The Quest calendar (continues)… part 14

The wizard, Edvarius, is finally ready to leave with Faris for West Haven, though he proves fairly useless when encountering dangers on the road.

With the day to myself, I checked the local job board. I couldn’t find everything one woman lost in the river, though she was grateful for what I did retrieve. I fought off some thugs who were trying to strong-arm a merchant into the protection racket. And I gathered moer tassleroot.

I took my bundles of tassleroot to sell at Misty’s Mirecles, and bought some potions and rations for the return trip with the coin I earned. I picked up extra rations on the accurate assumption that the wizard would be useless at hunting. Lucky for him, I found ample game, fresh water, and a steady path, cutting almost a day off our journey.

Along the way, we found a tree laying across the road. It wasn’t a problem for us, but would be for a wagon, so I tried to move it. No luck. I borrowed an axe from another traveler and cleared enough of the tree to allow carts to pass. Exhausted, I quaffed a health potion to speed my recovery. I couldn’t shake the feeling that it seemed deliberate. Though probably not be the feral beasts that erupted from the woods as I was handing the axe back.

I swung the axe at the first beast as Luc launched himself at it. It swiped at my leg with its claws, leaving a streak of blood. I stumbled, missing the second monster entirely, regaining my blanace just in time to chop the head off the third one.

The crash of a tree striking the ground drew everybody’s attention. A giant beast, far larger than the ones just dispatched, loomed over us and used some kind of magic to paralyze everybody. My experience with animals allowed me to break free by slowly backing away and avoiding eye contact. Suddenly, it lunged towards me, sinking its teeth into my flesh. I am not ashamed to say I fled into the woods, leading the creature away from the other travelers. When I collapsed, exhausted, the beast was nowhere to be seen.

I returned to the road, reconvening with my travel companion. He requested we approach the city from a nearby hilltop, where he could cast a location spell, along with a protective blessing on the city. Or so he said. The components he used were not ones I’ve seen used for either of those spells before. I escorted the braggart, claiming to be more powerful than Godwin, to Lord Fellmont. He requested an audience with young Victor and more dragon eggs before I met with Rufus for my payment.

Rufus paid me with gold and urged me to seek out dragon eggs at Blissfalls immediately, at the Dragon Temple. Emphasizing the urgency, he handed me some meal rations. Not that I needed them, I was able to hunt and find water as I travelled.

A Fall Harvest

The sun has barely risen on this first Saturday in fall when I step outside for the first time today. Not to start the harvest, but to dump my coffee grounds from the French press into a garden spot. Today’s should be a large harvest, including pumpkins, possibly all four if they’re all solidly orange. And if all the pumpkins are picked, it turns into a bigger gardening effort to remove the remaining vines, opening access to the raspberries lurking behind them.

I grab the Mickey Mouse bandana to keep dirt out of my hair, a fanny pack for my phone to make up for shallow pockets, and after a brief hesitation, with a step out the front door, my Tigger gardening sweater. Gardening shoes, gloves, and the clippers are acquired in the garage, then I pull a couple small beheaded sunflower stalks on my way to harvesting the pumpkins. As I cut the stalk for the second one, I realize one vine has a baby pumpkin, with flower still attached. The odds are against it ripening, but I leave that one streak of vine while removing the rest, not realizing it was the wrong vine until later.

The spaghetti squash vines are mostly withered already, but the cucumber and acorn squash vines still have some green and young fruit. The acorn squash, like the pumpkin, surprises me with new fruit. I clear the spaghetti squash vines, along with some weeds (mostly mulberries) that were hiding beneath them.

I carry handfuls of fruit to the bench by the garage, peering in the side door at the cats who glaringly say I should be feeding them again. They don’t seem reassured when I tell them I’ll be in after the harvesting that uses clippers. In my mind, that’s just the sweet peppers. In fact, I have one glove off before I remember there’s a muskmelon as well, and the cats are already fed when I realize, while changing the kitty litter, that I need clippers for the okra. Okra is handled slightly differently, since I keep count of that harvest: 73 (so far) compared to last year’s 353. (I have fewer okra plants this year, so the difference is reasonable.)

Cherry & yellow pear tomatoes in a pot, sweet peppers, acorn squash, purple okra, a muskmelon, spaghetti squash, a cucumber, and pumpkins

Having stopped most tomato harvests in recent weeks because the container was full, I select my largest pot, and start at the smallest tomato section, which is by the acorn squash, working my way up to the overflowing keyhole bed. The container decision is a good one; today’s tomato harvest is about double my normal effort. Now I just need some heavy cream and a bottle of V8 for a delightful tomato soup, which may be served with a side of bacon-wrapped acorn squash.

