Part VIII - Out in the West English Towne of Olde Durham, I Fell in Love With the Chosen One
(think about it, figure out the right song to set it to, and it works better)
If you've been following along on our adventures, I'm sure you can guess what's coming next. After leaving the location of our previous adventure, we appeared in our next way-station. This time, it took the form of a large open space with a gigantic table present. The table had no legs or chairs, and was adorned with cloths, all different, that seemed to be covering spherical objects, that might be the size of a traditional crystal ball. Light was provided by candles, each of which was different, in candleholders, each of which was different. There was also a Brian Young lying on the table.
Fabio really gave us an ass-chewing this time, as we seemed to have completely failed in our mission, but we didn't feel too bad, as we were never really clear on what our mission was, and Chappell said that he salvaged the day by getting "The Truth" himself. He told us that the world we were last in was a place of illusion, where nothing was real, and anything that happened to us there (like getting shot) never happened, and anything we picked up, we didn't have. In other words, the whole adventure was a non-event.
Chappell's first bitch was that while we wasted too much time at the ball, we did learn that we could control our surroundings, but we forgot about that as soon as we left. We were also let astray by the false Sakell, after the real Sakell got steamrollered on the dance floor. He said that the key thing that we never picked up on was that the closer we got to the truth, the more "normal" things became, i.e. the chess game, which followed rules (albeit backwards, vs. the invisible ocean. The one constant was the bright light, that stayed the same while everything changed around it. He said that the light was the truth, and that it would have required some great personal revelation to get it.
The situation that came to my mind as the best description of this adventure would be to be blindfolded, have your ears plugged, and be given a joystick and told to play the video game that's running on the computer.
Anyway, we got past that and onto the new adventure. We were told that this time, our quest would be to get "The Symbol of a Shepherd Wonder Worker." We talked about who that might be, and about biblical shepherds and carpenters. We were told that the sainted shepherd in question was Cuthbert, who was a shepherd who discovered God up in the hills somewhere, became a monk, did great things, and was canonized. Chappell lifted one of the napkins to reveal a crystal ball, which showed us several scenes, an old plane flying, a big battle, with knights and stuff, and a city. We did our holding hands thing, and went poof.
We found ourselves in a forest, and shortly encountered some British type knights (not the shoes, the guys who wear armor, ride around on horses, and do good deeds). These guys were wearing chainmail and tunics in decorator colors with a variation on the rampant lion on them. These guys were naturally hostile to us, and we said that, "yeah sure, we're on your side, we're not Scottish." One told us to follow him, and ran off toward a fight.
We didn't want to get involved (and get the crap kicked out of us) so we stayed off to the side, ready to defend ourselves if the fighting came our way. In an amazing turn of events, the scots won handily, and then came over to start harassing us, even after we explained that we were innocent pilgrims. Why is it, I wonder, that no one is ever happy to see us? Obviously, there's no such thing as an innocent bystander anywhere we are. After roughing us up a little, stealing my worthless glass jems, and insulting our manhood, they told us to get lost, so we headed off into the bushes after Chappell, who naturally hid at the first sign of danger.
We merrily tromped through the forest, until we reached the city we were heading for, which turned out to be the city we saw in the crystal ball, and was the city of Durham, England. We came to the gate, and saw that the guards there were wearing the same uniforms as the dead guys in the forest. We told them that we were pilgrims here to visit the shrine of St. Cuthbert, and we also told them about the fight we saw. They told us to report to the castle and tell them about the Scottish rebels we saw, and also how to get to the cathedral we sought.
Sakell and I went to the castle, while Jon and Jay went to the cathedral. At the castle, we met the Captain of the Guard, Roger Umber, and told him about the fight, giving him the number of men, and a rough description of their tartans. We also told him that we were looking for a place to stay, and he said that they had a spot in the barracks that we could use, along with free meals.
We checked that out, and then headed out to find Jay and Jon at the cathedral. At the cathedral we ran into them, and saw the Cuthbert exhibit, consisting of his dead body, his habit, staff, and where his gold cross used to be, before someone swiped it just last week, how convenient. The bishop had placed a curse on the thief, and offered complete absolution to whoever returned it. We went outside, and ran into Chappell, who said that the cross was probably what we wanted (naturally, since it was out of reach.)
We had talked to the people in the cathedral about when the cross was stolen, and narrowed it down to a particular night and time. We discussed ways to go back in time, and either steal it ourselves, or get it from the people who did steal it. The main complication was in avoiding the curse, and any temporal paradoxes. However, we were becoming suspicious of elf-boy, especially Jay, who had just gotten religion, and felt that we couldn't take any of these holy artifacts, or we'd be lousy rotten bastards, and burn in hell for all eternity, like that wasn't going to happen already.
Sakell and I headed off to the barracks for dinner and sleep, while Jon and Jay stayed at the church. Over dinner, and the next morning, we talked to Roger Umber, who was the one person in all our adventures (except for hookers and nymphomaniacs) who was actually nice to us. We asked about the theft of the cross, and how the investigation was going. We also found out more exactly what time the robbery must have occurred, and who the guards on watch in the area were. We also got a few water skins from him, for our contingency plan in case the elf turned out to be the agent of the forces of darkness.
We headed back to the cathedral to meet up with everyone, and get some holy water. On our way to the well, we ran into another knight type person, who spotted Jon, and knelt in front of him, saying something about the prophesy being fulfilled. He asked us to follow him, and all would be explained (we'd heard that one before.) We went to what turned out to be the secret headquarters of the Society for Deification of Jon Kilborn, bearer of the Holy Lance, agent of the Almighty, and all around swell guy.
It turns out that a secret society had been built up around us and our adventures, particularly Jon and the Holy Lance, which we apparently did (will do?) something great with. We got to the secret headquarters, where we met Sirs Richard, Henry, and Wheremond, but they had to quiz us first, to make sure we were the right people. One of them opened an old book, and read, apparently phoenetically, as his words in English synched with his lips, "Where did you go after you left Antioch?"
My response of "Gordium" was good enough for them, and they said that they were at our disposal. They had been keeping historical records of all the major events through human history. They told us a little story about Joseph and son, missionaries to England many years before, how they discovered the hiding place of the holy grail at Glastonbury, and the fact that it was probably still there. They didn't want to tell us too much more, so as not to give away too much that we didn't already know.
Our new buddies equipped us with armor, shields, and cloaks like theirs to replace the stuff we had from Gordium that was a bit out-dated and overweight. I also picked up a new mace, to replace my magic faerie mace that I gave to Jay. We then went around town doing "stuff". I think we got some more holy water, and then we went to lunch at a tavern. At this tavern was one of those mysterious old men that hangs out in taverns telling the kind of story that mysterious old men in taverns tell. His story was about the last of faerie kind, who was especially powerful, even for a fruit, er faerie. When this faerie was just a young poof, it turned out that he had the power of shape shifting. As time went on, all the others of his kind died out, leaving him to walk the earth alone, all while making humankind think that the last of his kind was someone else.
We all thought that this sounded like someone we knew, but then I remembered that all of the people that fit that description were comic book characters that had somewhat homosexual tendencies. (Margin note - I forget what clever subreference I was going for here, but I know it was really good. Maybe it was Gar Logan.)
Eventually we met up with Fabio, and talked about what we knew about when the cross disappeared, and how we could get it back. He decided that we'd missed our chance, and that we'd jump forward to the next cross sighting in history, and try to pick it up there. And so we did, but that is a story for another time (turn the page stupid.)