In the glow of dusk, you sit within the stone house, the last of the daylight being a time to finish your working. You smell the freshly rubbed vellum and place the page upon the scriptorium's table, pulling the guide ropes taut. They make horizontal lines across the worked skin, and you push the page over to set the margin before making final tightening once you are sure it is straight. You pick up the quill, rubbing your hand in reflex as it protests taking to the familiar position.“Oh Gods. Grant me the strength.” You laugh. The Gods are invoked to heal the wounds of warriors, not scribes, but at this moment the pain your hand surely must be at least worth a few battles worth of honor. You already know the words you must transcribe by heart, as you have already made two copies of it today, but you still glance back at the reference again just to ensure there are no mistakes.From Hroth, came the four princes and just one daughter, born of the last great Hrothian King. This was a strong bloodline. And of these four went out to carve Kingdoms of their own, founding a great city each in their own name, and their names were Inigo, and Alcepass, and Lugh, and Chermeset. But the daughter was the King's favored, as from the day she was born she was beloved by the whole world, and he believed her to be the true future of Hroth. The daughter was to be married to the last Prince of the Halitotians, uniting the two greatest peoples of that age. But upon seeing his hideous face, she refused, and a war broke out between those peoples.You rub your aching hand. The dusk is longer then you thought, judging from the light outside. You still burn a candle in the murkiness. Soon you will be finished, and may finally have a drink.The Hrothians prevailed, and buried the last of the Halitotians in their mountain fortresses, and their kind faded into history forevermore. As for the princess, she fled to the south, as far south as she could go, and married a black king of a tiny kingdom. The Okites, whose royalty now had a trace of white man's blood, came to dominate their desert homeland. But it was not from this union which gave the Okites their golden eyes, but instead from the Princess's dowry. As she so favored by the Gods, from the day of her birth to the day of her death, held in her hands the missing piece of the yellow moon.
It took long enough to finish this page that your candle wax had burned down low. You wipe the sweat from your brow and put the quill aside. Soon, this manuscript will be illuminated, then painted, and then finally bound to complete the painstaking process of creating just one copy of the Legendarium Historium. You turn to the window, finding it very queer how much light you still see from outside. Didn't the sun begin to set hours ago? You turn open the shutters to see a great flickering light coming from the village; the buildings are on fire.“Oh no!”Somehow, in your concentration, you did not realize what was happening. The far away screams and cries seem so clear to you now, the village has been attacked. Raiders, but from where? And who? Is it another clan from the Midden, or is it a foreign invasion? This would not be the first time the Kothites crossed over the mountains for need of fresh slaves, but wouldn't they fight against the hill tribes? Could it be Trogs coming to taste human flesh? No; they would not set fires. Fire would only scare them away.The stone-house was once a motte on the hill, with the village bailey beneath being the first natural choice to attack leading up to you. This gave you a little time before the attackers were upon you, which is why you remained undisturbed for so long. That, or they have already been repelled by your own village militia. You must make a decision; where do you go now?>To the barricaded cellar>Run down the back of the fortress and escape into the forest>Grab your cudgel and join in the fighting
>>6433605>Run down the back of the fortress and escape into the forestyea peace out forever fuckers
>>6433605>To the barricaded cellarWe can't deny our cellar its purpose now, can we?
>>6433605>To the barricaded cellar
>>6433605>To the barricaded cellarA cool place to wait out the flames.
>>6433604>Run down the back of the fortress and escape into the forestWe are so back
>>6433605>Run down the back of the fortress and escape into the forest
>>6433605>To the barricaded cellarI hope we’ve got some good wine down there.
>>6433605>Run down the back of the fortress and escape into the forestrun white boy
>>6433605>>Run down the back of the fortress and escape into the forestCoward Quest!
>>6433605>To the barricaded cellar'Tis what it is for, and who are we to deny this house a purpose it holds?
Normally I'd prefer not to call a vote too early, but I don't really have time to adapt an update with new drawings and the like if they're all ties down to the last second. So I'll just call it for the "barricaded cellar" choice for now.And as usual, while I'd like to avoid it, future important votes may have a "no 1-Post ID" rule to prevent shenanigans. This is your complimentary warning.
