The Font of Chaos. Cave of Chaos.
Up close, they could make out that the whirlwind was composed of thousands of thin cards, much like playing cards. Claire reached out and took one. The back was plain silver, but the front had a design on it, a sword and shield. Genelle looked over her shoulder at the card. "That has...something to do with fighting skills. You use it by taking it in both hands." She looked up at the whirlwind. "The Font of Chaos."
[S: Clearly Paris is destined to be a fighter. I think of her as tall for her age. Calais hasn't quite passed her in height yet so right now they probably look more alike than they will in the future or than they have since Paris hit puberty.]
[GM: I did get the feeling in your play that you were trying to play a "paladin" (if you don't mind the overused and abused word). Someone who believed in the big things--honesty, helping others, standing up for what's right--and did trust in fate. ]
There's a card that comes to your hand, almost reaching for you as you reach for it. A silver sword, surrounded by a garland of leaves, concealing something that glints behind them as the leaves seem to move, slightly, on the surface of the card. You show it to Genelle, who seems to still be a bit dizzy, her eyes unfocused. "It's a card of an Order," and you can hear the capital letter. "I don't know which one, but it is a...Calling. It also is a complex one; I don't think you can use it until you find a plain sword card."
Paris gazes at the card. "It's beautiful," she breathes. "There is such a -- rightness -- about it. Thank you."
It takes but a moment to find a card with a plain sword on it. Holding that one in both hands, there is a thrill as it dissolves into you. The cyclone of cards seems to move slower, or perhaps you are just noticing things faster, calmly able to decide what to do. You feel a little stronger, healthier. A tingle in your arm and you know the difference between a sword and a club. You look on the orc sword with new eyes, and see its shoddy construction and incorrect balance.
[FYI: This card would bring a normal (straight 10s) to STR 15, DEX 11, CON 11, BOD 11, SPD 3 with all figured characteristics; Fam. melee, K of weapons (8-), and PS Guard or soldier (8-). 25 points.]
You take the other card out and look at it. It still seems to be right, and now there is nothing else wanting. You take the card in both hands and are overwhelmed as impressions from it flood you. A thousand training sessions, morning and day and night, with sword and bow and all manner of weapons. Exhausting efforts that leave you tired in memory, even as page after page of books flash past you, droning voices in the background, teaching...something. A key, simple but ornate all at once. The vine, dark among the glittering symbols, flows into you and makes itself a part of you, aligning strongly with your sense of honesty and fairness. A feeling that the card is pouring into you all it can, until it reaches its limit, with further yet to go. A hallway, walking between two rows of armored figures, women as well as men, to a dais where two people wait. One, a woman, regal and imperious, beautiful in her middle age, seated on a throne with a rod of rulership. In front of her a man, dark in hair and eye, with a piercing gaze that looks into you. He holds a sword in one hand and scales in another. As your card exhausts itself he brings the two objects together and hands them to you, speaking the single word "Justice." You blink, back in the cavern. Unlike the other card, this has left in your hands a small piece of jewelry, a steel amulet of some scales, in balance, with a sword across them at an angle. You are still trying to assimilate all you know and have learned, but you do know that if you want to pass inspection, you have to wear that symbol over your heart, so that it is clearly visible.
Paris gazes at the amulet, the thought that it is too pretty for the likes of her to wear banished almost as she thinks it. It is not 'for pretty.' She knows. It is a reminder to hold herself to her very best. "To be worth of Them," she whispers thinking of all those noble faces in her vision, "and of the best in all of these too." She looks around at her comrades, then fastens the amulet over her heart.
[GM: I can make the case that you can be significantly stronger and tougher than Calais and still of similar size, given that women generally start smaller. But the Order package deal came with a distinctive look of its own, the badge. Well, it will be interesting.]
[S: Obviously with the badge it's easy to tell Paris from Calais. It still may make people double take to see two who look so alike. Perhaps more so when people know one is a girl and the other a boy.]
You cannot reach any of the pure silver cards, but there are silver and black cards still in reach. Do you wish to draw another card?
Paris stands back, watching the flash of silver and black. Watching her friend gather their cards. Thinking of the vast amount of knowledge that has just poured into her. Watching the expressions of awe on the other's faces as they absorb like knowledges. 'What faces watch them through their cards?' she wonders. 'How will they be changed by all of this?'
Again she is drawn to the silver flashes. 'Little Marcus back in the village,' she breathes deeply at the pang that accompanies that thought. Little Marcus was not one of those in the cellar. 'Little Marcus,' she thought again, firmly, determine to celebrate what had been best in life, 'would have wanted to look at each one of those cards. He's have wanted to know what each one meant.' She smiled softly. 'Always bright and curious. Me...?" she looked down at the amulet on her breast. 'My card would have taught me even more if it could have, if I were stronger, or wiser, or better, or -- or Something. If I could not learn all it had to teach, how could there be room left in me for something else? Which of these cards would choose to teach me more?'
Paris looks again at the whirlwind. "Perhaps someday," she whispers, "when I have proven myself worthy of what you have already given me."
[Paris isn't greedy. The implication she was left with by the Order's card was that she was not ready for or good enough for all that it could have taught her -- and she should be feeling pretty strongly that it taught her a _lot_. She should be feeling like a superman, her strength increased by a third, her dex, doubled. I am not sure she wouldn't think that another card would reject her, consider that she's already been taught her limit. (I think humility is probably one of her characteristics. The positive side of not thinking as well of herself as she could.)]
I certainly think that Paris is thinking about what her badge means and wondering just how she will always know Justice or Injustice when she sees it. Was it Just to kill the not-so-vigilant guard-orcs? Despite the circumstantial evidence of finger and leg, those three may not have actually hurt any of her villagers.... She chose -- deliberately chose -- to consider them guilty and execute them. It might have seemed necessary to safeguard the Party's retreat. But -- was it? And was it Just? Could a way have been found to tie them up? Merely incapacitate them? And yet this sort of thinking could lead to the inability to take action, to vacillation and dangerous hesitation. This sort of thinking could completely invalidate the discipline of the warrior. How is she to know?
I think that, before she gets too emotionally wound up in such thoughts, she will take some comfort in the card and vine accepting her -- even though she had made such a decision about the orcs. But it is going to be a major concern.
"Font of Chaos" copyright 1999 P.Shea & S.Knowles. The contents of this site are copyright 2004 Sheryl A. Knowles unless otherwise specified. All rights reserved.