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--- characters:s1:the_numismatist [2024/08/27 19:00] – lesser_bee
+++ characters:s1:the_numismatist [2025/09/09 17:33] (current) – [Author's Note] lesser_bee_2_the_losening_of_my_old_account
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 ====== The Numismatist ======
+===== Author's Note =====
+So, coming into the server, I ended up really vibing with the lore and I wrote extensive fanfiction about my character as he lived in the setting which I don't particularly regret, as I like some bits and pieces of it. I stand by that as a character, Spondulix had a neat gimmick as a numismatist who didn't understand the value of money, he just liked that coins had history. Making a civilization of desert-dwelling duergar beholden to Icele was a lot of fun, and I got a kick out of writing a cringy little prayer for them.
+Unfortunately, I definitely put the cart before the horse. Spondulix's actual adventures ended up really conflicting with his character mostly out of necessity, as his whole schtick of being fresh out of the ground and awestruck by the world around him was going to be a detriment to people who agreed to be in a party with him. Pressured by that, he became much more combat-oriented for just some guy who was a coin collector, and it didn't really make him all that interesting in exchange. The quests he went, specifically clearing out a warren of goblins and stopping the desecration of Brutal Mike's temple, didn't really advance him as a character; at best we got some information about the various coins on the Roll of Ages. But Spondulix himself wasn't really interesting enough to warrant so much backstory. You really only know if a character is interesting enough for that in hindsight, and I think I should have let the adventures shape him as a person more than writing reams of backstory.
+I almost wanted to wipe the character from existence, but the reboot with the Age of Fate has kinda-sorta had that taken care of. Also, the characters Spondulix //had// traveled with would all be asked to just mysteriously wipe their memories clean of any encounter with him. Just seems unreasonable. I honestly even question the necessity of leaving this up, as it's not like Spondulix accomplished as much as the legends with Casterhaus and such and, at the time of writing, I've participated in two expeditions total. I'm not exactly old blood whose contributions need to be encapsulated for all of time, so saying it's for "maintaining a complete server history" would be pretty rich coming from a no-name schmuck like me and Spondulix. Nonetheless, I'll leave this up; if the folks in charge decide to delete this, I won't be offended. As it stands, this isn't canon to the current Spondulix either, as in the other games beyond this server that I used the character, I made him a lot more mean-spirited and more like a standard duergar. Of course, this doesn't work perfectly because he already met with several people so far and his story is inextricably linked with their development, so the cognitive dissonance will be a problem we deal with once we get there.
 ===== Foreword =====
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 ===== The Currency of the Maw =====
-//ᚦᛖ•ᚾᚢᛗᛁᛉᛗᚨᛏᛁᛊᛏᛊ•ᚾᛟᛏᛒᚢᚲ\\
+Sitting in a tavern, Spondulix frowned at his entries into his self-titled Numismatist's Notebook: a repurposed spellbook he'd been using to monitor his findings. He'd been revising, rewriting, and using cantrips from a scroll to extract the ink from the page back into his inkpot.
-Enji 51\\
-**ENTRY: **Rashari Highland Coin\\
-**Obverse: **Two arms, pulling chains apart that break dramatically.\\
-**Reverse: **Small topographic map of the Highlands//
-//Not my only haul this time! Krang, a half-ogre who bade us all accompany him to a 'Gauntlet of Glory', completed my collection of Zakarion Coins. (Save for a Platinum.) Ohm's Basin continues to be a diverse wonder. I reconvened with Miss Scarlet, who had a newer, fancier table to wreak havoc with for one. A fellow dwarf named Manwawynn 'Manny' Mountainmail where there as well. Yanko challenged me to a game of dice, but I didn't fancy my chances of losing coin just yet. And Shade Blackwall and I were birds of a feather. He was a half-orc who liked his animals and his pelts, but helped look for traps with me all the same.//
-//Where was I? Oh right, the coin. We obtained some silvers from a group of ruffians called the Vipers–cruel Rashari who had overtaken Brutal Mike's compound under the orders of a foolhardy tool by the name of Vicious Luke. Krang was unphased though, seeing it as an opportunity to get the glory he sought all the same, vivisecting entirely too many of the Vipers and their literal pet vipers, as well as krenshars and a dire weasel at one point. Shade had a particularly heroic moment where in spite of his fear of the krenshars, he fired an arrow clean through one and took it out! Capital work, were it not for a cruel monk who knocked him out from behind. Manny was there for the assist in the end, but it was a frightening moment.//
-//Passing some riddles against a sphynx, concerning a Mad Mage I have not met yet, we reached Vicious Luke himself. Aragwyn Moonshadow, an elven druid, and her lovely owl, Archimedes, entangled him in vines and fired a bow loaned by Shade and took care of Luke handily! //
-//Brutal Mike arrived ere the end to witness our help taking back his compound, and gave us all headbands matching his for our effort.//
-//All in all, a truly 'righteous' excursion!//
-----
-Sitting in a tavern, Spondulix frowned at his entries into his Numismatist's Notebook; a repurposed spellbook he'd been using to monitor his findings. He'd been revising, rewriting, and using cantrips from a scroll to extract the ink from the page back into his inkpot.
