Lundar's Library

Day 49, Year 538 of the Ascendancy

The moment I stepped out the library today, a
sunstone message from Stryfe rang excitedly through my head: “Apollo’s
back!”. “F’nord” I thought to myself. Apollo… the sylvan ranger of
E’las Loth’mon Ferindril, and caretaker of Master Scribus. I hadn’t
seen Apollo in ages! As it were, he was gone for exactly 555 days, and
of course, all that accumulated learning carried over to his clan
mates. So, Gold Moon and I decided to give the time-displaced sylvan a
quick tour of Puddleby, and filled him in with some of the more recent
developments of our isle.

As we were giving Apollo a tour of our new Campfire, I heard it broadcast over the sunstone that there was a game of Bones
going on in town. I loved the game of Bones. Before the Great
Forgetting, I had swindled more than 4,000 coins from less mentally
inclined exiles, and even after the Forgetting, I made many a pretty
penny playing Bones, whenever the opportunity arose. I was not about to
let this opportunity slip me by. I hastily bid farewell to Apollo and
Gold Moon, and rushed over to Merchat Mendal’s hut, to join in on this
game of Bones. Now, there is a strange, but well-recorded phenomena
that seems to occur in mystics who accumulate too much wealth, too
quickly. It is best summed up by Okasa’s aphorism: “A Mystic and his
coins are soon parted.” Little did I suspect that I was about to be the
target of such a phenomena.

I glanced into Mendal’s hut, and was surprised to
see my clan mates Entil’Zha and Stryfe there. I felt a little bad about
having to take money from my own clan mates, but hey, that’s life. I
gave them a quick warning, then started chucking the dice. The only
problem was, I wasn’t winning. Roll after roll went awry, and even my
best roll of double fives and a three was beat down by Shin’Kle’s
treble ones. The bastard sylvan went home happy, and I stared blankly
at the Boneman; perhaps the dice were loaded… As I weighed the dice
carefully in my hands, a new player entered the arena: Gold Moon.
Having finished giving Apollo a tour, she had come here to relax with
her husband Stryfe. The sound of dice had a strange effect on Gold
Moon; her eyes seemed to flash with a faint hint of red, and she
unconsciously licked her lips, constantly. I should have guessed then
that something was amiss, but my greed had overcome me, and I
continued, foolishly, to play.

This is a sketch made about two hours later(the
little girl sitting next to Gold Moon and Stryfe is none other than
their daughter Anaeka. Isn’t she cute?). It is quite obvious whi the
victor was, from the large grin painted on her face. It was none other
than Gold Moon, who won roll after roll, against incredible odds, and
went home 1.6K richer. This left me broke, once again, and I promised
myself never to waste my money again. Never again was I going to waste
my precious coins on something as frivolous as a game. Never again was
I going to waste many hours worth of hard effort. Never again… that
is until I found a strange tent to the west of town, where a bunch of
shady chracters huddled around a table, engrossed in a game of Black
Jack. “Eh? Let me in! I want to play too! Hey, Gold Moon, lend a friend
a few coins won’t yi?…”