Memories of Dave - Part 1

We asked members of the community to share with us their memories of playing Realms with Dave. If you have any you'd like to share on future posts please email them to the editor's desk at je.denar@gmail.com.

by Robyn Nielsen

From Sara Jessop:

I was asked to ‘write a short blurb or story about Dave’, but trying to condense Dave down into a ‘short blurb’ is nigh impossible. Zarine is only Zarine because of Dave. I developed her entirely through writing, which never would have happened without his encouragement, so really the fact that I’m a writer who writes too much is his fault.

Years ago I floated the idea of writing a basic bitch column for The View called I Can’t Even. He encouraged me to do it, even though I was nervous, so I wrote a ridiculous article about pumpkin spice. Reading that article now, I hate it. Truth is, it wasn’t great. But Dave encouraged me to keep fucking going. So I did. 

Later, when I was going through a particularly rough time, he tried to encourage me not to quit. He pointed out to me ways that I could separate myself from my character.I didn’t want to hear it. But I needed to. He helped me to see that while I was upset because people weren’t considering the person behind my character, I was doing the same thing. Ultimately I decided to take a break, but when I came back I took that advice he’d given me and applied it to my blog. That blog almost didn’t happen either. I was nervous after what had happened, but I went back and read this: ‘I do hope you will find another outlet, though. You're a very talented and entertaining writer.’ I believe he meant that, because Dave did not say things he didn’t mean. So once again, I kept fucking going. 

When I got snubbed by the Peacocks I was hurt and angry. He taught me that titles and clubs aren’t what make you great and I wasn’t ‘less than’ because I was rejected. Through every time I was shunned, I remembered he taught me that people aren't always going to like who I am, and those people will be more vocal than the people who do. I could be angry about it or I could keep fucking going. I’ll admit that I embraced the power of ‘and’ in this case, but the fact remains that I’m sure I wouldn’t be in the Order today if it wasn’t for him. 

The last message I have from him says, ‘I'm just getting caught up on your recent articles and wanted to drop a quick note to say that I'm glad you're writing again and they were, as always, a pleasure to read.’ I don’t know if he ever realized how much of who I became in the Realms was due to him. How many times I kept fucking going because he encouraged me to. How much he did that for so many people and how much of him is in all of us. How much he meant to individuals and to the community. I can only hope that he did.

Dave was the very best of us. The amount of people who’ve said they wouldn’t be who they are today without him is staggering. He gave us ‘Vawn’s rule of awesome’, encouraged all of us to ‘keep fucking going’ and to ‘be kind to each other’. He was an inspiration in so many ways, but for me the most important was his ability to be honest without cruelty or bias. He’d tell his best friend that they were wrong and his worst enemy (if he had one) that they were right. Doesn’t matter who you are, he’d disagree with you in a way that still made you feel heard and valid. It’s a completely lost art but something that is so necessary for communities to have. I hope that he taught enough of us to be kind, to be understanding, and to listen. I hope enough of us will ‘be the things you loved most about the people who are gone’. I hope there is enough of Dave in all of us to keep fucking going. I hope we make him proud.

by Michelle LaPlant

From Athena Teatum:

Dave Hayden played the best paladin I've ever seen, in any game anywhere. He played the role of the true hero to the hilt, and his character, Sir Vawn, is always going to be synonymous with that in my head.

So. It was my second year in the Realms. I was a newbie at an event run by Carrie, all set in this strange manor, and I was following around a group of older players. They wanted to do a ritual, but there was too much noise and distraction around, so we took over a small side room and shooed out a few other people so we wouldn't be disturbed.

One of those people apparently was upset that we had taken the room, and started spreading rumors that we were doing something evil in there.

This is where Dave's character comes in.

I'm not exactly sure what those people told him but I do distinctly remember opening the door to find myself inches from an angry mob, and, more importantly, the business end of Vawn's pike.

He demanded to know what we were doing, and little baby newbie me barely stammered out "we... we were trying to summon a lich's soul jar to us so we could disenchant it without the lich catching on to what we were doing?"