>>6433614Claiming this one with my trip because my ID tends to change as I travel.
>>6433605>>Grab your cudgel and join in the fighting
You decide to hide away. After all, if the village is already done for, whatever force strong enough to do this could easily overwhelm you at the unmanned fortress. You take the manuscript with you, heading down to the basement cellar. Not a moment too soon, you hear voices coming as the front door of the fortress is entered, with no resistance. They see you hurry your pace down the last step, close the cellar doors, and put the heavy wooden bolt in place, blocking the way not a moment too soon. A furious fist bangs on the barricaded cellar.“Ho! Open up!” The voice says, carrying a particular northern accent.“I don't think so! I did not know what barbarians came to raid our lands, but now I know it be the Nifel savages from the north! Did you run out of caribou or seal?!”The voice paused, realizing they had no easy way in, but still suspecting treasures. You believe him to be their leader.”You seem a man of learning, but we be not Nifel, we are Hrothians.”“Hah! The Hroth are a dead and gone race, your people squat in their ruins. Your father's father could be from anywhere from Kapoor to the Kodi! Get ye gone Northman!””I will not be lectured on lineage by a man from the Midden, a swamp-serf with the blood of every race in his veins! Are you even a white man?!”“Of course I am!””Well in that case, I wish to be reasonable. Open the door a crack so we can confirm it.”“Such a trick would only work on your troggish mother to let any man into her bedchambers! There is nothing worth for you to steal, Nifel dog!””Well!” The voice had lost all its cool confidence and was clearly now incensed. ”If there is truly nothing valuable within, then we have no reason to come in. Bar the door!”You hear a motion as the barbarians block the door from the other direction, and soon after, a great heat and smoke as the stone house is burned. You hear a loud crashing throughout the night, but eventually the heat dies down. In the meantime, you are sated by the wine barrels within the cellar, and the old seed grain that can still be had. Time passes, until you are sure they are gone. You unbar the door, but find a mess of ash and blackened wood. You push against it, but find it totally caved in and collapsed.“Hello? Open the way! Let me out! Anyone? Hello!!!”
It seems the horrible barricade has fallen in on the doors, the ruins of the stone house and your studio burnt to ashes and blocked the way. Within the cellar you are now trapped. For days and weeks you pound at the doors, breathing in the heavy ash as silence greets you. You can almost see the sunlight from just beyond, but are perpetually blocked from it. The cellar that was your protection now becomes your tomb! As the rats gnaw at you, and rainwater comes in, your remains slowly decay along with the only known volume of the Legendarium Historium, eventually its words become illegible and are lost forever. For many years later, this hill-fort ruin becomes a haunted place, where none come near in fear of the vengeful ghosts who may dwell in the ruins. Some even say that a voice asking to be freed can be heard from deep within the burnt and ashen ruin...
...But this is not your fate. For this is not truly you. Away from this sad place; away from the hill-forts and their chainmaille clad warriors, across misty marshes, past dark clusters of trees that make up the Middenmurk comes a lone figure. She comes from the way of the dry moors, over the daunting Centerran mountains, and the fuming hot jungles that no human expedition has been able to conquer! These jungles were once her home, and she has come farther then she has ever been to the north and west to lands unseen in an unshakable search.This is you.It has been long since you rested. The hour grows short as night falls, shading the land in an evening hue as you hurry your pace. Soon you will come to a town. The marsh-grass gets taller and taller as you enter the Middenmurk proper, soon swallowed up by it. You find the act of walking on two legs exclusively very strange, still getting used to not going about on your knuckles and climbing this way and that to get anywhere; the “road” is new to you.Oh, and your ears! You must tuck them away under your hood before anyone sees. Your terrible tattered rags and useful sackcloth, taken from a few corpses you found along the mountain pass, are your only item of the civilized world you have. After all, you only learned about it a few days ago. Ahead, you see the land change, flattened fields, and lights in the far distance.This is your first time you will interact with people. You know well enough to hide yourself due to your... unique appearance. But unfortunately, your rags cannot cover every inch of greenish skin, or your tiny stature. You decide to assume a sort of identity at a glance, which will hopefully help you blend in with the throngs of humankind a little easier.>Old Crone: Add a hunch and a hoarseness to your voice>Diseased: Steal a bell from one of the farm animals and pretend to be some leper>Foreigner: Perhaps you be some pygmy far off cousin of humanity. It wouldn't be far from the truth.>Priest: Some Hill-Men paint themselves blue. Maybe some far off mystic paints themselves green?>Confidence: You care not for what they think of you. It is no longer in your nature to cower.>Other (Write-In)
>>6434088>Old Crone: Add a hunch and a hoarseness to your voice
>>6434088>Priest: Some Hill-Men paint themselves blue. Maybe some far off mystic paints themselves green?