 He certainly cared about the history of his coins, and made sure to note it. But he kept getting distracted.
@@ Line 460: / Line 451: @@
 Spondulix had led his own expedition shortly after arriving. He looked over at a waterclock over by the tavern wall; a fancy one with some magical trimmings that had dials with months and dates. Kalyun 11. By Icele, had it been that long? He looked back at the page. The neat design of the Hammerfast coin's two sides neatly stared back at him.
-It had been so long that many of the particulars escaped him by this point. He remembered Eloen--that's right, their name had been Eloen... Amenadiel? Amandel. That was it. He fumbled in his pack, looking for the scroll of his original posting.
+It had been so long that many of the particulars escaped him by this point. He remembered Eloen–that's right, their name had been Eloen… Amenadiel? Amandel. That was it. He fumbled in his pack, looking for the scroll of his original posting.
 The paper had crumpled in his backpack, but still very legible:
@@ Line 477: / Line 468: @@
 ----
-That had been the first indicator, he remembered, that he had been far from home. The undersigned names had all been in Shiner's Common--and to be fair, Spondulix himself had figured writing the announcement in Common would be the fastest route to acquiring allies for his first journey. The farmers from Eastford had had their own bulletin, and he'd misinterpreted their being robbed for a perceived pilfering of their coin collection. He supposed that had been naive of him. The world beyond Van Darkholme had been so vastly different, he did not think that straight greed would be carried over, but man did as man pleased, he supposed. Still, he remembered the excitement of when the three undersigned names had become flesh and blood. The first three people he met at Barrow's Maw.
+That had been the first indicator, he remembered, that he had been far from home. The undersigned names had all been in Shiner's Common–and to be fair, Spondulix himself had figured writing the announcement in Common would be the fastest route to acquiring allies for his first journey. The farmers from Eastford had had their own bulletin, and he'd misinterpreted their being robbed for a perceived pilfering of their coin collection. He supposed that had been naive of him. The world beyond Van Darkholme had been so vastly different, he did not think that straight greed would be carried over, but man did as man pleased, he supposed. Still, he remembered the excitement of when the three undersigned names had become flesh and blood. The first three people he met at Barrow's Maw.
+----
 //Shieldmaster was the first to appear, and with a name like that he certainly did appear—he made himself fully known. Spondulix thought a city guardsman had been approaching him for loitering or illegally congregating, but when he stopped and down came a great shield with a //CLANG//, Spondulix understood clearly.//
@@ Line 529: / Line 522: @@
 //This seemed like a good place to get a word in edgewise as the leader. “Then,” Spondulix said, “I think Eloen could provide us with a heading, whenever they see fit.”//
-//Eloen nodded, looked out into the road, then started out ahead, leaving the others walking--or clanking--behind.//
+//Eloen nodded, looked out into the road, then started out ahead, leaving the others walking–or clanking–behind.//
 ----
-From there, he remembered very little. At one point, he remembered that Eloen had spotted a four-armed man in the woods, which Miss Scarlet had seemingly mistrusted. It was a peculiar lesson; one that told him that it was never clear what exactly was or wasn't unnatural in the world beyond Van Darkholme.
+From there, he remembered very little, although his memory picked up more towards the end. At one point, he remembered that Eloen had spotted a four-armed man in the woods, which Miss Scarlet had seemingly mistrusted. It was a peculiar lesson; one that told him that it was never clear what exactly was or wasn't unnatural in the world beyond Van Darkholme.
-Spondulix twirled the quill absently in his fingers, the notebook before him lost as he was miles away, still remembering his first adventure months ago...
