The World of Telvar

Sean Paus, who played Bobas and his intelligent short sword Wogo, wrote to describe his character's perspective in the game:

I knew I should never have taken the job. From the very beginning I smelled something bad, and it wasn’t just the three dwarves sitting across the table from me. I’ve always considered myself pretty shrewd when it comes to accepting a job, but I think the money clouded my judgment on this one.

It seemed pretty simple enough. For 100,000 gold pieces they wanted me
to steal some rock from some grand poobah wizard of the World Empire, in
Garythane, and bring it to them. They sat there, nervous in their fake
beards, while I “contemplated” their offer. I had already decided to
accept their offer, but I have a reputation to uphold and acting too
eager always gets you into trouble. I asked a few more key questions
(just for effect), paused, and then accepted their offer. We performed
whatever ritual they felt necessary to seal the deal and went our
separate ways.

Now, don’t get me wrong, breaking into the inner sanctum of even a
not-so-grand wizard of the World Empire is no mean feat. There are all
sorts of deadly traps, creatures and magical wards you have to bypass in
order to make it there. Getting out is just as bad, and even worse if
you really screw up. However, even the most intelligent people in the
world have a blind spot, and about five years ago I discovered his.

I know what you’re thinking, “Five years? You knew a way into just
about the biggest treasure trove of magic in the world for five years
and didn’t take advantage of it until now?” You have to understand,
there’s a lot of stuff in there -- valuable, powerful stuff -- and it’s
not that easy figuring out what to take and what to leave behind. You
have to know what it is you want. You could get in there, pick up
something that looks good, and get out only finding it just cleans
teeth. You also have to know how it’s guarded. There are all sorts of
nasty surprises waiting for you in the most innocuous places. As I’ve
said before, I have a reputation to uphold.

It took a while before the right window of opportunity to appear. I’m a
patient man though. You have to be when you live for hundreds of years.
It’s no wonder humans keep dropping like flies. Their life spans are
so short they have to live recklessly just to do enough with them. Pity.

Sorry. I got sidetracked just then. Anyway, said window of opportunity
appeared in the form of some star conjuctive thingy the humans so
cleverly call “The Day that Is Not” (imagine some booming, echoey effect
there). So, I got in easily enough, and the idiot was nice enough to
leave it out in plain sight. Usually he wouldn’t leave something this
powerful lying around. His mind must be getting soft in his old age. I
took the usual precautions, put the rock in my special bag, and made my
way back out. I must have been a little too excited about the money I
was soon to collect, because I slipped up on my way out. It wasn’t a
big slip up, but it was bad enough that it made collecting my money that
much more challenging.

So I set off a small alarm. It happened just before I reached the exit.
Knowing I was so close to getting away with it probably made me
overconfident. Then I tripped the alarm. Luckily it didn’t alert the
really important people in the complex. Otherwise, I might have had to
abort the mission and drop the rock. But, it did start a chain of
events that would eventually make it up to the wizard, so I didn’t have
much time.

Before I knew it a contingent of the Garythane army was being mobilized,
obviously to find me. I doubted very seriously that any other event had
occurred to warrant that. Not that I’m bragging, mind you, it’s just
that this rock was pretty important.

Now, some of you may know that the armies of the World Empire employ
humanoids and giants in their ranks, as well as humans. There’s usually
some small contingent of human leaders and the rest are made up of Orc
grunts and Giant powerhouses. Now, Orcs are notoriously stupid, they
breed like rabbits and don’t have much care for their own lives, so they
make good fodder. Giants are both stupid and slow. The later being the
most important point. I knew that military division would have no
chance at all of catching me, unless they did something really
unexpected, like leave the giants behind. True to form they marched
right out of that complex, hungry for my blood, with that slow agonizing
pace that is typical of giants.

Losers.