>>6434088>Old Crone: Add a hunch and a hoarseness to your voiceNot as presumptuous or threatening as a foreign priest, nor as likely to be chased off as a leper or foreigner.
>>6434088>Diseased: Steal a bell from one of the farm animals and pretend to be some leper
>>6434088>Old Crone: Add a hunch and a hoarseness to your voiceSeems most likely to be successful; Diseased comes with problems getting in places, and foreigner/priest are too at risk of falling victim to ethnic or religious prejudice.
>>6434088>>Confidence: You care not for what they think of you. It is no longer in your nature to cower.
>>6434088>Confidence: You care not for what they think of you. It is no longer in your nature to cower.
>>6434088>Confidence: You care not for what they think of you. It is no longer in your nature to cower.Reigan Arataka type shit
Perhaps an elderly crone? Maybe, but that wouldn't explain your skin color, nor how could you travel so far. You briefly consider not a disguise at all, but such wandering eyes and questions would no doubt plague you. Perhaps it is best to invoke the superstitions of the common man. You make up something impressive sounding, just as someone bursts from the tall grasses just besides you.”YOU DARE ACCOUST A WORSHIPPER OF THE-”He ignores your quiet voice and runs after his friend; the red-faced child holding a stick and playing knights until mother calls them in for supper. Well, now you feel a bit foolish. Collecting yourself, you continue on to the sleepy village.As with most of the Midden; the people here are white-skinned, with freckles, light hair that comes out in matted flat layers, wearing breezy simple tunics and long wrapped trousers to keep the bugs off. The colors were simple and dull, but these are common farmers with well-worn and sun bleached clothes; you don't expect the greatest of luxuries. They live in simple Wattle and daub huts with thatched roofs, though some are long houses of higher standing, with wooden doors and slated windows. The whole of the place is built among crisscrossed hills with taller and taller grasses at the low places where the hills meet and water collects; feeding into fertilized strips of land growing all manner of grain crops. Sheep are being brought in from the hills by the shepards now; guided by fences of woven brambles and wicker and prodded on by sling stones. Finally, you come to the main road of the village, the least muddy one, and come across a very fat pig.The pig sits by the side of the road. You look to the left and right, and see no farmer chasing it, nor pen where it was set to wallow. No bell or ring is set in its nose either. It has no fear of you, and simply stares on lazily. Then you realize more are nearby, sitting or laying in a polite and orderly line outside the biggest building in the town, the tavern, from which a delicious smell wafts. You find this very strange, but after all, you don't know much about pigs. You enter within to find the tavern keeper, his son nearby bussing tables and hard at work.
