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PCs NPCs Maps Calendar Post Archive Old PBeMs: The Darkening The Game	Something Stinks! I think It's Kale. The Player Characters Flips "When one laughs, one heals. When one is healed, one lives. When one lives, one feels like laughing." VOICES IN THE DARKNESS The earliest memory I have is the night I was taken from my birth family. Mostly I all I remember from that night is my warmth being taken from me by a pair of gloved hands and bright lights. I never met another fremlin. I was told when I was older that I was probably taken by poachers, and that I was sold to the circus for 50 pieces of gold. I had been taken in a downpour and wasn't in very good health when sold. THE CIRCUS I grew up in the circus that I was sold to, and was adopted by a family of pixies. They nursed me back to health and thought of me as their youngest son; they were surprised that I even made it to sale alive, but I seemed to have been blessed with amazing recuperative ability. The creatures that were sold to the circus were grouped by size and so I was put in with the pixies, who were intrigued by a creature even smaller than them. The pixies were held by a powerful enchantment that imprisoned them and couldn't change nor turn invisible. If they worked together they were certain that they could hold off the enchantment for a while, but they were cautious since they would have to escape the cage without magic since it would be concentrated on negating the enchantment. My adoptive family taught me how to speak pixie and common. Even though I wasn't very big, the family of pixies thought I could still be of use and would be able to pull a bow string of a pixie-made bow. The family Spidervine were bow-makers, and had made a number of well made bows especially considering the crude tools they were able to gather. I was soon being taught how to use the bow, and learned to be alert to hide it when a guard or someone suspicious walked near our cage. We used the bows and wood sliver arrows to keep the rats at bay at night. The food stuffs strewn about the grounds of the circus seemed to attract the largest rats I have ever seen to this day. They seemed even larger in my earlier days since I was still so young and not even as tall as the rats were long. MAKE THEM LAUGH As soon as the circus owner thought I was old enough, I was told I would be come an acrobat and possibly a pick-pocket. I wasn't old enough and was constantly having trouble with my tricks I was forced to learn. It was at this point I learned about a thing called the whip. The owner shouted at the acrobat teaching me to use a whip to 'learn' me. The acrobat's heart wasn't in it and only whipped beside me, which did startle me and made my progress worse. The circus owner furiously came and ripped the whip away from my teacher, and used it on me. Curiously enough, I felt nothing but I still heard the crack that made me jump and fall without any grace. In a fury with the realization that I felt nothing from the whip, he turned on the acrobat teacher but the teacher was able to flip easily away from the owner and escape. The next day I heard the teacher had quit and left in the night. Upset by the whole event the owner turned the whip on the pixies who _did_ feel it. I learned quickly the whip was a thing of evil and to fear it. I didn't want my family and friends to feel the whip anymore and doubled my efforts to learn my acrobatic tricks. The pixies also helped me, in fact their similar size helped me understand a lot more than I could from the human teacher. Soon I became quite skilled in my tricks, but I wasn't happy as an acrobat since I was still much smaller than the humans that the owner forced me to perform with. I started to be called Flips by my friends and family to try and cheer me up. Then came a day that I no longer had to perform as tumbler. One of the pixies convinced the head clown that with my looks I would be a splendid clown. Actually I did come to love being a clown, I was allowed to have fun and play like I did with the other pixie children. But still I was a prisoner, a commodity; plus the owner still burned with anger that I could not feel his whip. My pixie father said the owner was a sadist. The whole circus was in terror on stormy days, for no one came to the circus on those days and it seems to give the owner an excuse to drink heavily. After these days a number of performers were gone, whether they quit or were killed by the owner it wasn't known to the pixies or myself. FLIGHT IN THE NIGHT Then came the grave day that the owner found a way to use a whip on me... The owner scowled at me and said he had bought a new 'toy' and at my first slip up he would introduce it to me. I didn't think I had much to worry about myself from him, but I feared for my family and friends. I was able to not make