My daughter Rydia, named after Rydia Winddancer of course, has taken a great liking of the profession of seamstress, and I feel that I may have to leave the store to her in the coming years. My daughter Rin has also taken it upon herself to teach her moral and ethical code to any who would listen to her. When she decided to become a Paladin of Tyr I was so proud, if not a little confused. That hadn’t been the choice profession of any of her other sisters, so it was a little bit of a shock. Well if she feels the calling in her heart, then I’ll support her in anyway possible. Then there’s Danyelle, she’s a pretty wild girl and I hear she’s a troublemaker from Ms. Rydia (Winddancer). She’s a beauty, but she can’t compete with her older sister Sylvia. Last time she came home for a visit I was stunned by how good she looked. It must have had something to do with the jewel in her forehead, but I forgot to ask her where she got it. Then there’s Ryuko. She’s my first daughter, but by Achika. She’s a half dragon who was a tad bit bitter about the location of her father and the fact that she couldn’t find him. When I told her the truth, that I was her father because I used a spell to trick and do Achika, she ran away and I can’t seem to locate her. Last time I scried on her she was on Kyrandia, but I haven’t been able to find her since then. She was last seen with some samurai lord, and she looked pretty darn happy, so she’s probably alright. Oh there are a whole slew of daughters to talk about, so I’ll tell you about the rest of them later.

Like I said earlier, I’m married to the sweet, gorgeous and incredible Shandroa. She’s studied some of the arcane arts, but I can tell that her first passion will always be to archery. She’s at her best when she melds the two together in a union of enchanted arrows and hail of spell bearing projectiles. It’s really neat when she splits arrows for her students at the archery range. It’s a lot more impressive to watch her split the arrow while it’s still in flight and then watching for the arrow to stick in the target. She’s just so cool! Anyway, we met a long time ago on the planet Kryandia. I was still pretending to be the busty Princess Angelique at that point in time and I asked her to be my personal bodyguard. She agreed because the perks were great enough. Basically she was being hounded by Alielle who thought it great fun to make her bikini top fall off. Not that I didn’t enjoy the view, but I bought her a metal locking bikini so Alielle would stop being able to tear it off “accidentally”. She and I hit it off and later when I revealed my true form to the party she just acted like it was nothing out of the ordinary and leapt on me while yelling, “Tundra!”. She was just so cute! Anyway, we continued to get closer in our relationship until we fought that big nasty super-duper pit fiend. After we defeated him my body reverted back to that of its original form, that of a seraphim angel. I remembered my past and realized that I had known Shandroa in a previous life. She and I had been destined for many years it seemed, and when I told her this she just simply responded that she had already known that. We got married soon after that, with Mizu Yasha presiding over the ceremony. Alielle was our flower girl and tossed flower petals everywhere while spinning like a freak, but at least she had fun, right? Rydia and Zagnor were being stuffy about the whole thing saying that there wasn’t any time to party, but we made up for the delay quickly enough. All in all I think everybody enjoyed themselves, even Rydia and Zagnor, even if they were trying to ignore the party.

We continued on with The Planejammer for many years to come. During that time Samantha had a child by an aasimar named Magus. Recent attempts to scry on this “Magus” at the request by Angela, his and Samantha’s daughter, yielded the information that he resides on Parasonnea, but he looks like a totally different person. I think that Angela has met this man, which only added to the confusion. He totally denied knowledge of her and her mother, and strangely enough he was telling the truth. This “Magus” was also being followed by a “Lotus” and a “Taxil”, both of which seem to be with him again. I’m beginning to wonder if they were reborn else where due to some strange magical incident, but mainly I sense a strange power from them.

Oh there I go rambling again, what I meant to be telling you about the children of my comrades. Angela, like I’ve already mentioned, is looking for her father. Samantha was completely honest about where and when she had her, and tracing back to where she’d met him was futile. It appeared that he and most of his party had totally vanished from the face of the planet, quite literally. Anyway, that’s the story about Angela mostly; she’s hanging out with the party now somewhere I’m sure.

Oh well, have I told you any about Lesashala? She’s our daughter that decided that her mothers were totally nuts and decided to live on the doomed planet Kryandia. She joined Mizu Yasha’s clan and became a really strong priestess. Strange one she is, she hides her wings all the time. I mean I hide my wings because they have the habit of knocking things over. I’ve lost more vases that way, but she goes to great lengths to not show them off. She still comes home once a month for the dinner party that I hold for all my sweeties. It’s a great time; maybe I’ll invite you to the next one. You see I ask that my daughters, wherever they might end up, to come and eat with their mothers and tell us about their lives. I’d like it to be a weekly thing, but most are too busy with their lives now. Nearly all of them come for the end of the month dinner, the only one who hasn’t been attending is Ryuko. Her chair is constantly empty. I’ve told you about her before right? Yeah, deep down inside I feel like something terrible has happened to her. I don’t know what I’d do if something tragic did happen to her; it’s just that she’s just so lost anywhere in this world. I mean it has to be a terrible experience being a half dragon.