”Ho! Tavern keeper, feed this hungry pilgrim!” You put on your best voice of confident madness, as befitting those most devoted to jealous Gods. You shake a collection of stones in your hand to imply divining bones.“Pilgrim? Erhm...” He eyes you up and down. “...If you wish for alms, you will have to wait until after dinner. Though I am afraid there may not be any left after we feed the pigs.””Fattening them up for the future takes precedence over feeding a priestess today?”“Oh no.” He balks. “We can't, uhh, we don't eat the pigs. You said you were on a pilgrimage? What God would I be serving by feeding you... exactly?””The Great Green Forest God!”“If you be servant of a forest god, yet ye come from the South? Does your God not know that the greatest trees in all the world are to the North & West? The great redwoods of the Kodi with squirrels as big as a wolf and twice as ferocious?””Why do you think I am on pilgrimage? But enough! I do not beg for Mankind's charity. Will this suffice?”From your small sack, you bring forth a small bright red jewel. While pulled from the stone and washed clean of dirt, it is uncut and in its most natural form. The merchant takes it from your hand gingerly, holding it close and eyeing it in the light, clearly desiring it. You know you are overpaying him, but the exact value of coin has not been revealed to you.“For this? Oh yes... Sit. It is almost time.”
Within an hour, the cooking of the day is completed. Various dishes, sides, and meals are distributed out among the paying customers of the tavern. Naturally, given the nature of your payment, you were served first and you were served everything.Freshly cooked wheat bread, white from the fine grain, along with butter. He leaves the best loaf on your table. Heady and warm soup of barley, hearty cabbages, and chicken meat in a stock that was boiled with the bones of chicken and lamb for hours to release the flavors, topped with aromatic herbs. Strong and fine wine poured into the best cup; though he would have left you the whole skin you refused, as you do not yet know how the drink will effect you. You take an experimental bite of the small hand pie meant for desert, still wrapped in a cloth, nearly burning your tongue. The piping hot pie is filled has a cherry filling, mouthwateringly sweetened with honey and its crust flaked with a tiny dash of expensive imported cinnamon.As the Middenmen wish to leave nothing to waste, your main course is served on a trencher. The hollowed-out piece of stale bread is the perfect vessel for slices of freshly cooked lamb, stewed with the sugar-grass and fine swamp vegetables, the delectable pieces of meat are stabbed through with long thin wooden stakes to make eating the meat easier, and to save the fingers from its juices. You know after the meal, this well-soaked serving dish will be thrown to those very patient, polite pigs waiting outside this very tavern. For some reason, this irritates you, but you cannot articulate why.You eat. You have never tasted anything like this before in all of your short life. The raw ingredients and necessities of survival of your past days fade away; you'll take only the great works produced in kitchens from now on, thank you very much. You'll gladly be spoiled if it's like this. You are not used to being truly full, to not have some vague gnawing hunger in the back of your mind at all times, so you take care as to not eat yourself into sickness. It is still a welcome for your scrawny frame.You are so preoccupied with your first taste of the wonders of the civilized world that you hardly notice the interested figure on a far away table look over, get up, and take a closer look at your bountiful feast. You don't realize until later it's actually the bag of gemstones you left aside carelessly that drew him closer; you not yet having learned the instinct of the civilized to protect and hide one's valuables. As he comes closer to your gems, your instinct picks up by a low growl that he can't hear in the smoke and noise-filled tavern. Reflecting on this event in the future, you think it was more a food-aggression instinct from your primal side that came out here. The meat fork is in your hands before he even made a grab for your precious stones.