You’d think that I’d have made a clean getaway. You’d be wrong. Some
enterprising individual put two and two together and sent another group
after me. They weren’t World Empire, they were too good, but I figured
they were hired by Garythane to find me. It didn’t take them long to
close a considerable amount of distance between us. By then I was on to
them and was able to keep enough distance between us to keep from being
caught. But, boy did I have to hurry. I tried several tricks to make
them lose the scent. I like to think it slowed them down, but I’m not
so sure. Like I said, these guys were good. In the end, by the time I
made it to the valley I was a good 8 to 12 hours ahead of them. Not a
good margin at all.

Luckily, the valley was heavily wooded. I figured that I might be able
to lose them, but they had foiled many of my tricks and I wasn’t sure I
had the time to waste on another one.

I may be an Elf, but I’m not a big fan of the woods. Sure, they’re
pretty and serene, but there’s no money in them and what money is there
is probably guarded by something too dangerous to tangle with, and too
stupid to fall for clever tricks. Plus, they’re too secluded. I love
the city: plenty of people to talk to, swindle, carouse with, and steal
from. It’s the life for me.

Maybe it was because of my current situation and my ultra heightened
sense of paranoia, but I felt as if there was something in the forest
watching me. I dismissed it as unnecessary paranoia and continued on my
way. Before long my unheeded warnings caught up with me for a bird
landed on the ground in front of me and turned into a human.

I’ve never understood druids, like I’ve never truly understood my
people’s fascination with forests. I have a theory that they are Elf
wannabes. Anyway, this particular druid was typical for his kind:
backwards, untrusting of anything from civilized lands, smelly, and
rude. He demanded to know why I was here. I mentioned that I was a
currier sent to deliver a package to a group of Dwarves in the northern
part of the valley. He indicated that the only Dwarves he was aware of
were untrustworthy and not worth dealing with. He suggested I follow
him back to his village while he considered the matter of my passage.

I had no objection. I still had time to deliver, and I thought that in
addition to the amount of deterrent this Druid would make for my
pursuers, I probably shouldn’t piss him off. When we got to his village
it was deserted except for a small group of people who looked as if they
were completely out of there element. They were definitely foreign to
the valley, and definitely not from Garythane. Good, I could use this.

In my line of work it pays to know when to lie, when to tell the truth,
and when to do both. I knew that I couldn’t get away with my simple
story of being a currier, and if I wanted to get these people to protect
me, they needed to know what was going on. So, I told them the truth.
I didn’t tell it willingly, I didn’t know them well enough. But, I did
let them slowly pry it out of me and eventually I told them everything.
I told them who I was, what I had done, why I had done it and what I
was carrying with me. They understood the full weight of what I was
saying and didn’t take long to arrive at a decision.

They decided that the rock needed to go to the Dwarves at White
Mountain. They asked if I would be willing to entrust them with the
rock. I certainly would not, because I wouldn’t get paid, but I didn’t
tell them that. My excuse was that I really didn’t now them all that
well and didn’t feel that I could trust them to do what they claimed.
They could very easily be a ruthless group of merchants looking only to
exploit the resources of the Druids wood for all I knew. Being the good
people that I knew they were they did not fault me for that logic and
did not press the issue. They did give me directions to the White
Mountain, however, and said that their business with the Druid was too
important for them to accompany me (like I would have traveled with them
anyway). That was all well and good as I had no intention of going to
the White Mountain anyway and needed an excuse to leave by myself. The
only problem was that of dealing with my pursuers.

Happily, that problem resolved itself as they showed up right when I was
about to leave. Things couldn’t have gotten better. I yelled something
like “It’s the Imperial army!”, and there was some confusion as both
sides readied for battle. This was working out perfectly. Then, my new
found friends decided to parlay.
Sigh.

I just wanted them to get to the killing so that I could forget about
the immediate problem and work on the next. That on was a much more
difficult one that I still hadn’t had time to figure out. I’ll get to
that later.

