But first – sneese SUCK. They’re half snake and half geese and all mean! I did not enjoy that bit, but I got rid of them by making balls of light for them to chase. Smart, right? Yes. I am smart.
This was on the way to investigate that Gorgon thing, and was not what we thought! She’s under a curse, because she said she thought she was prettier than the Goddess Mithra, who apparently took offense. So now as a Gorgon, this poor lady has to guard the Eye of Shar – yeah I don’t know what that is. YET.
We headed back to the Library because I had some serious research to do, and turns out Mithra and Ioun and Shar are triplets! Go figure, right? Shar hasn’t been seen since the Portal Wars tho, which is like, forever. Her followers are still around but their religion sort of collapsed into some kind of cult when she disappeared. They are very bad news. There might be a secret temple tho! Seeeeecret TEMPLE. Fun.
Oh, while I was doing this research? Yeah, you know my notebook? The one I carry around all the time and am scribbling in constantly? I had that open on a shelf while I was looking something up, and a spectral version floated up out of it and suggested another place to look. Out loud. My book was talking to me. Not the weirdest thing to happen to me, but still. I named him BookMark, we call him ‘Mark for short and heck does he like to do research! And he is good at it, we make a good team.
However the Library did not have a ton on Shar, and Patricia, the head librarian? She suggested we go try the Library of Tyr, which is where Speak was, so perfect, and we haded there. Speaking of secret – they have secret areas in their library that only I can see the entrances of! I felt like the coolest kid in town. And ‘Mark picked up another word to repeat at odd times – “research” from before and now “knowledge” which was the secret passcode to get into the secret room in the library.
Anyway. Confirmed Shar is bad news, probably super evil, and her sisters locked her away. (Don’t get any ideas, you.)
We have to head back, Speak got put in charge of a sort of rescue mission and I want to stay with her. She keeps me safe. Like you used to. I miss you so much! This adventuring stuff is scary a lot, but mostly very fun? I hope I am getting better at all of this! Hope to see you soon, love you oodles and doodles!
Hey V, just a quick note, we are swinging thru town to grab supplies and so I can drop off the TWO books I have recovered. That’s right. Two so far. I am the awesomest. While I was dropping those off at the Library, I got my notes copied so far, in case…well. In case. And so folks here can do some research if they want. I used to do that when I was still beginning here – taking neat adventurers notes and turning them into something readable and researching the things they came across…and now I am the adventurer! I feel so cool right now.
Oh and I looked up the Goddess Ioun and like…I should be careful with her, but I think it’ll be okay because she is the Goddess of Knowledge and like…that works? For me? I need to do some more reading… poor me.
I heard about some artifacts you might be interested in, but we have to go check out a possible Gorgon situation, so I am going to go do that!
Hope you’re having as much fun as I am! Love you oodles and doodles.
Verin!!! You will NOT believe what I have been up to!!
Okay, so you know that last letter, I said I was heading to this tower with my friends? Okay, well, we got there. Also, I am not good at drawing maps. Oh and I found a shiny rock.
So this tower is bonkers, half of it fell into the ocean ages ago, and of course the bit we wanted was under water. To get to it, I had to swim. I did not like it Veri. I did not like it at all. I am not good at swimming!!
Oh but while I was trying to do that, Speak got me some Demonic Octopus Ink! It is impermeable to water!!! Which is so neat. I am going to try and see if I can make something like it for my own inks, that would be super handy.
Okay so this tower, right? It has a copy of every book every written. Seriously. I was just looking around and FOUND one of my missing books! Well, not the exact book that is missing, this one is newer but STILL. I am so excited.
While looking for a book to give us any idea of what is going on in the tower (these guys are fighting over a glowing orb, I wasn’t really paying attention) I ended up getting cursed, TO NOT BE ABLE TO READ ANYTHING VERIN. NOT COOL. While I was freaking out about that, the Goddess Ioun spoke to me. And if I agreed to dedicate myself to her, she would fix the curse. Veri, I can not explain to you what was happening in my head at that moment, I was devastated, and panicking, and …oof even thinking about it getting me all worked up, so! Long story short, I agreed, curse lifted, I am dedicated to the Goddess Ioun now, no big deal.