+Spondulix twirled the quill absently in his fingers, the notebook before him lost as he was miles away, still remembering his first adventure months ago…
 ----
-//Spondulix gripped his morningstar and held one hand aloft, ready to cast more spells. Shieldmaster had already vivisected many of the Eastford-harrassing goblins they'd been hunting until that point, although he'd helped draw attention away from the others to help set up an ambush. His robes were still wet from when he'd impersonated a sahuagin crawling out to attack the goblins.//
+//Spondulix gripped his morningstar and held one hand aloft, ready to cast more spells. Shieldmaster had already decimated many of the Eastford-harrassing goblins they'd been hunting until that point, although he'd helped draw attention away from the others to help set up an ambush. His robes were still wet from when he'd impersonated a sahuagin crawling out to attack the goblins.//
-//Yet this time, Scarlet has hefted up an enormous table she had found in one of the earlier rooms, and propped it up against the door--one they'd spotted had goblins inside from a small window outside of the keep.//
+//Yet this time, Scarlet has hefted up an enormous table she had found in one of the earlier rooms, and propped it up against the door–one they'd spotted had goblins inside from a porthole outside of the room.// //What would she do?//
+//And to Spondulix's astonishment… she simply knocked.//
+//"Who is it?" One of the goblins inside snarled.//
+//Scarlet knocked again.//
+//"What's going on out there? Who's knocking?"//
+//Scarlet knocked again.//
+//"Identify yourself! We're not going to open the door unless you tell us what you want!"//
+//Scarlet knocked again.//
+//The other three heard chairs scraping, one muttering that he was always made to open the door, some whispered bickering, and no sooner had one of the nasty goblins opened the door when Scarlet braced herself and careened through the opened portal to flatten the loathsome goblins on the other side, scattering the table of playing cards they had been playing with until that moment. Shieldmaster, Spondulix and Eloen followed in that order–Eloen cracking off wizardly magic, Shieldmaster challenging goblins to single combat and defeating them handily, and Spondulix taking out two goblins' heads with his morningstar. All the while, Scarlet swung her table violently into the shocked goblins, creating splinters that flaked off with every impact. She would repeat the trick twice more with every room to follow, all until they reached the final room.//
+//A hobgoblin named Krig, which they had surmised from the goblins scurrying to warn him of their arrival, was prepared for Scarlet's trick, and so they all had to enter his small room normally. Shieldmaster challenged the loathsome beast to a duel, when Eloen–who had been struggling with their spells–fired off a spell that made Krig lose his grip on his blade. Shieldmaster and Scarlet wasted no time in exploiting the opening, descending upon him like a pair of scissors, flattening him between shield and table.//
+----
+//And yet that wasn't the end of it//, Spondulix remembered. The goblins had been squatting on the tomb, and riches, of a dwarven folk hero by the name of St. Arthrak Shadowhammer, whose surname had come from his goblin-slaying warhammer he'd obtained in a duel with a devil. And further below, there were many crypts–flooded, filled with undead, and a strange creature with tentacles. They took the riches of the tomb–three paintings, a multitude of coins, and the weapons and armor of the goblins–and absconded. But the mystery of the tomb still haunted Spondulix frequently.
+He looked back down to his notebook. The imprints of the coins stared back.
+And suddenly, he knew what to write.
+----
 //ᚦᛖ•ᚾᚢᛗᛁᛉᛗᚨᛏᛁᛊᛏᛊ•ᚾᛟᛏᛒᚢᚲ\\
@@ Line 563: / Line 584: @@
 //St. Arthrak also won his fabled shadowhammer in a duel with a devil, and is especially talented at taking out goblins with it. Would have made our work even easier. (Ironic that they squatted in a place that had apparently been so menacing to them!) I wonder if it is in those crypts?//
+----
+That was the story that mattered to him. The journey the coin had taken to meet him, and the journey he'd undertaken to meet the coin. Cracking his wrist, he read, and reread the entry, again and again, and realized he was finally satisfied.
+Was it that simple? Had he really been overthinking it this whole time?