a mistake for a whole day, which enraged the owner more. The next day I was tripped by another clown who whisper to me in a panic as I fell, "I'm sorry, but he threated to kill me and find my family and kill them too." The owner made a big production about the whipping, oddly he didn't take any of the pixies to be whipped instead he ordered his thugs to tie me to the whipping post. One wondered aloud why such a little thing like me needed to be tied, at this the owner pulled a thick and evil looking whip out. It glowed with a dull redish glow. He first used it on the face of the thug that commented on tying me up. The thug screamed as the whip seemed to burn into him. Next thing I knew the whip was on me. For the first time of my life I knew what true pain was like, it was almost mind-bending. The owner came close to killing me with that whip. It was because of this the pixies decided they had enough. They would escape that very night. Even though I was still shaking and in a death-like stupor, the pixies needed me to get out of the cage to get the keys. In a half daze I managed to bend unnaturally out of the bars, as I crawled toward the guard on watch I ran smack into him. The guard called out, "Who's there? Friend or Foe? ... Oh it's you, you poor creature. Quickly now, I was coming to release you and the pixies along with any other intelligent animals. The whole circus met and is leaving. We think the owner has sold his soul for that whip, although I only know he supposedly had only used 20 pieces of platinum. But still, that is more than I earned here in a year...." The guard carried me back to the cage with the pixies, who were alarmed that it was the guard and overjoyed when the guard brought out a key instead of a whip. The guard wrapped me in a small fur skin, and carefully handed me to the pixies. I passed out and did not wake until several days later. FOREST TEMPLE One of the pixies had made a finely crafted hooded cloak out of the fur skin. I came to realize that the pixies had fled to a temple in the forest. They said it was a temple of the Laughing One, a god of mirth, fun, and life. My pixie mother told me that they had feared for my life and brought me to the temple and I was healed by the clerics there. She told me that they had to swear to the clerics that I would become a cleric of their order before they would treat me. I accepted that I would become a cleric, before my pixie family left they gave me a carefully polished and well made pixie bow along with a quiver of pixie sleep arrow so that I would not break my clerical vow to never kill a living thing. I studied and learned many special skills, especially how to heal. I vowed I would never turn away anyone hurt as the other clerics of the order had. Finally, I received the holy symbol of the order... a grinning face. LEARNING TO BE FREE One day I was called to go into a sacred chamber. None of the others told me who I would meet in there. When I entered I met a roly poly cleric that had many laugh lines on his face. He spoke to me, "You have done well to serve the Laughing One, your destiny calls and you must answer. But first you must truly learn what it means to be free. I shall cast a spell on you to start you on your way. Remember to spread laughter and life wherever you go." With this he spoke some words and the air about me began to swirl, and the next thing I knew I was surrounded by a forest wrapped in my fur cloak and holding my bow and sleep arrows. I used my skill in herbs and plants to find food. I was truly free. I flew and played with the animals of the forest. A few days later I saw smoke coming up over a hill. Speedily flying over thinking that the forest was on fire, I discovered a cabin on the edge of the woods. A woman came out and I flew to meet her. I made her laugh. She said it had been too long since she had laughed, and invited me to stay with her. Days passed becoming weeks. The woman needed supplies and I went with her into town. THE FACE OF EVIL It was in town I saw him, the circus owner, he wasn't the same as I remembered him. I asked about him and found out that he was hunting for a small creature that had caused him to lose his circus and most of his sanity. I realized it wouldn't be safe for the woman that had taken me in, plus I had a destiny to fulfill. I found the woman in the market, and informed her of my decision and even though it saddened her she understood. I left the town and headed off into the woods. BEWARE OF BEARING GRIPS I met up with some owlbears, thinking they were like other bears I tried to make one laugh to give me time to escape. All I succeeded in doing was enraging them, getting lost and get caught in a sack trap that soon was pulled by one of the owlbears back to their den and finally losing the only possessions I had ever owned while getting knocked about in the sack.