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Chapter 4: Under the Sea
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Joined: 08 Feb 2004
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Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2004 9:07 pm    Post subject: Chapter 4: Under the Sea  


The story so far: You are Lodevar, born to the race of sheepheads enslaved by the Bullroar minotaurs. Your have an unusual form compared to most sheepheads, with a smaller head and no horns. After being sent to the iron mines, you started a slave rebellion and freed over five hundred of your people, then led them to the coast, where you sought aid from the race of merfolk. The Bullroar armies are closing in when three merfolk, including the enchanting mermaid Lalomea, offer to give you a three-day audience with their king.

Last Decision: Lead your people onto the sea in boats while you visit the merfolk with Haman and the Prophet.

"Haman," you say. "Let’s move. I want everyone on a boat as soon as possible."

The next few hours are a blur of rousing your people, packing, loading, and deciding what to leave behind. You get everyone on the boats, even your Bullroar captives (still in chains), and everything else that fits - including all the food and weapons. You’re asking a lot of your people: to pack and leave with no warning, to set sail with no destination in mind and only a few days of supplies. But they obey without question. Like a true army, you think with satisfaction.

Once your people have set sail, you ask Haman, your second-in-command, and Nelectitus, the prophet, to accompany you under the sea. Haman nods. Nelectitus cackles and says:"You want me to see into the Fisheye? Who knows what the Fisheye will see back?" But he follows you to the beach.

So the three of you stand knee-deep in water before the three merfolk - Petrosian, who still looks at you with disdain, Lalomea, so beautiful she makes your heart ache, and the tall older one whom Petrosian introduces as Glusserial. As your people sail out of the harbor beyond your sight, you say, "We’re ready."

Glusserial nods and begins swaying from side to side. As he sways, the water rises around you, wave by wave coming in from the sea and not going out again. Now the water is to your hip, now to your chest. The merfolk are underwater and you lose sight of them, but the water keeps rising. When it gets to your neck you look at your friends in alarm, and suddenly you feel a touch on your back and warm arms encircling your chest. Lalomea presses against you from behind and fastens something around your neck, just as the water rises over your head and you inhale a lung full of -

Water? You breathe in water, but you’re not choking on it. You breathe it in again. You can feel it in your lungs, heavier than air. It’s a strange feeling, but not an unpleasant one. You touch your neck and feel a necklace of pearls fastened around you, cool and vibrating slightly.

Completely submerged now, you look at your friends. Haman and Nelectitus have similar necklaces and they are also breathing underwater. The merfolk are in front of you. Petrosian says: "The pearl necklaces are a gift of the King Under the Sea. They will allow you to breathe underwater. But they will last for only three days and three hours. Each hour will consume one pearl, and when the last one falls off, the magic will be gone."

Then he says, "This way," and swims out in deeper water, followed by the other merfolk. You and your friends half-swim and half-walk after him, more slowly and awkwardly. The sea is murky here and you stir up silt as you walk.

Suddenly out of the gloom dark shapes come at you, fast. They’re fish, huge fish, with long, narrow bodies, small fins and a ridge like a sail on their tops. They slow and turn as they approach, showing lines of seaweed running from their mouths to a capsule made of bone and coral, large enough to hold you and your companions. A sea-chariot.

Holding the reins on top of the chariot is a merman with green hair and a long beard. He nods to Petrosian and the other merfolk. Petrosian and Haman enter the last part of the chariot, Glusserial and Nelectitus take two seats in the middle, and Lalomea leads you to the front seat, just behind the fish and below the driver.

The driver loosens the reins and the fish begin moving. They start slow but quickly build up speed until you’re traveling at a terrific pace. Fish and other sea-creatures fly by you in the depths, but strangely the water doesn’t press on you; it seems to part magically before it reaches the chariot.

"These are sailfish," says Lalomea, with a slight accent. Her voice is different underwater, even more smooth and musical than when you heard her sing on the reef. But you’re startled to hear her speak your language.

