Journals of Xylia Elain

[Kai]

As some of you may know I attend a tabletop rpg group on Monday nights where we're play testing the rpg that my husband and I have been building together for the past few years. I try to take this rp very seriously and one of the things I do to help me stay in character is to write journals from the character's perspective after each session. I'm rather proud of these journals and thought maybe you guys would enjoy hearing the story as it unfolds.

I'll be posting a new one of these each week, but before we start here's a few a little background information on the character and the setting.

Photo of Xylia Elain
Setting Map

Her name is Xylia Elain. Xylia being her family name and Elain being her given name. The setting is similar to Rome inhabited Israel around the time of Christ. Elain is from the Rome-esque empire called Etoru. She's the daughter of a respectable noble house there, and decided to deviate from her family's political path and become an archeologist. The deities of this world are the Terrahindoshi (essentially the Holy Trinity) and the Emperor of Shadows (Satan) and his seven Warlords of Darkness. Elain is fascinated with the mythology of the Terrahindoshi and follows them as her religion, thus granting her certain abilities, like prophecy, and the ability to cast some magic without requiring a roll (as in roll of the dice ^^; ).

The country the game takes place in is a geographical anomaly. Two of the fictional ores, conduit (a gemstone/crystal that's conductive towards the mystic energy that flows through out the world) and dalmiond (a gem/crystal that deflects magic/mystic energy), grow in close proximity to each other, which is highly irregular. Because of the nature of the two ores when kept close in large enough amounts it causes the streams of mystic energy to become erratic and chaotic. This area also suffers intense storms of magic, where pure mystic energy will rain down like comets and destroy everything it hits. The towns, however, rest on top of giant runes that form a protective barrier around the cities. These runes are so old and complex that nobody truly understands how they work.

Xylia is currently in a caravan entering the country from the North and heading towards a dig site on the Eastern side.

I'll be labeling the entries by the out of character date, for ease, and I'll need to be doing a bit of catching up, so maybe every four or five days I'll post a new one until we're caught up with where we are now.

This isn't exclusively for the journals so if you have comments about anything, or questions then please post them. :3

And now the journey begins...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
Date 8/22/11

The trip into Tiram was almost more trouble than I was willing to put up with. One of the families in our caravan died, and we had to go through dozens of replacement wheels. I can only pray that the artifacts I might find in this land will be worth it.
Seeing a storm on the horizon we stopped at the nearest settlement until it passes. While we were there I got more acquainted with Simon Twix and Gideon, two of the people I’d been traveling with on my trip into the country. Gideon seems…well rather absent most times, but Simon…there’s something about him that’s suspicious. Our caravan had bad luck from the moment he joined us, and when he told me he was a “purveyor of religious relics” so many red flags went up I almost didn’t know how to respond.

Read more: theriandiscovery.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=creativity&thread=176&page=1#4516#ixzz1Z2Ku5pAn

[Bulwark]

This seems like a really awesome RPG and I love the map, also its good to see some new races instead of the usual orcs,elves, humans etc. ^^

Oh and smart move on having the land made up for those two ores, I can imagine being Game Master in this might be fun "okay... lets roll... aww too bad folks, MAGIC METEOR OUT OF NOWHERE!! BOOM YOU'RE DEAD!!" or something like that xD

[Kai]

Bulwark: Oh yeah. I hate the generic fantasy 3. Aside from humans and kiteshi (kitsune race) all of the others are of original design. :3

Hehe, that is indeed able to happen. XD
And knowing my husband he might do it too if the conditions were right. He's done total party wipes before.

[Bulwark]

Kai: that is kinda mean xD haha... aaargh! I want to play tabletop RPG's too!! T_T

[Kai]

Bulwark: Mean but necessary. If players don't fear death enough then they start to get silly, and just irritating to other players. ^^;
I wish you could play too. It's social and role-playing, yaaay! XD
But I feel really lucky to have friends who play tabletop as well. I find that's the hardest thing for people is getting a decent group together to play.