Anyway, do you like my castle? I always wanted a castle in the sky; I think they’re just so much fun! I mean the clouds are squishy and bouncy and just the most comfortable place to sleep. I kept some of the cloud surface uncovered by the soil we put down for the trees and grass, just so I could lie on it and fall asleep. Have you seen our gardens? My goddess they’re just so bright and colorful! Oh Shandroa and I tried to keep it up ourselves at first, but when you have so many little ones it’s hard to be in so many places at once. Well, not really as much so for me cause I dabble a little in chronomancy, but Shandroa had a tough time keeping up. We finally gave in and hired some winged elves to be our nannies and groundskeepers. Yes, it does cost a small fortune, but I use a little trick I learned from my student, Bobby al’Thor, to rake in the extra gold I need. You see there is a nearly endless supply of greedy evil dragons residing on this planet so I scry on the closest one and with the help of Shandroa beat up the evil wyrm and take his money. Good thing for the dragon population that my dress store rakes in so much profit, my special dresses aren’t cheap, you know. All of the graduates of our school are granted one, with the logo of our school on it of course, just so everyone knows to stay away from them.

You know, at first I tried to keep up with our graduates, but after a while, with all the planar shifting that everybody seems to be doing nowadays, it just isn’t possible. My students know that they’re always welcome here and we always have plenty of room. The lower floors of this castle are enchanted to expand, using extra dimensional spaces, to provide plenty of living space. The neat thing about each of the expansion rooms is that they all share the same view. They were designed to be comfortable to nearly anyone, although hardly anyone actually uses them. Now that I think about it, we have a great deal of wasted space in this castle. I had a room built for every single one of my comrades during the initial construction, but hardly do they come to visit. Zagnor has gone to great lengths to assure that his children don’t visit us here. He is really so rude. Well if you ever do any business dealings with him offer to throw in a rare tea set as a bonus and that’ll assure that it gets done quickly. He was always complaining that I was a bad parent to Ryuko after she was born, but then he goes and leaves his own son on a random plane! I never did that with any of my children and even if I did I wouldn’t forget about them for ten years! That’s a great parenting skill right there, and I just can’t believe that Samantha also forgot about the kid. Sheesh, and they complain about me!

I’m sorry, now I’m ranting. Let me tell you about my favorite student. The famous King of Benden, Bob al’Thor. Now there’s a great man, he just has never accepted the fact that I’ll always refer to him as my student! He and his wife and their one little girl, her name is Rydia too, come to a good number of my parties. His wife Maiserendae is an angel, literally. She’s a ghaele eladrin from Arborea and quite a fun lady to hang out with. She makes the best ice sculptures for our parties, me of course, providing the ice for her to work with. Bob’s daughter is good friends with three of our daughters, Symestra, Kysieria, and Jeseyrra. They were all born within two years of each other, so they’ve learned a lot from each other.

I swear that Symestra is just the splitting image of me even down to the way I walk and act. Funny thing is that she was born with three wings spaced evenly across her back. She can fly like any of our other children, it’s just the rest of our children have an even number of wings. Kysieria has picked up a musical aptitude and I sent her for lessons with a famous Harper who moved into Benden city for a time. She also makes the best jokes of the three of them, but to hear her flute is to feel the universe move itself. Jeseyrra is the most serious of the three. She wears a lot of black dresses and has even gone so far as to dye her feathers black. I think she wears a little too much black eye makeup when she wanders around on Toril, but I don’t really object. It is fun to go around with her and get lots of funny stares from people, but I don’t think she finds it amusing when I dress like her and try to hang out with her. Its funny how Kysieria is the only one who can really make her laugh her true laugh. It’s a sweet laugh that has all the sounds that are found only in the most beautiful of songs. Rydia al’Thor often would stay overnight at our castle just to stay up late with them and they would giggle at whatever they could come up with. Rydia is the most talented magically of the four, probably due to the fact that her father is my most talented student ever. Sometimes it seems like those four are the best friends in the multiverse, even if they are a weird bunch.