"You speak Middle?"

"Some," she says. "I don’t speak it above water. It sounds so, how do you say…" You half-expect her to say ugly but she finishes: "…dry."


You pause, looking at her beautiful face, her long green hair floating loosely around her body, her green eyes calmly returning your gaze. You want to think about what you’re going to say to the King Under the Sea, but her presence is distracting. You wonder if the merfolk intended that.

"Where are we going?" you ask.

"To Ulderea, our oldest city, where is my father’s palace."

"Is it far?"

"Yes, many hours. We must travel in-water, to the bottom of the…you say the Emerald Sea?"

"We call it the Great Sea."

"Ah. Emerald Sea is one of our names, enerialassia in our language." The word flows easily from her lips. "We have many words for the sea, but I have always liked that one. Emeralds are very beautiful, wouldn’t you say?"

Yes, and I’m sure we could spend hours discussing that, you think. "So you’re the King’s daughter?"

She laughs. "My father has thousands of children. But only a few favorites. I’m not one of them." Then she gives you a playful smile and mock-whispers, "Neither is Petrosian."

"What about Glusserial? Does he have the King’s ear?"

Lalomea turns her face away. "Oh, you are a hard one!" she cries. "Fixed like the mountain. No speaking of the sea, or emeralds, or a father’s love. Only war: who has the power? Who will help me with the King? I didn’t believe that land-dwellers were so shallow, but it is true."

"Listen, woman!" you snap back. "I’m miles beneath the sea with only your magic keeping me alive, and my people are sitting on the ocean in leaky boats with nowhere to land. If I don’t get help from your father, the Bullroars are going to slaughter all of us. So forgive me if I don’t want to talk about emeralds right now!"

She tosses her head. "All right. I see your point, and I forgive you."

You let that comment pass. "So what can you tell me? What can I offer the King? Why did he agree to see me?"

She sighs. "I don’t know what you can offer him. But the reason he wants to see you is that you look like -" She stops.

"Like what?"

"Like, uh, like nothing we’ve seen before. He’s…uh, curious, I’m sure, because you’re different than any other creature he knows of."

Hm. "Is that what you were about to say?"

"What do you mean?" she looks at you, her face perfectly innocent.

"Never mind. Well, I hope he’s compassionate as well as curious. My people don’t have much to offer, but our cause is just."

"Don’t worry. He is as merciful as the sea itself," Lalomea says.

But as you watch the cold black depths rush past you at a hundred miles an hour, somehow that thought fails to bring you comfort.


The hours pass quickly, and soon the sailfish reach what looks like a huge circle of lights at the bottom of the ocean. As you slow down and spiral in from above, you behold what no land-dweller has ever seen: Ulderea, the legendary city of merfolk.

The lights spread out in rings around the center, white, pale blue and green, all gently swaying in the ocean current as though they were giant jellyfish. They illuminate brightly colored reefs and tunnels, mazelike and interconnected, spreading out over the ocean floor and rising high above it in irregular towers.

And the life! You expected a city filled with merfolk, and they’re there - thousands of them, in all the colors of the rainbow - swimming, working, laughing and playing. But the city is also filled with hundreds of thousands of other sea-creatures. Sailfish chariots like yours circle in the current above. Schools of minnows and other small fish swim through the coral, playfully darting around merchildren. Groups of octopi rest gently on the sea floor, as shining eels dart above them. You even see a merman pulling a team of tiger-sharks through the city’s trenches, as a farmer might take his oxen to the fields. You have never beheld a city with more life.

The tallest towers and the brightest lights are in the center, where your chariot goes. You expect to "land" in one of the courtyards on the sea floor, but instead your driver brings you to a large opening in one of the high coral towers. Lalomea shoots past you and pulls you out into the tower. The floor is uneven but surprisingly soft. You and your friends stand in a rainbow-colored room illuminated by the glow of jellyfish. Passages lead in all directions. Fish swim through. Several young merfolk float here quietly, as though waiting for orders.