[Bulwark]

Kai: Yea true, I've tried playing with a bunch of people where some just didn't take it serious, this was actually World of Darkness: Werewolf the Forsaken... and my pack didn't take anything serious whatsoever... so eventually my gift for acting kicked in and I started yelling and cursing and threatening them... and just like that I became the alpha! haha!!

But yea, it really is the hardest part, thats why I miss boarding school, I had my RPG group right next door and we had a whole classroom to use whenver we wanted to play ^^

[Kai]

Bulwark: Oh, I've played that one. So far of the big name published games Werewolf was my favourite. :3
Sadly though our GM was incapable of running a truly serious game, so it started out cool but eventually slid into total silliness. Especially once he told us that the tear in the veil we had to go through happened to be inside of a washing machine.

Oh, lucky. That sounds like it would have been nice. The friends I rp with are scattered about, but we all come together and meet in this room we reserve at the church every Monday (I know, tabletop rpgs in a church, and they allowed it O.o). but I'd really like to have more than just one session a week.

[Bulwark]

Kai: A washing machine? O.o oh dear... my GM was good at it back when we played it... actually one of our players died on the first day because he had 0 driving skill but decided to do it anyway, he rolled a critical fail and crashed into some woods where he got impaled on a large branch...

Must be one hell of an atmosphere then, playing in a church and all, but yea, funny that they don't go all berserk and tell you to take your devilworshipping games somewhere else

[Kai]

Bulwark: loool. I inepted in driving on my character too, but my character was a naturalist, preferring to live more feral and violently, so I was pretty okay. ^^
I hope no other characters were in the car with him though. XD

Yeah, I'm honestly a little surprised that we get to keep our room. Originally the group started as an art group, so that helped us get the room, but eventually it migrated to rpgs. I think it helps that the game my husband and I are building actually has Christian basis behind it, but I really kind of don't like playing in a church, cause I feel like I have to constantly watch what I say or do with my characters. =/

[Bulwark]

Kai: I played the same type of character mostly, during the two scenarios we played I was either a Hunters In Darkness og a Blood Talon hehe
And yea, the rest of the team was on the back of the car, it was a pickup, we just got tossed through the air, minor damages xD

Auch, yea I get you >_< just imagining having to watch out not to yell profanities would make me go crazy

[Kai]

Bulwark: It was a long time ago but I think I was a Blood Talon. I remember my character had a defect where if she didn't maim or kill something within a 24 hour period she would go into a killing frenzy. XD
That's good though the rest of the group only got minor damage. It'd be pretty mean if that oops cause a total party wipe.

Indeed. Profanities are one of my weaknesses sometimes. Some of them are pretty elegant sounding words too like, bastard. It just rolls of the tongue so smoothly. Which is exceedingly awkward because there are bastard swords in the game, so I always worry someone's gonna walk by the room while we're in combat and hear that.

[Kai]

Story Update

OOC Time 8/29/11

Thankfully early in the day the elk, Carl, who had been serving as our caravan guide, disappeared. I assume he simply left the town and we may never see him again, for which I am glad. The way he looked at you instilled a fear to rival the nefarious aligned.

I was sitting in the main room of the inn eating breakfast when I heard hooves outside, and it sounded like a lot of them. Peeking my head out I saw centurions rounding up the villagers, rather roughly, and gathering them in front of the inn. The a female leviksm-terran crossbreed who had traveled with us hid, but myself, Gideon and Simon went along with little fuss. They asked for our papers, I showed my citizenship papers and was let go. The rest of the towns people were then forced to pay everything they owned to these soldiers.

I tried standing up to the centurions using my position as a citizen, but the soldiers seemed oblivious as to who my family is. It must be due to how far away we are from the heart of the empire. At any rate they dismissed me, but a rustling and mumbling from the commander’s bag piqued my curiosity. I inquired about it and out of it he pulled a spry silver kiteshi who was bound, but still fighting fiercely. My heart went out to him I offered to buy him from the centurion commander and was glad when he agreed to a price I could afford.

Seeing that this kiteshi could be trouble I took him up to my room before unbinding him. He didn’t seem very grateful however, as he held me at sword point the moment he was free. I tried to explain that violence would only make solving the problem of the soldier’s brutality in a diplomatic fashion even more difficult, but he would hear none of it. Claiming to fight for the oppressed he charged out of my room.

