Hello, Everyone!
How have you been? I'm still in DM mode and scheduling Mary's story is taking a back seat. I might have to change the schedule for a couple of months. Instead of three times a week, I'll update twice, on Mondays and Thursdays. That way, you'll get Mary on time and without having to wonder whether I'll post or not.
Also, you might have to look at my placeholder picture for a while. Sorry, drawing is going slow :(
Anyway, let's get back to Mary's story. Last time, our heroes went to the docks and prepared for a dive into the deep. They were going to try and find Maheshvara's magical bells which resided somewhere beneath the Misty sea, along with the corpse of Christoff Pyron.
But before they were ready to go, Mary noticed a few weird things. Writings she didn't remember writing, marks on her skin she didn't remember making...
(by the way, if you've played something like this and KNOW what's going on, please don't spoil it for the other people who are reading!)
Mary, Bruno and Aurum were sitting on the shore of the Misty Sea. Their stuff was spread on the sand around them, waiting to be stored in their Bag of Holding. However, they weren’t currently doing that.
Mary was looking at the markings on her forearm and the wrapping paper where her own hand had written the cryptic ‘Why do you ignore it?’
“How can I not remember?!” she cried out. “I remember everything!”
“Almost everything,” Aurum said quietly.
“Do you have any other lapses in memory?” Bruno said.
“No!” Mary said. “Well, not exactly… I mean… There was that time in the mausoleum when the door got unlocked and the vase got filled with water, and I don’t remember how that happened…”
“I thought that was because the place made itself useful to the family,” Bruno said, “and since it recognized you as family, it… well, it made itself useful to you.”
“No, but then we went to that restaurant and the bill got paid, and the owner--and even Tesaya!--said that it had been me!” Mary insisted. “And there were the other mysteriously paid bills after that…”
“But it wasn't always on the same principle,” Bruno said.
“No, it wasn’t!” Mary said. “The fancy dress in Pamagos was paid for from my money, and the dinner at the ‘Gastrognome’ – they said Anabelle Perres paid for it but she didn’t even carry a purse…“ Mary’s voice was getting more high-pitched by the word. “Then there was the potion of Water Breathing which doubled itself, and the key that appeared on Bruno’s belt, and the… and the…” She pressed her temples with both her hands. She’d suddenly gotten a splitting headache.
“But are there longer periods of time that you’re missing?” Bruno insisted. “Like, if you’ve sat down with a book or something and then it was already hours later and you didn’t know where that time went?”
Mary looked at him as if he was talking nonsense. That's how books generally worked for her.
“Ok, but is it just me?” she said, looking at her friends. “You two don’t have any faulty memories?”
“Now that you mentioned it, I can’t say I remember that key getting on my belt,” Bruno said. “And, honestly, I have no idea what happened to it after we used it. But that’s all.”
They both turned to Aurum. The bard shrugged.
“Nah, I don’t have anything missing up here,” he said, pointing at his head.
“Aurum?” Mary said, her eyes staring at his hand. “When did you put the ring back on?”
“What? I didn’t put it back o--”
But he had. The brass ring with the amethyst was glittering on his finger.
“Oh,” the bard said. “Well, no worries, I’ll take it off again.”
He did so and showed it to the other two. However, they weren’t looking at the ring.
“Why are you crying?” Mary whispered.
“I am not…” Aurum touched his cheek and stared at the moisture on his hand. “I don’t…”
“Is it because of the ring? Is it bewitching you?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Mary! Bruno said it wasn’t cursed!“
Mary grabbed the ring from his hand and threw it as far as she could. She watched as Aurum’s body twitched, as if it was instinctively going to pounce after it, but he stopped himself and just stood there. Then he shrugged and summoned his Mage Hand. The ring flew towards him. Once again, he demonstratively put it in the Bag of Holding. His eyes were still wet.
"There was someone else who cried like that recently," Bruno said. "Dorina, while looking at the map."
"Yeah, but what could that mean?" Mary said.
She shook her head. The whole ordeal was so confusing and frustrating! She hated not being able to trust her own mind and she hated not being able to trust her friends.
“Come on,” she said. “We’ve got only 23 and a half hours of Waterbreathing left now. We must go.”
They stood on the shore and looked at the sea ahead. It was grey and unpleasant, completely unmoving, without even the smallest hint of waves rippling the surface. The mist began about a hundred yards from the shoreline, like a milky-white wall suddenly cutting the world off.
Step by step, Mary, Bruno and Aurum started walking into the water. People’s voices came from the docks--some amused, others worried or confused--but nobody came to try and stop them. The water came to their knees, then their waists--that was the most unpleasant part, then to their chests and their necks.
When it came to sink her head in, Mary felt sudden panic rise in her heart. Was her spell really going to allow them to breathe underwater? She held her breath as much as she could, and when she finally let go and took it…
… it was all right. She didn’t drown.
In fact, for the first time in a long while, she felt… peaceful? Calm? Free? The pressure she’d been feeling since entering the city had disappeared without a trace. Like a whole mountain had been lifted from her chest.
The silence of the underwater surrounded her and she smiled.
So, we're going to proceed with our plan to go for the bells, huh? What about the other mysteries? When are we going to get on those?! I can't wait! :)
See you next time when our underwater adventure begins.
Take care and be well!
currently--every Monday and Thursday.
(Also, here's a link to the Chapter Guide, the Glossary and the Map for the series. You're welcome!)
An important disclaimer: These are my notes from a D&D game turned into a narrative. All the worldbuilding and NPC encounters belong to our DM, and all the actions of the other main characters (Aurum and Bruno) belong to my co-players. My contribution to the story is only everything Mary-related (actions, reactions, inner thoughts), as well as the writing itself.