Dungeon Crawl

The snooty upper-class born conman stands at the end of his trial. He is charged guilty of murder and high robbery, asked if he has any final words, but says no, and steps onto the platform which is lowered (with two guards and himself) slowly into the darkness of underground until it settles on cavern floor. With some confusion, and a lot of terrified hesitancy, and the guards' quiet, if not entirely polite, patience, steps gingerly off again, and lights the first of his torches off the guard's own, walking away as the platform starts to raise again, mind racing with the completely unfamiliar and terrifying challenges before him. Realizing dimly that he's going to have to find his way around, and find some semblance of food and shelter, he chooses a direction (they all look the same as far as his torchlight goes - packed earth, occasional stagnant puddles, and rocks) and walks it until the only way to continue would be to splash through a long area of surface water and wet mud, which he turns to avoid, turning again to avoid having to climb over rocky ground when he reaches an area that the ground gives way to piles of rocks - because he wants to be able to run if something threatening appears...


Fast forward - Alestir the conman's feet are blistered and somewhat raw from running in cheap, useless footwear while wet, his left shoulder is aching and sore from the outcast's brand he was given at the trial, and his cheek is scraped from where he tripped and fell running away from an unholy abomination of both goodness and common sense - bones aren't supposed to move on their own! On the upside, he's finally found something of some use - a rat-eaten corpse fresh enough to have proper boots, rather than the roped together foot sacks they gave him to wear... with three coins in them! Hallelujah! This hellhole has something in it that could, conceivably, be made shiny... With new boots bothering his blisters, and one coin nestled in each of them, the third in the patchy cloth sack that contains his other supplies, he keeps walking... and after another fruitless age of trudging in one direction hoping to come across something of use... the silence of the caverns is suddenly broken by the echoes of mad, cackling laughter. Alestir groans inside, his most coherent thought that the gods are laughing at him, and he doesn't want to know what else is.
Fade Out End Session.


Next time... similar scenario, different criminal. Are they destined to meet? Will they survive long enough?


I got to start a dungeon crawl game with my girlfriend yesterday. I was pretty scattered, but I'd say it went well. It was good to get away from the oppressive atmosphere of our current living quarters.


There is a living place in town that we should be able to rent... in things go well, we should be out of this hateful place and back in a home where we don't have to live under an aggressive roommate's rule next month. Here's to hoping. It would be good to be in our own space again, and the place we are looking at is actually very beautiful, with nice floors, a compact but not cramped kitchen corner, and a classy bathroom. Everything looks new and well built. I hear it used to be a shopfront, and there are big windows in the living room. Blinds to regulate the balance between privacy and daylight.


I hope, dearly, that we can live there.


Happiness has been strange recently, and strangely easy to come by. I think it's partly because I face the adversity of an adversary at home, so just living with it and surviving the passing days feels like something of an achievement, but better, being reminded of what I don't want to be, and the things I hate, contributes, I think, to focusing more on who I do want to be and the things I love, particularly when I go for walkies late at night.


While I'm not working out reliably, still, I have not completely stopped. I did a plank on Monday and held a couple of seconds longer again, even though I didn't do any other workout for workout's sake. We did walk across town to our friend's house, as well, though.


I have made contact with someone that my friends have been suggesting I should, who is part of a community oriented around ideas of magic and energy healing and things like that. I find the viewpoint he talks from to be alienatingly light and silly... but on the flip side, I'm sure he sees mine as needlessly dark and cynical. Still, apparently I have made a good enough impression that he'd like to talk political ideals with me sometime, and I think I'd like that.


To top of the weekend, my mate and I went to the local bar for some of their famous wings. They were delicious, and the atmosphere was relaxing and comfortably human, even though it was loud and included some bad music. There were drunk men playing pool.