The Great Library of Palanthas

An Aesthetic shows you to a small reading room.

Stories of Ansalon from the view of Gimrod.

A little gully dwarf runs by and says 'Wordwrap is at 80. You change? Off 65 80.'
The gully continues 'Eyes hurt? Turn Color OFF!! (regular story dates)

Astinus says 'Enter the main library here to view only the author list.'
Astinus gently places a heavy platinum-covered book on the table in front of you.
You note the spine bears the word 'Gimrod' scribed in unearthly purple ink.


Author:    Gimrod         
Date:      Fri Dec 30 18:14:26
2016
Subject     how

"Gimrod!" The kender heard the gnome's high-pitched, barking voice from the top of the cellar stairs. She scrambled to the foot of the staircase, ready for orders. "We've-got-a-new-specimen-arriving. I-hope-you're-ready-to-work-because-it's-a-big-one!"
"Oh, yes, sir, Mr. Lemborg, sir," Gimrod said. "I'm always ready to work! Just point me at a specimen and watch me go! Did you see the great job I did with the elf?"
"Yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-yes," the gnome said impatiently. "Now-listen-carefully-this-is-a-minotaur and-we-haven't-got-a-minotaur-in-the-museum-yet-and-I-need-you-to-be-extra-extra-careful-with the-bones-because-we-can't-misplace-a-single-one-not-a-single-one-Gimrod-do-you-understand!?"
"I know, I know," Gimrod said. "I never misplace anything!"
"You-lose-things-constantly-you're-a-bumbling-idiot-of-an-assistant-but-unfortunately-you're all-we've-got," the gnome grumbled. "We'll-be-bringing-the-specimen-in-shortly-prepare-yourself!"
Gimrod sighed and headed for the vats. "Every day it's the same thing! Nag, nag, nag! Don't do this! Don't do that! Don't lose this! Don't touch that! Don't steal jewelry off the specimens!" The vats were a series of enormous stone vessels, fed by bubbling hot springs that the gnomes had engineered to flow through the cellar of the house. The water was already caustic enough, but the gnomes kept Gimrod supplied with endless sacks of a strange white powder -- she supposed it was some kind of magic something-or-other -- and when she added it to the water it would take the meat off the bones of just about anything, which was useful when your life quest was to collect the skeleton of every creature on Krynn.
Of course, it was Gimrod who actually got her hands dirty, but all she could ever remember was living in the cellar of the old stone house and dealing with the bodies. Lendle and Lemborg said they'd found her abandoned in the Great Moors when she was only 3, no sign of her parents anywhere. Gimrod couldn't remember anything before she came to live wth the two gnomes. They were the only parents she'd ever known. But lately, something inside her kept pushing her to try and leave the cellar. She couldn't put her finger on it -- it was like she had itchy feet. First she'd tried the windows -- they were locked tight from the outside, and made of such thick glass she couldn't put a dent in them, not even with a brick she'd pried out of the wall. Next she tried to pick the lock on the cellar door, but the gnomes had ensorcelled it somehow and it gave her a painful shock as soon as she touched it. There seemed to be no way out of this place, and it was starting to drive her crazy. Maybe if she could sneak out as they were bringing a body in...
Just then, she heard the click of the cellar door. Rats -- too late for that opportunity. It was followed by the footfalls of Lendle and Lemborg as they came down the stairs. Shortly after, the two gnomes entered, followed by the levitating corpse of a huge, brutish-looking minotaur.
Gimrod peered curiously at it. "What happened to this poor fellow?"
"Oh-just-tripped-and-fell-in-the-moors-you-know-how-careless-travelers-can-be-no-need-to-worry about-it," Lemborg said. "Now-get-to-work!"
The gnomes lowered the corpse onto a table and Gimrod set about stripping off its clothing and heaping it in the laundry basket. She waited until the gnomes were gone, then pocketed the rings that were on its fingers: maybe if she ever ran into its family, she reasoned, she could return them. After that, she snapped it into a harness attached to a typically elaborate gnomish rope-and-pully mechanism and lowered it into the vat.
It would be hours before the bones were ready to be extracted from the gruesome concoction and arranged in the workshop for Lendle & Lemborg to reassemble, so she set about thinking of escape plans once again. Maybe if she dug a tunnel...
But as she was pondering the question of escape, she heard a commotion coming from upstairs...

Author: Gimrod Date: Sat Jan 7 16:06:21 2017 Subject Escape, Pt. 1

"Gimrod!" The kender heard the gnome's high-pitched, barking voice from the top of the cellar stairs. She scrambled to the foot of the staircase, ready for orders. "We've-got-a-new-specimen-arriving-I-hope-you're-ready-to-work- because-it's-a-big-one!"
"Oh, yes, sir, Mr. Lemborg, sir," Gimrod said. "I'm always ready to work! Just point me at a specimen and watch me go! Did you see the great job I did with the elf?"
"Yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-yes," the gnome said impatiently. "Now-listen-carefully- this-is-a-minotaur-and-we-haven't-got-a-minotaur-in-the-museum-yet-and-I-need- you-to-be-extra-extra-careful-with-the-bones-because-we-can't-misplace-a-single one-not-a-single-one-Gimrod-do-you-understand!?"
"I know, I know," Gimrod said. "I never misplace anything!"
"You-lose-things-constantly-you're-a-bumbling-idiot-of-an-assistant-but- unfortunately-you're-all-we've-got," the gnome grumbled. "We'll-be-bringing- the-specimen-in-shortly-prepare-yourself!"
Gimrod sighed and headed for the vats. "Every day it's the same thing! Nag, nag, nag! Don't do this! Don't do that! Don't lose this! Don't touch that! Don't steal jewelry off the specimens!" The vats were a series of enormous stone vessels, fed by bubbling hot springs that the gnomes had engineered to flow through the cellar of the house. The water was already caustic enough, but the gnomes kept Gimrod supplied with endless sacks of a strange white powder -- she supposed it was some kind of magic something-or-other -- and when she added it to the water it would take the meat off the bones of just about anything, which was useful when your life quest was to collect the skeleton of every creature on Krynn.
Of course, it was Gimrod who actually got her hands dirty, but all she could ever remember was living in the cellar of the old stone house and dealing with the bodies. Lendle and Lemborg said they'd found her abandoned in the Great Moors when she was only 3, no sign of her parents anywhere. Gimrod couldn't remember anything before she came to live wth the two gnomes. They were the only parents she'd ever known. But lately, something inside her kept pushing her to try and leave the cellar. She couldn't put her finger on it -- it was like she had itchy feet. First she'd tried the windows -- they were locked tight from the outside, and made of such thick glass she couldn't put a dent in them, not even with a brick she'd pried out of the wall. Next she tried to pick the lock on the cellar door, but the gnomes had ensorcelled it somehow and it gave her a painful shock as soon as she touched it. There seemed to be no way out of this place, and it was starting to drive her crazy. Maybe if she could sneak out as they were bringing a body in...
Just then, she heard the click of the cellar door. Rats -- too late for that opportunity. It was followed by the footfalls of Lendle and Lemborg as they came down the stairs. Shortly after, the two gnomes entered the vat room, followed by the levitating corpse of a huge, brutish-looking minotaur.
Gimrod peered curiously at it. "What happened to this poor fellow?"
"Oh-just-tripped-and-fell-in-the-moors-you-know-how-careless-travelers-can-be- no-need-to-worry about-it," Lemborg said. "Now-get-to-work!"
The gnomes lowered the corpse onto a table and Gimrod set about stripping off its clothing and heaping it in the laundry basket. She waited until the gnomes were gone, then pocketed the rings that were on its fingers: maybe if she ever ran into its family, she reasoned, she could return them. After that, she snapped it into a harness attached to a typically elaborate gnomish rope- and-pully mechanism and lowered it into the vat.
It would be hours before the bones were ready to be extracted from the gruesome concoction and arranged in the workshop for Lendle & Lemborg to reassemble, so she set about thinking of escape plans once again. Maybe if she dug a tunnel...