And Vawn just kind of stared at me for a second before lowering his pike and responding something along the lines of "Oh. Well. That sounds good. Did it work? Do you need any help?"

Meanwhile the butler of the manor, who was secretly the Lich, had overheard our conversation and was bolting out the door. Vawn was on him in a flash.

It was just such a slapstick moment and very and keeping with both of our characters and I think it sums him up to a T. He was unquestionably dedicated to doing what he thought was the right thing, a terrifying force to stand against, but when he was on your side, you knew everything was going to be okay.

I'll miss you, Dave. I'll miss LARPing alongside you and going to Ani DiFranco concerts with you. Please consider this my best attempt to sing you into the Summerlands.

by Casey Lemay

From Sarah Fournier:

I’ve only had a few interactions with Dave Hayden, but every single one of them was pleasant. The very first time I met him was at Queen of Hearts 1018. It was a month after my dad, Decion had his stroke. I was still in a haze. We were standing under the awning of the gun club, looking out at the Chess field. He introduced himself to me, with tears in his eyes, and said something highly complimentary of my dad. I don’t remember exactly, but I think he said that my dad is one of the best men he’s ever known. At this point in time, I had recently shed 100 gallons of tears and was too numb to cry more. 

I smiled woefully and thanked him, and he gave me a warm hug. He said that he wanted to do something for my family, treat us to dinner at our favorite restaurant or anything to take a bit of the burden away. I didn’t know at the time that he understood exactly the pain we were going through. I wish that I had had the capacity to cry in that moment, because knowing what I know now, he would have been safe to cry with, and mourning with someone who knew my dad would have really helped me. I was so numb to everything then, and I wished I had been able to react better because I could tell Dave was a truly caring man. 

After Queen of Hearts, I’d see Dave at my occasional visits to Lowell fight practice. He was always kind, genuine, and helpful. I wish I could have the honor of practicing with him for years to come. I am so grateful for the few interactions I have had with him. Reading everyone’s beautiful stories has even further shown me how lucky I was to have those moments with him. He is the pinnacle of a Good Man, and he has truly inspired me, and The Realms, to be better.

by Dustin Mack

From Ethan Goldman:

I met Dave Hayden waaay back in October 14, 2014, I know this date exactly because it was my birthday! Oh boy howdy. And I was gonna spend it playing video games and eating at a restaurant.

I was in school heading from the library to my Introduction to Public Health class. For some reason there were these 3 losers dressed up in armor in the middle of the south campus Gazebo wearing ponchos. "Well, what's this", I thought, so I went to check it out.

They were selling Cider for the Realms! 1 dollar for a cup. "What's the Realms?" I asked the three, who I found out were Swoop, Steve Anthony, and Vawn. "You see the realms is a LARP." Well whats a larp?

"Its kinda like DnD but you can do this?" He picks up a sort of toothpick and poked Anthony with it, who dropped dead instantly. And that was AMAZING to me, I mean I basically dropped out of the DnD club the week before and I needed something to do, and it was REAL. Kinda, it felt more real. "Wow that's amazing." I said, repeating myself. "You know it's my birthday today."

So Vawn, knight that he is, said "you know what, you can have some cider for free. We have practice every Tuesday, so we will be in that creepy building over there tonight!"

So I drank my cider and latter that day I WENT HOME! It was my birthday after all, I had plans. But the next week, ho boy, I showed up.

And I was bad! Really bad, so bad that my first event in just a few weeks later I got kidnapped! Not only did I not know they could do that, I'VE NEVER SEEN ANYONE ELSE GET KIDNAPPED ;n; 

But Vawn said, "Ya know what, it's difficult just to show up, so lets celebrate your first event with SWORD MAKING" and I learned how to make swords. (And I immediately forgot, If i don't have the instructions in my face I forgot how to do anything, thats why you have to check in spell books).

So flash forward several years to the ECHOES OF RAGNAROK. Allow me to explain, EOR is a quest series created by Jason Rosa with a simple plot. Sure you guys destroyed Bedlam but what about the SOCIOECONOMIC PLANNING? YOU GOTTA BUILD INFRASTRUCTURE BOYS WE ARE VIKINGS NOT PIRATES!