"Welcome to Ulderea," says the old merman Glusserial. "I will tell the King that you’ve arrived, and he’ll set the time of your audience. In the meantime, enjoy our hospitality and the sight of the city. These are your chambers, and the merfolk here will see to your needs." With that, he swims out of the doorway, followed by Petrosian and Lalomea.

For the next few days, you are an honored guest of the merfolk, and it is the strangest time of your life. You dine on swordfish and tuna - uncooked and flavored delicately with seaweed and sea-salt. Your "bed" is coral overgrown with soft sea plants - you rest lightly on it, buoyed by the ever-present sea. Glusserial takes you to the Royal Gardens, with a thousand beautiful sea-flowers waving in the current, and through the busy channels of the city, with its schools of silvery fish, whales, rays, and dolphins. You attend the wedding of a son and daughter of the King Under the Sea, the bride dressed in a gown of the finest seaweed, and the groom in a sharkskin suit. Glusserial laughs when you ask him how a brother and sister could marry, and he says that merfolk ways are not like yours.

With all the excitement, you would have lost track of time, but for the string of pearls around your neck, the magic which lets you survive here. One by one, they fall off. You counted thirty-nine pearls when Lalomea first wrapped the necklace around you. Six fell off on your trip to the city, and they continue to drop, one per hour, marking the time you have left.

But you’re glad of the deadline. It reminds you why you’re here. You ask Glusserial several times when you can see the King, but he puts you off, saying that the King knows your need for haste. He does question you at length on the King’s behalf, "in preparation for the audience," asking you lots of questions not only about your people but about your parentage and background. You answer honestly, not knowing why he cares.

Despite the merpeople’s hospitality, one event unsettles you. One day you and Nelectitus swim out of your chambers and up to the top of the coral tower, where you can see the entire city. Nelectitus sits hunched over, holding a shell filled with a dark green liquid - the merfolk’s kelp-juice. He gives you a half-crazed look.

"Prophet, I brought you to this city to use your gift. What do you see in these merfolk?" you ask.

He smiles, showing his broken teeth. "Very deep, very old, the fish-people. This city is older than the Wheel. Fish lived here before the Makers came."

"What does that tell you?"

"That they are wise. They know history. They take the long view."

"All right. Anything else?"

He looks away and winces, as though expecting a blow. "Look into the eye of the fish, and the eye looks in you. It is an old eye, from the days when there was only blood and eating. It sees in the dark."

"What does that mean? Are the merfolk evil?"

"Evil? Is the shark evil? Is the cold depth that freezes your bones and crushes the air out of your lungs evil? It is what it is. But the bottom of the sea is not a safe place for land-dwellers."

"Prophesy for me. What should I do?"

Nelectitus points a crooked finger, and you follow it to the shadowy shapes of three merfolk, nearly out of sight in the gloom, unmoving. Their bodies are gray, unlike the brightly colored merfolk you’ve seen so far. "The fish’s prophets," he says. "If I prophesy for you, they foretell my death."

"They’re threatening you?" You reach for your dagger.

"No. They merely foretell." Then he laughs. "Phantoms," he says, waving his hand dismissively, and when you look back again, the merfolk are gone.

Nelectitus suddenly pulls himself close to you. His one eye wide, he whispers urgently, "The sea serpent comes to eat twelve fish. Beware the ink of the octopus! The trap set for the shark catches the bait as well."

"What does that mean?"

"Damned if I know," says Nelectitus. "I just speak them, I don’t read them." He laughs and takes a big swig of kelp juice from his shell. And you get nothing more from him that day.

The pearls continue to drop from your necklace, and there are only fourteen left when Glusserial finally tells you that the King is ready to receive you. Glusserial leads you on a seahorse to one of the courtyards, and then through a large opening into a great enclosed hall at the bottom of the ocean, the throne room of the King Under the Sea.

