Episode 7. IP Adress
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Maltatai: In an efforst to appear more literary and stylish Askungen has requested to have her notes retold from a third person view. This to ensure a thrilled audience and annoyingly (for themselves) uninterrupting bowazons.
Askungen the Amazon aimed and hurled the throwing spear with perfect balance. It flew in a straight line right at the designated target that approached from behind a frozen rock. The fact that all javeling throws in the world were equally balanced and flawless did nothing to diminish the impressiveness of her skill. Her spear evaporated a terrible cloud that smelled suspiciously of spinach. The approaching mob of grinning demon coughed and fainted, green with nausea from the nearly completed poison javelin ability. With a terrifying battlecry the eager hired tour guide Ip rushed upon the falling minions of evil...opposition at least. An unbeatable valkyrie soon followed with a serene smile as she skewered the little devils in a most peaceful way.
Askungen viewed her valkyrie with a satisfied smile. She was summoned from her rune-imbued breastplate that resided in the cube in her invisible backpack. As the first Amazon of all to reach such a level of inner peace and personal development as was required to obtain the plate so early, even before any nightmarish world cataclysm, she felt qualified to deliver a smug smile to any bow-wielding kin they may come by.
Askungen: What is this?! I wanted something serious and epically dramatic!
Maltatai: And then of all possible candidates to tell the story you choose...
Askungen: Aaargh! Alright. But more seriousness from now on!
Maltatai: New chapter then.
Ip stepped through the glowing portal and onto the travelling ground of Harrogath. The familiar feeling of home and safety warmed him even as foul scents of burning wood and rotting demons drifted in from the Bloody Foothills outside the town. He looked ahead to watch the ever eager islander sprinting ahead to broker a new deal with Larzuk about the latest pile of loot taken from. Such an odd character in these lands and with such unusual ways. She fought like no northlander even came close to resembling with her spears that left a trail of stinking clouds, hurling them and darting away and around until the foe fell to the ground. It was monstrously effective over time.
The islander woman had come to Harrogath through mysterious means to say the least, given that the town was under siege and surrounded, but none could dispute her effectiveness as her little war band battled their way to Shenk himself. Ip had attempted the same but to his shame he had been overpowered and captured. It was a painful memory and one that he should not allow himself to forget. A northlander did not shy away from pain and hardship.
Shenks minions had tossed him into a crude pen along with a handful of other unfortunate comrades. There were so little to say about so many hours. Cold dirt, cold winds and leering imps shouting insults as the only entertainment day after day living on the smelly meat tossed inside that had probably seen better days.
It began with a rustling in the groups of surrounding demons. They looked south and then around, unsure of what was going on. Sharptooth, the jailer, crashed through a once barricaded doorway and began shouting something and pointing frantically with his whip. Something was amiss. One of the pens had been breached. Imps teleported in a blink and their plated mounts made the ground shake when they rushed past. An eerie green light rose slowly above the closest palisade and the smell that drifted towards the prisoners defied description. More demons gathered close to the fence when the nearby barred door exploded and an obscure figure burst through. There was a rushing sound and a flash of green light. Someone cried "Spenada Kedavra!" in a mockingly dramatic voice followed by the sound of someone else hitting an obnoxious mage that had made that comment. The Barbarians looked around uneasily. All demons had perished and the dark figure approached. It was now clear that it was the Green Lady herself and her foul followers, the Spinach Eaters!
The lady-who-must-not-be-blamed raised her spear triumphantly. From it's tip flew a jet of green cloudy light that formed into something. The green mark! It was...
Askungen: THAT IS IT! Straighten this up at once Maltatai!
Rödluvan: Hihihihihahaha!
Maltatai: Ahem, we return to the portal then. The pathetic little imp H...
Askungen: "Shoots stern glare at Maltatai"
Maltatai: ...Hobby...was in fact not pathetic at all and managed to escape the battles between imps and adventurers and lived happily ever after in a burrow made out of a large hollow tree trunk lying in a sandy mound in a peaceful part of Sanctuary far away from here. The slimy imp Harry did on the other hand teleport from his lookout place to the entrance to the ice caves where Thresh Socket was waiting with the imp-erial cave entrance guard. He reported as soon as he had arrived: "The prison cages have fallen. Sharptooth is dead. They are coming.".
Askungen: MALTATAI!
Rödluvan: Mwaaahahahaha!
Snövit: Zzzzz...hm.
Rödluvan: Wake up. It wasn't that boring.
Snövit: Yaaawn...hm...it was very rude to end the storytelling just like that. What happened next? I mean after the invaders were coming? No storyteller should ever be allowed to finish abruptly like that.