Anyway! I found a book with a ton of info in it but Veri, it was written in CELESTIAL. I told you it was worth learning. You all laughed at me, but I told you. AND IT HAS AN INDEX. Oh I was in heaven and I just started inhaling the thing thru my eyeballs while everyone else did a bunch of other stuff (super was not paying attention ahem, book). This book is so cool I can’t wait to show it to you! This is where I found out about this tower containing every book ever written, and there are these automatons that will bring me any book I want! This is, of course, at the base of the tower. And we were in the top. So. Useless at the moment, but I am going to get back there! Ooo maybe we could go together!
Uhm, things got a little chaotic and we had to kind of run away, but! We used these travel circle things and I took a bunch of notes (as usual, hush) and sketched the symbols and what not – I want to show you when we meet up again, I think you would be really interested, seems like your kind of thing!
Well, we’re going to head back to town in a bit, so, I’ll just send this off to you now. Hope you’re doing alright! Miss you sis!
Me again, your favorite sister, haha. We’re really on an adventure now! Kurtz has this chicken he named Fry, and we’re not allowed to eat him. Oh and I met a bunch of pixies and they really do like shiny things and I trained like, all of them, copper for their pixie dust. I am positive I have seen something about using it in ink, but I left my ink experiments book back at the library so I’ll have to check on that later.
I met this Paladin Leon, and he looks so familiar for some reason! Do you know him? I can’t remember if I have met him somewhere before…he’s really nice tho.
Things aren’t too exciting yet, we ended up in a village where I could buy buttons – shiny ones – in case we run into any more pixies. And an actual bottle of Ink of Arcanum! I don’t usually use it much but I’m a little worried about running out while we’re out on an adventure and this could work as a base I suppose. If I am in a hurry. Maybe. We’ll see.
Our guide to this tower we’re trying to get to is a 14 year old named Tony. Seriously. He rolls his eyes like 8 times a minute, but he seems to know what he’s doing so! Hopefully we should be fine? Wish me luck!
I know this one is a bit shorter, but I just wanted to say hi! Hope you’re doing well, and looking forward to hearing all about your adventures back! Hint hint.
Okay, remember how I told you that the Collection I was in charge of got stolen, and now I’m in charge of finding them? Well, I found one! I think. The thing is, I heard it was in a shop right here in Portal. So I headed down to just ask where he got the book, and maybe look at it quickly. But he argued with me! Can you believe that? I’m a librarian, and all I did was ask him if it was stolen, why in the world would he get so mad and defensive??? So, anyway, he pulled this stone out of his pocket and chucked it at the ground and said some nonsense word and a demon appeared! It was so cool looking, but it kept trying to bite me…
So, you know how you keep teasing me about the spells I know just being useful in the library? You…might be right. I got distracted trying to figure out how it was moving because it kept seeming to blur out of existence around the edges and it kept trying to bite me and it hurt! Anyway, this paladin came out of no where! I was yelling at the demon and trying to take some notes and the shopkeeper was literally hopping mad, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen before, come to think of it…But this paladin! Her name is Speak, and she just walked in, shut the demon down, healed my bites, and then…well honestly she looked kind of disappointed, but she did not say a single word! I actually didn’t learn her name until we got to the temple, oh speaking of which, so the book I thought the shopkeeper had, the one that was maybe part of my stolen collection? She took it! She took it from the shopkeeper, since it had caused a disturbance, and she took it back to the temple of Tyr! I think that’s how you spell it…feels silly, me, a librarian, not knowing how to spell something, but a girl can’t know everything right! Anyway I followed her back to her temple, so maybe I can convince her to get it out of the vault for me.
Oh! Also, I got that pen you made me – it’s gorgeous! The brass fittings are curved perfectly for my hand – of course they are, right, since we’re twins haha – but the glass ink vials that I can swap out are just incredible, and I know you know this but I also know your brain is mean to you sometimes – just like mine – so trust me, this is INCREDIBLE. The other librarians are jealous, and I love it. Also what are these glass vials made out of, because you know I drop things, like we do, and I haven’t broken one yet! Dropped, yes, broken, no. I appreciate the extra empty ones too, because I have been trying out some new ink recipes, and two things – one, the vials are perfect because I have a place to keep the experiments, and second, the pen is robust enough to handle any…misfires? It writes so smoothly and I don’t know why but I feel such a sense of…calm? Peace? Joy? I’m not really sure what it is, but I like it, whenever I write with it. I know you worked really hard on this and I think it’s perfect, I’m really going to be able to make a lot of use out of it, it’s really going to help me develop more of my spells. You’re wonderful.
