Author Archives: Dennis

Hitting Upon Interesting Times

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8th day, 2nd ride, March, 1372 DR

So far, so good. I took a bath in the stream, which was freezing, but refreshing (and necesary!) I undressed a little way from camp, I don’t like to explain myself, and definitely not about things I’m not particularly proud of, like scars, burnmarks and tattoos.

An hour and a half into our journey our streak of luck changed; two days with no problems at 2gp a day was too good to be true.

The clearing smelled of ash and burnt meat. Seven or eight humans, all men, foresters loyal to Daggerfalls, were rushed and overwhelmed by Humans and Orcs who wielded magic. Abel purged himself of his breakfast as he saw the mutilated bodies, and decided to dig a grave. Thorim decided to help him because it was “the right thing to do.” We burn our dead because the ground is usually too frozen to bury them, and, well, because during the Great War you were never really sure whether they would stay down.

We decided, after much protest from Abel, to track the group responsible for the massacre. Two hours, due east, we found Centaur tracks (unshodded horse hooves) that hit upon the raider tracks. It was decided to continue and follow the two sets of tracks. After another hour we briefly stopped for a short rest only to continue, double-time.

At dusk we found that the Centaur tracks left the raider tracks. An hour after that, past sundown, we stumbled upon their camp. Roland crept closer and Abel and I moved down towards the river to mask the sound of our approach. Something went wrong with Thorim and Roland, because their approach was quickly discovered.

Our opposition consisted fo four Orc warriors, lead by a Human sergeant and a mage. The Orcs ran into the woods towards Thorim and Roland, while Abel and I were left with the two Humans. With Abel’s arcane powers and Abaddon’s furious might we quickly killed the warrior and sent the mage running…right into the arrows of what I can only assume were Centaur archers.

Thorim made short work of the Orcs; he is truly a formidable soldier. How Roland made himself useful, I do not know, nor car e, about. One Orc was left alive and semi-conscious for interrogation. Roland leaned on the Orc and he revealed the leader of the Flaming Tower to be a man named Gunmar. He also said there were many “shamans” and that they could fly.

Then Roland slit his throat.

We continued on along the river until midnight, and made camp in the woods. I spent some time in communion with Abaddon, cleansing and healing myself, purging myself of my sin, and re-aligning myself with Abaddon’s direction.

Uneventful

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9th day, 2nd ride, March, 1372 DR

We walked. I took point. We were forced to stop after about six hours because Roland wasn’t able to continue any longer. We decided to start sleeping early and travel by night.

Dead Zhents

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10th day, 2nd ride, March, 1372 DR

I was woken by Abel around two hours after midnight. We spoke a bit on guerilla warfare and its tactics. After we walked for a few hours we stumbled upon twelve men – Human, Orc and Half-Orc – whose badly mutilated bodies were crucified in the middle of the forest, on display, like grotesque scare-crows. Three of them showed signs of old scars and badly set broken bones, indicating, to me, their martial history. The rest looked like workers and craftsmen. I thought at first that the smell of rotting flesh were the signs of the undead. With Abaddon’s guidance that was quickly disproven as I felt no signs of the Restless.

The bodies were about two days beyond death. Strange how Zhentarim woodsmen seem to have been logging for wood three days from the Flaming Tower. We couldn’t find any signs of attackers, but the wounds didn’t seem clean or precise.

Daggerdale

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10th day, 1st ride, March, 1372 DR

I finally reached Daggerdale, and I have a room at the Teshford Arms, just outside the city, across the river. It’s run by a woman called Olavia, who charges a ridiculous one gold piece per day. Abaddon give me strength!

I talked to a Sembian called Roland, and a Cormyrian sorceror named Abel, they are new in town as well. The three of us are going to find work at the garisson tomorrow.

Tuesday Morning Musings

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Sexual Maturity:
I wonder why our bodies mature, sexually, before our minds do. Perhaps our mind’s process of maturing is kickstarted once the body starts producing all these hormones, or perhaps we’re just so indoctrinated by pious morality to believe that sex is a sin that our mental sexual maturity moved further and further away from our physical one.

Disturbing Dream:
I’ve been watching a lot of war movies lately. By lately, I mean the last few years. They leave an incredible impression upon me. Black Hawk Down, Harrison’s Flowers, Tears of the Sun, Behind Enemy Lines, Hotel Rwanda, the list goes on. Most notably, I’ve watched Band of Brothers, a mini-series that I watched with my gaming group, and then again with Eva. The last, I believe, inspired my latest disturbing dream, in which I was part of the resistance in the Netherlands, and was assigned to kill a German tank commander. It was very disturbing.

Todo List:
I had a thing, on my todo list, probably from way back in 2002. I had an idea to create a script that could automatically generate a web-form based on a table in the database. The script had to be fully automated to insert, update and delete records from the table without me hacking and coding a table-specific script each and every time. It’s relatively simple, but I hadn’t really given the solution a lot of though yet, until I sat on the train going back home from Hoorn, and I had an epiphany of how to handle it. It shouldn’t be a script, it should be an object-class, only then can you do things like incorporate drop-down menus with items from another, secondary table. Anyway, I’m not done yet, but I’ve already got a few things running on this script right now. Like the webform in which I’m typing this journal-update right now.

World of Warcraft:
I hit level 60 two weeks ago, and I have to say that I do miss a bit of the joy of achieving quests, due to the fact that you don’t get the XP reward any longer. Right before I hit 60, I only had 45 XP to go, which is not a lot at all. I handed in a quest, and got 6600 XP, vaulting me into elite status. Strangely enough, even though you’re not supposed to be able to gather more XP once you hit 60, I did get 6565 XP on my XP bar, which is now a painful reminder of how I can’t get any more. I wish that bar was just empty, you know?

Anyway, I must be the poorest level 60 character on that server, because I’ve been working on leveling up my leatherworking. I’ve also been exploring Winterspring a bit, which is fun, but not exactly a profitable endeavour. The whole purpose was to start questing for my Winterspring epic frostsaber mount, but I keep getting distracted by other quests that invariably send me all over the globe. I also hit Alterac Valley every once in a while, and I’m looking to start some quests in the Eastern and Western Plaguelands. All that undead…it’s right up my alley.

Dungeons and Dragons:
I’m having a lot of fun playing roleplaying games again. For the first time in a longlonglonglong time, I’m not GM’ing but playing, and I have to say that it really rocks. I’m playing Leman, a priest of Abaddon, the God of Lightening and Primal Energy. It’s like being a priest of Talos, only without the destruction part. Dennis will be wrapping up his campaign in a little bit, hopefully before Edwin fucks off to Sudan for a month. We’ve asked one of their friends, Frank, to join us next sunday to see if he would like to join our campaign. Seeing as how he lives 2 minutes away from Dennis, in the same apartment block, it would be quite convenient to have another player there. After Dennis is done, I think I might pick up D&D as well, so that Frank can get used to the group and not have to dive headfirst into a new game like Shadowrun or Call of Cthulhu. I’m looking forward to it, because I started a D&D campaign in 2003 that never really got off the ground.

Birthdays:
My father’s birthday was yesterday. Luckily he and I have an understanding, so I didn’t have to worry about getting him a gift. My mother’s birthday is in a little less than a week, and I ordered her gift, which was promptly delayed. Last year I gave her my gift in March or April, I believe, so I think she’s used to me being a tad late. Then, mid-January, it’s Wai and Moulsari’s turn. Wai hasn’t given me my present yet, but like with my mother and I, he’s always late, too. I should really find something uber-ridiculous to punish him for his tardiness. Moulsari…*sigh*…Moulsari, it’s always very hard to find a gift for Moulsari. Last year was a good success, though. Perhaps I can come up with something while she’s here. I’ve never been able to give her a birthday gift, on her birthday, while looking her in the eye.

Relationship:
After my relatively successful trip to India two months ago, Moulsari and I are looking into her moving over to Amsterdam. Since she’s from India, that’s not really very easy. It wouldn’t be a problem if we could live together, because then I could simply vouche for her (lord knows, the required income is so low that even I amply exceed it), and she could start looking for a job at her leisure. But in her culture it’s not done to live together while not married, and since we’re not looking to make such a definitive commitment just yet, that’s not an option. We’re mostly still in the information gather and planning stage, which requires a lot of bickering. We’re radically different people, and we handle things in different ways, so it’s a point of friction. But I’m wholly confident that we’ll get there, and once we do, we’ll be the better for it.