We found out that my pursuers were working, not for Garythane, but for
an individual by the name of Lamplack. I dunno, maybe he likes darkness
or something. Or maybe he is in need of a lamp. Anyway, these guys
claimed that they didn’t want to kill me, they just wanted to work with
me. They wanted to take the rock to this Lamplack fellow who would pay
nicely for it. They even offered to split the payment with me. The
funny thing is that I believed them. I am absolutely certain that they
meant what they said and would have kept their word. I even considered
going off with them, except that I kind of already dug myself a hole
with this other party and so I stuck to my story that they were Imperial
soldiers, they wanted to kill me and, most importantly, they wanted to
take the rock back. I figured that would get my new found “friends” moving.

Oddly enough, the situation cleared itself up in an entirely unexpected
way. One of the guys working for this Lamplack fellow decided to off
his leader. One minute he’s talking, the next he’s lying on the ground,
still as a corpse, with an arrow sticking out of his back. It was very
clear who the culprit was and the Lamplack crew had no problem
restraining him. My new found “friends” even did their leader a service
by healing him before he had a chance to really die. No matter, he was
out of commission. The remainder of his party was less sure of
themselves without the help of their leader and the other fellow, and so
they conceded defeat.

Advantage: me.

I “agreed” to take the rock to White Mountain, over the objections of
the Lamplack crew, and we parted company. Even the Druid stayed behind.
Not as surprising as you might think. Deciding whether he should keep
an eye on some powerful and questionable people or me was very easy. I
think, you see, he had no real choice. So I got to leave unescorted,
just as I wanted.

Now I came to the next hurtle. You see, Dwarves with fake beards means
beardless dwarves, and that means Derro. I’m no fan of Dwarves in
general, but Derro are pretty vile. Not only do they smell worse than
regular Dwarves, but they’re completely evil and will sell their own
mothers if they thought it was worth it. I harbored no illusions that I
could just walk into their cave, give them the rock, and walk out
100,000 gold pieces richer. That would get me nothing. Or worse, it
would get me dead. I needed a plan, and I was running out of time.

I made my way out the Druid’s village whereupon I encountered a couple
of stupid Orcs. Crap. That contingent from Garythane must have sent a
couple of advanced scouts. Well, by advanced I of course mean “far on
in time or course”, not so much “being beyond others in progress or
ideas.” However, let me illustrate with an example:

Orc 1: You! Stop!
Me: Who? Me?
Orc 2: Yes! You! You, stop!
Me: Why?
Orc 1: We look for man with rock!
Orc 2: Are you man with rock!?
Me: I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I have no rock.
Orc 1: ???
Orc 2: ???
Me: Me am not man with rock!
Orc 1: You see man with rock!?
Me: Yes! Man with rock go there!
Orc 2: We go find man with rock!
Me: Good luck!
Orc 1: ???
Orc 2: ???
Me: Grrrrr!!
Orc 1:
Orc 2:

And then we parted company. Seriously though, do they have to yell all
of the time?

I was expending a lot of energy being clever, but not in the way I
really needed. I needed to take a short break so I could come up with a
plan that would unite me with that sweet, sweet gold. Plus, that
feeling of being watched returned. I doubled back, diverted my two Orc
friends again, and ducked into an empty hut.

Options, options. What were my options? I had a band of stinky Derro
who would most likely kill me if they got a chance. Can’t go there with
the Orb. What about hiding it? If I didn’t have it on me when I met
the Derro, I could convince them not to kill me. Then, I could take one
of them to the Orb, exchange it for the gold, and be on my way. Of
course, they wouldn’t honor sending only one of them with me. They’d
try to find some way to ambush me once the exchange was made. I needed
to find or set up a good escape route. I could hide the Orb there and
the gold and I would live happily ever after.

By the time I was on my way again, it was getting dark. Time was
running short. I started heading in the direction of one of the cliff
faces, thinking that an escape route would reveal itself when I was
approached by a flying rock man.

With horns.

And bat wings.

And long fangs.