Oh and you asked for my impressions, so more critically, haha, since I know you like that! There is a small burr on the edge near the back, I’m not sure if that rough spot is supposed to help hold the glass vials in the pen casing or whether it’s something you missed, but it is rough enough to cause scrapes, so I figured I’d mention it. Also, two of the seven vials you sent me are just barely able to fit in there, I can feel the glass sort of screeching quickly when I squeak them in there. I found that the feed doesn’t seem to like a thicker ink, so I am working on keeping as many particulates out as I can, but there are some spells that just…need them? So I was wondering if you could take a look at that a little bit? I could really use more vials too, I really want to experiment some more because I think I’m going to be traveling soon and I’ll have access to all kinds of things that could be really interesting. I am doing most of my mixing in larger vials, ones that aren’t designed for the pen, which are still small enough to carry with me, so no worries there, but what I am worried about is developing enough spells that I won’t have enough quick vials to put them in and…well.
You were right, I should have studied more spells that would be useful in a fight…you were right. But I can’t help it Veri! I can’t help it, the spells I get interested in are just more complex and interesting than something like shooting something at someone. You know what I mean. But I am working on it. Or I will. I will work on it. I promise. But more vials would help k thanks haha.
The tea you sent is much appreciated, I like what you’ve done with this latest batch, it helps me wake up a bit faster in the morning and it still takes the edge off my aches, but I wanted to mention that if I drink too much straight water after my morning cup of tea then the aches do come back. Which I thought you would appreciate. Feel free to send me more of your experiments, and I can send my notes back to you. And if you would like to try any of my experiments, let me know! I know you don’t like ink as much as I do, but you never know, you might learn something haha just kidding – or am I?
Veri, I miss you. I know you need to travel like this, but I just…I wish we could do it together sometimes. I know I was never really useful to the kinds of research you are doing but maybe once I find all of these lost books I’ll have learned enough to join you some day.
Loves you oodles and doodles, let me know if you hear from any of the rest of our sisters, and I’ll write soon!
I would like to begin with! This is all The Husband’s fault. But let me explain.
I have two characters in two different Dungeons and Dragon’s games. Run by two different game masters. The first one I created when I was getting really excited about tea – and the GM helped me make a character that was an alchemist artificer, to I could use the tea for my spells. He let me have her be an ambulatory wheelchair user, and she’s autistic, because I really wanted to play a character that felt like me and there are mechanics to support it now! Her name is Verin TrueStone, and I love her. Then I got invited to play in another game and I was like, well…I like Verin a lot, but I need someone else to play…ah heck what if she had a twin.
See the thing is, I find twins a really interesting mechanic. I am writing a book about twins actually, but that’s neither here nor there. So, of course, twins. Both human, both autistic, and both ambulatory wheelchair users, because both of my GM’s are a delight.
Now the differences are how they magic – because magic systems is yet another thing I find fascinating. So, Verin is an alchemist artificer. And Auster, her twin, is a wizard librarian. Verin casts her spells with tea, and Auster casts them with ink. Tada! I thought up Auster when I started getting hilariously into fountain pens and inks. Much like Verin came out of my interest in teas. It’s been fun so far.
Now, the bit about how what you’ll see next in this area is The Husband’s fault. In our last session of the Caterean campaign (Nov 4th 2022) I made a joke about how I should play the Letter Game with my two twin characters. And he was Iike oh heck do it and post it on your site! So here we are.
What’s the Letter Game? I don’t know if it has an official name or anything, but I played something like it when I was a kid on long car rides, and I’ve heard a bunch of different versions described, but I was mostly referring to what Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer did writing The Enchanted Chocolate Pot. If I remember correctly, they wrote letters back and forth to each other as the characters in what eventually became that book. So what I am doing here is writing letters back and forth between Verin and Auster, from their respective campaigns.
I will not necessarily be writing a letter per session, but rather whenever I feel like it. That will most likely be inspired by interesting things that happen in the games, or random backstory pieces I want to develop. This is meant to give me a creative writing outlet that I plan to thoroughly enjoy. I will title the posts by which sister is doing the writing and I’ll date it using the general month of whatever hame session prompted me. Keep in mind I will maybe be taking artistic license, but I will try to run things by my GM’s when I feel I need to. And I will try very hard to make sure I am not speaking for any of the other player’s characters without running it by them first. This is meant to just be a fun creative outlet, so don’t take any of this too seriously! Just enjoy.
An #ActuallyAutistic #ADHD #AmbulatoryWheelchairUser With Opinions
