Ishmael's log, Chapter 127

Thursday, February 15, 0

Ishmael and Maddy go to see Marta to try to get a dress for Maddy to wear to tonight's ball. They run into Whimsy - briefly. Marta is luckily able to accommodate Maddy - despite her pregnancy and somewhat larger proportions than the average girl about town.

Hors d'oeuvres are served and people mingle. Everyone is seated for dinner. Michael has absolutely outdone himself with the food. Finally, the glasses are raised in a toast to Emperor Nicholas and everyone drinks.

Fifteen minutes later, people begin dropping like flies. Ishmael feels queasy, but Maddy falls unconscious and is unresponsive. He panics and calls for Fiona, who is able to resuscitate her - but she does not regain consciousness. Ishmael scoops her up and runs out to their carriage.

On the way, he passes an armored woman, but his concern for Maddy keeps him from recognizing her.

Back at the Estates, Maddy falls into a fitful sleep and begins talking in her sleep. She talks about being a child and the uncle she lived with when her parents died. He beat her terribly. Maddy continues talking and confesses that she killed him. Ishmael tries to comfort her, though she still isn't conscious. His voice seems to trigger memories of when they first met and how she thought he'd never be able to love her because she was a commoner. He just keeps talking to her.

Eventually, she falls asleep, and Ishmael stays awake by her throughout the night. It occurs to him later, in the dark of night, that the woman he saw as he carried Maddy away was his mother, Deirdre.

Friday, February 16, 0

A servant knocks on the door and Ishmael opens the door a crack. Deirdre is downstairs. Ishmael tells the servant to tell her that he's busy, but the servant get a "please-don't-make-me-do-that" look on his face. Ishmael tells the boy to stay with Maddy, and he'll go down and talk to Deirdre.

When he takes a good look at her, he recognizes her armor. Deirdre was The Slayer that helped them during the war against Chaos. He talks with her briefly. She tells him that she left him with Fiona because she had done such a lousy job with his brother, Ahab. She was in Chaos, kicking her heels up the entire time. She tells him that they're welcome to stay at the Estates. That's good, because he had no intention of leaving.

He shrugs it all off with indifference - his mind is still upstairs with Maddy. He tells her they'll need to talk another time, as he wants to get back upstairs to his wife. Deirdre tells him that if she's survived this long, she'll be fine. He nods, "But we don't know about the baby yet."

Deirdre volunteers that she can send someone who can tell them for sure. He asks that she would. She nods, and leaves.

Maddy wakes up and they talk - mostly about their concerns about the baby. Ishmael tries to comfort her, telling her that they'll know for sure this afternoon and that it doesn't do any good to worry about it now - despite the fact that he's sick with worry himself.

Later that day, Florian arrives. Ishmael asks the servant to bring him upstairs. Florian takes Maddy's hand and smiles broadly. The baby is fine. Curiosity gets the better of Ishmael and he stuffs his fingers in Maddy's ears and asks Florian whether it's a boy or a girl. Florian tells him that it's a boy.

Maddy gets flustered, so he tells her. Both are very happy. Maddy asks Ishmael if he's happy it's a boy, and he says he would have been just as happy if it had been a girl.

"But you wanted a boy," she says.

"I wanted a baby," he says with a big grin.

"Oooh, that's very politic of you!" she responds. "Did you learn that in Chaos?"

Florian quietly lets himself out.

Saturday, February 17, 0

After Ishmael is confident that Maddy is going to be okay, he heads up to the castle to talk to Fiona about Deirdre's return. He hears screaming (male) from her room, so he kicks in the door. Inside, he sees Fiona standing over Gavin, who is tied to the bed posts and has a gag in his mouth.

Ishmael is, needless to say, more than a little bit flabbergasted at what he sees. He tells Fiona that Deirdre's back in town and that she left Ishmael with Fiona because she didn't want to screw up again.

That ticks Fiona off. She takes off, leaving Gavin tied to the bed and Ishmael standing there. Ishmael gets a big ol' grin, pulls up a chair and perches to watch Gavin. Neither says a word.

After an hour, Ishmael Trumps Fiona. She's having a fight with Deirdre. He asks whether he should stay with Gavin. She tells him he can go, so he does.

He wanders aimlessly for a while, until he hears another scream from Fiona's room - this time it is Fiona screaming. He runs down the hall and into her room. She asks him what condition he left Gavin in, and he tells her he was still tied to the bed. She directs him to look behind the screen.

Gavin is now naked, though still tied down. His clothes are in shreds around him.

"I swear! I didn't do that! All I did was watch him!"

Fiona directs him to cover Gavin. He looks around, grabs the cloth that was being used as a gag, and gingerly lays it over his "little friend." Fiona does some investigating and discovers that Gavin now has a direct connection to the Abyss.

Ishmael asks if she wants him to cut off Gavin's head. She says, "Maybe the little one. We need the big one for now."

Ishmael's eyes get huge. "No way Fiona. Man. Don't ask me to do that!"

Fiona calls for Vetch. They talk over the situation. Ishmael feels completely useless and his mind starts wandering towards ways to cap Gavin quickly, should the need arise. This gets the demon in Gavin's head to come out and confront Ishmael, who manages to talk his way out of it. (God only knows how that happened!)

Eventually, Vetch shapeshifts Gavin into a different person. This seems to have solved the problem, at least temporarily.

Fiona orders Gavin out and makes him take all the sheets and bedding with him.

When Ishmael is alone with Fiona, he asks about the conversation with Deirdre. Fiona doesn't want to discuss it, but Ishmael presses the point. Finally, he just tells her that for whatever reason Deirdre did what she did - he was glad that Fiona was there to raise him.

"You know," she says, "You know how to ruin a perfectly good mad."

He gives her a toothy grin, then leaves.

"Outrageous Fortune"
Game Logs for Sessions 1-115 | Character Logs for Sessions 116+

Last modified on September 26, 1998 by Kris Fazzari.