Author: Gimrod Date: Sun Jan 8 16:00:48 2017 Subject Escape, Part 2

As she was pondering the question of escape, she heard a commotion coming from upstairs. There were voices coming from the top of the stairs, loud, agitated ones, and not all of them were Lendle's or Lemborg's. This, in itself, was unusual. Occasionally Lendle admitted visitors to the mansion -- the halls of carefully articulated animal skeletons made for a fascinating museum, not that Gimrod was ever permitted to admire them freely -- but situated as they were in the middle of the Moors, visitors were few and far between. Besides, whoever these newcomers were, they didn't sound like museum visitors. Gimrod padded carefully up the stairs and placed her eye to the keyhole.
She didn't quite know how to make sense of what she saw on the other side. There were Lendle and Lemborg in their workshop, but also a strange assortment of people -- one in red wizard's robes, just like she'd seen in books, a big hulk of a warrior, a blue sea elf carrying a huge scimitar, and some kind of brown-robed monk. They appeared to be threatening Lendle and Lemborg. A sense of loyalty impelled her to try and open the door to stop the fight, but it was locked fast, as usual. She supposed she could try and pick it again, although that never worked. She went back down the stairs and hurriedly searched through her room for the appropriate tools as the sounds of a fight broke out.
By the time she'd found what she'd needed, the fight had quieted down and all she could hear was the murmuring of the intruders. The lock clicked and opened. She hid behind a vat. Either these people wished her ill, or they could help her escape -- but she thought she'd better stay quiet until she figured out which one.
"Ugh, it smells horrible down here!" said a woman's voice in an unusual accent. That was strange, Gimrod thought. She'd never noticed any smell.
"When you've been a necromancer as long as I have, you get used to this kind of stink," drawled a male voice. That must have been the wizard.
"Speaking of you and your unholy art, let's step carefully," the woman's voice said. "There could be anything lurking down here."
She listened as they combed through the cellar. "God, how barbaric!"
"This explains all those missing people from the village."
"These two were a couple of monsters."
"An abomination unto nature. An insult to the Tree of Life."
Missing people? From the village? Gimrod thought. But Lemborg said he'd just found them! He said all kinds of accidents could happen out on the moors! Had he been lying all this time? A clammy, cold feeling shivered up and down her spine. If they'd been kidnapping people, then this museum was full of...
Suddenly her reverie was interrupted by a rough hand grabbing her arm and the feeling of a blade at her throat. "All right, don't move!" growled the woman's voice. "Tell us everything you know!"
"Oh!" squeaked Gimrod. "Let me go!"
"Oh, cut it OUT, Freya," said the mage. "It's just a kender! And a child, at that! What do you think you're doing?"
"She's obviously working with them! The stink of death is all over her!"
"I don't smell anything," Gimrod said, puzzled.
"Sense of smell is shot from working down here in this mess for so long, I'd wager," said the mage.
"You let her go right now," said the brown-robed druid. "She is obviously an innocent."
"A child slave!" exclaimed the warrior.
The sea elf called Freya relaxed her grip and crouched down to meet Gimrod's eye. The kender had never seen anyone so tall in her life. Well, no one ALIVE, anyway. "Is that true?" she said, her voice softening a little. "Are you a slave?"
"I don't know," Gimrod said honestly. "I've always lived here."

Author: Gimrod Date: Sun Jan 8 16:04:22 2017 Subject Escape, Part 3

"They pay you anything?" asked the mage.
"Well, no."
"Are you allowed to leave when you wish?" asked the druid.
"No."
"Do you WANT to leave?" asked Freya.
"Yes," Gimrod answered immediately.
"Then you are a slave," said the druid. "And now you're free."
The big warrior shuddered. "Using a kender to do this horrible work...it's a tragedy!"
"Well, I like my work," Gimrod said. "The insides of people are interesting!"
"There's that kender fearlessness!" the mage laughed. "What's your name? I like you. You'd make a good assistant for a necromancer."
"Gimrod Fogbound."
"I'm Hannakus. You met Freya when she tried to decapitate you. The druid is called Ob. The big guy's called Welve. We're mercenaries."
"What's that mean?"
"A sheriff gave us money to find out who was kidnapping and killing all his villagers," Hannakus explained. "Looks like we found the culprits."
"You mean...Lendle and Lemborg...they were...they were..."
"Murderers. Aberrations," murmured the druid. "They wore the holy symbol of Chemosh."
"You mean all those people...they...they didn't just have accidents in the swamp?"
"No, dear," Freya said kindly. "I'm sorry you had to find out like this."
"All those people..." Gimrod's eyes filled with tears. "I always thought those two were mean, but I didn't think they were THAT mean!"
The sea elf gave her a clammy hug. "There, there, little sister," she said. "You're free now. You don't have to do their dirty work anymore." After Gimrod had cried onto the elf's shoulder for a while, she asked, "How old are you anyway, little sister?"
"I don't know," Gimrod said.
"Looks about twelve to me," said the mage. "Hard to tell with kender."
"You are free now," the druid Ob repeated. "You can go wherever you wish."
"We can't just let her wander off!" said Freya, turning towards the rest of the mercenaries. "She doesn't know anything!"
"I know lots of things!" Gimrod protested.
"Not about surviving out there," Freya said. "You've been in this cellar your whole life?"
"Ever since they found me on the moors when I was a baby. They said my parents had an accid--oh..." Realization dawned on Gimrod. "I guess they probably didn't have an accident, did they?"
"Come with us," Freya said tenderly. "We'll at least get you through the Moors safely, get you to the village -- and give you a bath, for gods' sake, because you smell awful."
"I don't smell anything."
"Believe me, the rest of us do," said Hannakus. "Come along. I promise Freya won't try to murder you again. Gather up your things -- if you have any -- and we'll get you out of this hole."
"Okay," said Gimrod. "By the way, did one of you drop this?"
Freya snatched the bulging coin purse out of Gimrod's hand. Hannakus laughed. "Remember whose idea it was to ask the kender to come along," he said.
"She just doesn't know how to behave. Yet. Come along, little sister. You've got a lot to learn about the outside world."