And Vawn said "Wow I love laws, but man I remember having a nation, I should ask some of my friends to join me." So somehow I got asked to make a Eagle's rook alt. I don't think Dave asked me directly, he has a sense of self preservation, but I was asked and that genie left the bottle in the first Aladdin movie.

So naturally I, being 2015's greatest newbie, had the perfect plan for a character, I just needed the rubber stamp. So I go to Vawn and go "Hey I got a character idea, for my Eagle's rook Alt, but first I gotta get something confirmed. You know how Eagle's rook a police state, right?"

And he said "No."

But you have to understand my confusion. I come from Neden, a land where the first, second and third autocratic despots have each said "Rules are meant to be broken", we aren't a civilization we are a perpetual frat party about drinking and partying. In fact if you think about it, all of the North is like that. Neden likes drinking and hates structure, Grimloch likes drinking and hating the undead.

And Invictus likes drinking and hating Grimloch.

So I was in a bit of a pickle so I say "Okay but hear me out."

And Vawn, despite his better judgement did.

"See you guys hate undead and stuff, and you got these prisons, so I got a idea for a character who is like the Iron Mask yeah? Hes a prisoner locked away for his dangerous crimes and is just referred to as a number, but hes allowed out on parole work, like saving someone elses planet.

And it took a bit but me and Janna convinced him that the character was worth running. Thus entered Prisoner 37, a hard man doing hard times.

And im minding my business, enjoying the crisp Norlund air and i meet Chimeron. And Kovaks, curious about the strange man in irons, wanted to know just what I was doing penance for.

So I answered. 37's crime... Serial Jaywalking.

You see there was a rotary and thats like 6 different roads so when you just run across it, well what can they do?

So after a bit of socializing and Prisoner 37 learning his tattoo was on backwards cause he did it in the mirror, Kovaks ends up talking to Vawn "Hey did you really just give this guy life imprisonment for Jaywalking."

And Vawn, who was never super into the idea, responded with the tired patience of people who dont get into winter drama. "Well you know." He shrugged.

"Jay walking is dangerous. He could've gotten someone hurt."

And Vawn didn't need to play into a bit done at his nations expense just for someone else's joke, but he did it anyway.

And on a side note, if I was never handed a glass of free cider i would have never learned what LARP was, and I wouldnt have met any one I hang out with now, my entire social interactions are precipitated on that one random ad campaign. So thats a fun tidbit.

by Robyn Nielsen

From Greg Falconer: 

I think my favorite story of Dave would be a past feast of Leviathan. We were doing a Viking themed thing for Torolf and Dave was wearing very dark makeup around his eyes. Dave set everything up and the fight went perfectly. However, after this he had to play Vawn and the make up didn’t fully come off his eyes. I had switched back to Daekara and went to talk to him. I asked him how great the fights were in the summerlands where he got two blackeyes. Dave got this silly smile and just started poking me in the stomach for the rest of the event telling me to stop being a wise guy. He looked so happy in that moment that I want to remember him looking like that.

by Cal Marsden

From Jason Rosa:

I think a notable hallmark of Dave's character, Vawn, was that he was so much of a "good guy" that it often brought out the cracks in other people's "good guy" personas. There are probably a hundred examples of this but one always comes to mind.

In the early 2000s, a few years after we started playing, it somehow became very in vogue to throw plots that had a lot of moral ambiguity. In fact, Dave had lost his first character, Kethrellen the Red, because of how he tried to do what he thought was best in a very morally ambiguous moment and I have to believe that a lot of the reasons behind his conception of Vawn were because he wanted to be in a position where he could always know he was doing the right thing.

When I came up with the idea for the What Lurks Beneath plot I really wanted to avoid moral ambiguity. It was a very simple - there are trolls worshiping an eldritch horror demon thing under ground and you, the heroes, need to just get rid of all of that nonsense. Dave remarked to me on a couple of occasions how much he enjoyed having a plot that drew the good-guy-bad-guy line so clearly.