Askungen: I can't believe how silly some people are. Imagine not even being able to tell a whole chapter before breaking apart in a cacophony of rebellious parody. Clearly Maltatai is the weed in the garden of the grassroot community.
Snövit: But what happened next, then?
Askungen: I, well, I managed to rescue the trapped Barbarians and decided to hire one as my hireling. That's pretty much it.
Rödluvan: Nonsense! Details! What's he like? What's his name? Does it work well with a melee hireling or is he daft like a town guard?
Askungen: Uhm, well, no actually. He's called Ip, which even Maltatai managed to remember to tell, and he is really quite...wonderful. He's very eager but not stupid like a town guard and follows quickly if we need to retreat. But he doesn't do bad in melee either, bashing and stunning our enemies so they can't retaliate as much. It's really quite a good complement to my poisoned javelins.
Rödluvan: I see...but what about the personality? Cold and condescending as the cold weather? Perhaps intolerant and ignorant as the archetypical small town Barbaric countryside stereotype? Or maybe brash and cocky self-styled teamleader?
Askungen: No! He's nothing like that! Ip's really tolerant...except towards demon armies laying waste to his home but I think that's understandable...and he LISTENS. He didn't interrupt me at any point when I explained about democratic meeting summoning procedure.
Rödluvan: Oh, really?
Askungen: Yes! And he really cares about ecological balance and all because the northlanders live on mostly barren wasteland with little resources so they must stay in touch with nature and not destroy anything needlessly and know all about plants and herbs that grow there! Not anything like some stupid mage who wants to burn down the forests or ignorant town guard that hasn't heard of the spider danger.
Rödluvan: Those, yes. It must be such a relief to be able to cower behind a steady and well-muscled back of a dear companion, isn't it?
Askungen: Well...yes... But the correct term is hireling or mercenary.
Maltatai: You are aware that Rödluvan is only attempting to bait you to reveal as much as possible about how you think and feel about Ip by feigning ignorance on the subject and asking provocative questions?
Askungen: What? No, she wouldn't... would she?
Rödluvan: Maltatai, you are a horrible human being. I shall also now prove you wrong. Askungen, would it please you to kindly relay the various monster slaying quests and adventures that you and your adventuring party members may have undertaken after you hired the northlander Ip as your mercenary?
Askungen: Of course. First we rescued Anya, the daughter of the eldest wise guys, from the icy caves where she had been held prisoner.
Snövit and Rödluvan: I know! Those are so nice, arent they? You can shoot in all directions and use your leeching to pinpoint where the enemy is and then take them out from afar and...
Telash: "echoes from far away" Get on with it!
Askungen: Actually, that was no viable tactic at all. Poison javelin has a cast delay and I also have far too few spears to waste any on scouting. Additionally, my chances to hit things are not impressively high but I'm working on my inner sight to fix that. A better tactic is to find a narrow passage where my side can hold antagonists for a while and I hurl spinach at their reinforcing ranks.
Anya, in any case, had been imprisoned by the dictatorial Nihlatak. He usurped the position of minister of foreign affairs most unjustly, with no informing of the rest of the Harrogath government, which may be understandable since they were all dead, but also without any kind of consent from the constituents! Obviously that was quite unacceptable and we paid the jerk an impolite visit which ended with us appointing him permanent ambassador of Harrogath in the Burning Hells, starting immediately.
Unfortunately, the popular assembly of the town was overruled by some sort of Security Council of Grumpy Old Men. They summoned my party to a summit meeting where they expected us to answer for our outrageous acts of disobedience. I was however equally outraged by the lack of respect for proper procedure. How hard can it be to write a proper summoning with all the relevant background and list the points you wish to discuss? And if it is too hard, how impossible can it be to get a necromancer summoner to do it for you as a consultant? It's not like summoners are not the most common subcategory of that lot.
But no, nothing of that had any importance because us younger people don't matter as much and we are just incompetent and lazy and everything was better and more impressive and respectable in their days bla bla bla! To hell with them! Give our regards to Nihlatak. Ip was even so mad at Korlic for berating me that he grabbed said ancient by his collar and threw him into the altar at one point!
After that we thought, understandably, that we would have a bit of peace.
Maltatai: Which you had. An armour piece, to be precise. A breast plate to be even more precise.
Askungen: I meant piece and quiet as a setting and general way of things! Serenity!
Maltatai: I think your valkyrie could help with that. She seems quite peaceful. Isn't it time to introduce her by the way?
Askungen: I would if some people could just shut it and not interrupt me all the time. Her name is Kaylee in any case. She is summoned from some sort of divine firefly skyship vessel thing that Athulua had built as an experimental unit long ago. It is crewed by valkyries and emits northern light when it flies across the skies. Kaylee does in any case handle the propulsion which is somehow magically powered, I think. She is very kind and endearing and says really funny things sometimes. Also fond of finding new outfits so she appears in different armours most times when summoned.