Not long after he’d left Gideon peeked his head in and told me to get out of the inn. I’m not sure how he expected this of me though because no longer had he left when I heard a ruckus downstairs. The noise didn’t last long, but the silence afterwards was unnerving.
I left my room and the sight that greeted me as I went down the stairs made me weak. The centurion soldiers were all dead, one nearly decapitated. His neck still attached to his body by but a sliver of skin. The sight and the smell of blood was overwhelming. The silver kiteshi was sitting on one of the corpses looking rather proud of himself. I exclaimed my distress at the scene and angrily demanded words with him before retreating back to my room. The smell alone was making me faint but at the sight of so much blood I feared any longer and a stand still would have occurred.

It didn’t take the kiteshi long to reach my room and when he did I wasted no time in berating him for his actions. I know I shouldn’t expect a warrior to understand the finer points of politics but you would think this would be common sense. Causing violence towards the the nation in question and then pleading for assistance from them is just absurd. After a bit, though, he seemed to understand what he’d done. I’m relieved by this but I still fear he’ll bring me much trouble in the future. This incident, however, has made me aware of how truly dangerous these outer reaches of the empire can be. I beseeched the kiteshi, whom I later learned was named Alivir Valuse, to accompany me as an assistant to my work and as a body guard. I expected him to refuse me out right, but was surprised when he quickly he agreed saying “I can’t let a lady in need go unaided.” It seems this man abides by some code of chivalry after all.

Leaving the inn we discovered the centurion’s horses still tied to their posts. This is wonderful news. Trained war horses will not only speed up travel, but will make as a fine method of escape should we encounter something beyond our capabilities. I needed only to remove the imperial brand on its flank. With the assistance of the local medical practitioner I was able to put the horse under with chloroform which allowed me to remove the brand without sending it into a panic or causing extreme pain.

And with this we were ready to leave this town. Before we left, however, Gideon and Simon were smart enough to melt down the soldier’s armor and weapons, and then place the bodies out in the magic storm so that they would be destroyed by the mystic energy.
I hope the storm ends soon. I’m anxious to move on again. The Terrahindoshi are nudging me, telling me that this is not a place we should linger.

[Bulwark]

Kai: Awesome story so far facinating to say the least ^^ hehe

(previous post)
Yea that would have been a dick move if he did, but luckily not... I have a problem with profanities myself really, I don't really use the elegant ones so to speak, but rather the very harsh, anger filled, downright nasty ones, like %#&¤ mother%¤&"#¤ dip#%¤& &#%"hole ¤%#/ faced #%¤&nugget

[Kai]

Indeed, I was really happy when I got Alivir. ^.^
And you guys haven't even read the journal where the big baddies show their faces yet.

I actually have a hard time with the f-bomb. The word is just awkward for me mouth to form. B's and S's seem to come of my tongue much more easily. I try to keep myself in check when I'm in public, but lately I've been slipping up, because of how rarely I leave the house. XP

[Kai]

OOC Time 10/1711

With Simon still missing we each left the inn to look around for him so we could leave. I started in some of the residential areas, knocking on doors and asking if he’d come by but no one had seen him. I then headed to the town square to see if he was there. It wasn’t terribly busy, a few clusters of people chatting, some travelling between shops. As I was walking through the center a few terran, and human children ran past me, roughly. I assumed they were playing some sort of game and let it slide, but then a larger karesh adolescent came running after them and pushed me out of his way roughly.

I stumbled and ended up tripping over the stone wall of the well, falling in. The fall felt like it took forever, and when I hit the cold water at the bottom I began to fall as though it was nothing. I panicked thinking I was going to die, then my flailing hand caught a jutted rock on the side of the well and I used it to climb up to the surface.

I never thought the phrase “a breath of fresh air” could be taken so literally until this moment. I crawled along the wall until I found a ledge leading out of the water. This wasn’t merely a well, it was a room with a large pool of water in the center. It was dark, but in the very faint light I could make out three figures. Then I heard voices and realized these three were my travelling companions. I found out that the two human males, Dante and Gideon, had been purposely pushed down here by an angry human woman, whom apparently they had offended by mistaking for a man. I never found out how Melodi ended up down here, I know only that she did.

