We decided to head over to the desert fortress and report back to the Khalif. During the travels, Gibríel and I studied some tomes we found on the island. I studied one called De Vermiis Mysteriis, which was in an old form of Common, and Gibríel studied some tablets called The Zanthu Tablets, written in ancient Elvish. They spoke of some... bad things.

Gibríel and I spent most of our time studying the tomes, but I understood that the others spoke with the Khalif and he didn't have much of a solid opinion regarding the Mad Arab. We went back to the city and spoke with the Khalif's son, as well, but again I was mostly studying.

After that, we went out into the desert to see if we could find the place where the Mad Arab found the golem. (After getting a hold of it, we did a history scan on it and saw the past. The stars in the sky matched the stars on the chart, a position that was about two billion years in the past. We saw that there were armies of these golems, and that men would sit inside of them fighting other armies of these things.)

It took us some looking, but we managed to find where the golem was found. There were many other golems there, as well as some other things that could only have been transports, what with their wheels. Daphne picked up a residue of a powerful spell, likely a stasis spell. (This explained to us why everything seemed to be in such good condition.)

We looked around and found very few things, almost as if it had been pillaged, (though neatly done; there were no messes).

We went back to the fortress and asked about any places that the Mad Arab might have stored things. We went there, got past the traps he set in place, and found another one of the golems opened up, as if he were working on it and trying to make it a psionic artifact instead of using whatever power source it used before. There were many cylinders of Shiral Crystal, as if they were formed to fit in the cylindrical openings in the back of the golem, as well as lots of orchalcam powder. We also found some texts that looked like manuals for the golems. They were in some strange language we didn't know, but I took them with me to study once I finished studying De Vermiis Mysteriis.

After this, we decided to go on the trip to the East that we'd been talking about for a while, now. It was a five-week trip one-way, and I'd managed to finish studying my tome on the trip over. I'd noticed, though, that it kept trying to get away from me. Either that, or others were trying to take it away from me and out of my keeping.

Once we got there, Gibríel and I found a place to stay. The Immortal said something about noticing a shark come out of the sea and turn into a man, and that he had to fight it and kill it, but he had no evidence of it, so I mildly dismissed it. After that, he said that he and Re-Roll were going to visit the war-masters of the East at the capital city further inland, a week's travel by horse. Korendir and Daphne went off to do other things.

Taking a break from studying, Gibríel and I wandered around town. We found a shop with a half-open eye on a sign above the door, so we decided to check them out.

Inside was an oriental man who went by the name of Master Li. There was a large oritnal man there, too, and Master Li said his name was Number Ten Ox. I asked Master Li if he knew of ways to mend broken minds, and he mentioend some stuff like tea, herbs, and other things like that. I said that I was looking for a technique that would heal damage done by evil books, and he held up the Imperial Tax Laws, asking me if I meant something like that, 'cause he'd been studing that for years and never made much sense of it. (And, for some reason, he insisted on calling me Moon Boy.)

I nodded slightly, but then showed him De Vermiis. The next thing I knew, it was about 2 AM -- I met Master Li around 10 AM -- and I was missing my book, my Ring of Insanity Protection, the technical manuals, and Gibríel was missing the tablets.

I knocked on Master Li's door, and he answered. I politely asked Master Li that, if I'd offended him, that I would apologize, and also asked him if he'd seen any items laying around, as I seemed to have misplaced some. He feigned ignorance of ever knowing me. After more useless dialogue, we left, me very annoyed and angry with this whole Orient place.

We headed back to our room at the inn when I noticed a drunk heading our way. We tried to avoid him, but when we walked past him he fell over and started screaming and pointing at me. I ignored him and continued walking. Shortly after that, two men claiming to be guardsmen came up to us and said that we should come with them for questioning. It was pretty obvious that they were all scoundrels, so Gibríel and I ended up having to fight them. Instrad of leaving their corpses on the street, I put them in a Bag of Holding for later looting.

When we got back to our room, we noticed that the door was kicked open and stuff was strewn about. We also noticed that, on the door, were claw marks of a creature with seven fingers. Instead of staying there the rest of the night, we went to a different inn and got a room there. Gibríel cast Wizard Lock on the door, just to be safe.

She woke me up around six in the morning. Sitting on the other side of the room were Master Li and Number Ten Ox. He tossed back everything he took from us and said that he had to check out the stuff and was returning it. I asked him why he took the tech manuals, and he said that he had to see what they were about, too, along with the other stuff. He also told me to get packed, cause "we" were going on a journey; he had to teach me some things.

The first place we went to was to an old martial arts master's place. He looked like a bug, and Korendir and Daphne were training here. The martial artist showed respect towards Master Li, though I doubt he was a terribly nice individual. We found out that Korendir would be training there for another three years, so we next went to find The Immortal and Re-Roll and inform them of this. With that done, Master Li took us to a very strong nexus of ley lines.

The first thing he did was take out the block of orchalcam we picked up from Korendir. After spending the better part of the day working on it, Master Li managed to dispell the nasty spells that were on it and gave it back to us. After that, we started training.

Gibríel spent her time practicing with a dexel she picked up from party loot before we all broke up. She also asked for a pound of orchalcam to fuse into the dexel, allowing it to be made smaller and worn like an amulet. Her training allowed her to, essentially, become an archmagi, able to manipulate all energy, regardless of whether it be psionic, magical, or chi related energy.

I learned more psionics from Master Li. He taught me some combat and defense abilities, as well as an ability to do surgery on the mind. This is what I went to him for in the first place. I also realized that very few ever reached the ability levels to use that kind of psionics, so I was now a rare individual.

We also attempted to reform the Mad Arab. It was possible here, what with the number of reformed demons in the orient. We tried, but were unsuccessful, and we were forced to put him to death. This meant that I had to take over the title of Vizier for the Khalif's kingdom, and it was also said that I'd have to take over the title of "Mad Arab". Since I was neither Arabic nor mad, we made a compromise: Slightly-miffed Gaijin.

After all this was over, we got back together. There was a caravan nearby and we did what we usually do at caravans: check them out for useful items. Re-Roll saw something interesting, and I went over to look at it when he mentioned it.

When I was within a hundred feet of it, I felt it probing at my mind. I felt it was intelligent, so I asked it what it was doing. It said it was looking for someone. I let it look, and went to look at it, physically.

It was a sword, and a very old one, too. The merchant gave a history for it, but since I could actually speak to it mentally, I got the story from the sword itself.

It said it went by many names, but that the one thing its wielders had in common was fighting Old Ones and their minions. After much talk with it, I decided that I would wield it, and it decided that I would be its wielder. I traded my vorpal scimitar and one-sixteenth of an ounce of orchalcam for the sword, which I named Mindstorm. (Mindstorm also, when I asked, mentioned its maker, and that he had ceased using it when he died in combat with He Who Must Not Be Named, The Crawling Chaos, and the squid-faced one. While Mindstorm's maker was physically killed, so, too, were those three banished for a time.)

This page last updated on Saturday, 08-Mar-2003 10:47:41 CST | webmaster @ infiniteshadow . net