Well, that was until the third event in the series, where things sort of went awry. Don't get me wrong, there was nothing morally ambiguous about how I WROTE the event but the PCs managed to invent their own conception of what was happening. They thought that they specifically had to unleash an evil demon onto the Realms in order to kill it. That, in fact, was not the plot at all but there was no way of telling them that.

Vawn, who had reached that same erroneous conclusion along with everyone else, decided to be resolute and tell the questing party that they were all going to stop and that they were not going to be allowed to continue to release this (completely fabricated) demon. Of course no one wanted to straight up challenge Vawn but they did want to continue the quest because that's what questers do, regardless of the questionable outcome.

So instead of fighting him on it, one of the party's spell casters that had a lot of divination (I remember who it is but I'm not going to throw them under the bus) grabbed me and walked me over to the side. They told me that they were going to pretend to cast a divination spell but not ACTUALLY cast a divination spell and calling me over was part of the ruse. After a little prop-work and hocus pocus they marched back over to the questing party and confidently announced that their divinations had told them that releasing the demon was the right thing to do and that Vawn had to suck it up and help. He begrudgingly went along with it.

The ironic thing is, of course, if that caster had actually used the spell then I could have just used that opportunity to tell them that their assumption was way off in the first place.

After the event Dave expressed his frustration with me that I would have written such a plot twist into an event series that I had touted would not have those kinds of moral issues. I know I should have kept the OOC secret but I just couldn't handle his cold, judgmental stare. I explained to him that he was tricked and that that divination spell was never actually cast. I don't think that made him any happier though.

by Angie Gray

The Ballad of Sir Vawn, Avatar of Vandor

by High Priestess Kindrianna Athame (Renee Booke)

The Summerlands beckon to the souls of the true,

The greatest of heroes who saw their deeds through.

They come with their honor to the codes that they swore,

And now our Sir Vawn stands tall at their door.

True to himself, both in word and in deed,

White Knight of the Realms when she was in need.

Heart full of valor, a path without fear,

His life and his courage have led him straight here.

The next journey waits just beyond golden trees,

In a land full of hope and sparkling seas.

Vawn, you have earned your peace and your rest,

And those that have known you are eternally blessed.

Templar and Knight, defender and friend,

May songs of your deeds never come to an end.

The darkness still fears you, and has for so long,

For the blade in your hand shines righteous and strong.

We’ll try not to mourn as we celebrate your life,

Free from the mortal-bound cycle of strife.

But the most important thing you should know,

All along it was your Light that helped us to grow.

You were there by our side when Wayland’s fortress fell,

And a swift wave of Bedlam began to rain hell.

Not once did you hesitate, you jumped in the fray,

For a true Knight knows no other way.

May Vandor’s warm light guide you as you roam,

Carry Eagle’s Rook with you forever as home.

And should evil strike, putting us to the test,

Then your soul will cry out to complete one last quest.

Watch over us all from your paradise,

And be with us always when we need advice.

It’s hard to be happy while watching you go,

But you’re with the Gods now and we’re down below.

Meme Monday

 by the Meme Team

In Memoriam

 

Words cannot describe the depth of this loss.

Our hearts are heavy today. 

To our dear friend, colleague, and mentor -

It was an honor to know you, 

to fight and quest alongside you.

To seek your wisdom and your counsel.

To feast and laugh with you.

To work in the kitchen and on the Western Flank with you.

To try to follow the example that you set, of what a knight should be. 

The effect you had on us will not be forgotten.

We are all better for having known you.

And the hole you have left can never be filled.

To Sir, with love.

Until we meet again. 

What you missed: Exotic Items, Creatures, and Wares 3.5

by Eric "Rosetta" Willisson

Where shall I begin? While the day itself started at the crack of noon, the work for this gathering started weeks earlier, to say nothing of the years of history. I myself found out what a big deal it was to Magus James Swift when he personally asked me to aid him, calling in a favor owed to him from the days of the Bedlam War.

I do want to mention that while a few names show up repeatedly in my telling, that is only because of the places I was focused throughout the day. Every single person who came to this quest was essential. I saw so many acts of heroism, large and small, from quick thinking to keep a line together, to acts of sacrifice, to running to defend when heedless of danger. There are long stretches where I do not discuss the fighting, but make no mistake, it was nearly constant, and we could not have accomplished what we did had we not been well-defended.