Would you like a cup of tea? I have this great blend from Achika’s little island. There’s this weird plant that makes some interesting tea. Why is it interesting? Well it does strange things to the eyes; yes you should be noticing it right now as a matter of fact. See that bright haze that’s formed around every living thing in this room? That’s what the tea does, allows a normal person such as yourself to see the energy of life that surrounds us all. It’s actually a very useful tool if you’re looking for undead, but the effects of the tea are too short lived to be of any use. See? It’s already wearing off. Would you like another cup? Okay, that’s fine, anyway, have you heard much about the self proclaimed “Queen of the Half Dragons”? You haven’t? Well, allow me to educate you. After Ryuko was born Achika called it an abomination and was all ready to dash its poor head against the side of the ship. She is still bitter about the way I tricked her, and I suppose I have a little regret about that incident, but I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat. Ryuko is perhaps one of my most level-headed daughters that I’ve had. She and Ms. Winddancer really hit it off and I sent Ryuko to be trained by her. It turned out that somehow the union of half-dragon and half-celestial yielded an awesome mental power within her. I had her sword forged especially for her; I knew that she’d be incredibly strong since she was about two and a half. She absent mindedly lifted a crate full unprocessed iron to look for a toy she’d lost. I could barely move the stupid crate and here was a toddler lifting it up, almost as if it were empty. Oh I’m sorry I keep bringing up Ryuko, it’s just that I miss her so terribly much.

I’m just so happy that my sweeties are doing so well in their lives. Plenty of them are married to fine upstanding gentlemen, but a few have gone out to become career girls. Rystinia has become a historian with the Benden historical archives. She almost didn’t get the position because the director of the place said that since she was a half celestial she shouldn’t be allowed to work in Benden. Bob, my most talented student, brought the hammer down on that guy and made my sweet Rystinia the head researcher at the historical archives. She’s doing dandy at her job, even Bob thinks so. She uses methods that not too many historians use, mainly supernatural methods. She typically finds graves that have been long forgotten in the area and has me cast speak with dead so she can ask them some questions about the area. One time she went so far as to borrow The Planedagger , my personal ship, to go to the outlands. She was almost grounded for a year for not asking my permission, but since it was for her job I let it slide. She did find out that the souls on the outer planes don’t recall their former lives, so she won’t be trying that again anyway.

Another daughter of mine, who I named Isis, after a goddess on a prime world, pursued a less then credible position at her Auntie Alielle’s bar. It’s funny, when I tell people that, they often have the same look that you do now, but when my daughters become fifteen I tell them “You are in control of your destiny, you may do what you wish with your lives and as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone and you’re happy” and a bunch of people find that attitude hard to accept. I only told her when she left that she was going to charge an arm and a leg for her services and she’ll always be welcome home no matter what. Oh goddess, I hope Zagnor doesn’t find out about her, he’s always looking for another reason to disagree with Shandroa and mine lifestyle. It’s funny, Zagnor’s daughter Jenny is totally opposite him. It’s like when she was born she fell out of the innocent tree and hit every branch on the way down. Now she controls undead shadows, who she named “Fluffy” and “Snowball”. It’s like she inherited all of her fathers innocent and none of his foolhardiness or prejudices.

Anyway I was talking about my daughters, not Zagnor’s, so let me tell you about Sylvia. She’s my prettiest daughter yet, and she’s with the rest of the kids right now. She’s has seemed to pick up my enjoyment in turning villains into small creatures, but it appears that she’d rather keep them as fish or pets. I hope nobody runs into her room and casts a dispel magic on the animals in her room, that would make such a mess. You see, she polymorphed these two tyrannosaurs into a kitten and a puppy and these two villains into tropical fish. What about that kitty you’re holding right now? No, that one is only a demon from the lower hells. Hey, I’m only kidding! Don’t go tossing the poor kitty away. Aww, there, there, my little Ghr'kn'nck, the person didn’t mean to toss you on to the floor. Here’s a kitty treat, now go play.

Anyway, it looks like it’s really late so let me lead you to a good comfy room and you can go to sleep, alright? Here, this room is a good one. What, that door? Oh, like I said I had a room built for everyone I ventured out with on The Planejammer and that room is no exception. It’s boarded up because I knew it would never be used. That’s the room I had made for Zagnor, but when he told his kids not to speak to me or any of my family I had it boarded up as a reminder of how I shouldn’t even try to deal with him. It’s a pity though; his kids seemed to turn out nothing like him and could honestly be nice to visit with. Ah here we go; this is the room you’ll be staying in here. Yes, it is very nicely decorated. Let’s see here, ah you can use the clothes in this closet, there’s clothes in every room for both sexes, and they magically resize for anyone. In this drawer is a magical ring, in case you want to play around with the other set of clothing for a while, but most people feel way too funny about that. Hee hee, yes I am a smidgen unusual, but it makes life much more interesting, don’t you think? Besides, I would love it if everyone could enjoy all the clothes my staff, Shandroa and I make. Well, I’ll wake you up tomorrow and perhaps we can take a tour of the school, would you like that? Alright, that works. Good night.

(Insert Final Fantasy Tent music here)

Morning Sleepyhead, I bet you had a good nights sleep, eh? That is because that mattress is enchanted so that if you can’t get to sleep in twenty minutes then it casts a sleep spell on you, clever right? