Excerpt from the histories of Helious Prime.

(bit long I was practicing speed writing and so babbled some random thoughts)

After some thorough looting we found the painter. I instantly thought of the sicko cleric that was with us. Her tastes and his art were a perfect match and though unusual I knew their relationship would have a chance and more importantly she could keep him safe. I decided to play the match maker and suggest she care for him. I even took her to see his other paintings. My elf killing finger got itchy, the elf killing drills were trying to kick in but I resisted them after all the painter seemed quite hardy and needed protection and a life beyond this incident. Unlike our attractive yet simplistically cunning summoner I believe the painter has the stamina and creativity to fulfill her bizarre needs.

The painter seems to have differing groups of paintings, some almost predictive and inspired others not. I remember stories of the lurking dark, a formless force that predates all creatures, deep mining groups sometimes come across it. None know if its one or many, a creature or an errant primordial soul. Like the legendary weapons of the old kings, but without given form, it possesses and guides those it contacts. Often towards destruction and insanity as the concerns of the old world rarely coincide with this modern one. I couldn’t help but think of the old stories.

I think some possessing force, maybe some ancient chellaxian devilish force, moved through him and now lies in the queen. Justin did not think the queen evil due to the evidence at hand originally. Others assumptions came to be true later. Perhaps she is merely one of many puppets. The forge fathers of my home fought the chellaxians alongside long dead varisians when the chellaxians invaded. Perhaps some old force yet wants to dominate this land defined by diversity and freedom. Perhaps it’s just the spirits talking for as one of the elder dwarves of the deep I lack the new dwarves resistance to such introduced poisons. I will take this more seriously if the next intermediary we need to fight or track down is another step closer to the queen and exhibited unusual powers or had a red herring slave that did. As the gnomes say: nothing has to be true forever, just for long enough, to tell you the truth.

The painter was to go back to the others across the river we agreed to escort out of the city in a week or two. I cannot believe the stupidity and selfishness of the shoanti. He seemed fixated at crossing the river with the painter. Not only would this entail the others sitting round bored and doing nothing he had NO plan for should things go wrong.

The tactical stupidity of humans is beyond me. The need to go is contingent on danger thus to assume there will be no danger and want to charge away without a backup plan is idiocy. Not to mention how obvious he is. For a self-proclaimed stealthy person he seems not to conceive that you cannot always hide. I don’t think he realizes how OBVIOUS he is. Four arms, bandoleers of weapons, potion bottles for his infusions and ‘spells’, the scent of unusual reagents to name a few. Saddest of all that for someone that seems to take great pride in his height he forgets he is a foot taller than the varissian and chellaxian natives. He is also a race that is despised and has a complexion so different that the combination stands out like a giant in a gobilin formation. 

Why don’t humans consider the world they live in, their own traits and very appearance? For a warrior that likes to lurk, kobold like, behind opponents in a weak mimicry of true strategy he lacks a concept of end game. Whats the ideal scenario and worst scenario of him going over? Ideal: nothing happens - in which case he adds an element of danger by standing out as someone that is being looked for  and directing the queens spys to the place others are kept safe. Worst: something happens – in which he (by long experience) will be of little use and will likely escalate a situation like the painters questioning into their deaths or worst the painters death and the survival of the shoanti who then leads them to the safe house. 

For one that whines so often he has remarkable faith in his abilities. Something I might respect if they took into account the above along with the simplest of mundane techniques like tracking. No matter his stealth abilities, the second he is seen, even should he loose his pursuers Justin told me he is easily tracked.  Much more sound to have the unwatched for cleric go with him, evidence indicates that should something happen she is twice the defense the shoanti would be, thrice as subtle and able to return him to life should he fall. Seriously I sometimes think some of the shoanti tribes had elvish progenitors so lost does this one get in his own inner fantasies ignoring the relevance of the reality around him. Better to perish than be elfish!!

Next we went to see some wealthy pratt who knew the whereabouts of those we had to find. Unlike dwarves, who are all wealthy, humans that are most often negative incarnations of the mercantile spirit. The nobles of old considered it the greatest dishonor to be involved in money grubbing but the days of purpose; honor and positive incarnations of wealth are long behind us. Worst humans now combine the worst of noble behavior and entitlement with the worst of mercantile behavior. The kind of person that believes in life the worst insult to not be recognized while doing nothing noble to be recognized.

They act dishonorably with arrogance and devious self-centered behavior. How they are blinded by mere wealth is a great mystery. It’s like they become the sum of their belongings or desired belongings devoid of self. To become a null entity defined by ones belongings is the greatest loss. If dragons merely become their hordes, warriors their weapons there is no inner wealth, no majesty, no point.  Such tainted humans consider their side to be the only side and only care about their own convenience.  

Sophistication doesn’t make baseless opinionated goonery any more substantial. The conception of a personal geography, outdated stupidity like the earth as center despite proof, where they are never wrong is the greatest weakness of such people. Like religious or gnome science nuts it’s the same cloth their all cut from. The belief defined by the thinking that those that disagree or oppose are insane at best, dangerous at worst of worst for them- null entities. The kind that forget argument comes from the ancient thassilonian ‘arguer- to debate, discuss, persuade by reason. Yet to argue with them is to be confronted by resistance without truth of explanation and emotive twaddle that begets flaming rows of tone and volume where they seem to think that that yells loudest and longest wins. The kind that retaliates, not in brave personage, but by telling the mob how to dance. The real trick is making mobs by making others think and acts like one.

The lying supercilious bastards only patronize others to patronize them. With childlike thought they think they gain some worth by belittling their betters, their rather naïf in their emotions and use of actions its saddening.  How empty their lives must be, beggars to their own desires. How I hope this is not some disease that will spread to all of humanity for then there will be none. 

This one was cut from that cloth. Evaluating words solely in terms of length not impact. Thinking he is beyond ordinary laws and can use his money to get his own way and ignore rules. Privilege means just that: private law. There should be rules none can ignore. It’s why some seek to destroy religion because they have laws that cannot be subverted. He is the sort that helps those top knobs like him make societies rules so complex that they become a twisted puzzle ring lacking all soul that only they have the time, connections and money to untwine. The only joy in seeing such machinations is to know that though they seek to be masters holding strings in a complex game of legal despotism and tyranny only they are taught inevitably their inbreeding or excess leads renders them unable to keep up and others take over.  I think it’s why they hate mavericks and criminals so much. They too follow private laws but without hiding like cowards behind layers of industry merely relying on guile, smarts, balls and if the situation demands bare knuckle scrapping.

At least it takes strength to harm someone unlike the simplistic art of harming with words and ‘incidental’ actions through viciousness cased in expensive words. Privilege is either having the strength to harm people or the connections to dictate anothers’ life indirectly merely by stressing: ‘I want no HARM to come to him’ or ‘I want NO harm to come to him’.  Real strength however lies in being able to but choosing not to, having a center beyond whims and urges.

I wish people like this that utterly lack rapport or empathy could one day see their lives not through their skewed perspective but through the eyes of others. The many lives they consider beneath the masterpiece of theirs. When will they realize all lives are full of interest if people are lucky and at the very least surprise and all in their own way some genius. It’s sad that humans don’t utilize the full resources of their race.. that which might save us may never occur. All because the greedy doom brilliant minds that could change the world and cure ills to a daily hopeless struggle for subsistence. Such a lack of fulfillment poverty entails, without education all mankind is diminished, yet some waste wealth. Ironic no human ever thinks they have enough to stop grabbing for more so none will ever help to guide their world away from being base and corrupt. Such mercantile faux-nobles are so busy they shorten others’ lives without consideration.   

Talking to him was just irritating me. The way he spoke like he was on the right side, not because he considered different sides but merely because he was indoctrinated to believe (through parents or merely through a lack of individual thought) any side his on IS the right side. He could be one of tens of humans I have met. Hopefully this thinking shall not promogulate.

