VotS: Bluescreening

[Jim Roberts]

[Feb 6 -- The Waterworks]

> “Will nothing rid me of this meddlesome… macho posturing,” Jeyshann
> demanded, hopefully rhetorically. With a last loud menacing SNIKT ripe
> with disgust her claws retracted, though her glare of annoyance still
> speared the priest before widening to include the elven wizard far
> behind them.

“No drunken knights here,” Tramma yelled absently as she helped slice
away to free Laquendi from the pile of webs. “Besides, where would you
be without the Abbot?”

“Safely in a camp somewhere, dry, clean, naked, and contentedly cuddled
up to a warm and compliant man exhausted from his efforts to please me
and deciding who next,” Jeyshann snarled. “Not tramping through a
gods-forsaken damp, wet tunnel to please the whims of a bunch of
annoying kobold MEN!”

“We are done with that,” Tramma announced reasonably, perhaps referring
both to finally finishing the chore of cutting Laquendi out of the
restraining webs as well as fighting their way through the dismal
dripping passages of the Waterworks.

“Oh, look,” Jeyshann said brightly. “What’s left of a chest after that
barrage of spells. Your thesis is proven correct, Songbird.”

“The dramatic idiom triumphs yet again,” the irrepressible chanteuse
observed.

“This would be the same dramatic idiom which predicts heroic deaths,
dramatic last stands, or tragedy of some particularly heart-tugging sort
in the third act,” Lomi asked skeptically as she joined the others in
sifting through the burned, hail-pummelled, and wind-blown remains of
the chest and it’s contents. “Oh look, a glass scrollcase, who’d a thunk
it?”

“Do *you* see any sensational reversals of fortune confronting our
heroes,” Tramma reasoned?

“I’ll answer that once we are safely past those dratted kobolds,”
Jeyshann sighed in resignation. “They seem perfect for the role of
sudden but inevitable betrayal you’re always cursing.”

“Wasn’t it you who revealed the Mother of all Cats had shown they were
surprisingly free of the usual taint of menace and malice of most
kobolds,” the bard observed brightly. “I rather like them! If you think
about it, they would be wrong for that role; tragically miscast and
stereotyped. I say let us be unconventional and go for a role reversal
to shake things up, portray the noble kobolds valiantly struggling
against impossible odds to do what is right.”

“Very progressive, but still leaves US being the poor saps facing a dire
fate. Say, Laurelin,” Lomi pointed to a delicate web of tiny silver
chain sprawled forlornly in the wrack and ruin. “Isn’t that another bit
of that necklace?”

“The fabled third piece of the fabled Necklace of Netted Stars of Many
Parts,” Tramma enthused reverently.

“I thought you said seven last time,” Lomi sighed.

“I did, but upon reflection I have realized the story can get more
mileage out of ‘many’ rather than restricting ourselves to ‘seven’,” the
entertainer explained. “Besides, math is hard.”

“More work for hard working adventurers, you mean,” the tall scout lamented.

“That leaves more time for the sudden inevitable betrayal and our tragic
end,” Jeyshann snarked. “Doesn’t that burnt corner of a piece of paper
there look like a lot like that IOU Silverhair Songbird said might lead
us to another piece of the Necklace of Too Many Dratted Parts?”

All eyes inspected the pathetic pile of burnt bits of sodden ashes which
had been pummeled by the falling hail, magically folded, spindled,
mutilated, and somewhere among all the mayhem scattered by divine wind.

“Think a mending spell will help the clue paper?" Laquendi queried
absently. The others looked at her in mild bemusement. “What do we have
to lose, other than a few moments of time?" Without further hesitation
or waiting for any answers the dark elven wizard began casting that
merest of magical trifles.

“That seems a bit unlikely,” Lomi shook her head, while she watched avidly.

“I think some of those ashes are moving,” Tramma noted raptly.

“I think that’s your wishful thinking hoping that the sudden dramatic
reversal will be a change of fortune to set up an even worse sudden but
inevitable betrayal from the emotional high of that minor triumph,”
Jeyshann interjected with a tone of deadly sweet relish.

“The bits are definitely moving,” Lomi announced, still focused on the
ongoing attempt at wizardry. “Almost seems like a rectangle, if you
squint enough.”

“I am delighted that you for one are absorbing some of my thoughts about
drama,” the bard told Jeyshann in delight. Clearly SHE was (as usual)
not focused.

“Your notions begin to sink in from sheer repetition if nothing else,”
Jeyshann told her snarkily. Lomi’s hand absently totted up a point for
the Cat Priestess in the air, but her eyes never left the dancing bits
of tormented and burnt ashes which had once been a clue before the
exploring band had unleashed their hellish torrent of magic and mayhem
upon an innocent unsuspecting treasure chest.

Ignoring the byplay all around her, Laquendi focused on her work.
Following the directives of her simple spell, the silver haired elf felt
the manna flow as bits of ash danced around into a semblance of a
rectangle with lots of missing bits for a moment. She was not one of
those inclined to smile in satisfaction at her own work – the spell was
supposed to work, and it was merely fulfilling its function, the pieces
moving under the direction of the trace amounts of magic that this
simplest of spells required.

And then, suddenly the spell – and Laquendi – simply… STOPPED. The elf
was frozen in place, her eyes wide and unmoving. One moment, the manna
had been flowing, and another, there had been a terrible wrench, and
then… nothing. Almost like the horrible tug of war of her earlier almost
failed Dimension Door, but compressed into a single instant, rather than
drawn out over an impossibly stretched protracted period. All while her
vision was filled with an awful vision of blue.

Almost of her own accord, she began scrabbling in the ashes, tracing out
a series of obscure runes, letters, and numbers. The only ones that
could clearly be read, however, showed a baleful

*** STOP: 0x00000005

“Sweets?” Tramma’s voice asked gently from beside the frozen elf. The
question was repeated rather more urgently a moment later. “SWEETS?”

Slowly, Laquendi started to blink. “I think,” she managed to gasp after
a moment, “that my spell crashed.”

The other Arcanists gathered around, making a number of suggestions of
varying utility. Anything from removing and then replacing her magic
items, “rebooting” her, whatever that meant, all the way to taking two
“patches” and calling back in the morning. Eventually, Laquendi managed
to stop blinking, and managed a weak, “Something went very wrong with
that spell.”

Finfin nodded. “I suspect something rather more powerful is going to be
needed.”

After her recent experiences – now plural – with spells stretched beyond
their design limits, Laquendi had to silently agree. Carefully, she
collected up the various bits of fragments and ash, placing them into
one of Mithi’s “specimen jars” that Finfin handed over.

“Sit and rest a moment, sweets,” Tramma urged Laquendi. “You have been
‘squinched’, and what I think the healers call ‘bluescreened’ in quick
succession.”

“She will be fine,” Jeyshann opined. “Witch doctors who exceed the
limits of magic are usually screaming, grabbing at the air, and foaming
at the mouth if there’s any real cause for concern.”

“You mean they don't do that all the time,” quipped Laurelin?

“Not helping,” Tramma sighed.

"I don't know much about magic,” Lomi suggested seriously. “But is this
a case where we should simply turn her off, and back on again?"

“DEFINITELY not helping,” Tramma grumbled. “I mean, yeah, that works for
some stage magic constructs, but Laquendi is our FRIEND, not a
Lorentz-Fitzgerald contractor or a Spectromagic Transducer.”

“You are very good at turning on your friends,” Jeyshann observed
silkily. “The Abbot I think would be perfect for turning her off, he
certainly has that effect on ME.”

“Gimme the ground cloth,” the silver haired bard snapped with a note of
exasperation tainting her tone, holding out one hand and beckoning with
her fingers. “And you two go help collect our loot or something. *I*
will take care of poor Laquendi myself.” She made a shooing motion.

“Aww right, aww right,” Lomi agreed hastily, handing over a folded and
rolled square of canvas from her pack. She had been friends with Tramma
a long time, and knew better than to keep pushing on the rare occasions
when the bard decided the usual banter was not appropriate to the situation.

“We get it,” Jeyshann purred in a voice oozing sympathy. “You two want
some privacy.”

“Sometimes, you two drive me crazy,” Tramma sighed in exasperation as
she shot a glare toward the Cat Priestess. “Magical malfunctions are no
joke, I do not believe for a moment either of you do not know that.”

“Her head didn’t explode, she’ll be fine,” Jeyshann assured Tramma.

Lomi, however, gently touched the Cat Priestess on the shoulder, and
nodded off towards the others. She of all people knew how good a friend
the bard could be to someone in need, and that her old pal had decided
that just now, it was her fellow silver hair that needed some TLC.
Meekly, the tall scout led the way as she and the Cat Priestess walked
away toward the rest of the crew.

“Exploding heads, now, are you speaking from experience,” Lomi asked
curiously as they went off to join the search for treasure?

“Not personally, no,” the Cat Priestess admitted indifferently. “The
most I’ve seen is bulging eyes and blood coming from a Witch Doctor’s
ears and nose. A few cures and he was… well, no worse than usual. But
there’s plenty of stories...”

Ignoring the retreating byplay, Tramma’s attention was focussed solely
upon Laquendi. Spreading out the ground cloth, the silver haired bard
sat down and patted a spot next to her.

“I am still capable,” Laquendi mused, “of standing on my feet.”

“You most certainly are,” the bard replied gently. “But I should like to
take a closer look at you after that double-whammy you’ve just taken
when you are NOT swaying from side to side. And until I can get that
spider goo off of you, sitting on the ground is gonna stick a whole
bunch of gunk to you. Not to even mention the damp and moss or worse.”

Laquendi considered the bard’s words for a moment. There was no denying
that she was not, at this moment, at her steadiest. And while the bard’s
efforts with her knife had freed her from the confining and annoyingly
fire resistant webs, she was still covered head to toe in the sticky
residue. So without comment, Laquendi sat.