He withdraws his hand with a yelp of pain with two new bloody holes within it, the wounds shallow and not serious, but enough to draw attention as two fellows stand up. You see him step back to nurse his hand, with his two fellows almost ignoring him in favor of punishing you for your resistance. They stand with axe and cudgel; weapons they had no time to grab, as if waiting for trouble.The injured fellow twists, you now seeing the boar-tusk talisman hanging from his neck. He grabs it with his non-injured hand, shaking it at you. The low voices and sounds of feasting and drink have completely stopped, all eyes have turned to you, standing on the chair so you can be closer to eye level with the bullies.“Midget Bitch! What are you doing!? Do you see this? I am a member of the Order of the Tusk! We do as we please!”“Yeah! Our order rules the Midden!””I was only interested in those gemstones! But now, filthy wench, I will have to punish you.”“She injured your hand, so its only fair you take one of hers.””Ah! That's the lowest price one can pay to insult a member of my order. Which hand are you losing tonight, you heathen? Left or Right?””...Alone, you are fools. But together, your stupidity multiplies to levels unimaginable. I was not prejudiced; I gave the benefit of the doubt that your entire village was not stocked to the brim with the most ignorant and foolish of yokels and simpletons. You are making a great effort in proving me wrong however.””Huh? What is she saying? Bite your tongue, you dumb whore!” He draws forth his knife from its sheath.“Foolish traveller! No mortal man crosses the Order of the Tusk and still lives! Do you hear me? BEG FOR YOUR LIFE!”Believing themselves stronger then you, the predatory young men of the village seek to take advantage of your small size, your lack of companions, and the fact you appear completely defenseless. How many other travelers have been stolen from by these thugs? You drop the meat fork on the table, it will serve you no good at this point. In a physical contest, you are no match for them. They could easily overpower you with or without a weapon; you are as a child to them, and the difference in your sex as well. But this was their mistake in choosing you to be their next victim. You raise your hands and breathe out in concentration, the sound altered resonantly, akin to a wind blowing over an empty bottle of glass. The lights reflect weirdly in your eyes. You are no primitive, nor ascetic, nor victim. You are a Sorceress!>Transform the wooden skewers of your dinner into venomous snakes with a spell of INANIMATE LIFE!>Conjure forth the LIGHTS OF FASCINATION to control their foolish minds!>Strike them with flying knives controlled by the UNSEEN HAND!>Goad him to strike you only to turn it back on himself with the power of your MIRROR WARD!
>>6434582>Transform the wooden skewers of your dinner into venomous snakes with a spell of INANIMATE LIFE!Sticks to Snakes represent!
>>6434582>Transform the wooden skewers of your dinner into venomous snakes with a spell of INANIMATE LIFE!
>>6434582>Transform the wooden skewers of your dinner into venomous snakes with a spell of INANIMATE LIFE!Muahahaha!
>>6434582>Conjure forth the LIGHTS OF FASCINATION to control their foolish minds!Call us dumb, will you?
>>6434582>Conjure forth the LIGHTS OF FASCINATION to control their foolish minds!
>>6434582>Goad him to strike you only to turn it back on himself with the power of your MIRROR WARD!
>>6434582>>Transform the wooden skewers of your dinner into venomous snakes with a spell of INANIMATE LIFE!
>>6434582>Conjure forth the LIGHTS OF FASCINATION to control their foolish minds!We'll want the Skewer-Steaks with us as stores, we have no use for these Bozos.
>>6434706You may vote however you wish but I just want to say this is not the type of quest where you need to conserve a bunch of shishkebabs you used at dinner to cast an extremely specific spell five prompts down the line lol
>>6434582>>Transform the wooden skewers of your dinner into venomous snakes with a spell of INANIMATE LIFE!Power word : get rekt Steve Irloss
>>6434706Anon, there are more sticks outside, they just leave them on the ground everywhere for free. Bigger sticks, even. We could go get one after this.
>>6434582>Transform the wooden skewers of your dinner into venomous snakes with a spell of INANIMATE LIFE!Moses and Tulsa Doom got nothing on us.
Working on the update now. This one will be a little later then usual.
You take into your hands the wooden skewers. The fact you went for them instead of the knives on the table fills your aggressors with playfulness; they don't attack you immediately. Perhaps if they did, it would have saved them. You pull back your arm as if to throw them, your final warning, and the boys do not retreat.“Well? Beg!”You loose them forward, a changing in the air ripples through the stakes, fattening and softening as they go forward. By the time they reach the one with the boar talisman and his knife, they have already become alive.”Wha- AH!!!!”With a simple gesture, you have transformed the once lifeless sticks into writhing serpents, whose long fangs drip with venom. They bite, crawling over the boys and biting into hands, feet, and necks. The one with the axe jumps back, trying to cut one snake's head off as he smacks the floorboards, missing the second that bites him in the back. Small bleeding wounds are nothing compared to the venom now flowing into their veins. You stand back, no longer able to control the serpents anyway, they simply do what is natural to them when made defensive by large and rapidly-shifting mammals. They jump up with their feet, gnashing their teeth from the painful bites, one uses a chair to try and avoid reach, but falls from dizziness into the remaining vipers, who make from dark corners and holes in the tavern to escape to, or crawl from the cracked window to return their swampy element.”AHAHAHA!” You laugh maniacally at the destruction you caused. ”Next time, dumplings in the soup turned to draining leeches?! Or a cloud of dust and crumbs made into wasps and biting, stinging ants? Fools!”Turning and running, the boys make a break for it. Scared away by the sudden appearance of the vipers, the other tavern goers also jump onto their chairs and tables, or run for the door. It is not long the boys are outside, mistakenly jumping and yelling, circulating the venom throughout their bodies in blind panic. This leaves you alone and at peace once more. But by morning comes, the bullies who harassed you will be found with blackened veins, mouth filled with foam, dead.
