Hexblade Diary

[Mike Garrison]

To whom it may concern, I'll probably be dead, or worse than dead, if this is ever read. But I want somebody to remember who I was.

I'm Desdemona. Des, I usually go by to my friends. Those I have. Which isn't many. I'm a drow. Not one of those spider-lovers, though. I've actually always hated spiders.

I have always been weak and clumsy. It made childhood hell. I got beat up over and over and over. Although, it did teach me to talk my way out of fights. And, whatever else it did, it toughened me up. I probably would have been "culled" if I had grown up with the spider drow, but my parents didn't like that. They're gone now, though. I'm on my own.

Well, sort of. Because I met ... someone ... else. Someone or something. It promised me that it could help. It could give me a blade that I could use with my wits, not my feeble strength or clumsy fingers. And so I jumped at the chance.

And things were just starting to get better for me when ... this happened. And now I'm going to die.

I'm not sure how it even happened, but I ended up the prisoner of a mindflayer. After I awoke I watched it put a THING into the eye of some githyanki woman. And then it -- I can hardly write this -- it did it to me. I know that thing is inside my head. It's going to turn me into one of them. And there is nothing I can do.

==========

Des is a female drow. Her left eye is purple, but her right eye is kind of washed out in color. She has some facial scars from her rough childhood, but she got some tattoos that mostly let the scars blend in. She wears her hair short and has it magically colored a sort of teal with pinkish highlights. She's about 30. Like most drow she's messed around a bit with people of both sexes, but she prefers other women. She doesn't mind non-drow, but it gets tiresome that either they fear her or they think she is some kind of exotic animal.

S:8 D:8 Con:16 I:12 W:14 Cha: 16

[Captain_Narol]

Nice writing, take my points !

Keep us updated about Des' Destiny, the audience wants more...

[Mike Garrison]

Let me try to write down everything that happened to me today.

So, just after that brainworm was stuck into me, a terrible, wonderful thing happened. We were attacked by dragons. Somehow that was an improvement.

Anyway, I got knocked out (again!) and when I woke up, my pod had come open. I explored a little, found a dead mindflayer (good!), and grabbed a few trinkets. My only weapon was a knife, so I let my shadowy friend inhabit it.

I inspected the pool that worm came from, and realized it was fragile. So I stepped away from it and shot a bolt of eldritch force into it. Kaboom! OK, small pleasures are still pleasures.

Oh gods this ship was horrible. The doors were sphincters. Everything was slimy. I feel sick just remembering it.

I walked into the next room and something was calling to me. "We are here." Well, OK, I figured I should go see what horrible thing it was.

And yeah, it was pretty horrible. A guy in a chair missing the top half of his head. And the brain was speaking to me in my mind. I looked it over but couldn't figure out what was going on {critical fail}. So I walked away and looked at other things in the room.

Just by touching these strange slates I learned about goblin history, how the nautiloid ship was grown/constructed, and other unpleasant things.

Eventually I wandered back to the brain. It was pleading for me not to leave it, so I tried to get it loose. I decided to try to carefully remove it, even though my fumble-fingers would probably mess things up. But somehow, luckily, it worked! The thing grew legs (ick, but at least I didn't have to carry it). It said it was "Us", and it wanted to go to the helm.

So we started walking and came to a damaged part of the ship, where I could see outside. Oh hell. Literally. We were in Hell. Just what I needed.

And then that gith woman attacked me. Almost. She was going to, but all of a sudden I was in her head and she was in mine. She said, "You are no thrall." Then she explained the worms would turn us into mindflayers and that we needed to get to the helm.

Ha. As a drow, I already knew that much about the worms, and my little "friend" the brainthing had already said I needed to go to the helm. But I liked this woman anyway. She had a big sword and seemed to not be using against me.

As I was taught long ago: in the matter of allies, there are two major considerations. 1) Can they fight? 2) Will they fight against your enemies? Ally.