Unlike most of the rest of the city, which is made of coral, the King’s throne room is built into a huge cleft in the sea-floor itself. The walls and floor are hard gray-white rock, smooth and beautiful. Whether they were worn by the sea’s current or shaped by the hands of merfolk you don’t know, but they curve gently in and out, as though they were waves uncannily frozen in mid-crest.

Sitting on a high white seat built into the wall is the King Under the Sea himself. He is an old merman with a multi-colored tail, a long white beard, and white hair braided in back and reaching to his waist. He wears a crown of silver and emeralds and carries a sceptre made of whalebone and decorated with pearls.

You hadn’t expected a private audience, but you’re stunned to see hundreds, perhaps thousands, of merfolk filling the hall from floor to ceiling, spreading out on both sides between you and the King.

They cheer loudly as you enter, and the King calls out in a booming voice: "A song! A song for our guests from out-water! Let us make merry and show them the sounds of the sea!"

There is more cheering among the merfolk, and four of them move out onto the floor, three bearing merfolk instruments. One begins drumming a low, deep beat on a huge oyster covered in stretched seaweed, another sounds a horn of many shells that makes a high-pitched echoing wail. A third plucks on strings fastened across fishbone, making a soft thrum. The overall sound is harmonious and pleasant.

Then the fourth musician, a mermaid, begins to sing, and you recognize her instantly. It is Lalomea, and as beautiful as her voice was above water, here it is a hundred times more so. Each liquid syllable seems to last forever, growing around her like the ripples on a pond, as she floats gently on to the next. Her voice is as sweet as the rain. How many songs she sings you don’t know. You are happy just to be lost in the sound, not understanding a single word, floating in a sea of music.

When she stops, the merfolk burst into applause and you pull yourself back to reality. You count the pearls in your necklace. Ten. Ten hours left. There were fourteen when you came here. Did she really sing for four hours?

The King speaks again. "Well sung, well sung! And welcome to our guests from out-water. They have come a long way to talk to us and I’m sure that they have lots to say. Welcome, Lodevar! Tell us why you are here."

So, surrounded by crowds, you make your plea to the King, telling him about the slavery of your people, their cruel treatment at the hands of the Bullroar, and your need for their help. You have nothing to offer but your friendship, but you appeal to his mercy.

When you are finished, the King nods gravely. Then he launches himself out of his throne and hovers above the crowds, beginning a speech directed at both you and his people:

"Thank you, Lodevar for this gracious request. Pray allow me to tell you a story now which bears greatly on this matter, and which is not known even to many of my own people, but which should be a cause of gladness and celebration for everyone.

"Many years ago, in my adventurous youth, I was exceedingly curious about the kingdoms out-water, and determined to find out for myself the truth of that strange place called land.

"And so, through deep and subtle magics, I took the form of a land-dweller, a creature with the feet and body of our visitor, but the head of a sheep, so that I could walk on land and be seen as one of them. For many months I explored this strange world, wandering among the tall mountains and seeing strange and wondrous sights.

"While I was out-water, I fell in love with one of the land-dwelling sheep-people, and lay with her in the open air with the smell of flowers all around. Sadly, our love was not to be, for my place was in the sea, and soon I went back and became King.

"But now, twenty years later, you come here, Lodevar. I have heard of your parentage and I can see your form, strange to both land-dweller and seafolk alike. It was your sheephead mother who was my land-dwelling love. You are my son, Lodevar."

The hall breaks out in excited chatter. You are stunned. Could this be true? It makes some sense - you do have the upper half of a merman and the lower half of a sheephead. But your mother said that your father was a slave who lived at your farm for years, not a traveler passing through.

The King continues: "So you see, I am happy beyond bounds to welcome you back. And while I am sad that you didn’t inherit the family gills, which would have let you live in the city of your ancestors, I am overjoyed to help you and your adoptive race of sheep-people.

"And so I grant your request. I direct the merfolk to find your people an island suitable for habitation, and protect you there from your enemies. From that island we will aid your struggle for the freedom of the land-dwelling sheep-people in any way we can.