The Quest calendar (continues)… part 13

Having helped extinguish fires in Ironfell, Faris seeks out Edvarius for the return trip to West Haven. Unfortunately, Edvarius isn’t quite done with his local tasks yet.

I sought out Edvarius the following morning, to see if he could leave now that the giant had been dispatched. I talked him into an extra bit of coin for dealing with the giant, and he asked me to travel south to see what was poisoning the water. I reluctantly agreed – with a promise of payment – and set off with my mule and boat to explore various branches off the river. I gathered more tasselroot as I was able, eventually finding a small cave with a terrible odor emanating from within.

I gathered some fresh herbs, tucked them into a cloth, and covered my nose before proceeding into the cave. My boat slid quietly through the water into the darkness. I heard a strange noise just before three toothy monsters dropped into my boat from above, and was bitten by one of them. I slayed them and rapidly retrieved my belongings from the sinking boat, leaving the mule waiting for my return.

My animal companions followed me into a series of rooms within the cave. I found a dwarven corpse, reminding me of how perilous this cave was. I stuck close to the river path after that, noting that he also carried a vial of dragon egg ooze, though broken.

Upon reaching the deepest cavern, I found hundreds of slimy eggs in the water. The eggs themselves were transparent, clearly showing some kind of insects inside. The film on the eggs was causing the water to foam, and that foam was flowing out to the river. I carefully transplanted the eggs to the firm ground near the back of the cave, then judiciously set them all on fire to eliminate this plague upon the river. As I finished, a loud screech echoed throughout the cave, and a massive insect came lumbering towards me.

I dashed in, striking the giant beast, dodging its vicious mandibles. It almost grabbed me with its pincers once, but Richard swooped down and stunned it. It spit acid on me; I recovered and slayed it with my next strike.

That done, I retrieved my mule and began the walk back to Ironfell. A man passed me with a rowboat, but refused me a ride. As I walked, I harvested more tasselroot and munched some rations. On my eventual return to Ironfell, I sought out Edvarius again. He paid me the agreed upon amount and we arranged to meet the next morning to depart for West Haven.

Have you considered your What Ifs?

Between watching Loki and What If…?, I’ve spent a bit of time considering significant choices in my life that would have altered where I am today. Unlike Marvel, I don’t know what my alternate timelines would have been, but I can certainly identify major decisions I made. I’m only considering actual decisions that I made, rather than my parents’ decisions in my youth or things outside my control.

When I started college, I intended to follow my undergraduate degree with law school. Over the years, I wavered on that, considering a graduate focus on international studies instead. Then I took more computer classes. And wrote up a resume for the first time, which included many computer skills. In my final undergraduate semester, I made the decision to take the GRE rather than the LSAT and apply for a graduate program in computers. Either would have been an interesting path.

As I finished graduate school, I interviewed with several companies on campus, and one flew me into the Chicago O’Hare airport just before Thanksgiving for an interview. If you’ve never flown into Chicago, it’s pretty amazing to see from the air how much green space there is because of the many forest preserves. Once on the ground, all I saw was the route to my hotel, from there to the interview (not far at all), and then back to the airport. But I flew home with a job offer and a reasonably good impression of the area. A couple months later, I was able to explore a little while selecting an apartment, and I’ve stayed in the Chicagoland area since then.

An important what if for me is what if I hadn’t gone to that first local gaming convention, so many years ago? Except I realized, that wasn’t the right what if. It was actually at GenCon that summer, when I kept returning to the Out of the Box Publishing booth to play Shipwrecked, even after I bought the game. One of those times, a couple playing with me handed me a flyer to a Thanksgiving weekend gaming convention. Attending that convention resulted in joining my current role-playing group, meeting my ex-husband, and most importantly, the eventual birth of my daughter. All because I enjoyed a game.

Thoughts on For the Wolf

This was a fairly recent review, published in the May 1, 2021 issue of Booklist. I appreciated the reimagining of fairy tales in this story, the first in the Wilderwood series, and am looking forward to seeing which other fairy tales Whitten pulls into the series.