[Mike Garrison]

We moved on to a room where there were three imps, and all three of us proved we were good allies. First Us killed one, then the gith killed one, and then I killed one with my hexed knife.

I searched the bodies (of imps and others) and found a short sword. Better than a knife. So I moved my hex to the sword. I put the knife into my other hand, just in case.

We found a room with a kind of console. I managed to read all the buttons. "Unleash". "Aggression". "Annihilate". WTF? OK, I pushed one. "Annihilate". Two people instantly died.

Oops. Sorry.

There was some sort of elf, or maybe half-elf, trapped in a pod. My gith ally wanted to just leave her, but using my warlock arcana I realized that the pod was controlled by the device next to it.

I could sense the runes that turned on the pod, but I had no idea what it would do. Oh well. I activated it anyway. And then ... my brainworm talked to it! Opened up the pod. And the half-elf fell out of it.

She said her name was Shadowheart. I told her mine. She grabbed some small thing, but when I asked what it was she said it was "nothing". She also didn't seem too happy about a gith being there, but I quickly explained the ally thing. Dangerous company is what you want in a fight.

We moved on to the helm, except it wasn't the helm. Yet another woman in a pod, and another machine with a button. OK, well even though I couldn't read what this button said, I knew what to do. Use the machine to release her. ... Except no. It turned her into a mindflayer instead. This place was horrible.

[Mike Garrison]

So we tried the other way. The gith and the half-elf started bickering about who was in charge. So I just looked at them until they both shut up. OK, I guess I was in charge.

And ... the helm! Except it was full of cambions, imps, and mindflayers, all fighting each other. A mindflayer ordered me to go to the helm. The gith lady told me to go to the helm. Us told me to go to the helm. OK already, I got the message. But we had to fight our way there.

Us tried to kill a pig, but couldn't. Shadowheart ran forward and cast some sort of spell on the cambion, forcing it drop its sword. The mindflayer told us to "leave him to me". Ungrateful creature.

The gith killed an imp and I stabbed the pig, but didn't kill it.

Brainkitty finished off the pig. Shadowheart killed an imp with the crossbow I had given her. The gith told us to ignore everything and go to the helm, except she really, really wanted that flaming sword I guess, because she ran to get it.

SH shot an imp but didn't kill it, so I finished it off with an eldritch blast. We were all now on our way to the helm, with only another imp and a hellpig in our way.

The hellpig tusked Us, and the imp shot some kind of fireball at me. But Us then wounded the pg and Shadowheart finished it off with a vicious, critical hit from her mace. And me? I killed the imp that had fireballed me with my hexed sword.

Now to the helm!

It was SH who got there first. And then all hell broke loose. Well. Maybe the opposite. We broke loose from all hell? Anyway, a dragon attacked, the ship started breaking apart, we portaled out, and I ... fell out of the ship. Fortunately not into Hell.

But I thought I was dead anyway, except suddenly, just before I hit the ground, something stopped me. And then dropped me. And I got knocked out AGAIN. I am going to have serious brain trauma even if that worm doesn't eat my brain.

Anyway, I woke up on some kind of beach, and quickly wrote down all that had happened to me. So that's my story, whoever finds this.

If I stay alive I'll keep adding to this. Probably not in this detail though! But I want people to remember who I was. Before I became a mindflayer.

[Mike Garrison]

So, I found Shadowheart again. Knocked out, I guess, but still alive. I woke her up, and she thanked me. She didn't know (or care) where the gith woman was. I got the idea that she doesn't like githyanki.

I mean, OK, nobody likes githyanki. But nobody likes drow, either. So F them all.

Anyway, she said she wanted me to "lead the way". I guess I'm still in charge. That's all right. I like it that way. Better than getting beat up all the time.

We explored the place and found we were on the banks of a river. It was full of corpses and trash. We looted what was useful.