Not something you’d normally see in a forest. This was a Gargoyle, and
not an animated statue sort of thing. I know gargoyle statues, and I
know animated objects, and I know Golems. I’ve seen a lot of them in my
line of work. This was none of those things. This was an honest to
goodness living creature.

I suddenly realized two things: 1) this was my would-be stalker, and 2)
he had to be working with the Derro.

Brilliant.

He tried to take the Orb by force. Luckily, my short sword, XXX, was
able to injure him, but he didn’t back off. I took a couple of hits and
then one of my contingencies kicked in. XXX transformed into a Dire
Weasel. This gave the Gargoyle pause, at which point he left.

He must have known that he could have taken me alone, but with the
weasel it was a different story. He caught up with me again a few
minutes later and offered me a gemstone. He pointed to the bag at my
waist and held out his hand.

I shook my head and pointed to the gemstone. I made motions with my
hands indicating “bigger,” at which point he few away again.

I encountered him a third time before I made it to the cliff face. This
time he had two handfuls of gemstones! Paydirt! I exchanged the Orb
for the gemstones and made my merry way out of the valley, never to
return again. Now I sip expensive fruit flavored alcoholic beverages on
a beach surrounded by dozens of beautiful women.

As if!
I encountered him a third time before I made it to the cliff face. This
time he had two handfuls of gemstones! Paydirt! I was sure it wasn’t
the whole 100,000gp, but it looked like a lot of money. I exchanged the
Orb for the gemstones and we parted company.

Big. Mistake.

Now, I just want you to understand that this was an irreconcilable
situation. Surely, the Gargoyle had alerted its masters of my
whereabouts and were themselves enroot as the Gargoyle and I stood there
pantomiming our exchange. Really, I had no other choice. If only I had
taken the time to check the value of the gemstones I had acquired I
might have tried something else.

In all, I netted about 700gp worth of garnets. Garnets!

Stunned by my own blunder, I accidentally wandered back into the Druid’s
village. Everyone wanted to know why I was back. Quickly, I stated
that I had gotten turned around in the forest, apologized for the delay,
and went on my way.

Of course, some one must have noticed that I was one belt pouch short,
because they caught up with me as I exited the valley. I tried to get
away, but they captured me. I confessed to giving the Orb away, and
after I convinced them I was no longer in possession of the rock they
let me go.

Those garnets bought me a nice meal, a warm bath, and some evening
company in one of my favorite slums. But, not enough drink, yet, to
cure me of this horrible memory.

But don’t fret for me. I’m a sly one you know, and I’ll be back on my
feet before you know it. In fact, I’m thinking of taking on another job
involving part of a broken rod or something. It’s reputed to be locked
away in some ancient archmage’s tomb. I haven’t done a tomb job in a
while. Plus the pay is good. Although, I’m not so sure about these
characters with their shaved heads and van Dyke beards. They look kind
of sinister if you ask me. Well, I’m sure I’ll figure out a way to get
paid this time. It just takes a little patience.

Participants:
John Johnson -
Alan Jones - Tauh-Aisia
Adam Majewski -
Rodger Henson - Schaelyck
Chris Allen - Telzwick
Sean Paus -
David Jones -
Scott Tillman -
Ashley Merritt -
David Chappell -
Steve Barbe - Balmer Ising
David Sakell - Looper (stole the character sheet and gave it back)
Kathryn Klawiter -
Stephanie Parker -
Eric Wright -
Rick Smothers -
Andrew Anderson -
Dean Nestvogel -
David Keen - One of the Orcs
Rhonda Jones -

Teams:
Tauh-Aisia (solo)
Bobas & Wogo (character & sword)
Looper, Schaelyck, Telzwick
Ferran Walek, Hechas, "Slink," Bugaboo
Balmer Ising, Willis Bertrand, Crush, Brulsis, Fritten
Samantha Lamondo, Michael Osborne, Metronna, Nordis, Rygle Vernborne, Sayer