“Hold still a moment,” the bard suggested, and then asked, “May I?”

For a moment, the question left Laquendi rather blank. May she… what?
But then an odd notion swam into focus. Tramma, like those the elf
considered to be Little Sisters, might not have a conventional notion of
modesty, but she WAS implicitly asking the elf’s permission to step a
bit closer into Laquendi’s personal space than normal “convention”,
outside of Keerytes at least, usually allowed. And after a moment’s
consideration, Laquendi nodded.

Her guess was not far off, though all Tramma wanted to do was to lean a
bit closer, gently helping Laquendi to turn her head first in one
direction, and then the other. “No bleeding from the ears,” the bard
mused to herself, and then pressed her face a bit closer. “Or from the
nose, as best as I can tell. If you’re worried about bleeding from
anywhere else, we’ll get the menfolk out of here.”

Laquendi considered the new question, and then shook her head. She had
been grievously injured before. And while the “squinching” and the
“bluescreening” had hurt… the experiences didn’t seem to be of the type
fixed by simple bandages and compression applied to bleeding.

Tramma nodded, and asked quietly, “Can you hold your head as still as
you can manage, and try to follow my finger with just your eyes?” A nod
seemed contraindicated, and Tramma correctly took Laquendi’s silence for
assent.

The test complete, Tramma once again nodded. “Eyes tracking normally,
though really it should be Jeyshann doing this test. She means well, but
she is a Cat priestess, after all. And I wouldn’t inflict Hizzoner’s
less than stellar bedside manner on you. But you look good to go… but
you tell me how you feel when we move on from here.”

“So far as I can see, there is, thank Bitan, no lasting damage,” Tramma
said, relief evident in her voice. “My opinion, mind you, is not worth a
lot on a matter like this. I know very well that just being able to sing
up a cure spell does not make me a healer. When you get back to camp, be
sure to tell Alaelia what happened, HER opinion on a medical matter like
this is very much worth having. Fair warning; I intend to tell her about
both incidents; I am not sure you realize how scary that looked. I had,
of course, never seen an actual case of squinching before today; just
like everything else, lots of stories. Much as I appreciate being an
eyewitness, let us try to avoid a repeat performance, shall we?” The
question seemed more rhetorical than really expecting any reply, though
it was vividly evident that Tramma had been genuinely concerned and
quite relieved to find those concerns apparently groundless.

“Bluescreening,” the silver-haired bard shrugged ruefully. “Well, now,
that I have a little more direct experience with.” Laquendi could see
Tramma wince in evident memory as she continued, “I doubt there is a
student of any magical art anywhere who has not seen somebody push too
hard in their training and seen something along those lines happen - or
done it to themselves. More than once, in the case of certain young
know-it-alls who can be a little slow on the uptake despite being bright
enough she should know better, as I was rightly reminded more than once.
I rather suspect based on little but my own unfortunate experiences,
stories I have run across, and my own vivid imagination that the
squinching may well have been a contributing factor to that spell
failure, though maybe not. I know enough to be concerned, but little
enough to implore you to talk to the real doctor and have HER give you a
proper exam.”

“Trying to use Mending to reverse a chemical reaction,” Tramma shook her
head in bemusement. She shot Laquendi a sidelong, almost conspiratorial
look and observed, “even *I* never thought to try something like that,
despite an admittedly deserved reputation for zany experiments with my
magicks. Had the notion ever crossed my mind, I suppose I would have
simply assumed that was beyond the capability of such simple magic. Now
we know. At least there seems to be no reaction sickness, believe me,
that is worse.”

“It hurt less than the Lightning Road,” the still-dazed silver-haired
Elf remarked.

Laquendi made a move to begin to stand up again, but Tramma lightly laid
a hand on her leg, and then gave a rueful smile as it lightly adhered to
the goo. “Let’s get as much of this off you now, while you’re still on
Lomi’s nice and clean cloth.”

Gently, the bard began to sing, her music infused with a trace amount of
Bardic Power. This was a Prestidigitation cleaning, something that she
had observed the members of the Ice Station Omega mission, including one
of the Little Sisters under her command, freely exchange amongst each
other. And just now, it did feel quite pleasant as it slowly peeled the
sticky goo from her, inch by inch, until eventually she was at least a
semblance of reasonably clean.

And as the Bardic Magic flowed, Tramma’s little ditty’s words settled
into a repeating chorus.

I’m gonna WASH that bug right OUTTA your hair

“That’ll get you back to base without picking up any MORE cruft,” Tramma
commented with an encouraging smile when the job was complete. “If you
want more help with more privacy back at the camp, I’ll be glad to help
you out more.”

“That would be appreciated,” Laquendi told her with a grateful nod,
“after all, us silver-hairs need to stick together.”

Hearing one of Tramma’s favourite phrases echoed back to her earned
Laquendi a warm smile. “Exactly! Though, of course, I had in mind
something more fun than *literally* stuck together with spider webs,”
she quipped. “Glad that is done, let us go see how the search for filthy
lucre has fared.”