Nixi's Diary. (Private)

Originally posted by londonbard at post

It turned out to be easier to get a meal than I'd expected. When we left the road we made snares from thread unravelled from Marty's clothes. That was a waste but it gave me an idea. His jacket's not as easy to get threads from as it looks but the scarf's made of strong stuff in a loose weave. I unravelled some of that and tied the thread to one of my darts.

I shot a fish. It was a challenge, maybe only a Diran could have done it. Water changes the way things look. If you dip a straight stick in the river the wood looks bent. I never tried it before, even during training, so I missed the first few times. The fish weren't where they looked as though they were and by the time I got used to it the thread was wet and it was all getting a bit old.

I got two. The troutfish went away from the splashing when I got the first but after I cut it up I dropped a bit in shallower water and a bigger, ugly fish came in after the bait. I shot that too. It almost broke that strong thread when it went under a log, but the dart was weighing it down and I got it when it died. It was an ugly dark green thing with a long snout and sharp teeth that snapped shut even after it was dead. The head was frightening. We ate it anyway.

The fish were difficult to clean, almost like animals but not quite - and icy cold even when they were first dead. They don't smell like meat. Marty has a lighter so we had a small fire. I did that trick of cutting the food into thin strips, heating the rock and then putting the food where the fire had been. It works better with fish than with meat. We were both nervous about that fire. Anything around might have seen it from a distance. We tried to have the camp in the shelter of a some old trees, but every time I looked up one of them seemed to be further away.

Dealing with the fish left my hands stinking. That could have attracted something, too, but I wasn't going to wash in the dark. Not after seeing the teeth on that second fish.

We damped the fire down and killed it dead when we left. The soil was mostly peat and that can burn long and slowly and kill everything. We should be coming back this way, later. Dead ground can be useful, but fire burning into the ground and spreading slow doesn't make for safe travelling. The Greckle checked too, once I'd explained.

I feel a fool reposting what happened earlier, especially when things went wrong. I came through the portal with a load of loot - everything from cash and cards to a bag of drugs and the Ring of Amara. I took that earlier Then the money was wrong, I haven't got the contacts to sell the drugs and selling the ring wasn't a good idea. The guy had some way to test it. It showed up as magic but there's no way to explain what it does, not here. I don't think they have vampires and asking questions to try to find out about that made things worse.

I got some warning. There's a skinny guy that told me that the towns-folk don't like magic rings, or strangers trying to sell them. I think I could have figured that out on my own. He said trouble was on its way. The place didn't seem to have any police or the like, but he said they have sheriffs. What they don't have is all the prisoners' rights stuff that they had in the last dimension. I don't want to find out what they've got instead.

The guy told me that there's a place where they buy magic rings and hire mercenaries, and he gave me a map. It's all in runes but he said the place is Murder, or Mulder, or maybe Mordor - whatever.

I thought the hardest thing would be telling the Greckle that we'd have to go, but he was ready for it. He says we'd do better in a bigger town and there are things we can sell.

He warned me not to steal anything as we left! I may not be one of the frimping Gig Team but I'm not an idiot! This way nobody has a real interest in hunting us down, unless the jeweller wants the ring, and he could have bought it for a higher offer. If we steal anything that matters they'd really hunt for us. I had pies off a windowsill, though. I'm hungry! But they won't hunt us for that.

I guess we'll have to find food while we're on the road. Something's already found me. I itch.. Maybe I'd better warm up. Anything can happen in a strange place.

We haven't been able to use the computers during the whole Season of Storms here. Even the Quaverell machine probably wouldn't survive a direct lightning strike and my laptop is just ordinary. The battery wasn't working until recently, either.

The Greckle has been in a funny mood ever since he found the cannibals' inn. He's been so down some of the time that I didn't trust him to have thought of all the alternatives to get us out of here - so I borrowed his laptop to try to get a get a message out to their precious Interdimensional LAN.

(Marty loosened up at times during the trek, and he said that the main machine got jiggered about ages back when it got fixed by a cyberwitch from one of the Sunnydale dimensions and then fixed again by Quaverell when they were looking for the Boss, way back. He claims that between them they gave the machine a kind of artifical intelligence. It gets lonely, and once it was joined to the interdimensional channel it had a compulsion to link and download information to Quaverell. It's like it has to gossip to them. The Boss has been trying to find a way to cure that, ever since.)

When Marty tried to use his laptop to phone home the thing just gave him a "Page Not Found" message and crashed - so I borrowed it and tried for myself. It'd crashed past use a while back, after he dropped it. The ground was soft there but the puddles were deep. I guess I was feeling a bit desperate. I hate the place where we've ended up, and I reckoned that the Greckle could even get on a computer's nerves, so I thought if it was artifically intelligent it might respond differently to me.