Shivering we asked each other if anyone had any sort of lighting on them so we could see where we were. None of us had anything, not even so much as a torch, so I took the opportunity to use some of my magic. Casting lumascention on the room around us I was able to alter the lighting level to that of twilight, allowing us to see things a little better.

Looking up the well, I found I had fallen quite a ways, and the water into which I fell was at least thirty meters deep. The room we were in was decent enough size to where we weren’t all cramped together, and had a fair amount of room to move about. There was a door in one of the walls made of smoothed stone that appeared to slide rather than swing open.

It was obvious we wouldn’t be able to climb out of this place so as a group we pressed forward.

We opened the door and entered the next room, but my lumascention spell only affected the room we were in previously, and my mental energy was almost spent so I implored the Terrahindoshi to grant me strength enough to provide light to the group, going back into the first room I looked around the ground for something to rune with light. Wonderfully, sitting near the edge of the water, I found a small chunk of amethyst that someone had discarded. With this I was able to use the wonder working faith that the Terrahindoshi had given me to rune this small gem with the element of fire, causing it to burn with a perpetual flame. ((Elain is unable to be burned by the flames since she is the spell caster))

Now with a light source I went back into this new room and we were able to see four small skitter statues. In my studies I learned that skitters are the ancient descendants of the skidder race. They are half the size, standing around six inches tall and are known for stealing anything, regardless of whether or not the object is literally bolted to the floor, as well as their immunity to fire, which they share with the skidder race.

Each statue was life size and appeared to be made out of a smooth black material, similar to obsidian. Other than the statues this room looked almost identical to the one we had just left. Large stone walls, a little damp, and an average height to the ceiling. On the left and right wall was each a door like the one we had just come through. The boys went to check them and found both to be locked.

Seeing the statues, however, made me suddenly remember tales of a cult that would incorporate these types of things in a sort of puzzle to protect things, or use as an initiation trial for new members, and they always relied heavily on the use of these statues, playing off of the traits that the image depicted represents. Rather than sharing the knowledge with the others in the group I thought I knew what had to be done. Skitter were aligned with the element of fire, so I went forward and touched one of the statues with my flaming amethyst, but nothing happened.

Embarrased by my failure I shared what I knew with the group. We brainstormed idea for a while on what we would have to do to proceed and then I had another idea. Skitter were also known for thieving, so I took one of the six inch statues, putting it in my bag. Dante took one, and actually left the room, throwing the statue into the pool of water before coming back. I still don’t know why he did that. Gideon then took the two remaining statues.

Once we had taken them we heard a click from the door to the right, and it slit open.
Moving into the next room we found a tall statue of a creature called a decrepit knight. A creature which resembles an often rusty knight in full plate armor, minus the helmet, possessing three faces on it’s head. The one that faced forward wore an angry expression on it’s face. The face on the left side of it’s head (our right) wore an embarrassed expression, and the face on it’s right wore a perverted expression, which was rather unsettling.

Gideon was first into the room and when myself and the other two entered we found him feeling up the knight’s chest, while gazing at the perverted face. I don’t think I even want to know what was going on, the whole thing was incredibly awkward. Again like the last this was a damp stone room, but this time there was one door on the wall to our right and one on the back wall.

The men went immediately to brainstorming more ideas and fiddling around with the doors, and trying ot move the statue, like we did with the skitters, while Melodi and I simply studied the knight, thinking. It was then that she suggested we try turning the knight. She and I moved forward and took charge. To my surprise the knight did turn. We moved it ninety degrees counter clockwise so that it faced the door that had been on our right. We heard another click and watched as the door opened.

Light flooded in from this next room. In each of the four corners there as a rather large torch bolted to the wall, and in the middle was a big ornate standing brazier, which appeared to be made out of bronze, and burned with a tall flame. After only a few minutes near the center brazier my mane and clothes dried, as did my party members’. It didn’t’ take long upon entering this room for me to figure out what to do.

