I don't even remember taking this field trip, but apparently we went into Chicago to see the Art Museum during art appreciation class, and our assignment was to have an aesthetic experience and write about it. I only got an A-, possibly because of my unanswered questions about aestheticism. Still, I'm awful glad to still have this, as I don't have memories this clear of any other visit to the museum!
I remember being so excited about this idea. Tired of writing nonfiction essays for college, I decided in art appreciation class that I would write a fiction piece, imagining a confrontation between Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, that would be well-researched enough to count as an essay. It didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped and my teacher's critique still stings in my ears -- "That's all they would have said to each other?" In the end, though, he decided he couldn't resist the idea of the piece and I think he gave it an A-.
Past page 2 I had to revert to my handwritten rough draft because those darn dot-matrix print jobs fade so badly!
More from old moldy school papers...apparently I was annoyed by the pretentiousness of the poetry I was studying, so I wrote these gag poems. Interestingly, I'm not sure if I had already read Kafka's Metamorphosis before writing the first poem. It's possible I wrote this after just hearing about it...
I. [untitled]
I awake and found myself a bug
Not an itty bitty bug with mandibles
Gnash, gnash, gnash,
But a big one.
Scuttle, scuttle, I crossed the room.
Grandma, she stepped on me.
"Land sakes, I die now, too,"
She said.
Then hocked a big goober
into Grandpa's old spittoon.
"Spit until you croak, old fat Granny,"
My spirit said as it ascended.
"I am better than you now."
II. Fire
Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow,
That's hot.
III. Reincarnate
Now I sit upon a shelf.Oh no! A lot of my old paperwork stored in the garage is infected with mold. Time to scan it all and throw it away...
Below are some drawings I had done, submitted and rejected for political cartoons while I was at Aurora University back in '91-'94. My, they don't age well, do they? I was quite the conservative, highly suspicious of multiculturalism and spending. Though unlike Republicans, when I lose in the culture wars I lose gracefully and accept things have changed...
Session 34
Patchwall 7, 621 CY
Castle Greyhawk
Reed Underbough the Hobbit Cutpurse and Rom Riverbluff the Swordsman (along with their hirelings Herv and Muelara and Rom’s newest hireling, Genevieve the Acolyte) had been convinced by Thorin the Dwarven Veteran to take his two newest recruits out into the field for some experience at Castle Greyhawk, and this time Thorin came along. The raw recruits were Vlad the Elven Medium and Reginald the Hobbit Veteran. Since the rest of the company was busy -- why not?
One of the sentries welcomed them politely with a prepared speech about how Captain Throk had taken over the keep in the name of the Law and that adventurers were still welcome to pass through on their way to the dungeons -- but at a toll of 5 silver pieces per person, and 1 electrum piece to watch the cart and mules. Reed paid in full for everyone and one of the sentries escorted them through. The vestibule was full of more chickens. The hallway of statues leading to the ballroom was the same as in the past. The sentry, not knowing some of them had been here before, explained how the next room was haunted. The room was normally safe but, if there was any trouble, they should shout for help.
The ballroom was again haunted by the ghostly revelers at their feast -- but this time it was different. They could hear the revelers, who were silent the last two times, and everyone could smell the delicious feast. In fact, over half the present company was magically compelled to step up and sample from the feast, either food or drink. In just about every case, there was some strange result of sampling the food and drink. Herv and Genevieve each drank the mead and felt like they had eaten an entire day’s worth of food. Thorin drank the ale and immediately cramped up really bad. Vlad tried the pork and became immediately gassy and flatulent. Since the mead seemed to be safer, Thorin tried that and his beard quickly grew out until it stretched over 4’ long. Rom tried the mead and turned into a dwarf! Only Reginald, eating a sweet cake, seemed to only enjoy the sticky treat with no effects. Reginald tried engaging a ghost in conversation, but it only laughed and said nothing.
No one wanted to spend any more time around all that magically haunted food, so they beat a hasty retreat through the side arch that took them to the spiral staircase. They chose to go down and, at level 1 of the dungeon, had to make a decision about exploring more here or going deeper. It was a difficult call, but the majority wanted the safer bet of exploring the largely mapped first level. In fact, Reed and Rom wanted to go back to the area where they had last killed giant beetles and see what else was there, in the vicinity of Herg the Half-Goblin’s old lair.
They found that someone, or something, had moved in, brought more stuff, and moved other furniture around in the suite of rooms. And then they found out what kind of something when a goblin wearing platemail armor showed up. It managed to hold its own against the company for two minutes before going down.