"I also welcome you into our family, and as a way of sealing the bond between us, so close in relation, yet so long separated, I give you my prized daughter in marriage, the lovely Lalomea, whose voice and beauty are beyond compare. You can wed her here and take her with you to the surface, where she will make you a happy and productive mer-wife and, if the Makers will it, hatch you many children."

A thousand thoughts swim through your head. Is he telling the truth? If so, what does it mean that you’re half a merman? You don’t feel like half a merman; you’ve only ever felt like a sheephead. But why would he lie? And why would he help you unless you truly were of his family?

And Lalomea…did she know about this? Does she want to marry you? What would that even mean? She is smiling, but even from here her smile looks strained. This is all too much.

The King smiles broadly and returns to his throne. "Well?" he asks. "Do you accept my fatherly love, and all that goes with it?"

What do you do?

Read the posts below, and click "Post Reply" to post a suggestion for the Lodevar’s next action. Anyone is welcome to post. You can suggest what he would do based on his personality, what you think he should do based on what would be best, or just in general what seems like a good idea to you. Feel free to comment on other’s suggestions, but please be courteous.

You're also welcome to ask questions about Lodevar's background or about the world of the Wheel.
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xïa
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Posted: Mon Aug 16, 2004 12:12 am    Post subject: Just say no  

I pause for a second, grasping the pearls around my neck, counting how many are left. Two. That can't be true. Hazily, I'm gasping after air and speak the words that come so naturally:

"Here before you I stand with a dagger in my hand. I have nowhere else to go than with this crayfish biting my toe."

The King is wondering at me.

As clear as the Sunday moon, you answer as you have been foretold: a simple, big NO.
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Araex
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Posted: Mon Aug 16, 2004 1:01 pm    Post subject: ?  

he is making it up, but if we say no, then theyll keep us down here, so we die.
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Photinia
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Posted: Mon Aug 16, 2004 2:21 pm    Post subject: Lalomea speaks  

Master & servants...

We will never die under water as long as I breathe.

If Lodevar would snatch the lovely maiden in his arms, and together, swimming to another deep sea.







Carpe Diem
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zïa
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Posted: Mon Aug 16, 2004 3:03 pm    Post subject: a çrab  

maybe Lodevar can see this journey as a path to a new beginning.



intro ‹—
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JaX
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Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2004 10:29 am    Post subject:  

However strange this all is and that the prophesy foretold a trap we have little choice but to go along with the proceedings as other wise your men will surely die at sea or if not at the hands of the bullroars.
Maybe we could try to pry some information out of lalomea.
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Meyshe
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Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2004 10:54 am    Post subject: From my observations  

August 19th, 2004

As far as I can understand, I noticed three problems.
Number One: The pearls were falling off the necklace like detached fruit. (Already, if I can remember correctly, I think 10 pearls were left. Oy Veh Iz Mir! :o)
Number Two: His people were in a desperate situation; they've suffered way too much already!!! :x
Number Three: The King wants him to marry his daughter. Why should he marry her first before helping his people?! :shock: It doesn't make sense!
There's hardly enough time, and it's running out FAST!!!!!

Why can't he say, "But this is an EMERGENCY!!! Already, i'm almost out of pearls, my people are starving, lost, and being pursued by the Bullroar Army, and we need to help them NOW!!!!!!!!"

Besides, this is extremely bad timing for a marriage proposal!
:x It just has to wait. Period. Sorry for erupting like a volcano.

Yours,
Meyshe

P.S, By the way, there's one peculiar thing in this chapter that really threw complete bewilderment at me. (I'm using a metaphor.) Why would that prophet of his catogorize the Merfolk people, the sea, and the life around them to be evil?! I find it to be rather prejudiced.