Then we found more brain things. But these were hostile! It was a desperate fight. They were shooting some psychic bolts at us. I was knocked down, dying, but Shadowheart tossed me a health potion. I was able to hit them with my eldritch blasts, but they were able to hit me with their psychic attacks. I would have died except for all the health potions I had looted back on the nautiloid.

And then, finally, with both of us severely wounded, we won. Killed all three brains. {Level 2}

[Mike Garrison]

So we walked on a bit and met another elf. My opposite. I'm female. He was male. I'm drow. He was the whitest-skinned elf I've ever seen. I'm charming. He was an ass.

Yes, he tried to trick me, and then he tried to hold a knife to my throat. I think I only got out of it because I had some help from a quick little prayer of guidance from SH.

But then I realized he was another victim of the mindflayers. OK, not a friendly guy, but maybe he'll be useful. Hard to turn down any possible help, I suppose. However, he's now in my bad books. Growing up as a weakling taught me not to pick fights, but growing up drow taught me not to be a doormat either. I'll give him this one free pass. But it's the only one.

We explored a little more and found a suspicious rock. I was too weak to move it, but SH was strong enough. Hidden underneath was a little stash apparently left by the Harpers. I've heard of them. Annoying people, mostly, but I do know they sometimes have worked with drow.

Then we found a wounded mindflayer. Nope. Not even gonna. Eldritch blast to the "face". Assuming you can call that a face.

We went on a little farther and found some sort of mystic whirlpool. A hand stuck out of it and a voice said "a hand!". I was a little shocked, so I slapped the hand. Then the voice said, "I should have clarified. A *helping* hand? Anyone?"

I realized someone was trapped in the whirlpool, so I used my warlock arcana to calm it down, then pulled him out. His name was "Gale of Waterdeep", and he was a human male fighter. I mean wizard. Male human wizard. Another ally, I guess. But he was a lot more friendly than Astarion. At least he didn't hold a knife to my throat.

[Mike Garrison]

We explored a little more and found a chest with some loot in it. I guess maybe it fell out of that ship?

Then we found the gith lady again! Ally! Except she had been stuck inside of some kind of crude cage. Two tiefs were standing around and said something about Zorro and goblins. And then they saw me.

"Holy Hells! Underelf!"

OK. If you're going to be like that, I can be like that too. "Get out of here while you still have legs," I said. Or something like that. Gale seemed to think it was amusing. The tiefs ran away and I shot down the cage with an eldritch blast.

The gith woman started to posture about how she was my only hope or something, but I figured it was mostly because she was embarrassed AF to have to be rescued from a simple trap like that. She obviously rubs SH the wrong way and vice versa, because they again started sniping at each other.

She said her name was Lae'zel, but then said she knew of a way to cure us! Nobody else has any idea, so this seems like our best hope. We have to find a "creche". She said "the horned ones" mentioned a "Zorru" (Zorro? Zorru? Whatever.) who had seen githyanki. So he would know where the creche was.

Except, I've seen githyanki now, and I don't know where a creche is. Oh well. Maybe Zorru does.

I suggested she should say thanks, and she suggested I should pound sand. But that's OK. I've seen her fight, and I'd rather have her by my side than that weasel Astarion.

[Mike Garrison]

We wandered on a bit and ran into a bunch of bandits. I guess? Anyway, as soon as we walked up to them the lookout called for his boss to come up. He tried to bully me around, and I don't like that. I attacked him.

We nearly got killed. The problem was they had some wizard over on the other side of a tunnel, and she kept slinging these ice spears at us. Nearly killed Gale and Lae'zel. But we won in the end, because we are THE BEST! Or the luckiest. Anyway, we walked away breathing and they did not.

I got a shield and some nice armor out of the deal. A few bloodstains, of course, but my old armor already had those anyway.

Then we went up to a locked door. Somebody inside asked if I was "Gimblebock". I said "Gimblebock walked into some kind of trap," and the idiot fell for it. He opened the door, and we killed him for his trouble.