Author: Gimrod Date: Sun Jan 15 23:17:59 2017 Subject Escape Delayed (1/2)

Gimrod climbed the cellar stairs, following the mismatched group of mercenaries. There it was, at the top of the staircase! The open door, and beyond that, freedom! The door she'd never been able to open, and there it was, all ready for her to walk through it!
She stopped at the top of the stairs. She looked over her shoulder.
Freya was the first one to notice her lagging. "What are you waiting for? Let's go! You're free!"
"My beetles..." she began hesitantly.
"What beetles?"
"MY beetles. I'm the only one that feeds them! They're counting on me!"
"Pet beetles?" The sea elf couldn't disguise the disgust on her face.
"What are they gonna do if I'm gone?"
"Set them free," the red-robe suggested. "Maybe they'll follow you home!"
"Don't be silly," Gimrod said crossly. "Beetles aren't that smart. Maybe I could take them with me..."
Freya and Hannakus looked at each other. "You DID tell her to gather her possessions," said Freya.
"If she's going to be the one carrying them, I don't care. Let's see these beetles."
Gimrod led Freya and Hannakus back down into the basement. The warrior and the druid stayed upstairs on the pretense of guarding the two bound and gagged gnomes they were going to drag back to the village lawmen.
The wooden boxes sat on the floor in the vat room. "They're in here," Gimrod explained. "See?" Freya and Hannakus leaned in. She opened the lid of one of the boxes. Almost immediately, they stumbled backwards as if pushed by an invisible wave of force. The sea elf gagged and put her webbed hand over her face. "Oh, sweet Zeboim's tits!"
"What's the matter with you two?" Gimrod said. She gazed lovingly into the box. The beetles were working on the carcass of a large swamp hare. They'd burrowed their way under the skin and were rapidly devouring the putrid flesh. Gimrod was always fascinated by the way the writhing insects moved underneath the skin, making it look almost as if the animal were still alive and breathing, and she watched, hypnotized, for a few moments. Incredible, the way nature had of taking care of its own messes. Within days the bones would be white and clean, and hers. The gnomes already had scads of swamp hares in every possible size in their museum -- this one was a secret project, and it was going to be hers, all hers. She realized that, if the mercenaries were taking Lendle and Lemborg away, everything was technically hers, now.
Freya was dry heaving in a corner. Hannakus was holding the hood of his red robe over his nose. "You, uh...take care of the smaller 'specimens' with these beetles, then, I take it?"
"Oh, yes," she said, then recited automatically: "'Bigger than a wildcat, into the vat. Smaller than a fox, into the box.'"
"Cute," muttered Hannakus. "You can't smell anything, huh?"

"Nope," said Gimrod.
"Don't take this the wrong way, but I think ten years down in this basement may have impacted your sensibilities a little."
Gimrod wasn't listening. "If I leave, no one will feed them..."
"These boxes are too big to carry," said Freya shakily from the corner. "We can't take them with us. Look...uh, how about you just come with us for now, and as soon as we show you the way to the village, you can come back and look after them, all right?"

Author: Gimrod Date: Sun Jan 15 23:20:17 2017 Subject Escape Delayed (2/2)

"This house is mine," Gimrod said thoughtfully. "If Lendle and Lemborg aren't going to be around anymore. I really should look after it. A lot of work went into these specimens. I should know. I did most of it. Well, the icky stuff, anyway. Not the putting-it-all-back-together stuff. That's too complicated. But still, I'm the one who stripped off the clothes and took out the organs and peeled off the skin and--"
"I...understand, you don't need to go into any further detail." The sea elf looked rather more green than blue.
"Just come with us," said Hannakus. "So we can rest assured that we're not abandoning a helpless child. After we show you to civilization, we'll let you do whatever you want."
"Okay," Gimrod said, staring into the box. "It'll probably take them a few days to finish with this rabbit, anyway."
"That's right," said Freya. "They'll be fine. Just fine."
"Okay," said Gimrod. "As long as I can come back here." She stared into the box.

Author: Gimrod Date: Tue Jan 17 18:51:27 2017 Subject A Feast for Freedom

Freedom, to be honest, was a bit dizzying.
Gimrod had never had anything but a low oak ceiling over her head. She'd never breathed air that wasn't stale. She'd never heard the sounds of the outdoors unfiltered by the thick basalt walls of the manor.

She loved it.
There was so much to see and hear and touch; she could barely process it all. Freya kept clapping her webbed hand on her shoulder, pulling her back, keeping her from wandering off the paths and into the depths of the marsh.
The big warrior called Welve was carrying a gnome under each arm, until Hannakus demanded that he let their feet loose so they could walk. With the silent brown-robed druid in the lead, the band of mercenaries traveled across the network of paths criscrossing the treacherous Great Moors with the ease of experience. When they stopped to camp the first night, they were halfway to the border betweem the marsh and the barren steppes of Nordmaar.
"I really appreciate everything you've done for me," Gimrod said. "Really, I do! I want to cook for you tonight!"
"What are you going to cook?" Welve asked suspiciously.
"Those hares you shot on the way. I'm a really good cook! I cook everything for myself at home because Lendle and Lemborg don't -- didn't -- give me anything that was cooked already. I know how to make soup. Really good soup! You'll see!"
"I'm not sure how I feel about eating food cooked by someone who has no sense of smell," Hannakus muttered.
"Hannakus! She wants to do something nice for us," Freya hissed. "Let her."
While Hannakus stoked the fire, Gimrod took out her little obsidian knife, hung the hares up on a low tree branch, slipped off the skin, took out the viscera, removed the head and feet. She cut the hares into pieces and threw them in the pot with a little fresh spring water and some wild onions she'd gathered along the way. As the onions sizzled in the hares' fat she foraged for edible herbs and flowers. She came across a few wild berries she recognized, and added them for flavor. She finished it with a few pinches from a sachet of spices she'd taken off the corpse of a Nordmaarian merchant sailor. After an hour, everyone was hovering around the pot and salivating. She still didn't smell anything -- but she'd made this soup so many times she knew how to make it taste good.
Sitting around the campfire as the moons rose, the mercenaries practically gushed over how well it tasted. That felt almost as good as freedom. No one had ever told Gimrod she'd done something well before -- Lendle and Lemborg had only criticized her. (They were each permitted a small bowl of the soup by their captors, but they, for once, kept their mouths shut, their eyes fixed on Welve and his massive broadsword as they ate.) Gimrod felt the misplaced loyalty she'd had toward Lendle and Lemborg dwindling fast. She felt that she'd follow these four to the ends of the earth. As long as they'd let her go back and check on her beetles from time to time, of course.
The big warrior was the first one to get sick.

