Author Archives: Alexis

Thalia’s Lament

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I was a daughter of the House of Wrens,
Where the wild roses climbed the wall,
I spoke the tongue of root and stone and stream,
The old grove taught me all.

I wore the green robe of the standing circle,
Walked the paths my teachers walked before,
The foxes came to eat out of my palm,
The ravens knew me at my door.

Sweet Corwen waited at the chapel door,
With a ring his grandmother wore,
He built me a trellis of white and red,
Said my roses were what he loved me for.

Oh, stone hands, don’t reach for me now,
Oh, cold eyes, I beg you, allow
One more bloom before the silence comes,
One more spring, before I’m lost to this…

A man in violet robes came calling,
Admired the garden that I’d grown,
He asked me for a cutting of my roses,
Smiled like he already knew my name.

He said the old grove’s magic ran too wild,
Said a gentler shape should hold my power,
I did not know his tongue was poison,
I did not know the binding in that hour.

He led me down to a garden of statues,
Where nothing living blooms with age,
He took the wildness that the grove had given
And twisted it into a cage.

Now Corwen searches every roadway,
My mother tends the beds we made,
They do not know what waits here for them
In this cold and thornbound glade.

I still know the name of every root and leaf,
But my cures cannot undo my own,
So I sing instead, in case he hears me,
In case he finds this garden, overgrown

Oh, don’t come closer, love, don’t you dare,
Oh, don’t look up, don’t meet my stare,
I am not what the wizard has made me seem,
I am still the girl who loved a rose, somewhere…

A Dungeon With A Theme

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As the Crimson Calling crests the stairs and takes in the fire lake, Alexis pauses. He tilts his hat back and wipes his forehead.

“When we first got here, Red said the griffin ‘room’ had a sense of air about it.” He gestures back down the stairs. “Mist. Bare ground. We’d felt air magic before, so it tracked.” Another gesture downward. “Then the next level. All that vegetation. Earth.” He looks out over the fire lake. “And now this.”

The Making of the Fire Room Plan

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After the group has retreated from the eruption of the fire bats from the fire lake, Alexis sits with the Crimson Calling on the steps between the two levels. He adjusts his whip.

“Good. Now we know what’s in the fire.” He looks at Rask, Gustav, and Ca’armine. “First, the bats. Then we try talking to the giant again.” A slight pause. “He must be desperate for conversation by now. Desperate might work in our favor.”

He glances up toward where the giant would be.

“How long does he think he’s been here?”

He lets that sit for a moment, then continues.

“If talking doesn’t work, we have options. That unnatural forest below, we can harvest from it. We could build a ballista again.” He waves a hand slightly. “Long shot.” Alexis looks at Ethelred “But maybe you can find something in that idea worth working with.” He looks at Ca’armine. “Raiden can reach him too. The determined wall of the north, your bolts. That right?”

“If it comes to it, we hit him from range, keep him from throwing those boulders, rest, come back the next day. Repeat. Not my preference, but it works.” A beat. “We might need more food if we’re doing this over days. Gus, you have options. Rask, Carm, you two as well?”

He looks at Gustav, Ethelred, then Rask.

“Any of you have anything that reaches at this range?”

Alexis takes a moment and looks at all his comrades. “But that’s just where I’m starting. Any other ideas? Rushing to the stairs? Blinding the giant somehow if we need to? Something else?”

Orcs as the legions of the downfall

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While the group has a little downtime on the lush forest level in the tower-out-of-time of Nodden-Torr, Alexis muses out loud.

“Something’s been sitting with me.” He waits a moment. “The orcs that tore through Nodden-Torr had black veins running through them. Unnatural. Shadow infused in them, or some-such. Clearly altered by Shasherak. And that shadow creature we fought under Nodden-Torr, same thing: Black veins.”

He glances at the group.

“And Bandesingh uses orcs too. Different mark, same foot soldier.” He glances back. “Why orcs for both of them? Not stink lizards, not hobgoblins, not gnolls. Orcs.” A beat. “Did Bandesingh learn that from Shasherak? Is there a connection between them, or did two men arrive at the same answer separately?”

Another beat.

“There’s a spellbook tied to Shasherak that nobody’s seen in an age. I’d very much like to know where it is. I wonder if it’s being held by the Dark Hand.”

About to get Shafted

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The group has been awake for a little while, moving through the quiet routines of breaking a camp that was never quite a camp. Eight plush chairs in a room that has no business existing where it does. Everyone present.

Alexis sits forward, elbows on knees, and tilts his hat brim up toward the shaft in the ceiling.

