MP Game - Yarnspinners

[Sedna]

R'lyeh, Turn 39


"ATTN: Front Line", read Ahu'yhuala, looking up from his sand castle. "Keep up the good work!! Your efforts are very valuable to us in the fight against [blank].." Here he paused, squinted. The words "Atlantis", "Tritons", "Evil soul-sucking void lords", "Man", and "All those who oppose us" were all scrawled in the blank, though some of them appeared to be crossed out. "Our glorious struggle demands constant vigilance and sacrifice," he continued. He glanced at his men. B Squadron appeared to have copied his drip-arch model, and was taking advantage of his inattention to the sand to add elaborate shell hatching to their castle turrets.

He skimmed the rest of the message. "Be assured that the GAPFC-BPRR has important plans for your brave warriors/ magicians/ chefs (choose all that apply). Stand by for urgent communiques to follow." It was signed "X", like all the others. Ahu'yhuala placed the memo down, and began work on a double-layered tunnel system. He could not let A Squadron down. They would have the best sand castle ever. He figured he had a good two, three months before X got around to sending him actual orders. There was no time to waste.

[magnate]

Well, it looks like the game is pretty interesting, with several races still in contention.

The yarns, though, are far less hotly contested, with Arco way out in front and only R'lyeh with any hope of catching.

Are you all still interested in scores for the yarns? I'm happy to keep going if you are, but it seems to me like the yarns and the game have become separate competitions.

CC

[puffyn]

Hi Magnate,

As I recall, the original victory conditions for the game involved the points for the yarns plus some points for the top three people in all score graphs except army size. I realize of course that I have the most to benefit from these rules remaining the same (though as you can see Arco is doing fairly middling in most score graphs). At this point, I hope everyone has realized that I'm really just having fun writing the yarns, and any points that result are a pure bonus.

-Puffyn

[puffyn]

---- Arcoscephale, Turn 40 ----

... and when Pandokos wrote to the most wise Elders to tell them of the joyous defeat of the evil Mictlanians, he grumbled, saying, "By Zeus, it takes longer to sign my name than it does to write 'Blood suckers dead. War over'." But Nihar, who is related to Balachandra, the First of the Wise, on his mother's side, through her second cousin ... [passage elided] ..., read what he had signed, and he noted that although it was true that he was "Pandokos, Acting Stategos of Oast Hills, the Sinking Lands, North & South Horslund Forest, and various sundry swamps, as well as all lands formerly in Sethra's thrall," there were also some tactless omissions. But Pandokos, whose bravery in battle is not matched by his consideration for the feelings of the loyal inhabitants of Aeros River, the Skeldes, and Godsgrave Pass, said some unkind words and muttered, "I've got to come up with a shorter name..."

From The Collected Sayings of Pandokos the Prophet, in his second incarnation

Today, we are at peace. No more slave raids mar the beauty of this land, no more young girls are put to the knife, no more unnatural creatures terrorize the people. It ended, appropriately, with the death of Hueheuteotl, who had spent a month encamped outside the Mictlan capital, attended by a lone archer. The mystics, as is typical, declared it was "not worth their time" to put down their books for five minutes and slay this lunatic, so only Odysseus and an old priest came out to meet me when I arrived with the army. It was clear from the first that the archer wanted to abandon this mad siege and surrender, but his so-called prophet quickly smote him dead when he tried to flee. Five of my hypaspists also fell before we ran him through. They were given burials fitting for any hero.

Since then, it has been nothing but joyous celebration in the former capitol (except for Balachandra, who follows me around asking when Andromache is expected to return). Tens of thousands of people died in just the last five years, and the survivors are jubilant (and a little shocked) that the old priests are gone. All of the old temples have been torn down, though I hear rumors that, against my orders, some of the lesser priests and officials who know the workings of the royal treasure vaults have been kept on. But though there is much dancing in the streets all through the warm summer nights, there are, as yet, few takers for the new religious faith being offered them. The least offensive of the old temples, the temple of the moon, has been properly cleansed and rededicated to Artemis, but attendance remains low. I suspect it may take a little while for them to feel able to trust the gods again, but concede to Thymbre our old argument about reason and religion: perhaps a little belief that the future will be better is not so very bad.

Certainly, the city-dwellers are aping some of the more bizarre customs of my local troops, such as smearing themselves with butter and composing ridiculous rhymes on the subject of churned dairy products. They also shout out "Argasi, Argasi" every time I walk through the streets, which I was told by Balachandra was the local word for our Greek troops. Perhaps they have been speaking with some of our brave lads from Arkadia; though by the way Balachandra smiled when he told me this I rather suspect it has a different meaning in his dialect. He refuses to elaborate.

