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The
BARD’S REPORT
To the Bardic College of Kilgaul,
As told by Bipherque Fenestran
There’s a children’s
tale my mother used to tell me as an incentive to be good. From what I
understand, it’s a pretty common story, so I figure most of you heard it as
children as well… It goes something like this:
In the old days, when the civilizations
of humans were still young and the elves and dwarves were the masters of
the world, there was a terrible evil that walked the world. The elves and
dwarves were full of good thoughts and deeds, but this being, whose name
was Nightmare, was formed from all the evil thoughts of the world. So of
course it hated the good people.
Nightmare collected all the bad
thoughts in the world (including bad thoughts of little boys like you) and
decided to kill all the good people in the world so there would be no more
good thoughts. He hunted the elves and would have killed them all, except
that the gods felt bad for the elves and decided to stop Nightmare. It took
all the power of all the gods put together to stop Nightmare, but they
could not banish him back to the world of dreams. Finally the elves and
dwarves came together and created a great artifact that could cast
Nightmare back into the dream-world, but there was no magic strong enough
to power the artifact, not even the magic of dragons. The only thing that
could power it was the life of a good person.
And so the nicest elves and dwarves said
goodbye to their friends and families and gave their lives to power the
dream-world artifact. Nightmare was still fighting with the gods, and did
not notice when a little dwarf named Garven pushed the artifact right up to
his feet and turned it on. And the power of all the good people who died
sucked Nightmare in threw him screaming into the world of dreams.
That is why you sometimes have
nightmares: that evil being still rages trapped in the dream-world. But he
can’t do any harm to us anymore, except to cause an occasional bad dream.
The lessons my
mother tried to impress on me with this tale were 1) Always treat elves
with respect 2) If you ever meet a dwarf, treat him with respect, and 3)
don’t think about bad things because it gives power to Nightmare. I grew up
with the terrified impression that a stray mischievous impulse I had might
be the power Nightmare required to escape his dream prison and walk the
world again. As I grew older, it was relegated in my mind to the status of
fable, and mostly forgotten.
I would probably
never have thought about this again, except that a few months ago the
College of Bards had a meet. I was taken aside by the Chief Bard Allon of
Clan Caydawn. I felt greatly honored at the time… later I realized Allon is
a stuffy old man who has forgotten that part of being a bard is having fun.
Regardless (I know you’ll read this Allon, and I don’t care), Allon
assigned me to research the old story about nightmares.
I racked my brain
trying to figure out what story he was talking about. No bard likes to
admit he’s forgotten a story. “Are you talking about the children’s tale?”
I asked him, surprised.
“Oh, good… you’ve
heard of it,” he says dryly. Old bastard probably thought he was being
funny.
“You want me to
research that story?” I asked, a bit incredulous. I was trying to think if
I had ever offended him without realizing it.
“Not me personally,”
the chief bard assured me. “This request came from Greenleaf.” A tiny frown
creased his forehead.
That stopped me
cold. Thaddeus Greenleaf (what a stupid name… I hear he chose it himself)
is the arch-druid of Kilgaul, making him just a little less important than,
oh I don’t know… the gods.
“Does this mean I’ll
have access to the druid libraries?” I asked cautiously. My mind was
racing. If the druids wanted the bardic college to research this story…
well, I was beginning to think it was more than a story. And that kind of
scared me.
“No, the druids
still maintain they have no secret libraries,” Allon told me. He looked
unhappy with that. The bards and druids work together a lot, but despite
the fact that every bard knows that the druids have a repository of ancient
texts dating back for 14 or 16 centuries or so, the druids refuse to admit
it exists. They probably have their reasons.
Well, I’m not going
to bore you with the rest of my conversation with Allon (I was bored enough
the first time). There’s really no point in telling you about the studying
and traveling I did, either. Not that it wasn’t interesting, mind you, it’s
just off topic. Those who really want to know can ask me later about this
delightful little brothel I found in Trayess… I learned scads of new things
there, but nothing I want to include in this report.
The first place I
actually got some useful info was Sylvanhyme, where I managed an interview
with Erina Velosinius. She’s just about one of the most famous wizards
ever, and quite a looker I must add. Although I turned all my charm on for
her, I got absolutely nowhere with her. She might be a lesbian. Regardless,
she was just about the most polite full elf I’ve ever met, by which I mean
to say she is slightly less condescending than the rest of them (except my
dear old pa, of course, bless his wandering eye). When I asked about the
Nightmare children’s tale, she got this real sad look that made me want
cuddle her (and maybe cop a feel). But she was to fast and evaded me.