We looked around the place, found some food, and decided this would be a good spot to sleep for the night. Or in my case, to meditate and rest.

Lae'zel chided me for wanting to rest, but we *had* to rest. Gale stood at the fire and told me to "go to Hell", but I realized it was just musing and not an insult. And Shadowheart wanted to know what Lae'zel and I were talking about. Astarion just wanted to brood.

I laid down to rest, wondering when I was going to turn into a mindflayer. Wondering if even now that parasite was eating my brain. Would I even know it?

I had always heard it only took a few hours, but it had been most of a day and I still felt the same. What would happen tomorrow?

[Eminem]

I gave you an award! Good work! share more boo

[Mike Garrison]

The next morning we found more of this tomb or temple or whatever it was. Another bandit was there, and she said, "How'd you get past Andorn?" I thought it was "Gimblebock" that we got past. Who knows, maybe it was Andorn Gimblebock. Anyway, we killed her. It seemed like she might have been running for friends, so we cautiously explored further.

(If it turns out that these folks were just students from the local university doing some sort of research study, I guess I'll feel badly. But they were all pretty ready to kill me, and I'm a do unto others before they do unto you kind of girl.)

So we opened the next door and some dude immediately threw a firebomb at us. (I suppose some university students might do that, but I really think they were bandits.) A wizard shot an ice spear at SH and nearly killed her {critical hit}. Gale helped her back to her feet. SH got her revenge by burning the wizard to a crisp with a firebolt.

This fight again nearly killed us. But again we won.

The place was full of books, but none of them were titled "How To Rid Yourself Of Mindflayer Brainworms", so that was disappointing. We did find one that was full of the last thing people said before they died. I scribbled on at the end: "'How'd you get past Andorn?', Unknown Bandit."

Even after a rest we were still pretty deeply wounded. so we took a second rest. I know, brainworms. But we had to heal.

[Mike Garrison]

Next we found a room that was just full of traps. Traps. Traps. Traps. But no sign of what would trigger them. There were a bunch of stone coffins in the room, so we opened them up and started looting the dead. (They are dead. What do they need this stuff for?)

When we opened the big one in the middle, we found out where the trigger was.

But before we could all be burned to a crisp, I saw a button. Maybe that would work? It did! The traps shut off.

Inside was a magic spear and a key. SH said she knew how to use spears, so I gave it to her.

The key opened up a door to another room. There were skeletons scattered about the place. They appeared to be armed scribes. We disarmed them. Again, the dead don't need weapons anymore.

There was a statue in the room of Jergal, scribe of the dead. I guess now we know whose temple this was. These guys must have been dead a long time, because nobody worships Jergal anymore. He gave up his domain to The Dead Three.

There were a couple of locked chests in here that I eventually picked open. I learned how to pick locks, as a girl. {charlatan background} So I know how to do it, but I'm just bad at it because of being clumsy.

We also found a book with a sort of magical lock on it. My hexy friend helped me unlock it, and if figured out it was a book about dead gods. Both Gale and SH were excited about it for different reasons.

Then I spotted a button that opened up a secret room. But the dead scribes rose up and attacked us! I guess it was good that we had stolen their weapons first? Oh, and they weren't just dead scribes. They were dead magic-using scribes.

After killing them -- re-killing them? -- we decided to find out what they were protecting.

And then another ... thing ... rose from the dead. But instead of attacking, it asked me a question. I decided to answer.

"What is the worth of a single mortal life?" I said all lives have equal worth. It was satisfied with my answer, then said we would meet again. Spooky.

We found a secret back door and got out of there. I'm not usually much for bright sunlight, but I was actually glad to be out in it.

We were exhausted, and worms or no worms we needed to eat and sleep.

At camp everyone was talking about the same thing. How we had NOT turned into mindflayers. SH even said that she had heard a voice speaking to her on the ship about becoming "a beautiful weapon".