Author: Gimrod Date: Wed Jan 18 08:17:10 2017 Subject One by one... (1/2)

The big warrior was the first one to get sick.
On the first day, Welve complained first of sore muscles, of sweating and pain in his gut. He coughed. He ran frequently into the bushes. On the second day, he burned with fever and talked of seeing things that nobody else could see. On the third day, he wouldn't move, lying on his sleeping furs with his eyes half-closed and his belly swollen. The druid poured potions down him, packed herbal poultices around his hot forehead. It was no use, and there he perished. Gimrod was sorry. She helped the mercenaries put his massive body to rest in a bubbling volcanic pool, helping herself to a shining rapier while nobody was watching -- she could give it back to his family, if she ever met them. She caught herself wondering, in passing, if his bones would still be there, should she come back later.
The sea elf was the next one to go. She went a lot faster: shivering, turning green, vomiting and moaning in delirium, and gasping for air unless she was submerged in water. She was dead the morning after her illness began. Gimrod cried. Freya had been so nice to her! Before they left Freya in the pool that had been her deathbed, she took a little sack of colorful jewels that had been sewn into her robes. It would be nice to have something to remember her friend by.
The druid developed rose-colored spots all over his skin, and died trying to choke back one of his own herbal remedies. Unlike the others, he didn't babble, towards the end -- he just breathed one word: "Soilbrood..." before the breath left his body. According to his wishes, instead of burying him, they placed his body beneath a great tree so that nature could reclaim him. A little later, Gimrod noticed the little necklace the druid wore around his neck with the tree charm on the end had appeared in one of her pouches. Maybe he'd left it there on purpose.
The two gnomes expired quickly, one after the other. At the end, they were begging in their nearly incomprehensible language -- she'd learned to understand a few words here and there -- for Chemosh to save them. He didn't oblige. Gimrod rifled through their pouches and rescued some of their tools -- they'd have wanted it that way.

Author: Gimrod Date: Wed Jan 18 08:18:17 2017 Subject One by one... (2/2)

After that it was just Hannakus and Gimrod, and without the druid to lead them, they were getting increasingly lost. Hannakus was starting to cough and shiver, and one night, he turned to Gimrod, a worried and unhappy look in his eyes.
"Gimrod. Do you think you can find your way back to your house from here?"
"Are you getting sick, too? Tell me you're not getting sick too!" Gimrod looked anxiously at the mage. "You're the only person I have left in the whole world!"
"I know," Hannakus said hoarsely, "and I'm sorry, but I'm getting it. I thought I was safe when I didn't have any symptoms -- but it appears I'm merely the last to go."
"No! You can't!"
"I can use my magic to get out of here before I weaken any further. I can use it to go somewhere where they can help me. I can come back and find you. But I can't take you with me. So I need to know: can you find your way back to the house?"
Gimrod looked around. The places where they'd walked had left muddy footsteps in the mire. If she could just follow them... "I think I may be able to."
"Good." Hannakus coughed into his robe. "Good. I fear we've been cursed. I've been looking in my books -- that word Ob said before he died -- 'Soilbrood...' I looked for any mention of it in my history of Nordmaar. I found out that there's a group of people living in the Moors, bad people, Gimrod. They might have made us sick. I don't know how. But I need you to go home and make sure you don't talk to anyone in the swamp. I don't want you to get it."
"Okay," Gimrod said reluctantly. "You ARE coming back for me, aren't you?"
"If I can." Hannakus turned his back on Gimrod. His hands began the graceful dance of gestures that constituted a magic spell, and he muttered words in a language that sounded to Gimrod like the whispers of snakes. A gate opened in midair. He looked over his shoulder before he stepped into it. "Goodbye, Gimrod. I am sorry." And then he vanished.

Author: Gimrod Date: Sat Jan 21 11:02:54 2017 Subject Alone (1/2)

Alone. Gimrod had never been alone. Even though she'd been locked in the cellar, she'd known Lendle and Lemborg were always right there. Certainly they were shouting at her, throwing things at her, boxing her ears or zapping her with magic -- but they'd always been there, in the cellar with her or just on the other side of the locked door. She could listen to them working and chattering in their language. It was company.
Alone. She tried to follow the muddy tracks. It was harder than she thought it would be. The marsh had a way of repairing itself. The ever- shifting terrain swallowed up any evidence that humans had been there at all. Remembering the funny shape of a tree here and an unusually- colored hot spring there, she backtracked her way to Lendle and Lemborg's corpses, tossed unceremoniously into a ravine. Their clothes had been torn and their ears and noses had been chewed off by animals.
She tried to feel sad about them.
She remembered the time Lendle had thrust her hand into the boiling vat after she left a specimen in the water too long and destroyed the bones.
She didn't feel sad. She walked on, alone.
She decided to travel by night -- she'd heard the druid say something about dangerous creatures that wandered the marsh when the moons rose, and she was curious to see them. Plus it was a lot cooler: the cellar had been as cool as a cave year round, and she was not used to the unpleasant clammy heat of the Moors by day. Disappointingly, she didn't see anything more dangerous than a wolf, which she frightened away by making a racket and waving Welve's rapier around.
Her canteen ran dry and she started to get thirsty, but she knew she mustn't drink the sulfurous water of the hot springs. Hannakus had been purifying it with his magic, and now he was gone. He'd left her, along with everyone else who got sick and died.
An entire day she wandered without water, surviving from the moisture in the wild fruit she found in the marsh. She found some of the same berries she'd put in the soup.
(The soup. They all got sick and died after they ate the soup, a voice hissed at the back of her conscience.)
"Nonsense!" Gimrod snapped to nobody. "I ate the soup too and I didn't get sick!"
She walked on. That boulder looked familiar.
"It was just bad luck," she told the boulder. "I've always had bad luck. Ever since my parents died. Maybe I'm cursed."
Ahead, she saw a distinctive oxbow bend in the stream she'd been following. It was just past the spot where they'd left the druid. She retraced her steps, remembering trees and shrubs and curious rises in the terrain, and found him. He looked bloated. Flies had alighted on his mouth and eyes.
"I'm cursed," she said sadly to the corpse. "I miss you. I wish I was strong enough to bring you back with me! I could put you in the vat and then you could be in the museum forever! Maybe you wouldn't like that, though. I know you wanted to be left under this tree. Maybe you just like trees. You had one on your necklace." She rummaged through her pouches and found the little pendant she'd taken from him. She took it out.
When her fingers touched the little silver tree, it seared her like fire. She screamed and dropped it, and it landed in one of the corpse's stiff, open hands. Maybe she was going peculiar from lack of water, but she could swear she saw its fingers twitch.
"Maybe you wanted that back," she said, a little unsettled. "I'll just leave it with you, then." She left him.