“Before we move, I want to talk about that hole.” He looks up at it for a moment. “There’s light up there. And this room is clean. No debris, no dust, nothing that should have fallen down from wherever that shaft goes.” A pause. “That’s worth understanding before we decide what to do with it.”

He looks around the group.

“Carm, I want to ask you something that might be a long shot. Your connection with Raiden,” he chooses his words carefully, “is there any chance he could tell us when we are? Not where. When.”

He looks back at the shaft.

“And does anyone have a way to learn more about what’s up there before we commit to anything? I’d rather know more than less before we start climbing.”

So Much Rushing

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As the group is resting in the room with the comfortable chairs, Alexis looks at Ca’armine. “You sensed evil behind that door back there and wanted to go in.”

He pauses a moment.

“We also ran straight past the key we needed.” He glances at Ethelred. “You and I need to be the ones asking what we’re running past. That’s our job. We need to remember it.”

The Missed Beaded Treasure

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After the group has finished fighting the Ogres and moved back the way they’ve come.

“At the end of this series of monsters there could be some amazing treasure!” Alexis looks back the way towards the Ogres and beyond noticeably wistful. “With that protection, the working would surely be amazing.”

Alexis keeps walking but looks back a couple more times.

Taking A Deeper Step?

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As the group is walking back from getting the third key of Nodden-Torr, Alexis brings up a question.

“I’ve been thinking about the ring.” He keeps looking straight ahead. “If I go deeper with it, it could help us understand what’s between us and Bandesingh, and what’s waiting for us when we get there. Same way Gus was the only one who could use Dauntless, I’m the only one who can use this. Red could get there someday, but he’d have to make some choices he hasn’t made. That’s not where he is.”

He’s quiet for a few steps.

“If it didn’t cost anything I wouldn’t be bringing it up. There would be moments where I’m looking at too many possibilities at once and I’d need someone to help narrow it down to a decision. Someone with a clear head and strong convictions who can cut straight to what matters.” He glances at Ca’armine. “That kind of thinking would be useful.”

He keeps walking, lets that settle.

“There’s no danger of the ring taking me over. Same as there was never any danger of Dauntless possessing Gus. This ring was forged for one purpose: knowledge in the service of keeping humanity alive. Red wants knowledge, full stop. The rest of you want to protect humanity, to varying degrees. I’m the only one who combines both enough that the ring and I are truly aligned.” He says it plainly, but something in his face tightens. “I wish that wasn’t true.”

He keeps his eyes on the tunnel ahead.

“This is one of the great artifacts humanity has ever made. We’re going after the Tear because it improves our chances against Bandesingh. Should we let me lean further into the ring for the same reason?”

He glances sideways at the group, still walking, clearly waiting.

When the Plans Make Contact With the Enemy

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After the group has left the room where four of the group had to deal with their doubles. Ca’armine addresses Alexis. Alexis is clearly emotionally wrapped up with both watching himself die and losing the possibility of having two Alexis’ to plumb the secrets of the universe.

“Boss, in that room, remember that we had a plan.” Alexis nods, and Ca’armine continues. “And I would be such a disloyal team member if I didn’t keep reminding you that you had a plan and we needed to follow the plan and I’m going to keep doing that. Changing the plan in the middle is not—”

“We changed the plan in the middle, in the bead room, because there was an opportunity there. And Red followed through on that opportunity.” Red agrees with Alexis as he says this.

“There is no universe in which both of those Alexis’ could have survived.”

Alexis and Ethelred enthusiastically agree, with Ethelred adding, “but they might have been able to fold them back into one.”

“They did by walking through the door.”

Alexis and Red both disagree, and Alexis adds, with just enough self-awareness to take the edge off, “But five minutes could have gained so much for the world.”

“From studying that trap?!” Rask stares at him.

“Yes,” Alexis and Ethelred exclaim together, with Ethelred adding, “It was a working much like the other workings we’ve discovered.”

“Sleep on this, but think about how dangerous that could end up being.”

Alexis looks at Red, then back at Rask. “We’ve thought about it.”

After a second Alexis turns back to Ca’armine “A plan is where you start, Carm. But when something changes on the ground, that’s a conversation you bring to me. Not a reason to hold the line by yourself.”

The Inner Watch

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The group is moving away from their camp back towards Nodden-Torr ahead. Alexis falls into step beside Ca’armine.

“Something came out of my studies this past fortnight. A name I didn’t recognize.” He glances over. “The Inner Watch. Some kind of sect inside the order.” He watches Ca’armine’s face. “Have you heard of it?”