From the journal of Zil, Elementalist on the path of the Purifier, and Exemplar of Garlan.
To unlock the highest ranks of Slim Dusty, I needed to go to the Billabong that is haunted by some spirits and bargain with them. I had thought that a billibog was a swamp or marsh, but in my research I learned that a billabong is a pond or lake left over when a river changes course. I did some more research and found that the Billabong I needed to go to was in the Servos Jungle at 35,15. We traded on our reputation and managed to hitch a ride most of the way on an Airship heading to Travar. At the correct location we cast Metal Wings and flew down to the ground. After a bit of hiking we quickly found the Billabong, and detected spirits within it.
I called out to the water spirit, who spoke to me, but as soon as I explained what I was doing there, she said that I needed to talk to her friend Nate. The ghost of Nathen Bailey (speaking Throalic) told me things that I at first found very confusing, because it did not match the legends I had heard in my research. The confusion was that hundreds of years ago a talented Troubadour had been purposefully lying (or perhaps merely taking creative licence to improve the story, depending upon the perspective). The Troubadour had been trying to make himself look good, and Nathen look bad. All of this lying / creative licence had confused things and left the legend messed up. The very funny thing is that in his attempts to mess up his friends reputation, the Troubadour has twisted things so that both of their names have been brought into disrepute.
Anyway, the revised story, as told to me by the ghost, was that Nathen Bailey was a human Thief Adept, who had the Versatility Talents of Summoning and Elemental Tongues. He sometimes adventured with a friend named Banjo Paterson who was a dwarf Troubadour. Bailey mentioned that one of his most famous heists was to steal some mystic jewels from some warlord or another, but that story was not known to any of us. Anyway, they sometimes adventured together, and sometimes adventured separately. One time while Banjo was out of town for a long time, Nathen conducted an affair with Banjo's husband.
This was just before the Scourge, and after Banjo came back, they fought together against some mindless horrors (from his description I think they were Gnashers), and Nathen Bailey died heroically defeating the Gnashers, right next to this very Billabong. Unfortunately, Bango Paterson found out about the affair with the unfaithful husband almost immediately thereafter, and, being upset, decided to spread the word that Bailey had drowned attempting to steal a single head of livestock, a very unheroic death for such a heroic thief. The poem, and the song that he later composed became very popular, and were sung throughout the land. Infact, it was one of the very last popular songs before most of the kears were sealed, and most kears stopped communicating and songs were unable to spread from kear to kear. Thus this song retained it's popularity for hundreds of years (since many kears did not have anybody writing new songs). Anyway, in the meantime, Banjo had Nathen's sheepskin bag refashioned into a sheepskin belt. Thus the answer to the question "who was the first owner of Slim Dusty, the sheepskin bag?" is "Nathen Bailey", but the answer to the question "who was the first owner of Slim Dusty, the sheepskin belt?" is Bando Paterson.
Words, of course, have power, and songs even moreso. Trying to twist legends is a dangerous business, and Banjo's legend got twisted as well. When I had arrived at the billabong I had thought that the name of the common swagman who had drowned during a livestock theft was Banjo Paterson! It is hilarious that Banjo, attempting to mess with the legend of his companion sullied his own name! It is more than hilarious, it is a somber warning to us all.
This Thread Item is also a reminder that Thread Items do not function on Truth, they function on Legend. The Slim Dusty Rank 5 Research Knowledge of "The owner must learn the fate of the first owner", the legends all agree that the answer is "Drowned in a billabong escaping from mounted authorities". And that is the answer that the Item expects and accepts. Because that is what the items legend says. Other than this journal, none but a single lone ghost, and his water elemental companion at a lonely billabong in the middle of a jungle assert that the answer is "died fighting Gnashers".
I found all of this fascinating, and the magical implications blew my mind, but after hearing his story, I still had to ask what I could do for him. He told us that he had descendents living in a village several days journey to the SW (36,18) in a settlement on the river. He asked us to look them up, find out what is going on, and put it to right.