Author: Gimrod Date: Sat Jan 21 11:04:36 2017 Subject Alone (2/2)

Two more days without water. She heard things. Indistinct whispers in the marsh, always just behind her. When she whirled round to see who was talking, nothing was there. At least it was company. She was traveling in circles. She'd seen that rock before; of course she had. When was Hannakus coming back for her?
(He's never coming back. He's left you, like everyone else.)
"Shut up!" she shouted, slashing at the empty air in front of her with Welve's rapier.
(He never wanted you there in the first place, remember? Only the elf was ever nice to you, and even she tried to kill you at first.)
"Shut UP!"
(They don't want you. He's not coming back.)
"Then I'll go on, on my OWN!" She swung the rapier into a dead tree trunk. It made a satisfying noise - CHUNK! - and pieces of rotten bark rained down at her feet.
There were wriggling grubs inside the tree. She hadn't eaten anything but fruit for three days. She stared at them uncertainly for a few seconds before placing one in her mouth and swallowing it.
It was...food.

Author: Gimrod Date: Sun Jan 29 13:34:30 2017 Subject A Traveling Companion

One foot in front of the other. One foot in front of the other. Her feet were soaked inside her boots. Mustn't go on like that. The gnomes had brought in specimens, soldiers, with all the skin sloughed off their feet from marching in wet socks. She took them off. The warm mud felt good.
She suddenly realized she was in a familiar place, without remembering how she'd gotten there. Here was where they'd made camp the first night. Here were the remains of the firepit. And there was where she'd butchered the rabbits. And there was...something else. A pile of white fluff. It was moving. She went toward it.
A vulture, young and underfed, out of the nest too soon. It was pecking at the rotting guts of the rabbits. It turned its bald, black head toward her and hissed.
"You're alone, too?"
It cocked its head at her, then took two awkward hops in her direction, flapping its useless wings and hissing.
"Well, you can come with me, as much good as it will do you," she said. She reached out a hand. The bird hopped away, then curiously forward. She stroked the snowy feathers. When she walked on, it hopped and flapped noisily after her, making those odd quiet hissing noises. It was company. Better company than the whispers.
One day later. She was famished. Nothing but fruit for four days. The bird began flapping ahead of her. She followed it. It led her to the carcass of a deer. It hadn't been dead long. She took out her little obsidian knife and skillfully removed a leg. She made a fire, the way she'd watched the druid do it. She roasted it while the bird tore at the carcass, then gorged herself.
"Thanks for finding this. I guess you can do more for me than I can do for you," she said to the vulture. "Maybe we can stick together. If you'll have me. I don't have anybody else." It hissed while she scratched its feathers, the white now stained brownish with the blood of the deer.

Author: Gimrod Date: Fri Feb 3 17:38:54 2017 Subject New friends!

Why hadn't she found home yet? It shouldn't be this hard.
The mage was never coming back. Sometimes she tried to remember his face and all she could picture was the shape of his skull.
She noticed that the vulture -- which she'd named Crookbeak -- happily drank the water from the hot springs, so she decided to try it, too, sulfurous or not. She couldn't really taste the sulfur, anyway. It kept her from dehydration, but it made her guts cramp up the first few times she tried it. Or maybe it was the grubs. Or the strange-looking berries she had been foraging. She managed to keep it all down.
Crookbeak led her about every other day to the remains of some animal. How did he find them, she wondered? Maybe he could smell it. She couldn't smell anything. She picked through the bones of the desiccated carcasses while he swallowed any remaining flesh with apparent relish. Bones had such interesting shapes. The pelvis bones of small rodents with their wide openings, perfect for threading onto the drawstrings of pouches. The long and elegant spinal columns like strings of beads. And especially the skulls. When everything else had rotted away, the skull still remained, more often than not. They were all different, even when they came from the same animal. The jawbones of one hare wouldn't fit perfectly onto the skull of another. Each one was unique.
It was a lot harder than it looked to put a skeleton back together, especially when the bones were strewn all over the muddy ground and spread across the moors by animals, and not taken neatly out of the vats in a bundle. Even then, she couldn't imagine how the gnomes had done it. It was like solving a jigsaw puzzle with thousands of fragile pieces. She gave up on dreams of constructing new specimens for the museum -- Lendle and Lemborg's life quest would die with them -- but she filled her pouches with interesting bones.
She was starting to regain her strength and her senses, now that she was finding water and food more easily, and one day she looked down to notice that she was a mess, her feet and legs cut by thorns and caked with slimy mud. She found a hot spring that wasn't hot enough to boil the flesh off her bones, and got in it, clothes and all, scrubbing until she was relatively clean.
Dripping wet, she walked on through the swamp, her mind wandering, and she almost walked right past the small olive-skinned child that had stopped, her hand halfway through the motion of picking a berry from a bush, to gape with wide brown eyes at Gimrod and the vulture waddling behind her.
Gimrod stared right back for a moment. Then she said, "Hello!"
The little girl stared.
"I said hello! Can't you talk?"
"Ah...um." The little girl slowly took a step back. "Eala?"
"Oh, maybe you just talk different. Um..." She tried greeting the girl in gnomish.
The girl grimaced and cocked her head.
"No? I don't know any more languages."
"Eala. Cumath. Cumath." The girl gestured with her hand and Gimrod gathered that she wanted her to follow.
Gimrod did. After all, most little girls had a mother. And mothers usually had food...