And as I said before the cascade of interruptions washed over us we expected some peace and quiet but Baal the disfigured crab mutant willed otherwise and reached out with lightning attacks and poison cloud attacks whenever we stood still too long in one spot. The poison clouds were amateurish at best but still! What an insult and satirising parody of the grassroot community!
Down we went to root up that weed and send it back to the Hellish pile of fertilizer ot once sprung forth from! We battered our way through the Worldstone Keep until we stood before the leering demon at the basement. Then he summoned foreign monsters in waves. Among those were the cursed and cursing Achmel whose army fell to a single plague javelin and who himself was cursed by me after Baal had cursed us for standing too close to his cursed minon and shouting a curse at him. Ip hacked him apart piece by piece. The biggest monsters were annoyingly resistant but luckily I had the melee party members for the job anyway.
The battle against Baal himself began oddly. I threw poison javelins at him and retreated to the other side of the Worldstone Chamber. It was relatively safe but so sloooow. It was as if someone had manipulated the world to make it take eight times as long as it should!
Maltatai:
Askungen: Baal was quite dangerous. He cloned frequently and struck very hard. Kaylee could stand against that kind of without too much trouble but even with the aid of a wand of life tap Ip was almost slain dozens of times. Still he never wavered and never ceased shielding me as best as could be done...why are you suddenly smiling like that Rödluvan?
After the lord of destruction had fallen this silly angel appeared again. I was startled when he appeared right behind me and whirled about and threw a javelin before I had time to see who it was. The angel said that the worldstone had been corrupted by Baals touch and we all were too late. He was most unclear when it came to the exact nature of how Baal had blocked him from coming into the place earlier and actually do some substantial helping. But he promised to throw his sword into the worldstone and destroy it to prevent further corruption. I nodded to him and left.
Rödluvan: "facepalm"
Snövit: "facepalm"
Rödluvan: Alright, maybe it will work out still... But NOW it would be really interesting to meet this fabulous mercenary of yours!
Askungen: What, now? Can't that wait a bit? I probably don't look too presentable enough sufficiently...
Maltatai: What's the matter Askungen? You travelled and slew monsters together for almost a whole Act before. You should know how to recognize each other by now.
Askungen: Yes but that's not the same thing! When you murder monsters all the time you are supposed to look bloody and sweaty and dirty because it's part of the job and you never really look closely at each other because you are always watching for new ambushes and stray boss packs. You just never really look at each other in THAT way.
Maltatai: Previously described observations regarding said northlander mercenary suggest otherwise. Unless of course master Ip would be gifted with a striking lack of perception hitherto deemed unthinkable given the information divulged about him?
Askungen: Of course not! Oh dear...I must have looked terrible!
Maltatai: I'm sure you did not...except to the enemies of course.
Askungen: Let's just go and do something else for the moment...I just remembered I have some material maintenance to do...oh no, is this rust stains!? And the boots...
Rödluvan:
I can see what's happening.
Askungen: What?
Rödluvan:
And she don't have a clue.
Askungen: Who?
Rödluvan:
She'll fall in love and here's the bottom line: the trio's down to two.
The casual talks as allies
The sweet camaraderie
And with all this successful atmosphere
Disaster's in the air
Can you feel the smell tonight?
The scent that spinach brings
The veggie soup, in perfect harmony
With all it's greeny things
Askungen:
So many things to tell him
But oh, dear, look at me
To go ahead like this? Impossible!
He'd turn away from me
Rödluvan:
She's holding back, she's hiding
Unable to decide
Why won't she be the dame I know she is
The dame I see inside?
Can you feel the scent tonight?
The peace the evening brings
The salad and, the fruit and berry drinks
With all nutritious things
Can you see yourself tonight?
You really look alright
Why must you part, just 'cause the job is done?
Just go and grab your (k)night!
And if they fall in love tonight
It can be assumed
That one might just happen to overhear...
Their privacy is doomed
Maltatai: By the name of the leaf and the conifer cone! This is "The Misadventures of Two Untwinked Javazons", not some confused soap opera! "Sigh", here we go: will Askungen dare tell Ip how she feels? How will he react? What is the other team doing meanwhile? Has Tyrael really managed to hit the stone this time? Does Kaylee have any memorable well wishes for Askungen beginning with "Have good..."? Look for the answers in the next episode.
And NO, the name will not be changed to "Valkwatch" or "Spearverly Hills" or "Foes" or "Javazon: Blood and Spinach". Seriously, what a silly thought. Over and out.