We traveled to the location, and found the settlement of Verilla where described. We were greeted by a human named Theoren. When he heard our names he became very excited, as a Troubadour had come through a month earlier and told many of our legends. The whole village feted us as hero's, and invited us to attend the monthly games to be held the next day. Theoren, and everybody in the village of 200 or so mentioned the Passion Thestoonious seemingly every breath. They were always inviting us to bask in the glory of Thestonious, or to "Hail the Strong". We quickly got the story that Theoren had discovered a temple of Thestonious, and that Thestonious himself has been speaking to him for over a year now and guiding the village.
When asked about the games the next day, they told us that they were to honor Thestonious, and they were gladiatorial games to the death. With my passion lore, I knew that while Thestonious does not strictly speaking disapprove of or reject competition to the death, he is just as happy, if not more so with non-lethal competition, so I knew that something was very, very wrong. Plus of course, Bailey had told us that he could feel that something was wrong from days travel away. I did an Astral Sight and found that the whole village was Tainted with corruption. We tried to get somebody to take us to the temple that evening, but everybody wanted to wait until after the games the following day. They gave us the use of a house for the night to sleep.
I tried to summon an earth elemental, but failed, fortunately Dvarim succeeded in his attempt. The elemental could not tell us where the temple was, but was able to to us that Theoren frequently goes East (towards the river). After dark, we waited until everybody seemed asleep, and William went out scouting. He found that nobody seemed to be spying upon us. He found a large arena on the east edge of town, and a path that he felt confident would lead to the temple. He decided to go get the rest of us so we could go to the temple under cover of dark. Just as he started back to get us, he saw a very large mass of something approaching from the direction he thinks the temple lies. He ran to warn us all, and we set up at the east edge of the village and had several minutes to prepare, then almost 100 cadaver men organized into three hordes, descended upon us from the east. We hear a voice that sounds like that of Theoren, but much louder than a voice can speak (without the aid of magic) It said “I considered trying to bring you all into my service, But stories of your exploits have reached those here. I think it will serve me better for you to all vanish without a trace. The fear it will spread will be delicious.”
At first it was hard to fight so many. We could destroy them, but there were so very, very many it was hard to make a dent that seemed significant or stem the tide. It took us a while to find our most efficient strokes. William Carver and Xevious were both briefly overwhelmed and suffered wounds, and Jael, while slaying many, was taking immense amounts of strain. I shared out a Grove Renewal among the three of them. About the time we hit our stride and were starting to slay them quickly, we noticed another 3 hordes approaching from the west! Fortunately we managed to almost destroy the three eastern hordes before the western ones made their way (through the deserted village) to reach us, we destroyed these hordes one at a time and victory was ours.
We quickly rushed up the path to the site of the temple, and beheld a large crystal edifice. The voice that sounded very like, but not quite like Theoren's said something mocking about it knowing our names, or maybe it was that it knew where we lived, and then the whole edifice vanished from sight. I tried to look at Astral sight, but was unable to pierce the corruption, though Dvarim says that he got a glimpse of it leaving. We were unable to track it or find where it had gone.
We checked the people of the village again, and now, as if scales had been lifted from our eyes, it is clear that many are corrupted, and some seem to be partially converted to horror constructs already. I tried everything that I could to reverse the process, but as a Purifier, I can purify the earth, but not people. The only way I know of is to destroy the horror that has touched them. I did do a few things that I think might help in the future. We marked the location of the crystal temple on our maps, and I made sure that everybody could recognize the site from the air, via landmarks visible from the air. I also spent several days in the "ritual of cleansing", and was able to cleanse about 1/4 of the arena. About twice a week I summon a swift spirit of air to fly to the arena and check the level of corruption. I have no doubt that if the crystal horror ever returns to that village, the arena will quickly become corrupted again.
We returned to the Billabong and reported our actions to the ghost of Nathen Bailey, He agreed to give his blessings to my tieying higher ranking threads to Slim Dusty, but I still feel that I owe a debt there, in that the village is at present only half saved. I also asked the water spirit Matilda to make frequent inquiries about the state of corruption in the arena, and if the corruption level starts to arise again, indicating that the "games" have restarted, to try to get word to me.Statistics:Posted by ChrisDDickey — Mon Sep 14, 2020 8:34 pm
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