I took the small skitter statue out of my pack and gingerly placed it in the fire. The moment the flames touched the statue it become so hot I could no longer hold it, and had to drop it into the bowl of flames. Gideon followed suit by adding his two statues to the fire, but there was no click to signify that we had unlocked the door at the back of the room.

My ears pricked as I heard a hissing sound coming from what sounded like another room. We followed the noise and ended up back in the first room with the pool of water. Only this time there was no water to be found, instead there was steam everywhere. It was so thick it was hard to see, and I started to get dizzy. Dante looked down into where there use to be water and said it was dry, and there was a ladder going all the way to the bottom.

He and Gideon took to climbing down the ladder to get the statue Dante had thrown down, while Melodi and I stayed at the top. After my initial experience I wanted nothing to do with that pit. They weren’t down there long before they came back up with the statue wrapped up in a cloth. As if by magic, once the statue was removed water began filling the hole again. I can only assume there is some underground source feeding into it.

We took the statue back to the room lit by flames and added it to the brazier with the others. As expected we heard a click and sliding sounds as the door at the back unlocked.

This room too was unusual. It was larger than the others and in the center of it was a smallish oak tree, and though there looked to be a ceiling natural light was somehow being emanated from it. In the corners of the room were four pedestals, each with an item on it. Who held books, one a sword and another some form of instrument. Gideon moved to take the sword, Melodi the instrument and Dante and I each took a book. The one I claimed contained instructions that would teach me a few new rune spells, I’m excited to get started on it.

Apart from the items there seemed to be nothing in this room so we all backtracked into the fire room. We were surprised to find that the door leading from the fire room to the knight room was closed and locked. We each tried different things. Gideon tried to remove the statues, but anything that touched the fire got too hot to touch almost instantly. While everyone sat and thought I went back to have another look at the tree.

Upon closer inspection I saw a small hole about 7 feet of the ground that looked like it might have been a squirrel’s home. I stood on my back legs and jumped a little to see what was in it. I got a brief glance of what appeared to be opals. I jumped again and this time reached in and grabbed the item. It was opal alright, but not just a gem. It was a pair of opalescent tongs. Their purpose was obvious. I took them back and was easily able to remove the skitter statues from the fire and placed them at it’s base. This caused the door to the tree room to close and door to the knight room to reopen.

We went inside and turned the knight to face the door we hadn’t checked, but nothing happened. The door to the fire room remained open. We were stumped. We spent a good portion of an hour trying to figure out why the door wouldn’t open. It was finally a nudging from the Terrahindoshi that caused me to have an idea. I remembered that the statues were often used throughout the trial. I asked Melodi to help me and together we carried all four statues into the knight room. Trying again, we turned the statue to face the door we hadn’t entered before and it opened. It must be that the skitter statues need to be in the same room as the knight for it to work.

The opened door led to a long dark hallway, at the end of which we found yet another black skitter statue. Other than this there was nothing here, so we took the statue, then turned around and brought it back to the knight room. Having explored every location so far we turned the knight to go back to the room where we had first found the skitter statues to explore what was through the other door. Once there it was again a matter of figuring out how to open it. We tried positioning the statues, but didn’t really see any mechanisms that might do something like in the other rooms.

Then Dante suggested we throw them in the water. I thought he was insane but everything else we’d tried hadn’t worked , so with a disclaimer that I wasn’t fetching them if this was wrong we threw all five statues into the bottom of the pool of water. To my utter surprise the door in the other room opened. We entered and found a small room that was mostly empty but for a large, gold circular object that lay flat on the floor. I have no idea what it was but it looked valuable. Gideon and Dante both reached out to take it but the instant they touched it bright light blinded me and I found myself at the top of the well, standing in the town square along with Melodi, Dante and Gideon, as though nothing had happened. The golden object they had reached for was nowhere to be seen, but we still possessed the objects we had picked up in the tree room.

It seems like this little adventure will always be a mystery, but at least it wasn’t a total waste of time.

((For those who don't know what a brazier is, here's a picture to a basic looking one like what was in the fire room.
www.eurocosm.com/Application/Images/Patiodd/king-brazier-lg.jpg ))