As the victors were looting its corpse, Thorin and Reginald heard something running away from the room. Everyone followed, and a second goblin in platemail armor, even bigger than the last goblin, was cornered at a door and engaged in melee. This battle was even tougher to win, but the company did with hardly any injuries, thanks to the goblin surrendering once it was weak. Between the two goblins, they seemed to have a fair amount of treasure, including an electrum ring that Thorin tried on in case it was magical (it did not appear to be, and turned out later, wasn’t).
What to do about the prisoner was an ethical dilemma, with the company almost evenly split between killing it and keeping it as a prisoner. Keeping it alive won, and the goblin was tied up and dragged along behind.
But they weren’t ready to leave yet. There was a room on the map north of the giant beetle room that said “giant spiders” on their annotated copy. Were they ready to handle giant spiders? They seemed confident -- but when they entered the room they found the past occupants were gone and it was now barracks for six goblins. A sleep spell from Muelara finished them off quickly before the new recruits got anymore practice fighting. They were poor goblins and their throats were slit in front of the company’s prisoner. They killed their prisoner too after Thorin changed his earlier vote.
They detoured to the northeast corner of their map of the dungeon level to make sure those rooms were empty (they were), and then headed back south towards never-before-explored territory. Their annotated map said one room had an ogre in it -- and it still did! But not for long. Even though it hit Rom really hard, none of the companions went down before the ogre died from Reed’s backstab.
The ogre’s lair contained barrels and one of them was sealed. The barrel was crazy suspicious -- it seemed light as if it was empty, nothing rattled or sloshed inside it, yet sealed? Beyond curious, Reed cut the seal and opened the barrel -- exposing the flammable gas inside to the fire of the party’s lantern and -- boom!
Rom and Muelara were moderately hurt, Genevieve and Thorin were seriously hurt, but Vlad and Reginald took the brunt of it. Although everyone tried their best to extinguish them quickly, it was too late. Vlad died with one last explosive flatulence. Reginald’s last words were a curse in Goblin he had learned quickly from their prisoner earlier -- though, to be fair, Reginald had mistaken it for something nicer.
Session 35
The vampires had returned; the Company of the White Oak learned this when Haruspex Niv and John Grond were discovered to be charmed and, after the spells were magically lifted (at great expense), they revealed how they had both awoke (on different nights) to find the vampires in their rooms, for some no-doubt sinister but unknown purposes, but then compelled both to silence on the matter. The entire company was now taking many nightly precautions, including sleeping surrounded by garlic, mirrors, and silver, for those who did not yet have magic weapons…
But life went on and everyone was eager to get back to searching for treasure in the Castle Greyhawk dungeons, to at least replenish what had been spent on dispelling charms. Thorin was not going to be able to make it this time, but had told everyone that Ulrich would be joining them. All were glad, for Brother Ulrich the Maimed had not adventured with them in some time, but when they met with Ulrich they found this was someone new named Ulrich. Ulrich had been made to understand that he was going to be a full member of the company, not a hireling. The company, slightly embarrassed by the misunderstanding, took him on without complaint.
Rom, often mistaken for the company's leader because of his higher standard of living, had been approached by the Dwarven Ambassador at Grossettgrottell with an offer for a bounty on a dragon, Chondis, believed to still dwell on the third dungeon level of Castle Greyhawk. All the ambassador wanted was the dragon's head and a chalice from its treasure trove. Intrigued, the company planned to go in search of it...
Patchwall 21, 621 CY
On a cold, but sunny autumn day, Haurspex Niv, John Grond, Percy, Reed Underbough, Rom Riverbluff, Ulrich, and the henchmen Peter, Harvard, Biros Frapple, Herv, Muelara, and Genevieve, along with Percy's hirelings, a new carter and guard for the mules and cart, made an impressive 14-man (or 12 men and 2 women) pilgrimage to their favorite adventuring site. Last time the sentries guarding the keep, Captain Throk's men, had guarded their cart and mules, but the cursed drink in the haunted ballroom had also turned Rom into a dwarf (permanently, it seemed!), so they had reasons to avoid the keep. The mules were dropped off at the stables with the two new hires to guard them, and then the company entered the dungeons via the main tower.
It was a quick jaunt from where those stairs came down to the central stairwell that serviced both the keep upstairs and the dungeons at least four levels deep. They had John's partial map of the third level to follow once they reached the second landing down and headed south. This time, they would explore east of the rat (and wererat) lairs and see what was there. What they initially found was a series of interconnected rooms where the floor was flooded with murky water, and they had to traverse the rooms on dry paths of stepping stones. The first rooms were unoccupied, though the third room had a suspicious-looking chest in it, and the fourth room contained five new monsters -- some kind of 'lizard men'! The lizard men were embarrassingly easy to drop with a sleep spell, as were the four they next encountered. They reached the end of this suite of rooms and backtracked to the chest, that just screamed trap to them -- and they were right, as Reed found when he searched the chest for traps. It was connected into the floor by a chain. They hoped the nearly-naked lizard men had a key on one of them and Peter was directed to search under their loinclothes, but came up empty (and disturbed by the experience). By balancing the chest just right, Reed was able to open the chest without pulling the chain and found the chest was -- empty.
