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The
Gilded World of Vabbi
Progression:
*
Quest: Rally the Princes
* Mission: Tihark Orchard
Wyrm
- 01 Jul 2007
I suppose I should take a moment to explain how we've been
surviving, and how we plan to go on surviving. As you know, those of us that have
answered the call to live by the rules of the wilderness do not enjoy spending
time in massive cities or putting glitter on ourselves with expensive armor. In
truth, one of the things we believe is that money is a useless token, since we
are able to get all of our armor and weapons out in the field, away from cities
and towns. Therefore, we do not spend money. Some of our kind believe that it
is all right to purchase supplies to help us identify and salvage goods, but others
would rather barter for them. Everything
we have has come from either bartering with traders using war trophies or from
what we have found on the field for ourselves. We do not accept handouts and,
unless we are there to witness something dropping from the corpse of our enemy,
we will not accept it. It is important for you to understand this. We do not do
this to proclaim ourselves too good to be helped by others, but because we feel
that we must earn everything for ourselves in order to be worthy of it. As the
story goes on, this will continue to grow in importance as you will see. Now
that we are in Vabbi, we must reach the princes in order to ask for their aid
in the fight against Kourna. To go about this, a guard tells us we must find someone
named Kehanni. We step out into the wilderness and the first thing we notice is
how different the landscape is. Both Istan and Kourna have the look of a savanna,
whereas Vabbi seems to have been carved from mountains. Kehanni is not too far
away, sitting down, waiting for us. She tells us someone is waiting to talk to
us in the Chantry of Secrets. Whatever that is, she gives us directions on how
to find it. On
our way to the Chantry, we encounter demons that are aiding the Kournans, the
likes of which we have never seen before. They are quite a bit more powerful than
the other enemies we have faced before and this worries me. Fortunately, there
are very few of them around so they don't have much of an impact on the battles
we fight. Inside the Chantry we find the person Kehanni told us about and he tells
us we need to attend a festival so we can speak with the princes directly. I don't
like the sound of that. On further questioning, he also tells us of the demons
we fought earlier. They are called Margonites, and they serve the dark god Abaddon.
That could be a problem. We
leave the Chantry and make our way North, in order to meet Kehanni's mentor, priest
Jeshek who lives away from society. I like him already. He hands us each an invitation
and sends us on our way. Kehanni tells us we need to show them to another priestess.
Not really sure why, but I guess that's the way things are done in Vabbi. In any
case, we work our way further to the North and reach the Kodash Bazaar. Wow is
this place uncomfortable. It seems to be a testament to the way people can obtrude
their ways on nature. The less time we spend here the better. The priestess that
Kehanni wants us to meet with is supposed to be just outside,so we leave in a
hurry to go see her. The
priestess Haila greets us from a distance and then screams when we get close.
Ok... She says we're filthy. Uh... And that we smell bad. Huh? We need to take
baths. What? She decides we need help making ourselves presentable and she'll
do what she can. What!? Now,
we may live in the wilderness, but that doesn't mean we're savages! Who does this
woman think she is? We smell like blood? Of course we smell like blood! We've
been in combat! What are we supposed to smell like? Perfume? We're here because
we want to stop Abaddon, not accessorize him! Ahem...
After that humiliation is over with, Kehanni shows us around the garden. It's
kinda nice, less obtrusive than that Kodash, at least. Seems like a bit too much
pomp and circumstance though. She shows us who the princes are and, lo and behold,
Tahlkora is already with one of them. Apparently, she's the daughter of Prince
Mehtu. That explains a lot. We want to go talk to them now, but Kehanni forbids
it. We can't just walk up to them. Oh boy, here we go again. At least now I know
why I became a sunspear and didn't dabble in politics. After
our "preview" Kehanni sends us back to the entrance until the festival
starts. As it turns out, our invitations are individual passes, so we can't go
together. I'm not liking this. Me alone in this place is going to require a serious
amount of alcohol. Now
separated from my allies I head into the garden for the festivities where Kehanni
greets me once again. She explains that the best way to get the attention of the
princes is to mingle with the crowd and to try and enjoy myself. Easier said than
done. We start going down the stairs to the entertainment and Kehanni spots an
old friend of hers. That's! It's! That's! Kourna! Morgahn! Bad Guy! After
I manage to calm down, Kehanni explains that he, too, is a disciple of Lyssa and
comes to this festival every year and is a welcomed guest while he's here, just
like I am. That's going to take some getting used to. She decides to keep talking
with him and sends me off on my own to mingle. Well, I suppose it was bound to
happen sooner or later. I'm making my way down to the central area when I spot
two kids staring at me. I walk over to them and ask what they want and they want
me to show them how to dance. If you're thinking that this came out of nowhere,
then that's about how I felt as well. Luckily they're kids, so it didn't require
too much effort or time. No, I'm not going into the details on it. Moving
on from the kids I start going in a counter-clockwise circle around the center
court and wind up running into a mime. That talks. I don't get it. He's starting
to insult me. I'm going to clobber him. Mime-off? Ok, that's it, this is war.