Because of the history, recent and not, we had documentation, newly-crafted items, old artifacts, and magical power gifted to us by everyone from fellow adventurers to the Stonewood Fae, there to support us on our quest. We would need everything that was brought to bear.

Soon after arriving, and confirming to James that I was there as a representative of the Fae answering his summons, we gathered in a cozy tavern outside the town of Wartham. I could already hear those present discussing their own preparations: yes, the graveyard was "locked down" to prevent its dead from being used against us. Yes, the knightly gauntlets were charged. Yes, the Blood Brothers item was active. Soon, James addressed the crowd.

He reminded us why we had come, and the expected tasks ahead of us. We were there to reforge the evil sword Shadow Fang to make it into a force for good. First, we would have to reach Wartham. Second, we would fight the demon called The Smith and take its hammers, the Horadric Malus. Third, we would gather Runestones from our enemies until we could assemble the required Runewords to empower Shadow Fang and activate necessary magical tools. Fourth, we would actually reforge Shadow Fang and kill the fallen archangel within it. Just four things. Along the way, we would find the Black Soul Stone, a prison with which to keep Izual, the archangel, from simply returning to fight us later through the demonic Cycle once we had slain him.

Apprentice Tempest moved around the room, handing out actual trifold pamphlets introducing us to the lands of Stonewood. If mine did not get too dirty, I will be submitting it to the Library of Ivory. It covered key things we needed to know about the types of dangers in Stonewood, whether to do things on impulse without checking first (no), and current members of the nation.

Soon, James and Tempest enchanted the armor of all ten or so fighters who were present, and we set out for Wartham. We had hoped to find multiple survivors of the recent weeks' attacks, but when we arrived we sadly found only one, a man named, if I caught it right, Voloris. Wartham itself had a small graveyard, the anvil we would need, and a border of a few dilapidated buildings and some trees. Outside, the red portal we had been warned of glowed faintly. We also found a box with blanks that would fit the Runeword needed to re-enchant Shadow Fang.

The portal began to disgorge demons. Undead, mostly, with fairly tough armor. As predicted by my divinations, we quickly started to find Runestones carried through the portal. While some assumed they belonged with me because of my own association with Runes, it was Rowan of Stonewood and a newer adventurer, Astaria, who were able to make the most sense of them. cross-referencing them against a book of runic lore and keeping track of which of the 84 Runestones we had collected. Their work proved vital throughout the day.

Early on, a greater undead being came through the portal. Most of us were unable to affect it, and on the rare occasion we did drop it, we had little understanding of how it had happened. It helped set the tone for the day, in that it took us a very long time and some noteworthy costs to figure out how to finally destroy it. Ser Kovaks' use of Fighter's Intuition, Apprentice Thoril's use of a Sleep regional, and Astaria's Magic Missiles all proved vital, as well as several people's keen observations.

After this, there was a lull, and Kovaks brought truly essential supplies from their cart. There were water, grapes, cheese, pepperoni, animal crackers and pretzels. They had reminded us in the meetings leading up to this quest that an army marches on its stomach, and thus came prepared. We relied on these greatly throughout the day, and I cannot imagine how hard it would have been to continue on without these snacks.

As we expected, soon after this, more undead emerged from the portal, and they were clearly accompanied by the Smith. Two hammers, and a loud voice told us all we needed to know. In addition, it was accompanied by what appeared to be Lord Elwin of Stonewood, fighting on its side and very difficult to harm. By this point I had noticed that the majority of our enemies were enchanted beings, and frequently used my Circle of Protection to avoid fights and get kills where I could. The fight went poorly for us, and at one point we nearly all were felled, but Thoril saved the day with a magic item that, for some reason, is activated by shouting "Attention Campers, all in the sound of my voice, rise and fight!".