It made me think, though, that we need something to tie our far-flung cities together. The village of Oast Hills may still be paying for our army's upkeep, but out here the name rolls off the tongue as "Waste Hells", which seems to annoy the mystics. There are also a few people who grumble about us as invaders, and more than a few who worry that they are now simple vassals to a far-off kingdom. So I have come up with a new name, that combines the "Argasi" with the local word for "people", "sifaly", or Arcoscephale, after appropriate Hellenification. It is under that name that we shall forge a nation. And let us hope that it will be a land of peace and prosperity and lots of butter.
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[Sedna]

R'lyeh, Turn 40

Tonight, is our night. For too long have been held captive, dreaming in the city under the waves. The minds of men are ours to consume. It is our birthright, our calling, our long-held sacred duty. Tonight, we begin. Tonight, is our night.

It will be tough going. Arrows will pierce your flesh, and a cruel, unfriendly sky will hurl down death upon you. Yet, through the storm, through the tempest of arrows, you will pass, slipping between the place they know and the place they will never comprehend and rending their minds in turn. On the beaches of Westwatch and Anodyr, under the cliffs of Shalen, and in the fetid fens of Draggonsbladder, many brave beings will become martyrs, many brave beings will journey tomorrow on different, far stranger waves. Yet the dead will serve to rededicate us, to reaffirm our holy goal.

And what is our goal? What called us to this place, long ago, from across the great void? Conquest! Dominion! Godhood! For too long we have been fettered by the weak-minded, and ruled as much by our slaves and we ruled them. Tonight that changes. The ichor of Illithid on the sands of Man shall be a sign, seen from heaven itself. Tonight is our night, and heaven shall tremble in fear. Tonight is our night, and stained sands will bear witness of our deeds here till the rivers change courses and the mountains are moved. Tonight is our night! Let the summer vale burn, and its fire be a warning to the rest of the world: tonight is our night!

This is the Word of X.

[Sedna]

R'lyeh, Turn 41

Light and airy, with subtle, fruity notes and an earthy undertone. Moderate fat content, good levels of iodine and vitamin D,

I can only conclude that I have returned to the moderate latitudes, and I cannot be far from the sea. This land is mostly empty, it took many days before I found a wandering hunter to sample. I'm not sure exactly where, somewhere in Man's empire I presume. I hope they will not misinterpret my presence.

It was nearly two months ago now when the loyal starspawn found me high in the north of this world, nearly mad with hunger and rage. He studied the spell that had banished me from my watery palace, and said that he would be able to use those faint lingering tendrils of starlight to send me back through space-time to kill the one who did this to me: Xlikloth. At first I was skeptical, but then he showed me the fine weapons Cthugul and his boys back in the lab had been cooking up... and my urge to bury them into soft, yielding flesh grew too great.

Clearly, more skepticism was warranted, since nobody around here has a name beginning with X. I think I'll go south. No, north. Hmmm... but east is so attractive too. Perhaps I'll just sit here and wait for news to come to me in tasty little human nuggets.

[puffyn]

---- Arcoscephale, Turn 41 ----

It is late summer here. The small melt-water creek that runs along the west bank of the city is almost warm, and though it is still a bit colder here than I would expect for the season, the locals revel in what they claim is an uncharacteristic warm spell. Every day the riverbanks are filled with laughing children and young women, who even a few weeks earlier were too scared to leave their homes. Some of them have even taken to swimming in it, and consequently I have had a hard time enforcing rigorous training schedules among my hoplites and hypaspists, who always find some pretext to patrol near the river.

I am of course making sure my trooops maintain acceptable standards of training and readiness. But for the first time in years - decades - there is no immediate threat. It is not as if we have won this fight only to turn around to fight another foe tomorrow; we are really, actually, at peace. After all those years in Alexandros' army, then on the great campaign, then those dark years after our abandonment when we would fight for whichever side promised us bread, then the service to the Oast Hills elders that led to the overthrow of the evil blood-leeches... I feel almost at a loss about what to do next.

I think I will go swimming. I miss Thymbre now, perhaps more than I have the past few months, because now there is time to pause and reflect on her absence, and the small beaver dam I found last week that will go unremarked by her. But in other ways the pain has almost faded away, like a grave wound that has at last scarred over, and is little more than a memory permanently etched on your skin. I know that she would be happy that this land is cleansed of blood sacrifices. I know that she might even, though I still cannot, consider it to have been worth dying over.

I think mostly she would be pleased this unhappy city is slowly blossoming into a happy, civilized city. I have kept busy conferring with architects and engineers to rebuild after decades of neglect, and they seem more than happy to try out my fading memories of real archictural design (though we're having a bit of a problem reconciling column tastes). It has created a lot of work for the many former soldiers, who slave or free were wretchedly treated under the old regime. It is good to hear the sound of hammer and chisel, of people haggling in the marketplace over a variety of food unimaginably vaster than what was available during the long seige.

One thing, though. I haven't spoken much with any of the mystics in ages, not even Balachandra, who keeps constant watch on the roads. Strange sounds sometimes come from their quarters, and they often walk around with smiles on their faces, and far, distant looks in their eyes. I wonder if I should be concerned with what they are up to. Their quarters are across the river. Perhaps I should wander down that way and keep an eye on them.
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