The game is I have to mimic his movements. It's simple enough, but then he starts
making obscene gestures at me and I throw a punch at him. I lose. That rotten
trickster. Ok, time to get serious. We go through the routine again and he, again,
makes me lose concentration. Now I'm getting annoyed. After about ten minutes
or so I finally beat the snotty bastard. I hate mimes. I
really hate mimes. I storm away from the fool and try to relax and then some arrogant
woman signals that she wants to talk to me. She's heard that I'm trying for an
audience with the princes. She says she can help me out by giving me something
that will get me in to see Prince Bokka. For a price. I'm not paying her anything.
She says I don't have to pay her in money, but instead a favor. I'm starting to
lose my patience with this woman. She says I just have to take out a guard and
bring her a golden feather. Take out a guard!? I'm still in a bad mood from that
mime and now this nutcase wants me to get arrested so she can steal from the princes?
I decide instead to just beat her senseless and take the present for Bokka. I'm
starting to feel a little better so I move on. My attention is next caught by
a man that wants me to aid in an historical re-enactment. He doesn't really have
my interest until he says the only thing I have to do is beat up another re-enactor.
I'm in. After a minute or two of talking, someone just starts attacking me, so
I beat him up. Next thing I know, everyone's cheering and saying what a good performance
it was. I could get used to this acting thing. As
I approach the dais where the princes are, I come face to face with a man named
Zilo who challenges me to a duel. As I prepare for battle I realize that he's
talking about a drinking duel. This could get interesting. In order to win, I
need to down twelve drinks in the time it takes him to down his jug. It doesn't
seem fair since I have to move around and get my own drinks while he's got his
right there in front of him, but whatever. Determined to not be defeated, I start
grabbing drinks from anyone and everyone. Pretty much whoever's closest to me.
I finish my last drink and beat him. I'm feeling good now and ready to talk to
the princes. I just need to find my toboggan. Where
in the world did it go? I guess I'll have to make do without it. I start with
Mehtu. He's saying something about his niece and I'm not getting it, but he seems
happy enough and agrees to talk to me. I thought I was talking to him. He doesn't
seem to believe that Kourna could have bad guys in it. Varesh isn't a guy, so
I guess he's got me on that point. I don't think he's really listening to what
I have to say, so I move on to Bokka. Some snippy person stops me and says I must
present him with a gift before I can speak to the prince. I'm about to offer him
the gift of my fist in his face when I remember that thing I took from the arrogant
woman I ran into after I beat that mime at his own game. I hand it over and they
seem more interested in the gift thingy than they do in me. This guy is a waste
of time, so I stumble on over to Ahmtur. Ahmtoor. Amtoo? This
guy's not such a doofus as the others were, and we start talking about beating
up Varesh when all of a sudden the party gets crashed by really big bird-men.
We're toast. At least we're not bread, though. Toast stands firm and tall and
stuff and bread just sorta limps and gets pushed around. I'm not gonna get pushed
around by these bird-men, I'm toast! I grab my spear and thrust it through the
skull of the nearest birdie and he falls down. Another birdie takes a swing at
me, but I fall down so he misses. See, the other birdie had the right idea, but
I had the order right. More guards show up and raise their swords against the
birdies. They're good guys. I like Vabbi now. We work together and all the birdies
go "squawk!", which I guess is birdie speak for "ow!". With
them all bread and us still toast, it's time to sleep.
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