I believe the Smith was finally defeated when enough different people had attacked it, though I may be confusing that with another fight. Similarly, I am unsure how Lord Elwin was defeated. See what I meant about the greater undead setting the tone for the day? I do know that we attempted to destroy the body afterwards. It dissipated, and we agreed to work on fixing it another day. We were too far in our current mess to take on anything else. A current theory is that it was a simulacrum of him.

With the Horadric Malus in our hands, and the majority of the Runestones collected, only a scant couple of hours in, it seemed that time was on our side. This was about to change.

We had noticed a locked door that would normally have lead to the basement beneath the tavern, with a curious inscription on it, a long series of standard spells separated by three symbols: ~, +, and |. It seemed likely that the spells indicated some kind of password, and over time we put increasing amounts of work into solving it. Tempest, Astaria, and Rowan did much of the painstaking work, but it eventually took several divinations and spending favors granted by the Stonewood Fae to finally solve it. Before I understood how the Fae preferred to be spoken to, it expressed its displeasure first by blinding everyone for several minutes, and then by killing the entire questing party. Thankfully, we had diligent healers and a magical Group Healing pool belonging to James to help us recover, and the door unlocked when I spoke the password.

We sent a scouting party inside, and they reported that there was a terrible miasma, making them feel incredibly ill. There was also, some distance down, an altar with skulls and an item that could only be the Black Soul Stone. The stone was surrounded by a magical field and could not be touched. When James and I went to investigate the stone ourselves, he noticed that there were tiny images of Runestones etched around the metal casing for the stone, likely fitting the twelve circles surrounding the stone. He began to record them, though almost succumbed to the miasma.

We planned to send different people down, each to stay as long as they could to record Runestones. Sir Avendar went first, and was able to get several before he felt his magical protections being burned through. Tempest chose to go next. However, we noticed she was remaining there for a dangerously long time, and when we sent someone to investigate, they found no sign of her, only the notebook she had been writing in. A Guidance did not answer me as to whether she had been absorbed into the stone herself, but it seemed the most likely bet. It also seemed likely that we would need to be able to bring it out to rescue her. Rowan volunteered to continue the work, and had me tie a rope around her waist so I could pull her back if she fainted. I waited for the longest time I thought could be safe, called to her and got only a cough in return, pulled the rope back in, and to my horror found the empty end. She, too, had vanished.

The sun was setting and we had lost two of our people, and still were far from activating the Black Soul Stone, or even solving what was wrong. I composed a ritual of Fae power to Intervene for help, and suddenly found myself holding a pile of twelve Runestones, empowered to deactivate the shield. I ran down, followed closely by Kovaks, and inserted the Runestones as quickly as possible. With the last one, I saw the shield flicker and vanish, and seven demonic spirits in the room became visible as they were sucked inside. To my relief, the bodies of Tempest and Rowan materialized in front of us.

I tried to take the Black Soul Stone, but quickly found it had a compulsion to return it to the spot. It would need a Protect the Soul or similar magic to remove it. We grabbed the two bodies and hurried back into the fresh air.

While arranging for the two of them to be raised, we found Talia, a new adventurer who had been given a Protect the Soul sash. She was able to bring the stone up from its holding place. Unfortunately, when I took it as she handed it to me, its power overcame me and I was compelled to slay everyone around me, while being protected from their weapons myself. Eventually I was stopped when Kovaks grabbed me from behind while others pinned my arms, until the magic left me in a huge explosion. The stone began to drift back to its spot on the altar. Later experiments confirmed it could only be kept inside a Circle of Protection for a short time, and we concluded it would need to be left in place until it was needed. I made sure Talia knew that she was one of the only people who could take it, and that when Izual was brought low after Shadow Fang was reforged, she would need to retrieve it so he could be imprisoned.