Author: Gimrod Date: Wed Feb 8 18:39:43 2017 Subject Warm Hearth, Full Stomach, New Beginning

The little girl led Gimrod to a small assortment of huts tucked into a clearing of the jungle. The inhabitants were all a pale brown, like the little girl, and small for humans, though still taller than Gimrod. They wore colorful, loose-fitting clothing and jewelry made from feathers and bones. The girl took Gimrod by the hand and led her to a beehive-shaped oven that stood in the center of the village. The woman stoking the fire resembled the girl. Maybe it was her mother.
A rapidfire series of questions followed. Gimrod didn't understand. The girl gestured at Gimrod and repeated something: "Steopkild! Steopkild! Hweolora!" The woman turned to look at Gimrod, stared at her for a minute, then smiled.
"Sothsag? Steopkild du?"
"I don't understand what you're saying!"
The woman tried again. "You are...lost?"
"You speak my language!" Gimrod said, relieved.
"Little bit." She held up her thumb and forefinger, held them close together, smiled apologetically.
"I'm lost. I live in a big stone house. I can't find it. I'm hungry."
"Poor lost kenderkin. Come, child." The woman enveloped Gimrod in a hug. The kender's damp clothes didn't seem to bother her at all. She leaned into the embrace. She didn't realize how much she had been craving it, the loving touch from another living being.
"I'm lost and I'm cold and wet and muddy and hungry," she said into the woven orange shawl the woman wore. "I had friends but they all left me and they're not coming back." Big tears were starting to roll down her face. Something in the air made her sneeze, dampening the woman even further. "Oh. I'm sorry."
"Come, come. In." She wiped Gimrod's face and nose with a corner of her shawl and gestured to a hut. "You eat with us." She looked at the vulture with some distaste. "Bird stay outside."
"Okay," Gimrod said shakily.
The hut was small and dark -- no furniture, but woven mats of straw, dyed in the same bright colors as the clothing of the people of the village. The little girl followed her and smiled, offering her basket of fruit. "Abit." Gimrod stared at her. "Abit!" She put her hand to her mouth, pantomimed eating, and rubbed her stomach. "Yummy!"
"Oh, thank you," Gimrod said. She selected a pale orange fruit with a velvety skin. It was fragrant and sweet; its juice dribbled down her arm. The little girl laughed. There was a water skin hanging by a long leather cord on a nail on the wall. The girl got up and took it down, then offered it to Gimrod. Gimrod drank deeply and passed it back. The little girl drank, too.
Dinner was a small roasted deer with root vegetables, flat, chewy breads to wrap it all up in, and plenty of fruit for dessert. They ate with their hands. No one in the village spoke very much in a way that Gimrod could understand, but they smiled and were friendly. Perhaps she could learn to speak like them...perhaps she could find some friends here. Maybe even some new traveling companions. It would be so much easier to wander if she didn't have to do it all alone!

Author: Gimrod Date: Wed Feb 8 19:01:52 2017 Subject Lucky

She spent ten days in the village, sometimes playing with the little girl (her name was Gura) and sometimes following the village's hunters and gatherers out on their daily chores. She watched them, learning where to find the best fruit and the sweetest water, and how they made traps for animals out of nothing but the materials around them in the swamp.
The eleventh day was when it all started to go wrong. It was Gura. She began to cough. Her stomach became bloated and her skin broke out in burning patches.
Gimrod had seen it before.
First the child, then the mother. After that, the other village children, the shaman, the hunting party, the elder, the weaver, the weaponsmith, and the woman who baked the flatbread. One by one, they all sickened and died. Within a week, there was no one left.
No one but Gimrod. And Crookbeak, who had already started to gorge himself on the bodies that had been lying dead the longest.
She stood next to the corpse of the child who had been the last to perish, dazed. It was so terribly quiet.
It had happened again.
(It happened as soon as you came into the village.)
Ah. The whispers were back.
Hannakus had said there were people in the Moors who wanted to hurt them. People who had made them sick. "It was them," Gimrod said aloud. "Soilbrood."
(The one thing that the mercenaries and the villagers had in common was YOU.)
"Shut up! I could never do this! I'm not sick! I'm not sick so how could I make them sick? You just SHUT UP!" She stamped her foot and kicked at the story + ground in fury. The child's head lolled grotesquely to the side.
(You don't get sick. Have you ever gotten sick? You haven't been sick since you were a little child.)

(The one thing that the mercenaries and the villagers had in common was YOU.)
"Shut up! I could never do this! I'm not sick! I'm not sick so how could I make them sick? You just SHUT UP!" She stamped her foot and kicked at the ground in fury. The child's head lolled grotesquely to the side.
(You don't get sick. Have you ever gotten sick? You haven't been sick since you were a little child.)
"You don't know what you're talking about. Everybody gets sick."
(Not since you were no bigger than a sack of flour. Your body was aching and you were feverish -- but the gnomes still made you work. Remember? Remember how you cried? Remember how Lendle cast a spell of silence on you so he wouldn't have to listen to it?)
"I'm glad THEY'RE dead."
(You're lucky. You don't get sick. You have a gift.)
"I'm the unluckiest kender in the world."

Author: Gimrod Date: Sun Feb 12 21:02:12 2017 Subject Family Reunion (1/2)