You sit and eat the rest of your meal in silence. The tavern is empty, no doubt the villagers spreading word about your sorcery. The only ones brave enough to approach are the tavern keeper and his son, who tiptoe closer with their eyes all on the floor, looking for the asps you conjured.”...Worry not. They will have turned back into their true selves by now, or hidden in a hole, or eaten by a hunting bird. I do not know where they go.”“Erhm... High Priestess of the Great Green Forest God.” He says nervously, clasping his ring-wearing hands, shifting the fabrics of his expensive blue tunic. “A-Are you staying this night?””I was hoping to.”“We just, uhh, simply don't want to offend your God... Does the fire offend him? Or the metal? We'll put it out. W-We are not of the Order of the Tusk! We swear it. We serve the Midden's Gods, we swear, but we can give yours his credit, i-if your holiness demands?””You seem not to care much for this Order either.”“W-We mortals must serve whichever power is at hand. W-We did not know your God was so close! N-No human sacrifice is required to amend this situation, I h-hope?”You roll your eyes. No God would perform an act so obvious. At least, none that you have ever heard of has. But that was your assumed identity. Now they tiptoe around the appeasement of your fake supernatural patron. Clearly, they worry of another act of “divine wrath”, perhaps it would be best to come clean. Though then again, you could always try to take advantage of their fear as well.>Demand your gem back as recompense for the attack you suffered under his roof>Come clean and tell him of your origin>Tell him nothing and ask to be let to rest alone>Other (Write-In)
>>6434960>Other (Write-In)>"Should I expect that more of these tusk-bearing buffoons may come looking for trouble? They claimed authority in this area. I seem to have vacated your establishment of patrons, it would be a shame to fill it with corpses."
>>6434960>Tell him nothing and ask to be let to rest alone
>>6434960>Tell him nothing and ask to be left to rest alone
>>6434962+1
>>6434960>Come clean and tell him of your origin
>>6434960>>Demand your gem back as recompense for the attack you suffered under his roof
>>6434962+1, and once we have our answer, most probably>Tell him nothing and ask to be let to rest aloneOr else move on if we anticipate trouble.
>>6434960>Demand your gem back as recompense for the attack you suffered under his roof
>>6434960>Tell him nothing and ask to be let to rest aloneWe obviously don't want to cause a fuss
>>6434960>Other (Write-In)Tell him not to worry, the human sacrifices have already been made.
>>6435243Switching to this. It's funny.
>>6435258>>6434970My ID randomly changed, so fuck me, I guess.
>>6435243kek
”I wouldn't worry about the human sacrifices.” You say, with a sadistic grin under your hood. ”They've already been made. But should I expect more trouble from the tusk-wearing buffoons? I am weary of discussing “theology” with them, and you would be weary of replacing more patrons with corpses.”“N-no! They come and go with the time and seasons. The one you ended was an initiate looking to push his weight around. You are a stranger and they will not know you, so you may stay here tonight. Most t-tavern goers sleep in the common room.” He says. “But not you. You'll be sleeping in the best room, of course. In my bed. My wife and son and I will sleep here in the common room.””As long as I can be alone and unmolested.”“The door bars from the inside. I will send a servant to wake you at a certain hour, if you wish. No, wait, sleep in as late as you like. Ha ha. Unless... W-What may we call you?””My name? The name I have chosen for myself... Biawak. That is my name.”Soon enough, you are within a furnished room with bed, closed door, away from prying eyes. You pull down your hood. You set no candles or fire as you don't need them to see in the dark, unlike the humans, the light from the moons is more then enough for you. You open the window a crack and see some leaves have fallen in from outside onto the floor. You pick one up and close your hand around it, and when you open your hand, a winged insect flies away. Your magic of transformation, of life where there is no life, seems easier then when you practiced it last. Those snakes were especially lively, and filled humans with much more fear then you expected.Needless to say, you are not yourself Human. You are a Goblin.