+He looked at the Rashari Highlands coin. Swirling his pen in the inkpot once more, he continued:
+----
+//ᚦᛖ•ᚾᚢᛗᛁᛉᛗᚨᛏᛁᛊᛏᛊ•ᚾᛟᛏᛒᚢᚲ\\
+Enji 51\\
+**ENTRY: **Rashari Highland Coin\\
+**Obverse: **Two arms, pulling chains apart that break dramatically.\\
+**Reverse:** Small topographic map of the Highlands//
+//Not my only haul this time! Krang, a half-ogre who bade us all accompany him to a 'Gauntlet of Glory', completed my collection of Zakarion Coins. (Save for a Platinum.) Ohm's Basin continues to be a diverse wonder. I reconvened with Miss Scarlet, who had a newer, fancier table to wreak havoc with for one. A fellow dwarf named Manwawynn 'Manny' Mountainmail where there as well. Yanko challenged me to a game of dice, but I didn't fancy my chances of losing coin just yet. And Shade Blackwall and I were birds of a feather. He was a half-orc who liked his animals and his pelts, but helped look for traps with me all the same.//
+//Where was I? Oh right, the coin. We obtained some silvers from a group of ruffians called the Vipers–cruel Rashari who had overtaken Brutal Mike's compound under the orders of a foolhardy tool by the name of Vicious Luke. Krang was unphased though, seeing it as an opportunity to get the glory he sought all the same, vivisecting entirely too many of the Vipers and their literal pet vipers, as well as krenshars and a dire weasel at one point. Shade had a particularly heroic moment where in spite of his fear of the krenshars, he fired an arrow clean through one and took it out! Capital work, were it not for a cruel monk who knocked him out from behind. Manny was there for the assist in the end, but it was a frightening moment.//
+//Passing some riddles against a sphynx, concerning a Mad Mage I have not met yet, we reached Vicious Luke himself. Aragwyn Moonshadow, an elven druid, and her lovely owl, Archimedes, entangled him in vines and fired a bow loaned by Shade and took care of Luke handily! //
+//Brutal Mike arrived ere the end to witness our help taking back his compound, and gave us all headbands matching his for our effort.//
+//All in all, a truly 'righteous' excursion!//
+----
+He grinned at his final appraisal, running a thumb underneath the headband he currently sported beneath his red pointed hat. He had met a variety of good friends then, and him and Scarlet were just a smaller part of a larger miniature army taking back the compound, but it had been good to see her again. And Brutal Mike! In spite of such a name, he was an immensely charismatic hero; not the kind to rest on his laurels, but the kind of person who liked seeing those around him get stronger. Spondulix had been disappointed they did not spend as much time with him, as Krang's call to action had arguably been in service of doing so. Not to mention the fear of watching Shade get wounded by the cheap-shot monk from behind and go down. He assumed if Brutal Mike had been there, the environment would have been safer, or he might have pulled his punches, perhaps.
+In the end, Aragwyn had been the star of the show. The dire weasel had been a particularly frightening monstrosity, but thanks to Spondulix's Color Spray, he'd managed to stun it long enough for Aragwyn to take it down with Shade's shortbow. Similarly, when Vicious Luke had unleashed two vipers, he'd kept them busy with the others while Aragwyn took down Luke himself. Which was not to neglect, of course, that Scarlet had entered the room in her characteristic way.
+Oh, damn it all! He looked back on his entry. He should have mentioned that Scarlet had commissioned a brand new fancy masterwork table just for battle! The original one at Hammerfast had been an improvised weapon. He considered erasing some parts to make room for the detail, but realized he'd undersold a lot of other points. Manwawynn Mountainmail, the cleric; Yanko, who'd challenged him to a game of dice; Shade Blackwall, a half-orc who loved his pet dogs and his donkey… and Krang of Zakarion, of course, accompanied by his bagpipe playing bard and following orders from a wizardly master. Of all of them, Spoondulix had the most questions for him, but in the span of mere seconds, he'd given him a Zakarion silver and copper to round out his collection save for a platinum, and he decided not to look a gift ogre in the mouth.
+Looking up, he saw some of the bar servers hanging up strings of lanterns and cutouts of small flames.
+"Freshen up your drink?" One of them asked as he watched, misinterpreting his staring as being an impertinent customer.
+"No, no. Well, yes." He said, seeing his drink was, in fact, empty. Was Sun Day((I know it's Sunday, like the day of the week, but I refuse to call it this. My mind refuses to compute it))  coming? He figured something like a solstice would have been last month, as they were already a week or so into Kalyun, but he never knew–it wasn't too fondly seen in the hot desert underground of Van Darkholme. He lifted his sundark goggles, rubbing his eyes. He'd been out of commission for far too long, trying to perfect his entries, overthink how he would go about them, but he'd lost entirely too much time. His collection had stagnated. When the server returned, he slid a gold with a silver's worth of a tip to him, then turned over to a new page. He had nothing to write–he simply wanted to relish in the idea that there soon would be.
+A new age was beginning, and he'd be at the forefront of it. He'd get every coin on the Roll or die trying–and still be immortalized with all the duergar heroes in Icele's bosom. He downed his drink in record time, then headed out to the bulletin board to seek his next fortune.
+----
+----