage boy showed up with a written invitation to lunch with the Boggart King, in the statue garden. We had to get him to read it to us. Noriko and Martin were suspicious and did not think we should go. Kate thought they were nuts, the King was nice, and we would be dumb to refuse.
We ran off to the library with a list of questions for Carlotta. As we walked into the antechamber we noticed, indeed, a potted plant on a table. We greeted it... it did not respond immediately but after we started asking it questions it talked to us. It told us our worth ... Kates is somethign like 59.6... We didn't know much value that really is though. When questioned the Register just blathered about complicated indexes of value, confusing stock markety financial things, and metaphysics. Kate stayed behind the party to ask it whether it liked to read, and whether it knew everything. (yes, and it seems to know a lot...) Our "values" varied a bit... the math books seemed to be valuable...
Martin offered to read out loud to Carlotta. She said "good. Read this" and held out the crochet book. I got up and produced some book on knitting, for atmosphere... Russell read a few paragraphs of the intro which was super cheezy "Welcome to the wonderful world of knitting. Knitting can be such a godsend to help you through those difficult moments in the doctors waiting room or to help you avoid smoking that extra cigarette" or something like that. Kate on request from Carlotta demonstrated a few crochet stitches and how to make a string weaving thing on the back of your hand. We asked question about the Magic Tower. It was built 150 year ago and is called the Vimin Tower and there is some kind of prophecy associated with it but Carlotta did not know what it was or where it was.
Suddenly we noticed that Steve was missing. We assumed he wandered off during the boring knitting reading. But Martin asked the Register in the entryway how many people came in that morning (4) and how many left (none). So we went back and looked around the library. In a corner room we found Steve's pencil and a page from his drawing pad with some sketches of parts of the castle and the distant hills. Much freaked out speculation ensued. We looked to see if any of the books were recently disturbed and came up with a couple... unreadable but one seemed to be some kind of sex instruction manual. Carlotta showed up took the books away and said of Steve "maybe he just disappeared." Ack!
Then she said that maybe he used his magic somehow. She said she has magic and we all seem to be using magic (to understand their language). Magic ability is rare... she said that there are a lot of odd people in the palace, so maybe 1 or 2 other people in the palace had magic. At the same time she was very nonchalant about the whole thing. If we wanted to "go to magic" we should be able to. We should "count backwards" or concentrate and then we would mentally be "in magic". Magic looks like a big web, and there are many kinds of prey. You can chase the prey, but if you chase one, sometimes that means that others escape. Kate asked if that meant that if you choose some kind of magic, you can't learn others. Carlotta seemed to agree with this interpretation...
We went off to look first in our lodgings... no Steve. we did find a bat there. It perched upside down on Kate's arm. She became obsessed with finding food for it. She finally said that she was going to lunch with the King even if the others weren't, so they went with her to try to prevent her from doing anything rude. Also at the last minute Etane said that it was an honor to be invited and we should go, although, it might offend the Altions that we accepted an invitation from the Boggarts. Note: nearly everyone we have talked to has been dark, either "cafe con leche" coffee colored like the princess, ranging to dark black. Except Boggart King, his page who gave us the invite, some kids in the nursery, and Theral (a yellowy-green). (somewhere in here we also learned that we are on an island which is floating in the sky in the middle of the giant geyser. the island is shaped like an upside down bowl and thus the water keeps it up in their air)
The King met us in the garden, we ate with him and the page boy, way nicer, more sophisticated food than the usual pita bread and vegetables and omelettes. We asked him to explain more about his kingdom and about the Altions. Altions live on the surface, in kipukas. they are mostly concerned with their herds and farms and growing their houses. The Boggarts live in big cities underground. The king stressed their active culture, some kind of entertainment industry.
Martin mentioned, I think, that in our world there was no magic. The King appeared to disbelieve us. "Then how do you get peopel to fall in love with you?" We were all diffident about this... He kept asking disturbing questions to the effect of "how do you make people do things they don't want to do, then?" "How do you tell time" Martin handed over his watch and tried to explain. "Does it have games?" Martin said no and then he tried to explain what games we had in our world (he did it badly) He had to remind the King to give his watch back. The King said we could visit his lands anytime.
We went off to look for Steve some more. One of the other buildings in the palace turned out to be the scriptorium. A guy stopped us and asked our business. Martin spoke up and said we did. He described you and said that you might be there because you were interested in illustrating things. Kate asked more questions about what was done there and if she could comission a map or a small atlas. (Yes, but it will take about a month).
Later Noriko spoke up and told Martin he should not have needlessly lied about what we were doing there... She seemed very disturbed.
In the garden we met Mydic (?) the drunken bum from the first day. He said we should go into government house and look for Steve there. We said we would wait outside. He acted very high handed with the guards and disappeared inside. we heard a lot of yelling and a big crash and then Mydic came out again. He continued to appear disreputable and seedy and possibly drunk...
We went with him to the "Magic tower" to look for Steve. We found the brick and pushed it and got in the tower... the doors were all locked... Captain Nauben came by... Mydic referred to him as "brother". Nauben seemed disturbed by this... Mydic said somethign disparaging about Nauben's intellect. Mydic then went back into Government house to look for keys to the doors in the magic tower. We waited for him for about 20 minutes and then wandered off (this may have been when we went to the scriptorium - I mixed up the order of events) We noticed that when he talked to the guards they seemd disturbed by him but they also straightened up and acted like they were talking to a superior. Kate asked Captain Nauben if Mydic was in the army. The Captain said yes but it was too difficult to explain to kids. Kate immediately said "Oh I get it, he must be your secret sabotage agent" Nauben said something stern and shocked. Kate continued babbling about some book she read where there was the regular army, or FBI, or something, and then there had to be an agent of chaos, who must oppose them. Pretty much everyone ignored this since she could not remember the name of the book. (I felt rather proud of this since I realized that a while back I made John read "The Dosadi Experiment"...)
Then we went "home" to the loft and had more discussion... Noriko is very worried about Steve, in a panic, Kate keeps saying that we're not his parents and I'm sure that he will show up...it's not like he has to report his movements to us. Martin spoke up on behalf of trying to explore this magic thing.