Though perhaps you would prefer to be called something else, like a Forest Child, or the far off Green-Gray Pygmy cousins of mankind; regardless of the name, your appearance sets you apart. You come from a hidden jungle, the Centerran jungles, of which no human expedition has fully managed to penetrate. Most humans do not know or believe Goblins exist, and you couldn't blame them. Your “people” have no civilizations, no inventions, no culture of any kind. It was but weeks ago you were an animal.Born to the world a young and blind pup, you clung to your mother-goblin who raised you in hollowed out logs and under stones with her milk, your green skin protecting you from the sight of the many dangerous and powerful predators of the jungle. You relied on her for everything; and learned the things you had to know from watching her. How to scratch in the dirt for bugs and grubs to eat, how to clean oneself with waters from the stream, to find the good trees to hide under and which whose roots mean death. One day, your mother never returned to the hollow you hid within, which meant it was time she decided to make your own way or she was killed by a predator, and ever since that day you have been totally alone. You went on living the way an animal lives. You spent your days foraging for food, and finding places to hide, and avoiding dangers, and learning things from seeing them. You suppose you were clever in the way a primate is clever, but there were no words or true thoughts, at least not in the way you had them now. The past and future were not concrete concepts. Your mind was one without form or language, simply moving between desire and emotion and instinct; usually around hunger, or sleep, or running beneath the great broad-leaf ferns as cover from the things that swoop down from the tree tops in that lethal canopy. You suppose you would have lived that way forever, a solitary survivor creature of an obscure species, totally alone. At least until the time came for you to find a he-goblin, you suppose. But that never happened, as a single incredible event changed the entire course of your life.You had no idea the jaguar was there. Only by a chance bustling of the leaves and your instinct of caution did you ever have a chance to survive. The big cat pounced after you, chasing you under the overgrowth of the jungle, until you slipped underneath an old tree's roots, into a chamber lined with smooth river stones. You remember the feeling of euphoria of escaping certain death, the wordless appreciation of the hiding place, but knowing the cat remained outside. You performed an animal calculus and knew you must stay here until it got bored or hunger forced it to find new prey, and so you set yourself to wait. Parched from your chase, you found a most curious pool underneath that old tree, a small depression of stone that held trapped water that had not filtered through the tree roots but instead had come up from an unknown source.
There are three kinds of magic springs known to the races of men. The first and most sought after is the spring of life, which returns vitality, youth, and healing to whomever drink it. The second is the troublesome spring of love, to which any who drink it will find the next time they feel attraction it is the deepest and strongest love they ever have felt. Most of these springs are tiny trickles from between mountain stones or flowing up from hidden aquifers, which only by sheer chance do not flow into rivers and lakes diluting their power to nothing. But the third kind of spring is the spring of brilliance, which fills the drinker with knowledge. You happened across one such spring, which had been collecting its magic waters for untold years without spilling or evaporating away, and only by sheer chance were you desperate enough to taste the off-smelling mineral well as you were parched from your chase.In the same way a man with thirst is instantly quenched from the first sip of cool water, so too you felt an instant expansion of your mind and facilities beyond which you could ever dream. The first sip endowed you with language. Suddenly, everything had a name, and a description, and words could be used to make with them and new names too; and you knew that the thing that chased you was a “cat” and it was “cat-like” in the way it was so silent. And the library within your mind grew instantly to know all of the words of mankind, though the names of places and peoples and local fare were too specific for this magic spring to tell you about. It was less so you were being taught or told something, corrupted by the biases of the speaker or long hours of diction, but moreso that apparent and ephemeral truth flooded your mind. With the second sip, you then knew of cause-and-effect, and instantly knew that the predators of your jungle did not magically appear from the gloom because you were being too loud or hadn't washed in too long; they were drawn to you from those actions, as in that they existed outside of your knowledge and immediate state of being, and that the whole world goes on with or without you, and to the dizzying understanding of sonder came as easily to you as a parched throat be quenched with the cool waters.And still, there was more to drink.