Red’s tragic destiny kicks off Hannah Whitten’s debut novel, For the Wolf, as she prepares to enter the Wilderwood. Second daughters of the royal family are expected to sacrifice themselves to the Wolf when they turn twenty. Red arrives haggard, attacked by the forest itself, at a castle, discovering that the famed Wolf is actually a man, as the fairy tale suddenly transitions from Little Red Riding Hood to Beauty and the Beast. The Wolf’s attempts to contain her to the castle are a guilt-ridden, Herculean effort to shelter her from the woods; he failed to protect the previous second daughters. But Red’s magic makes her a powerful ally as he struggles to repair the woods, preventing the arrival of dark creatures from the Shadowlands. They are hampered by Red’s sister, Neve, and her betrothed, unsuspecting accomplices of an evil priestess seeking to release the Five Kings, mistakenly believed to be gods, from the Shadowlands. Whitten reaches a satisfying, yet unexpected, conclusion while setting up the next book in the Wilderwood series.

Thoughts on 10,000 Bones

Every so often, I look back at the books I’ve reviewed and am surprised at some of the reviews I’ve forgotten to share here. This review of 10,000 Bones by Joe Ollinger was originally published in the February 1, 2019 issue of Booklist. Yes, really, more than 2 years ago. 10,000 Bones is such an easy read, focusing on the character development and culture with light glimpses at the science, I’m considering re-reading it in the near future.

A couple centuries in the future, in 10,000 Bones, Joe Ollinger has spread humanity across the far reaches of the galaxy, colonizing a dozen habitable planets. This particular planet, Brink has minimal calcium, so the government declared it to be the official currency. This has led to other governments suppressing calcium shipments in order to maintain favorable exchange rates, illnesses relating to calcium deficiencies, and a government agency responsible for finding black market calcium and recovering it. Taryn Dare is a Collections Agent, collecting a bonus based on the weight of the illegally circulated calcium she recovers, as seen in her opening salvo when she chases down a busboy who is stealing chicken bones from his work. Bones are processed by genetically engineered chalk weevils that extract the calcium. Not surprisingly, there’s a black market for human remains as well, and a simple corpse recovery turns into Taryn’s biggest case yet. Taryn teams up with a Commerce Board auditor who’s investigating a calcium shortfall in the system, uncovering a vast conspiracy that places both of their lives in danger.

The Paramount Theatre restarts their Broadway Series with Kinky Boots

More than a year after it was originally scheduled, the Paramount Theatre in Aurora has restarted their Broadway Series with Kinky Boots, an amusing musical about a floundering shoe company whose new owner decides to produce a line of high-heeled boots for drag queens. In a typical Broadway style, the story is both funny and moving, with lessons about accepting yourself and people around you.

But hey, isn’t there still a pandemic going on? Why yes, there is. The Paramount Theatre implemented a strict COVID policy, requiring proof of full vaccination and photo ID for people who are eligible for the vaccine, a negative COVID test for people unable (or ineligible, for children under 12) to get the vaccine, and masks for everybody in attendance. (Noting that this particular show is recommended for ages 12 and up due to sexual content and adult language.)

Me standing in front of a backdrop with the Kinky Boots image (tall red boots) & title, and the Paramount Theatre logo

It makes for a different sort of look at the theatre. I’m sure some people color coordinate their masks and attire. Clearly, I’m not one of them. The only people I saw unmasked inside were the cast, the occasional group taking a quick photo with the backdrop, and people quickly sipping drinks and replacing their masks.

I was delighted to return to a live show, and particularly this one, which garnered a standing ovation during the final song. I’m look forward to the other shows this season, hoping that as more people get vaccinated and this pandemic fades into memory, the performers will be able to see the smiling faces in the audience once again.

The Quest calendar (continues)… part 12

Another disaster awaits Faris upon her return to Ironfell.

As I approached Ironfell, the river was clearly dirtier than upstream, and I realized smoke was rising from the town. I docked and rushed to clear people from burning buildings. One gnomish child was too scared to move, so I grabbed her and leapt out the window just as the building collapsed behind us. She ran off and I spotted the culprits behind the fires: a trio of fire sprites! In a flash, I hit them each with an arrow, knocking them into the water.

Then I was all over the place, helping extinguish fires at the boathouse, Misty’s, the blacksmith’s, a bridge, and rescuing some children from another burning bridge before it collapsed. I spotted more fire sprites and rushed to vanquish them before they could cause more damage. One hopped on my head, burning me; I shot the other two before they could get close.

Once the fires were out, I stumbled through the town in an exhausted state. I found a rag doll in the remnants of one home, and luckily encountered a young half-orc who claimed it. I stumbled into an inn that survived the flames and was gifted a meal and a room.

