Demetrios:
we managed to score one piece (an eye) of the Only Old One, a
superpowered
Esrolian darkness spirit who was deconstructed in the early third age.
we thought we needed the eye because we can use it to see in the dark,
which we figured was necessary to attempt to infiltrate an uz
stronghold. the
infiltration attempt isn't going very well, so it looks like we may just
have to bust in guns
blazing. Why are we doing this? it looks like the uz cult of
annilla,the blue moon,
has imprisoned Garun Attal's (a scimitar instructor of the heartland
corps) tutelary spirit, the red dancer, on the mystical body
of the blue moon. they are planning to sacrifice the red dancer and
dear-boy (a child of Yelm) in a ritual
designed to resurrect their defunct deity. this explains why the troll
mothriders have been
trying to capture DB from day one. by raiding the inner sanctum of the
uz annilla temple, we are hoping to
acquire several blessed chains of blue moonstone, which will allow us to
use the funky mothrider
jack-in-the-box as a teleport device to the blue moon. once there, we
can rescue the red
dancer, and free Mistress Blackwell and her bodyguard of Karrg's
Sons. this will hopefully earn us
some brownie points with the trolls. (this is a secondary concern, but
much of what makes people real
heavy hitters in glorantha is quantified by how many favours they can
call in from buttkicking and/or
supernatural allies).
the possibility has also been raised that in the event that the cult of
annilla's plans are effectively neutralized, we could use the blue moon
as our transport mechanism to the underworld,
bypassing the cradle entirely. if it can be ascertained that it is
possible to debark from the
moon while in the underworld, we could avoid the problems associated
with finding and using the cradle
(wolf pirates, garrath swordsharp, ludoch pissed off by the conch's
DeathRay Drive (TM), etc.). because the
moon, like the cradle, uses magasta's pool, we'd have a good shot at
ending up in the right
general area of the underworld's mystical geography. the only cost
there would be abandoning the daughter
of ar-tash to garrath, who may score karmic wattage with the giants.
apart from him being an
annoying hothead, he's an Orlanthi Rebel Scum (a registered trademark of
LucasFilm) who should be
systematically isolated from gaining any friends in high places.
the red dancer is an associate cult of the granite phalanx. there is
some
speculation that by freeing the red dancer, we may facilitate the
reunification of the spirit
of GP with his body, the silver bat standard, already in our possession.
this would complete our first quest. woo hoo!
Blaupunkt:
Demetrios' executive summary wasn't bad, but i think that he missed a
couple of things:
Demetrios:
the doll metaphor is a barrier to true understanding. blaubunkt is
trapped
in this metaphorical prison of his own devising. our quests are not
wooden dolls, nested one
within the other; they are more like the knots in the waha ropes. he
who holds the ropes must
decide, as best he may, which of the many knots he wishes to untie.
each knot may be untied
separately from its neighbours, and each knot untied lengthens the rope.
Blaupunkt:
but you see, if you examine the waha ropes, this turns out not to be
the case -- the knots are closely spaced on the strands, so closely
that the inner knots may not be undone until after the outer
ones. false progress may be seen if one starts in the middle, but one
inevitably finds that there is an Order to the tying and untying --
the one who writes the message knows that his message has a beginning,
a middle, and an end, and he ties the knots so that they must be
untied in the same way as his message is to be understood.
Demetrios:
individual wisdom should be the light that guides us; rigid adherence to
an arbitrary structure may mean our doom.
DOOM, I tell you! DOOM!
Blaupunkt:
i believe you are having a flashback to one of your dart competitions.
your learned father has provided us with this medication, for use in
just this sort of circumstance....
Demetrios:
the order of the world is not as the order of the things within; so too,
the nature of worldly things differ, one from the other. the order of
a man is not as the order of his nation; the order of the stones is not
the
order of the grasses. those who created us and breathed into us a spark
of their own divine essence, gave to us in that primal moment a gift
that
they have lost.
Blaupunkt:
all creation comes ultimately from idovanus, the good god. the lesser
gods
are aspects and children of his.
Demetrios:
we may look upon the things within the world, and make
a path for ourselves through these things. we are not mostali, nor
brithini. we have the will to choose our destiny.
Blaupunkt:
not entirely. our destiny is read when we are children and our path is
chosen by the vizirs and the fazzik of our House. (the mostali
understand
this; they recognize that idovanus is the Creator of all things, but
are in error when they say he is broken, of course.)
Demetrios:
each act, in each day, is an act of creation; the creation of our own
Order, our own future, and of the history
that our children and theirs will hear of in the stories of our people.
if we
are to create patterns in our lives, let them be patterns rich with
meaning; let us not
spend our divine gifts in a sterile quest to bring the order, the
patterns, of the
small things in the world into being in the greater Order of the history
of our times.
Blaupunkt:
it is our duty to help the world to attain a balance between dark and
light, between heat and cold, motion and stillness, to punish deceit
and reward truth. to do this we must understand our goals and how our
actions will attain those goals. we must understand HOW to weave the
skein of destiny before we sieze it like a clumsy hazar.
Sorry in advance; I just couldn't resist.
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