It was much later in the day than we had hoped, and we knew it would soon be time to begin the reforging process. Sir Sean called to the god Thane to restore our magics, though like all things divine in Stonewood this came at a cost. Jericho performed an Augury to determine that, contrary to some earlier beliefs, it would be a good idea to close the red portal then, not wait until after fighting Izual. Blackwood headed to the portal with a plan. It wasn't long, however, before someone came running back, saying that the portal had closed, with everyone else still inside. I rushed over to attempt a summoning ritual to pull them back out of the Hell they were now trapped in. At first it seemed like I was successful, as bodies appeared, but at last, when my power reached Sir Mathias, I felt him Resist Magic and the ritual ended. The other members of Blackwood were understandably extremely upset that I had left their lord behind, though I tried to explain that he had resisted me. I would have been upset and confused, too. At the very end of the night, I made one last attempt, supported by the rest of Blackwood other friends of Mathias, to summon him back to us, but once again he outright refused. I believe Squire Pilpus, Sir Nos, and Sir Elizah have worked on learning more since then.

There was nothing else for it but to begin reforging Shadow Fang. James had summoned an "automation crystal" that would work the anvil. After confirming we had the Runeword we needed, thanks to the hard work of Astaria and Rowan, we brought the Runestones, the Horadric Malus, and Shadow Fang to the anvil, and began.

As expected, the fallen archangel Izual emerged swiftly. Thanks to a blessing by Lady Natira, we knew he would be unable to escape Wartham, and with the portal closed he would have no way to reach the demonic realms. However, we expected to have to defend against him and the minions he summoned for over an hour and a half. Thankfully, magic from Sir Sean and others seemed to lessen this greatly.

Still, the battle was hard. Night had fully fallen, and his minions were plentiful. I spent most of the battle using my Circle to help prevent one side of the line from being wrapped, but unable to harm very many of the heavily-armored undead. Behind me, it was clear that the battle against Izual was raging. Thoril used all of his Sleep abilities to prevent Izual from reaching the anvil and interrupting the forging, but there still were many close calls.

I believe that I missed when Shadow Fang was actually finished, but when it was, the tenor of the battle changed from simple survival on our part to seeking victory. Around this time, one of the undead managed to break through my Circle, raise me as undead, and sent me to kill James. However, this was at the exact moment that James had invoked all of his power and was fighting Izual hand-to-hand. I came in to try to kill James from behind, but my dagger bounced off him as easily as if he had been an Archangel himself. Eventually the people around me caught on that I was probably being compelled, not trying to stop James for some inscrutable Fae reason, and so killed me.

The next thing I knew, I was alive and no fighting was occurring. Instead, there was a discussion taking place. I ascertained that there had been a fatal mistake, and Izual now had dominion of the Black Soul Stone himself, and to make matters worse he contained the three Prime Evils that had been trapped inside it. So confident was he of his victory, that he had agreed to let us regroup and discuss his offer to let us walk away.

Things were indeed bleak, but it is never wise when fighting the Realms to give us time to think and pool resources. Thoril revealed that he had a scroll of Wish he had been hoping to use otherwise, but he could sacrifice for this cause. Not wanting to waste time, and knowing the ways wishes have a tendency to backfire, we decided on a simple one quickly: to make it so that the Prime Evils were back in the stone. Obviously, when this wish was made, the truce was over.

Unfortunately, it turned out the stone was still embedded in Izual's chest. Still, this had made him significantly more vulnerable. Avendar used a scroll to reach Vandor and rip the stone out from his chest, at which point everyone descended on Izual, and soon he was dead and his body dissipated. His spirit seemed to float away, possibly to the Black Soul Stone.

In the end, we were battered, bloodied, and weakened, but we had accomplished what we set out to do. Shadow Fang is no longer an angel-slaying sword of evil, but rather a force for good. Its powers are of Peace and War, such that James may better serve his goddess.

The one snag was that the Black Soul Stone itself went missing, with nothing but a small pool of mysterious liquid to mark where it had once been. It seems it may have been acquired by an even bigger threat, one which may have orchestrated some or all of this for its own plans. But, such is the way of dealing with gods and angels, and perhaps we will confront this foe another day...

Morning Coffee Break

 Got your morning cup of coffee and a few minutes? Great! We're trying out a new feature at the View - we're going to be asking a series of questions and we want to know your answers! The question is posted below. So while you sip your morning beverage of choice, ruminate on this one:

It's October and the spooky season is upon us! Share a memory of a time you dealt with the undead at an event!

Head on back to Facebook and let us know in the comments!

Meme Monday

 by the Meme Team