It did, in a way. I was really angry and it - I know it could see me. I know how I look when I get mad and it described me, sort of. [firewalled against Marty,](or maybe I shouldn't do that? Maybe I should even tell him?) It didn't seem like a machine. It sounded almost like the boss, not when he's talking to me, but ... it could have been someone like him. Maybe another operative? I don't think it was Zranth.

The weirdest thing was, I was so scared mad that I switched my dead battery with Marty's. I thought that way his machine would be really off and it couldn't know where I was, but if his battery had some power left and I put it in my computer I might able to contact someone - or at least update.

As soon as I switched them over his machine got so hot that I thought it was going to explode or something, so I dumped it back down where he left it and watched from a safe distance. Nothing happened, it just cooled down, but when I checked my old battery was recharged as good as new. I didn't know Marty's machine could do that. I wonder if he knew?

I switched the batteries back. It looks like his machine is live again too, now. Maybe the Quaverell server really does have some autonomy, but it didn't do that before... Maybe I just jarred something loose? It's kind of giving me the creeps. There's all kinds of magic in this place and we were never even briefed. I wonder if it's safe to update, now?

We got our traveling cloaks. I think it made things worse between me and the the Greckle, but we need the right stuff or we'll never get anywhere. I can hardly move in this armor, not after I've worn it for a while, and I so don't need the mail to go rusty. I don't know how to clean it, either. I don't know if he does.

It doesn't help if I piss him off but I had to get him out of that red cape, anyway. The master and servant thing works well enough, but if he wore a thing like that I'd have to have a better one to keep that scene going. It's not just the money - we've got nothing coming in unless I find a big enough city to go mugging - but that wasn't it.

Passing as a male is weird, but passing for a "young Lord" is tricky and I don't want to look like an amatueur strutting around playing the hero. That'd just make me a target. We'd be better off getting hired for a bit. I don't want to look sexy, either. I really needed a good night's sleep but I'd barely dozed off when someone touched me and I thought I was being attacked - but the chambermaid had tried to crawl in with me! She said that she's always wanted to do it with a hero!

Luckily she'd grabbed me around the neck. My reflexes are good - she nearly took the Ring of Amara with her when I kicked her off the bed. I guess the chain caught in her shift or something. I snatched it back and grabbed for my knife as though I thought she was trying to rob me. She backed away until she reached the door and then ran out, not making a sound, luckily.

I got the Greckle to sleep in the truckle bed across my door for the rest of the night. No wonder they have the servants do that here. He was spitting mad but I will not sleep in that chain mail under-wear and - it gives us a chance to plan in private, anyway, (and if she comes back he might get a better deal than he thinks, except that she's a Hobbit.)

I went with Marty to the Dwarf smithy to get the armor fixed up. The Smith was the toughest looking thing I've seen this century. Well, I've said already - picture a beard around a pile of muscles that's about my height and you'll have the general idea.

It was easy to get the armor altered and Vali came up with a bright idea for storage. There's no pockets in chain mail or plate, and I don't much want anyone else carrying the loot I got from Russel Winters. The trouble is, that cod-container isn't big enough. It'll take the bills rolled around the credit cards, but even that's not comfortable. The Ring of Amara shifted about. I was likely to lose it that way, so now that's on a chain around my neck.

I've got all the coins in a kind of long leather pouch. The hobbit who got killed had it tied to his belt, but I've had a loop attached. I guess he was wealthy by local standards, he was carrying a lot of coins. It's heavy, it'll make a good bludgeon, if it comes to that. It is heavy, though. So is the armor. I need my speed, but it's a lot better to be treated as a male, in this dump. I wonder if I'm getting blisters? My reputation as a Warg-killer is doing us good, here. I could have got a bundle of weapons, but I do not want to carry anything else and the Greckle can't use them.

I did let the Greckle carry something - all those packets I got from the Catrall demon back in LA. We'll be moving on. He got us a lift in another cart. They all seem to think he's a kind of Minion. As "devoted" servants go he's working very well.

Some human women wear girdles. I don't suppose it feels as bad as this armor. It's not big enough where I sit - I mean, I can't sit comfortably if I wear it all. It's stupid. They ought to put pleats in it or something. Maybe they could have chain-mail up the sides. I had to take off the bit at the back.

The Greckle says there's no way to beat it bigger with rocks. We'll have to ask a blacksmith in a town, if we ever find another one.

It's a bit tight at the top, too, but that's for a better reason. I've got the wallet I took from the vamp, and his precious ring of Amara, and the stuff that I took off the Contrall’s body packed in under the shoulder plates. The guy who used to own the armor had a little sack of coins, too. There’s not really room in here for me and all the money, but that’s a good problem to have. Marty offered to carry some of it for me, but I guess I’ll manage.