Driftless Glen Distillery

Recently, I drove to Minneapolis for a weekend. Without traffic or pit stops, it would be around a six hour drive. But what fun is a road trip without some interesting stops along the way? The first stop was to revisit Ehlenbach’s Cheese Chalet to purchase some bratwurst for that evening’s grill. It was a little early for lunch at that point, so we ignored the variety of restaurants at that exit and rejoined the highway.

Almost immediately, I noticed a billboard for Driftless Glen Distillery – and restaurant – in Baraboo, twenty miles down the road. Between cities in Wisconsin, that’s only three or four highway exits. This is not dissimilar to how I discovered Journeyman Distillery a few years ago, though the signage for finding Driftless Glen once we left the highway wasn’t as good as Journeyman’s. Fortunately, technology was able to determine the correct path, leading us past Circus World, which I may have to return for on a separate occasion.

As the weather was near perfect (and, let’s be honest, there’s still a pandemic going on), we opted to dine outside. This provided a lovely view of the river, including the occasional kayakers drifting by. I rarely drink soda, but on a whim, ordered a Shirley Temple. I was a bit puzzled by the color when it arrived, it’s darker than usual… it’s made with real cherry juice instead of the usual grenadine.

Driftless Glen Distillery in Baraboo, Wisconsin. A Shirley Temple made with real cherries. Pasta salad. Driftless Glen sampler pack: brandy, bourbon, rye, 51 rye; Mammoth Distillery Cherry Bounce; Driftless Glen New American Gin.

The food was as tasty as the drinks, and we followed up our lunch with a stop in their retail shop. Torn between multiple bourbons and ryes, I found a sampler pack that settled the choice for me. When I queued up to pay, the couple in front of me asked where the samplers were so they could purchase one as well. They had a couple different gins as well; I opted for their New American. (The Mammoth Distilling Cherry Bounce was waiting for me in Minneapolis; I haven’t been to their distillery… yet.)

I can’t speak to the brandy… it’s tasty, but I don’t recall the last time I drank brandy, so have little room for comparison. Their bourbon, rye, and gin are also nice. The 51 Rye, however… well, that’s something worth taking a detour for. I would absolutely go out of my way to buy that again. Not that I have to – now that I know about Driftless Glen, I know to look for it at my local Binny’s. Though I suppose I’ll have to visit again for their Shirley Temple.

The Quest calendar (continues)… part 11

Faris, in retrieving the wizard Edvarius, is roped into helping resolve Ironfell’s problems before he can travel to West Haven.

I purchased a row boat for my mule, Aldar, to pull up river, along with more rations. I searched for tassleroot while Aldar pulled the boat. I found one bushel to sell later, and paused to eat some rations. I continued upriver until a flaming arrow flew at me – a gang of gnolls was attacking! One actually managed to hit me, but I took out his friends easily. A couple fled, so I anchored the boat and snuck after them. Thwap, thwap, whoosh, thwap! Three of the four dead by my arrows before they could get off a shot. The fourth one got lucky though.

After they fell, I noticed more gnolls emerging from their tents, all women, children, and elderly. As I turned away to return to my boat, one of the pups ran over and handed me a tribal mask embedded with gold and gems.

I continued north, up the river, and reached a fork. The left looked turbulent, the right calm. Ideally, I would have gone right, but the boulders to the left reminded me that Edvarius mentioned the giants had been throwing rocks in the river. It was hard steering through the turbulence, I narrowly avoided hitting rocks several times. Just when I thought I was clear, a boulder tumbled down the mountain, thrusting the boat out of the water, then slamming back down. Ouch!

Another boulder crashed down the mountain and rolled past me. I glanced up the hill and saw a laughing giant lifting another boulder. I clambered out of my boat, quaffed an elixir to boost my physical skills, and snuck through the trees towards it. I snuck in fairly close, then tried to calm him down by talking gently. He looked puzzled for a moment and briefly stopped hurling rocks. The peace was momentary, he then ripped a dead tree from the ground and swung it at me. Thank goodness for my animal friends, with their help I evaded every swing and eventually killed the giant.

I rummaged through the giant’s camp, finding some food and a few coins. I assumed the coins were stolen from less fortunate travelers. Then I noticed the giant had a belt, worn on his wrist. I put it on and immediately felt stronger. I returned to my boat and headed south, a far easier trip than coming up river. I harvested more tassleroot en route, and paused briefly to eat.