And ... that thing from the tomb? It was there in camp! It (he?) said that he could bring us back from the dead. For a price. He refused to explain any further. He hasn't said if he has a name, but I think I'll call him "Withers". I wonder if he was some long-dead priest of Jergal?

Day 2 is over. How many more days do we have? Are we really turning into mindflayers, or is something else going on?

[Chaosolous]

You’re a gem Mike.

[Mike Garrison]

This might be a good time to note down who my companions are.

Shadowheart: A half-elf cleric. I'm not sure for which god. She says she is a Death Cleric, whatever that means, so I suppose she follows some kind of death god. Maybe that's why she's shy about the subject. But she's pretty reluctant to talk about herself at all.

Gale: Not the least bit reluctant to talk about how great he is as a wizard. Human. Evocation. Nice guy, I think, but a bit too fragile for my liking.

Astarion: Elf. Rogue. Broody jerk. Thinks he's one of those dark romantic heroes from the books my friends used to read as teenage girls. But I never liked those books.

Lae'zel: Githyanki fighter. Also a broody jerk, except I think in her case it's just because she's really only a scared kid. I'm pretty sure she's not even 20, although I have heard githyanki can be 1000s of years old and still look young. Githyanki aren't big on being friends with non-githyanki. But she fights well. Also, well, she's sort of "my type".

Withers: Weird. Dead? Mysterious. Hanging around camp for some reason. Hopefully not going to try to kill us all in our beds. I definitely don't want to be attacked in my own camp by one of my own camp mates. That would suck.

[Mike Garrison]

This morning we went looking for Zero. Or Zorro. Whoever he is.

We found what seemed like some sort of tiefling fortress. There was a gate and tiefs up on top of the walls. Some humans were shouting to get inside. And then a pack of goblins attacked.

I learned pretty quickly what a "death cleric", is because SH cast some sort of necromantic spell that rang like a bell and killed a goblin. Gale put a couple of goblins to sleep, and then Lae'zel made sure one of them would never wake up.

A human warlock jumped down from the fort and started to fight the goblins too.

One of the humans and all of the goblins died. Shadowheart actually did most of the damage, with that bell spell of hers. We looted the dead and found an interesting set of gloves on the body of the leader. Then we went inside.

The human leader and the tiefling leader were arguing. I told them it was stupid to fight each other, and then the human called me "underelf". I'm not a fan of that word.

Then I watched as the human sucker-punched the tief and walked away. Something about "no amount of gold is worth this". When I shook the tiefling awake, he started talking about how I was "brave" to walk around openly as a drow. As if I had any choice? At least he didn't call me "underelf", though. And he did direct me to a healer.

As we walked around, we found some tieflings crying over the dead body of another. Lae'zel, as usual, was rudely blunt about the dead being dead. But at least nobody ended up punching each other.

I though that might be about to change when I found three tiefs shouting at each other. One wanted to fight and the other wanted to run. I told them to stay and fight, and they decided to do that.

Then we met the other warlock. He was infected too! He said he was hunting a devil, but he was also worried about these parasites. So I told him where our camp was.

Some tief kids were trying to learn to fight. Their teacher asked me to give them some words of encouragement, so I told them the lessons I had learned about outsmarting your enemies. They seemed to like it. (I figured that telling them to ally with a shadow-being as a patron was probably a little too much for them to handle.)

Then I met a guy who was even worse of a swordsman than I used to be. At least I knew what I was trying to do, even if I had been too clumsy to do it. But they say those who can't do, teach. And I was able to teach him how to change his stance and get into balance. He was doing better when I left, and I think Lae'zel was a little impressed by my teaching, even.

Then we found Zero. Lae'zel immediately started bullying him. I'm not big on that, so I would have stepped in, except ... he just cringed. If there is anything my childhood drove into me, it's that a person has to learn to stand up to pressure. Even if you lose 1000 fights, you don't just give in and cringe. If she had actually started smacking him around I would have stopped her, but as it was she got her information and we were (maybe) one step closer to "purification". Whatever that is. Shadowheart was *not* pleased, though.