:?: :!:
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Meyshe
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Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2004 11:19 am    Post subject: From my observations  

August 19th, 2004

As far as I can understand, I noticed three problems.
Number One: The pearls were falling off the necklace like detached fruit. (Already, if I can remember correctly, I think 10 pearls were left. Oy Veh Iz Mir! :o)
Number Two: His people were in a desperate situation; they've suffered way too much already!!! :x
Number Three: The King wants him to marry his daughter. Why should he marry her first before helping his people?! :shock: It doesn't make sense!
There's hardly enough time, and it's running out FAST!!!!!

Why can't he say, "But this is an EMERGENCY!!! Already, i'm almost out pf pearls, my people are starving, lost, and being pursued by the Bullroar Army, and we need to help them NOW!!!!!!!!"

Besides, this is extremely bad timing for a marriage proposal!
:x It just has to wait. Period.

Yours,
Meyshe

P.S, Sorry for erupting like a volcano.
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Guest
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Posted: Fri Aug 20, 2004 2:47 pm    Post subject:  

Can someone teach me how to use this site
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coral
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Posted: Sun Aug 22, 2004 10:10 pm    Post subject: bells are ringing  

Could Lodevar ask the King to save his people first, before the wedding?

:?
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Key
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Joined: 08 Feb 2004
Posts: 2652
Location: The Royal Palace

Posted: Mon Aug 23, 2004 4:14 pm    Post subject: Re: From my observations  

Meyshe wrote:
P.S, By the way, there's one peculiar thing in this chapter that really threw complete bewilderment at me. (I'm using a metaphor.) Why would that prophet of his catogorize the Merfolk people, the sea, and the life around them to be evil?! I find it to be rather prejudiced.


Ah, but the Prophet didn't say that the Merfolk were evil. He was asked if they were evil and he said:

"Evil? Is the shark evil? Is the cold depth that freezes your bones and crushes the air out of your lungs evil? It is what it is. But the bottom of the sea is not a safe place for land-dwellers."
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Key
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Posts: 2652
Location: The Royal Palace

Posted: Mon Aug 23, 2004 4:15 pm    Post subject: how to play  

Anonymous wrote: Can someone teach me how to use this site

Click on the "How to Play" link for a complete explanation. You can also read the FAQ page for more info (click on Home, then on "New players start here!").

If you have any more questions, you can write me at keavney@interfable.net or PM me.
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Ravenwing
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Joined: 18 May 2004
Posts: 3750
Location: Virginia

Posted: Wed Aug 25, 2004 3:01 pm    Post subject:  

Keavney, you write too well. I have returned from a month long camping trip, and so much has happened. Its too bad I could not vote, but I do agree with what has happened so far. The prophecy has a lot of foreboding in it, but it seems that if Lodevar accepts the King's offer, a lot will happen. So on with the wedding, but I agree with earlier replies. Why marriage now, can he not get help first??? Bullroars are on his back probably at this instant. Can he not make a deal before his wedding to Lalomea?
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matt59312588
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Posted: Fri Aug 27, 2004 9:00 pm    Post subject:  

We need to read between the lines. Our leader may be his son (and may not be), but this is way too soon to run off on some marriage tangent. We should, however, not decline the proposition outright. We should inform the king that our leader must oversee the safety of his people and must see them to a safe location. Then we must also make it clear that a marriage must not and cannot hinder our campaign against the Bullroars. I fear that the king might be an ally of the Bullroars. If this is true he may try to take out our leader. Did anyone else notice that hours went by without our leader noticing it when his bride-to-be was singing? If they got married she could sing to him and he wouldn't notice YEARS going by. By this time all of the sheepheads could be dead and enslaved. We must take precautions and let the king know that our people come first and foremost.
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Key
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Location: The Royal Palace

Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2004 9:17 am    Post subject: Voting posted  


Thanks to everyone for the suggestions. It looks like there are three possibilities:

1) Reject the King's help

2) Accept the King's help and agree to marry Lalomea

3) Accept the King's help but put off marrying Lalomea - tell him that with your people in danger there is no time for a wedding

To vote, go to the next chapter and make your choice. Feel free to continue the discussion there. The different options won't change, but you might be able to sway people to choose one or another.
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