She'd lost track of the time since she'd last heard a humanoid voice. She'd learned to survive on an empty belly for days, and feast every time she managed to snare an animal or find a berry bush. Many times, she'd had to fight or flee for her life. It wasn't only coyotes that roamed the moors, but crocodiles that lurked beneath the murky water until you put your foot too close, extremely bad-tempered bears, and once, a hulking reptilian beast with six pairs of legs and huge spines on its back that Gimrod gave a wide berth after she spotted it in the distance, devouring a deer.
Crookbeak had grown from a small, pathetic, downy thing to a great dark bird with a wingspan wider than she was tall and a bald red head that most people would have found ugly but which Gimrod found endearing. For all his size, he wasn't very imposing, because most of the time he opted to waddle absurdly along behind Gimrod instead of flying, an ungainly flurry of flapping and hissing. Gimrod had grown taller, too. She rambled to him all day long.
"Of course, Hannakus might still come back," she was saying one evening at sundown as she squelched along the sodden ground. "Maybe. Maybe he might. Maybe he's just lost. I'm lost, so he could get lost too, right? I'm sure everyone gets lost once in a while. This place is so big. You'd think I'd have found my way out of it by now. I'll bet I've seen almost every inch of this swamp. I'll bet--"
She was dumbstruck when she crested a hill and saw it.
The house.
Dark and forlorn, and with its shutters falling off, but that was it.
She whacked herself with the flat of her rapier just to make sure that she wasn't dreaming. Then she ran at top speed for the house, the vulture hopping and flapping and gliding in awkward spurts after her.
"I found it...I finally found it! This is it, Crookbeak! The place I've been telling you about! The place where I grew up! This is IT!" A giggle of joy bubbled out of her, then she found she couldn't stop. She doubled over, cackling like a hyena. Crookbeak cocked his head.
The hinges of the door made an unearthly shrieking sound when she pushed it open. It was dark -- it was always dark inside. The windows were small, mere slits in the stone, and the glass had a layer of dust on it. She walked to the fireplace in the dim light and found a striker. She used it to light the candles and the lamps -- some of them still had a little oil inside. The dozens of animal and humanoid skeletons, articulated in natural positions throughout the great hall of the manor, cast unearthly dancing shadows on the wall.
"I've never been allowed to walk around and look at all of them before," she told Crookbeak. "I wasn't really allowed out of the cellar very much. They were afraid I would take things, or knock things over, or..." She ran her hand along the massive femur of a mammoth. "Wow! I didn't do this one. This one must have been from before me. I'd remember an animal this size. In fact, I don't think it would even fit in the vat."
She walked along the hall, admiring each of the skeletons in turn. The section for humanoids was a small, but growing one. At least it had been growing when the gnomes were still alive. She had taken care of each of the corpses, and she remembered them well.
Except those two.

Author: Gimrod Date: Sun Feb 12 21:03:33 2017 Subject Family Reunion (2/2)

She stepped up to the two diminutive skeletons for a closer look. Both of them about her size. One a few inches taller than the other.
She couldn't read the little brass plaques at the bases of the skeletons. She'd never learned how to read. But the hoopak and whippik that had been placed carefully in the skeletons' arms gave her a clue as to what they might say.
Kender, male. Kender, female.
"Are you...are you my mother and father?"
The skeletons did not answer.
"They killed you, didn't they? They told me that they found me lost in the moors. They told me you'd abandoned me. But it's you, isn't it? It IS! I know it in my bones!...Erm. Poor choice of words. No joke intended, you know." She reached out and touched their skeletal hands. "I can feel it. They killed you and took me away! I wonder why they didn't kill me too. They don't have a kender baby. I bet Lendle wanted to kill me and Lemborg stopped him. Lemborg was always a little nicer to me. I wonder what your names were. I guess I'll never know."
She gingerly took hold of the whippik in the smaller skeleton's right hand and slid it out of its grip. "I don't suppose you'll mind if I take this, Mother. It's not as if you can use it, and someone ought to. I haven't the faintest idea how, but I can learn. Maybe I can meet some other kender and they can teach me."
Crookbeak was hopping aimlessly about on the stone floor, pecking at the ground for scraps. "You'll have to excuse me, Mother, Father. I think Crookbeak's hungry and I have to find him some -- oh, my!" She slapped herself in the forehead. "My beetles! My beetles! I never fed them! I suppose there isn't any way they could still be alive. It's been months! Months and months! I'd better go check on them anyway. Maybe they found something to eat in the morgue. Stay here, won't you?" She chuckled aloud. "Not that either of you can really go anywhere. But stay put! I know where I can find you some clothes downstairs. No good for you two to stand there in the buff. I'll be right back!"
She dashed off towards the gnomes' workshop, where the door to the cellar was. She opened it, and hesitated, staring down the stairs. She grabbed a heavy book from a nearby table and used it to prop the door open.
She'd never be a prisoner again. "This place is mine now," she said to Crookbeak. "And I have mouths to feed!"

Author: Gimrod Date: Fri Mar 10 07:43:18 2017 Subject Savior (1/3)

(RP, written by Raaksida and Gimrod)
The house is dark; Gimrod no longer bothers to light all the lamps as soon as the sun goes down. She is seated on a stool at a table in the workshop that used to belong to her captors, working by the light of a single candle and scratching her head as she tries to reassemble a rabbit skeleton that is spread out before her. She looks from a large book that is propped open in front of her, back to the skeleton, back to the book again. So far she's only managed to reunite the jawbone with the skull. "How did those two mean old sourpusses ever figure this out?" she grumbles to Crookbeak the vulture. He is on the floor, noisily devouring a plate of offal. A few black rats dart in and out, boldly snatching choice morsels off his plate. He pays them little attention.
Suddenly, the kender and the vulture simultaneously look up from their respective tasks as they become aware of noises outside in the foyer. "Now what could that be?" Gimrod wonders aloud. No one has come to visit her here, and anyway, after what happened in the village, she doesn't really seek out companions anymore. Crookbeak and the beetles and the rats are company enough, and they never get sick.
Raaksida approaches the darkened house, her companion only a few steps behind with his hand on one of his swords under his tattered cloak. The cleric turns and rests her hand on the mans, making her hand look like a childs. "I do not think we will need that here, and I do not want to scare the child away," she whispers to the man.
The man simply nods and lowers his hands to his side as Raaksida pushes the door open and ducks inside. Her guard follows her, a hulk beside her. She leaves her large hood over her head, the only thing that can be seen under is the two pinpricks of light that glint off her eyes. She glances around the foyer, then listens for any sound before calling out, "Are you here, my child?"
Gimrod creeps to the doorway between the workshop and the hall of bones and cautiously peers around the corner. "Hullo?" she calls. "That's not you, is it, Mother? No, surely not. It's not, is it? I suppose you couldn't talk without all the soft bits in your mouth, but I've seen stranger things. Ahem. Hullo? Who's out there?" Her natural darkvision allows her to see the outlines of two figures, one big and one small, standing just inside the foyer. She slides her rapier out of its sheath, just in case. "Hi! I'm Gimrod Fogbound," she calls. "Are you here to see the museum? I'm afraid it's gotten rather dusty, and, well, some of the heads have fallen off of some of the specimens, but it's still worth having a look. It's just me here, you know, and it's hard to keep everything in good order."
"I certainly am not your mother, dear, and I have no want to see the skeletons," Raaksida says, in a motherly tone. Looking out from the pool of darkness inside her hood, she continues, "I am here to see you, child." The cleric glances over to her companion who seems on edge and prepared to kill someone, "You must forgive my friend here, he can seem frightening, but he just takes my safety quite seriously." The elder kender pulls her hood down, revealing a nearly shaved head, with tattoos that run around her head to accent her facial features. She smiles a warm smile, but the tattoos seem to contort it a bit, "It will make him, and I, feel much better if you came out here to speak with me."
Obediently, Gimrod trots out into the foyer, followed by the hopping vulture. "Oh!" she exclaims. "You're a kender too! You know, I've never met another one. Well, not that I can remember. Obviously, I met my mother and father, but I don't remember them. Well, not when they were alive. Anyway, I'm sure we have so much to talk about! You might want to stay back, though." Her demeanor suddenly grows sad. "I think I might be cursed."