From the next sip, your practical and worldly knowledge seemed completed; mathematical concepts and engineering principles of things beyond your capacity to build or even understand the purpose of filled your senses. As you saw the lever and the arch and the screw and the mathematical concept of zero and the delta over time and the opportunity-cost and when the arguments of man become more about arguing over the definitions of words then what they really mean. And you suppose at this point you had become as a philosopher. Within each droplet of the spring a new epiphany dawned on you, and you felt as though your mind was expanding from impressions of things, as shadows filtering through trees, to seeing things as they were, to seeing things for what they are and could be and the comings and goings, and you felt as though your mind was a crystalline palace as you began to understand that all of reality is but an illusion to your perception, but if this illusion was shared by all beings, then those who most stabilize and make-happen the illusion must be the least willful of it to prevent the illusion from breaking. So there must be beings who are most core to the fake-real then even the higher beings of Gods and Spirits; and so you mentally coined these beings as the Principalities.And still, there was more to drink.You had moved from slurping the water with a craned neck to cupping your hands to scrapping the last mouthfuls with a small empty shell. Never in your life had your motivation been so immediate and clear, and never before had you dropped all pretenses of survival and observation of your surroundings to focus in on some goal. You cannot lie to yourself; this dizzying expansion of your mind was by far the greatest feeling you had ever had in your life, it was addiction and haunting to your core, and you truly believed in that moment in a dirty jungle hole you had become akin to an infinite being; and were one with stardust and math and the expanse of time itself. And you opened your hands and from them lights and colors and sensations and invisible movements like from what you see when your eyes are closed. But in the bottom of the basin remained one more tiny spoonful of liquid enlightenment, and holding out your hands in your first act of Sorcery you attempted to squeeze more water from the stones, but a tiny crack appeared in the basin, and the last of the waters slipped into the black bowels of the Earth.That was the first time you felt true regret. But why?>You could have reached higher echelons of power>What secret mystery you could have known>Your arrogance and pride cost you something precious>Other (Write-In)
>>6435288>What secret mystery you could have known
>>6435288>Other (Write-In)>You were smart enough to know that it would be a very long time before the spring ran full with water again, and your hubris will cost others the opportunity to share in this illuminated state; more than regret, we feel a sort of survivor's guilt - we will be the last Brilliant Mind for some time.
>>6435288>Your arrogance and pride cost you something preciousI know this feeling well.
>>6435292That's an interesting one, but I don't yet get a selfless vibe from us. Maybe I can +1 it if, underneath that is less guilt than>loneliness, because you will be the last Brilliant Mind for some time.>>6435288So that is my vote.
>>6435288>You could have reached higher echelons of powerJust think about how much more we could have become?
I also want to say I'm very happy with the players picking up on the arrogant/cunty characterization of the MC. I think it's a fun archetype.
>>6435291>>6435288switching to>You could have reached higher echelons of power
>>6435304Oh I like loneliness more than guilt! Changing my vote, +1 When I think of someone really intelligent, I think of them being kind and humble, though. I've known clever narcissists/assholes, but their intellect always limits just how well they can think critically. But maybe we were still a couple of drinks shy of figuring that part out LOL
>>6435321We didn't come by our knowledge honestly. Information and capacity to understand it just got dumped in our little goblin monkey-brain all at once. Give us time, and maybe we'll become truly wise.
>>6435288>Your arrogance and pride cost you something precious
