[Scamandros the Seer, drunk on much spring wine, is escorted back to the Athenaeum of the Dying Sun by a goat blessed by the shepherds of Old Orm, to whom he expounds concerning his latest adventure within "the Complex"]
Well, my horn-ed friend, there we stood before the stairs descending to the seeming depths of greatness! Myself--Riverborn Scamandros!--and my companions ... allow me to count them if you would, while you chew your cud ... Betina the Blind, a fighting-woman whose sword I trust though her eyes are gone; Journeyman Crannoc and Phasmo, two fellow magic-users of the College of old, and now business-partners anew; and Frim Frimerson, a fighting-man of mien most dour. With us too were Kiddo, my trusted lictor, she bearing forth my partha shield with all the ancient Teucrian ancestry; and Veteran Ornie, once an oarsmen in the galleys of the Cerulean Sea, if I took his meaning right.
"Baa-ah!" what? And you also desire a name heroic, o! goat? Then here, take this crown of dandelions from off my brow, and I shall name you ... Anthouaix. Eh, be not ashamed! Thou art thus the Goat of the Flower!
Now ... We had come by way circuitous, half explained by Crannoc as he pored over his myriad maps. An elevator there was, would take us to the depths (though the lowest depths, they said, would split color itself!). We aimed to ride it down seeking fortune, but Crannoc's notes depicted a door unlooked-through, but of interest.
Well, looking through it was much blood, dried; and the next door held the same; but the next was always unexplored until a stair led down before us. Phasmo cried out in excitement--
Yes, this is where I tried to start, so stop your bleating! What's next begins adventure--
Anyway, we descended the steps, and found ourselves in a hall, flanked by painted statues of a man bearing a key, and a woman with a globe held high. Most interested in the key was Phasmo, but our investigations were cut short by the arrival of several beetles.
Very large beetles, with great scything mandibles.
Eschewing conflict, we tried a doorway in the corridor to the east, and opened it upon a roomful of pugnacious blue-furred beasts. Alas! they seemed intent on our flesh as delicacy, but Betina slammed shut the door, while Crannoc devised an ingenious plan to spike it shut, but with a rope coiled round the spike that we might pull it forth and release the hounds of hunger upon the beetles of our despair should they come in pursuit.
All followed per Crannoc's plan; we ourselves moved deeper into the complex.
(Very well, Anthouaix, I too require a moment to relieve certain natural pressures. Soon, now, we will arrive in Old Orm, and you will see our Athenaeum; I advise you not to eat of any tome.)
We entered into a star-shaped room; a set of stairs descended deeper into the Complex ... again, Phasmo cried in delight to discover a deeper truth ... but all that opened before us was a crescent-shaped shrine with an ancient altar. Its face was worn with the pawings of many a hopeless pilgrim, or so I surmise; for some reason my companions all knelt before the stone and placed their hands against it like--
--yes, like fools, I agree! "Baa-aah!" Very cutting, Anthouaix--
And before anything of value could be dis-covered, the skittering of beetle-legs was discerned upon the stair. Oil we spread, ready for fire, and Frim (son of Frimer Frimson, grandson of Frim Frimerson, if I got the lineage right ...) and Betina the Blind stood valiantly forth, backed by the spears of lictor-Kiddo and Ornie, and the sorceries of Riverborn Scamandros, Journeyman Crannoc, and one Phasmo!
A vicious battle followed! One of the two remaining insectile horrors was laid low by the swords and spears of my companions, along with my own magical dart!; while the other was stilled by the magical prism of Phasmo, illusionist extraordinaire. (I think that I must call upon my companions to learn more of magic, don't you think Flower-Goat?)
The still-and-sleeping beetle we fettered as a bull of old-and-ancient Minos ...
Ah, well, here we are--the Athenaeum of the Dying Sun. Ramshackle it may be, but it contains a wealth of ancient knowledge. Well, I guess it's time we parted ways and you went back to your--stop chewing on my cloak! I just had this made for the festival! Shoo! Shoo, you damn goat! If you eat this, how else am I again to impress Veturia??
[Reeling from an excess of drink, Scamandros tugs the tips of the cloak he spent some money on from the mouth of his attendant goat and sits down outside the portal of the Athenaeum of the Dying Sun to meditate on the missed opportunities of the night of the Vernal Equinox, when cherry-wine thickened his tongue and made twisted his advances to the maiden Veturia Casca ...]
Well done sir! This was a great read:)
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