Author: Gimrod Date: Fri Mar 10 07:47:05 2017 Subject Savior (2/3)

"Oh, my sweet girl, I am sure you are not cursed," Raaksida says, her comforting smile coming through the twisted tattoos. "I am sure that whatever you are going through, we can figure out why. So, cheer up, little one." As if noticing it for the first time, Raaksida drops her gaze to the hopping bird. She looks at it for a moment before raising her hand slightly, causing the bangles around her wrist to jangle. The vulture hops over to her and stretches its neck to nuzzle the the clerics open hand, and she smiles at the awkward thing. "A peculiar creature you have here," she looks up to the the younger kender with another smile, "I am Raaksida Baneberry."
"You like Crookbeak?" Gimrod asks, taking a few more cautious steps forward. "Most people don't like him, would you believe it? I can't imagine why. He's really very friendly. He's been with me since he was a baby. He lost his mother and father, just like me." She scratches the bird's feathers. Her eyes focus on Raaksida's face in the low light. "What's that on your face? Is that paint? Why do you have it?" It's clear that she's been starved for company for a long time as she babbles on in the way that only kender can. Two black rats dart out of the workshop and scurry under Gimrod's feet. She absentmindedly crouches down and strokes one behind the ears as she talks. "The reason I think I'm cursed is, ever since I left my basement -- I grew up in the basement below this house, by the way; I forgot to tell you that -- you see, there were these gnomes, and -- well, I can tell you about them later. Anyway, some nice people came and set me free, but ever since then, everyone I've met has g--gotten sick and died." She gulps back a sob. "They can't have gotten sick from ME, can they? Because then I would have gotten sick too, right? So the only explanation that I can think of is that I must have a curse. I don't know who would have put it on me -- maybe Lendle -- he was one of those gnomes I mentioned -- since I escaped from him. He was really good at magic. Except I don't know why he would have done that because HE got sick and died from it, too. Anyhow, to make a long story short, I don't have very good luck with meeting new people and I just want you to know that before I come any closer."
The older kender sits and listens to Gimrod ramble with patience, only a kender listening to a kender could have. She also watches the little kender closely, and her reactions to the idea of being cursed and the rats scurrying about. "All these questions can be answered in time, my dear, but for now know that I do not fear curses in the least." She glances up at her companion, then holds up a hand to introduce him, "Forgive my rudeness, this is Tesrov. Like you, he was in dire need of help. I, with some help, was able to save him." The man gives Gimrod a small bow, and smile. "Just as I was able to save him, so will I save you from your predicament. Do come closer, Gimrod, so that I can be sure it is not a curse set upon you by some foul worshipper of Chemosh."
Gimrod gasps. "Lendle and Lemborg DID worship Chemosh! How did you know? I heard Lendle praying all the time." She steps even closer, satisfied that her animals, at least, trust the newcomer. "Do you think you can really figure out what's wrong with me? I could use some help. I'd really like to get away from here -- at least once in a while -- but I'm worried about making other people sick." She holds up her mother's whippik. "Also, do you think you can show me how to use this? It's Mother's, but, well, she's not really using it, and a kender ought to use a kender weapon, don't you think? Have you met my mother, by the way? She's right over here, with Father."

Author: Gimrod Date: Fri Mar 10 07:50:03 2017 Subject Savior (3/3)

She gestures towards a pair of skeletons, which have been dutifully dressed, the female in a blue robe with a big floppy hat, and the male in a dapper set of gnomish nobleman's clothes which don't quite fit. Both have been completely bedecked with mismatched jewelry and trinkets, presenting a sharp contrast to Gimrod, who appears rather washed-out and unkempt.
"I can feel the taint of Lifebane in this place, but that will be purged in time," Raaksida says, a tone of disdain in her voice. The cleric then reaches out with her linen wrapped hands and cups the young kenders face. She speaks a prayer as she closes her eyes, then opens them with another motherly smile, "Yes, we can figure this out, but you certainly have not been cursed." She drops her gaze to the whippik, "I can show you how use it, yes, but I never really had any aptitude for it. I personally prefer the hoopak." To accent her point, she spins the charred and blighted hoopak around, causing it to make a hollow wail.
Gimrod's demeanor grows cheerful. "Oh! Well! That's a relief! I was sure I was cursed. Well, where are we going, then? Is it very far? I'm going to have to let my beetles out, if we're going far. The colony barely made it last time. I know they'll be able to find a lot to eat out on the Moors if I just open the boxes. Can I bring my bird?"
Raaksida chuckles at the younger kenders exuberance, "Well, my dear, I was hoping we might stay here for the night as the hour is late...but I do not have any destination in mind. I do not have a home, my place is out in the world, saving the people. You may certainly bring your bird along when we do go, and I would be happy for your help." Raaksida removes her tattered and threadbare brown coat, revealing well kept grey woolen robes. "For now, I hope there is a more comfortable space in this house for us to talk?" she asks, but her tone seems to imply a command.
"Oh, yes, of course, well, that is to say, I mean, we have the whole house," Gimrod says, gesturing around her. "It's quite large. I just sleep in my room in the basement. I suppose you could sleep in their room if you pushed their beds together. Gnome-sized, you know. It's upstairs, next door to the library. Do you know how to read? There are tons of books in there but I can't do anything except look at the pictures."
The priestess seems to whisper a prayer under her breath. "Oh, my dear, I will have to teach you how. It does no good to go through life without reading," Raaksida says, the concerned mother, "But their room will do for me. Is there a place where we can talk after my companion and I have settled in?"
"Can you really teach me? I'm not very smart. Lendle and Lemborg always said so. Come on, we can talk in the library! There's no one there who can tell us to be quiet. Let's go right now!" The trio disappears up the dark stone stairwell, Gimrod chattering all the way.

The Storytellers of Ansalon, The DragonLance MUD

Astinus points to the massive wall of books behind him and bids you to make a selection.


Authors: All|A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M|N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

Astinus sighs as he recants 'We saved 868 books from Ansalon from before the great Cataclysm through today.'
\n