Anyway, she told me
that the elves have a slightly different version of the old story. And they
don’t call it an old story, they call it history. The elves teach that this
Nightmare entity fought the gods to a standstill, and the elves and dwarves
used some arcane relic to seal the evil entity away in an extra-dimensional
space called the Eye of the World.
“So Nightmare is
banished forever in this Eye dimension?” I asked, happy that my nightmares
would stay where they belonged.
Erina Velosinius got
this really sad look. “Although the entity is imprisoned, it can still have
an influence in our world,” she warned.
The way she was
talking made me feel uneasy. “It causes nightmares?” I ventured.
She smiled in that
slightly condescending way that only a full elf can, usually when they want
you to feel stupid. I ignored her look and stared at her breasts while she
answered. “The entity can grant power to minions who serve it in our world,
much like a god will grant divine power to his priests. But I believe the
process is a little more extreme in the case of this entity… it’s more like
a partial possession.”
Very disturbing
stuff. And she seemed so earnest. I forgot to stare at her chest. “What…
Assuming you’re correct in these ideas, what would be the ultimate goal of
the Nightmare?”
She shrugged. “Who
knows the will of the gods? And this entity you call Nightmare is on the
level of a god. It’s short-term goals are almost certainly to foment chaos
and trouble in our realm, and to escape it’s prison in one of the Eyes of
the World.”
I questioned her about
how you could identify these minions, and why there was no evidence that
they existed. She gave me a pitying smile, and this time I did feel quite
stupid.
“You’re from
Kilgaul. Hasn’t Kilgaul been having trouble with humanoid tribes recently?
Orcs? Goblins?”
Well, we argued
about that for a while. Turns out that her idea of something recent is
within the past 20 years. In a brilliant display of deductive reasoning she
showed me that there has been an upswing in difficulties with the evil
humanoids starting about 10 or twelve years ago. Oh, sure, there’s always
been trouble with orcs and such, but never on such a large scale. Elves,
Dwarves, Kilgaul, Kalvaria… all were running into the same problem. And it
wasn’t just the humanoids… monster activity seems to be on the rise as
well. And there were a few disturbing incidents where people had apparently
snapped and gone crazy without a logical reason for it. All together it
made a pretty convincing case.
“And you think this
is related to the influence of this Nightmare beast, which has been
imprisoned for some two millennia?” I asked.
She just looked at
me as if the answer should be obvious. And I guess it was.
The last leg of my
journey to actually produce any useful information was my trip to Raazak.
The dwarves have only opened the city to outsiders a few years ago, and I
can’t think it’s going to get much tourist business. For starters, it was
impossible to get a decent bottle of wine there. For another thing, the
locals have apparently never seen an elf before, because they kept calling
me ‘elf’; it’s perfectly obvious to anyone that I have no more than 50% elf
in me. My mother would be horrified that her contribution to my unique self
was being ignored. Anyway, I wrangled an interview with one of their clan
elders, Fenton Graymarch. He seemed to have misunderstood me and thought
that I was an ambassador from Kilgaul, rather than an ambassador from the
bardic college which happens to be in Kilgaul. I did not bother to correct
this misunderstanding, since it might have confused him.
All in all, my
questioning was pretty fruitless until he got disgusted and made a slip. He
pretended not to know anything at all about what I was talking about until
I mentioned the little dwarf named Garven that activated the artifact and
sealed away Nightmare in the dream-world.
“By the beard of The
Sword!” he exclaimed in the pompous manner all dwarves seem to use. “That
was Clan Garven, one of the five noble clans! Not one little dwarf!”
“Ah, so you know the
story?” I asked pleasantly.
“That’s no story!”
Fenton growled. “It’s dwarven history!”
After that little
outburst, I was able to confirm most of what Erina had told me. I also
found out that it would not be possible to talk to anyone from Clan Garven,
since they had all died out in freak accidents shortly after imprisoning
the Nightmare. Well, shortly from a dwarf point of view, which means within
a couple of centuries. Then I asked if it was true that dwarven women had
beards, and he kicked me out of his office.
So, to summarize my
report to the college, it appears that the entity colloquially referred to
as the Nightmare is in fact, a matter of historical truth and not merely a
legend. The entity has been imprisoned in an extra-dimensional space for
some eighteen centuries or so, but has the ability to create and manipulate
servants in our world. Evidence suggests that his power is increasing, and
has been waxing for the past decade or so. Most of his influence seems to
be among the evil humanoid tribes, but he undoubtedly has spies and minions
seeded throughout all the major cultures, including Kilgaul and Kalvaria.
Ever your servant,
Bipherque Fenestran
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