The only balm for my itchy trigger finger was his obvious survival ability. It was interesting to see it in action. He seemed a of new wealth and exhibited none of the bravery of old wealth. Those sorry souls so enslaved by elaborate retrospective historical lies its all about death or glory. The stories of ancestral heroism that push them like a tide of lies granting the strength to find the deepest grave or the rare glory. Those of new wealth are always the first to get to grips with any conflict, ignore the past, and manipulate it for their prosperity.

I trusted in such peoples survival abilities in a tight corner so made no move to attack. It helped that he was strong enough to be nice, it’s the small and weak that must act like conniving scum. I am sure he was there once, but no more.

He viewed himself a connoisseur but had the class of a potato. Class is how you act in times of stress and pain and I doubt he had felt much for a very long time. He seems so superficial I doubt he cares if others think his shallow. He spoke of a maze in his garden. Once drinking a half-orc that sold security door to door told me – the better the suburb the darker the basements. How true it is.

I whispered to the others that we should resupply before going into a maze of unknown dimensions with an unknown way of escaping none had but we apparently would be able to. Inconceivably they were ALL against it.  Components for spells, the renewal of alchemical and gunsmithing supplies, bullets, arrows, a cure wand, a restoration wand, a find the path scroll to assure an escape route never mind a chance to pause, think, take stock and discuss away from this want to be machiavellian tosser. These humans make no sense. Cowards when the best way is forward, blindly keen when we have no idea and no supplies, whining when there are no other options and it wastes precious breath in combat. They forget so fast that the last two major battles we needed an additional supporting cleric, still got harmed, and before that weren’t doing too well. I belabored the point and still they were against it. THEN the wealthy pratt got involved and said this was our one chance to get to the maze. Like the worst kind of bully he hit harder after he was stood up to yet sadly they all acted like he was their lord and king and like it ended the debate. He had already told us the entry point, had imprisoned their friends and a city hero and yet here they were being lead and bossed like the simplest of peons.. into a maze whose exit and dimensions were unknown. Even elves aren’t this bad.

I followed these young idiots through acres of garden to a glass window looking down on a maze. It was obviously magical. I can imagine that tosser who knows the command words to have vision of the maze strolling here languidly to stare down for hours watching the mice he just conned into blind obedience. No doubt smirking at the ease at which he cowed such heroes before retiring to a study lined with books, and none of them read. Humans that do not listen are easily lead as the drow say.  Indeed as I said above he was the one that tells the mob what to do, I just didn’t realize before this party is the mob he has as his bitches.

We went down into the maze, a wonder of far eastern architecture fitting the dark skinned natives of this tropical land that I travelled with. The barbarian discovered the elephant was an effigy that could manifest while we poked about. I encouraged the ranger to try and find a trail of where those we were searching for went. Instantly up sprung some massive shambling moss ridden skeletons. I found it bizarre and disconcerting that our ranger couldn’t perceive the unnatural mounds and nor could our ever alert barbarian perceive their hiding places before they sprung on us. Unfortunate as it puts the credibility of those we are here to rescues likelihood of survival in severe doubt.  

As in my dreams of another life where every opponent jumped out and surprised us again they pummeled us mercilessly. The ranger did not fare well, now she realizes how it is to not always fight the enemies you specialize in, the barbarian summoned his undead spirits to attack but put himself in grave danger by ‘shoanti like’  tactics even though the snake abomination had already. It was a disaster.  Our casters had no spells to control the terrain or limit the attacks of the enemies. The shoanti saved us with a haste spell. That combined with all of us attacking and that my challenge ability knows no bias allowed as to dispatch them. I am worried about my ammo count as well as the alchemists’ reagents. It’s amazing how a single spell can make our little group as effective as one just under twice as big. Spells, my clan never liked them, but I can see now how our general resistance might have weakened us against the newer clans and their specific resistance to poisons, spells and spell like abilities. Curious that I bothered to encourage group spells when likely I will benefit the least. Dower and taciturn I will become in a world like this sky vaulted land of the selfish and soulless.