After that we found some traders and got busy. We had looted a lot of stuff. Some of it we just gave away, in order to get the traders friendly with us. Some we sold. And some we upgraded. I now had a magic shield and my hexy patron was empowering a magic rapier. Things were looking up. Except for the brainworms.

{level 3}

[Mike Garrison]

Next I decided to go see this head druid. Before I could get there, I watched a standoff. Some druids were blocking the way of some tiefs. There was a bunch of shouting and then a druid turned into a bear, which sort of settled things.

I asked what was going on, and a man and woman said the druids had their daughter, She had tried to steal some idol. Gale spoke up and said "kids will be kids" or something along those lines. So I said I would look into it.

But when I tried to get inside, the druid gave me a look I know all to well. She called me "drow" like it was a curse-word and looked like she was about to start a fight. Another druid whispered in her ear, and she said, "Why does Kagha want to let one of *them* in?"

She let me past, but gave me another threat. I'll remember that.

Then I met some sort of writer. At least he didn't openly insult me for being drow, but it was almost as bad. He was one of those "entranced by the exotic drow" kind of jerks. He told me about "The Absolute", and said the goblins are worshiping it as a new god. Then he said he was going to head out to the goblin camp and see for himself.

So I headed inside to see this Kagha. She was in the middle of judging a young tiefling girl. Threatening her with a snake. I hate bullies. So I spoke up. "I'll stand for the girl. See that she stays out of trouble." Kagha accepted the offer. Gale was pretty happy about it.

Then she called me "deep elf". OK, better than "underelf". She said it was her lucky day that I was there and started talking about the Queen of Spiders. I said I was no spider-worshipper. She shrugged that off, then told me she wanted me to run Zevlor and his people out of the Grove. I said I would talk to them.

I also talked to another druid, Rath. He said their real leader Halsin was missing, and promised me a reward from their treasure room if I would find him. I said OK. This reward better be good, though.

I also noticed that SH was scared of wolves. I told her I would try to keep her away from them if I could, and she was grateful. She also told me about some kind of injury on her hand that causes her pain from time to time. She didn't really want to talk about it though, so I let her keep another one of her secrets.

Finally we went to find this healer, Nettie. We wandered into the wrong room though. But I decided to poke around, and I found a secret hidden locked chest. OK, that's interesting. I tried picking it open, and it turns out my new gloves made it slightly easier. I was able to do it (on the second try), and found an *interesting* note inside. Someone named Olodan wants to meet Kagha in some secret location.

Then we did find Nettie. She was healing some bird. She gave a start when she saw I was a drow, and said the last drow she had seen tried to kill her. But she said she wasn't in the habit of killing drow, even though there was a dead male on a slab in her library.

I told her I was looking for a cure for the parasite. She told me the dead drow had the parasite too. Apparently this "Halsin" everybody is looking for might be able to cure the infection, but he's missing in the goblin camp. Nettie said the goblins are holed up in an old Selune temple. Then she gave me a vial of wyvern poison and made me swear to drink it if I though I was turning. Free poison, I guess. And who knows, maybe I really will need it.

After Nettie walked away, a voice spoke to me. It told me to "take a closer look" at a jar on a table. In the jar was another parasite. I guess it had come out of the drow, from what Nettie said. I picked it up.

The drow had a note in his pocket. It seems he was not actually supposed to attack the druids. Someone named "M" only wanted to know where the druid grove was located. Judging by his severe case of death, probably he should have followed his orders better.

These druids hadn't been all that polite to me so far (although Nettie and Rath hadn't been too bad). So when Nettie left me alone in their library, I didn't hesitate to rifle through the stacks and walk out with anything that seemed sellable. Maybe it will teach them to be more polite. Or maybe it will just teach them to hate drow more. I suppose I don't really care.