Now everyone wanted to see what the trap did, so they tied a rope to the chain and were ready to pull it from outside the room, from the room to the south. Just then, three more lizard men appeared from the already-explored room to the east, and two entered just as the trap was sprung. The floor fell away, "flushing" the room into a 10' deep pit. The lizard men were injured by the fall and the third lizard man, surprised but catching himself in the doorway, was quickly killed by arrows and bolts. The two in the pit were also quickly killed with arrows… "like shooting lizards in a pit," as would soon become a saying.
But what of this pit? Was there treasure down there? To make sure, Reed and Biros climbed the wall down, while Muelara and Rom were lowered by rope into the pit. They worked together to comb the area and kept finding gold in the muddy (or at least they hoped they were handling mud!) water and found well over a hundred gold pieces, plus six pearls.
Moving on, the company circled south and west around the rat lairs and found themselves in an enormous, oddly shaped chamber, or great hall, with many corners. The 20' vaulted ceiling was supported, just on the east end of the hall, by columns carved to look like giants supporting the ceiling. Everyone was careful not to touch them! Exploring the interior while John methodically mapped the perimeter, the company found a mural and altar along the south wall, and it seemed dedicated to the god of magic, Boccob. Percy was the first to sit a small offering of gold onto the altar and felt a good feeling, like he had been blessed. When he expressed this to the others everyone wanted in on feeling blessed and were soon leaving small offerings as well. Genevieve was the first of the hirelings to get a turn and she also discovered that she only had to touch the altar to get the same feeling, without a sacrifice, and the rest of the hirelings jumped in on this. Only John stubbornly refused to get his 'good feelings' from a god of neutrality, and urged the party to move on, as there seemed nothing else to see here.
Reed was concerned; Ommetog the Shade had told him once that the third dungeon level was a maze or labyrinth, but so far they had seen little evidence of this. Perhaps this oddly-cornered hall was the start of it? The exits to the north were narrow and perhaps led into a maze. So they ventured south instead -- and that is where they hit a maze. It was not a maze of narrow, twisting corridors, but long straight corridors that interconnected without seeming to lead to any rooms. They even found two stairs that went up to level two, stairs they had never seen before from the other end (they went up one, but only as far as the door at the top). The one room they did find seemed to be a long-abandoned office with nothing of value to be found in it.
They backtracked away from it and headed east, where they did two more rooms. The first contained 12 coffins. They girded themselves for a big battle against undead, but were disappointed to find the coffins were all empty. They were all in perfect condition, as if brand new -- which was itself odd because the room was full of years' worth of undisturbed dust and grime that had to be wiped off the coffins. Was this the secret lair of the vampires, at last? Everyone produced the garlic they had been carrying for safety and smeared it all over the coffins, just to spite the vampires.
But the next room to the east had a different message in it -- literally, scratched into the far wall. "Beware of mummies." So the coffins belonged to mummies? Much of the company recalled having to flee for their lives from mummies on the trip back from Verbobonc many months ago, so they were eager for some mummy-related revenge. Since there were no mummies about, they torched nine of the coffins (hmm, garlic seasoning!) and made the henchmen carry three coffins out, as they seemed valuable.
But where to go next? They couldn't very well face a dragon now if all their hirelings were carrying coffins (it also sent a bad message to the henchmen, as if they were carrying their own coffins). So it was decided to leave. Except they almost couldn't.
Just before returning to the spiral stairs, they rounded a corner and Reed almost stepped into a big pile of offal. Except this offal moved! Though a gelatinous mass, it oozed across the floor, and much faster than the green slime had moved in the Forbidden Caves of Grossettgrottell. Everyone ran to escape it, but it was dogging close on the heels of the slowest hirelings, so the company stopped and lit up oil between themselves and this slime to stop it. It worked, and they were able to circle wide around and come at the stairs from another angle.
While moving through the first level, they had one final encounter, with five undead skeletons, in the long corridor between the old berserker room and the weasel dens. How laughable that this might have once challenged them! Percy simply held up his cross and blasted four of the skeletons to dust with the power of his gods, while the pent-up aggression of the rest of the party -- who had not been able to fight anything in melee all day! -- was unleashed on the lone remaining skeleton until it too was pulverized into nothingness.
And
maybe the best part of the day was returning to the stables and finding their
mules and hirelings were alive in the stables this time!
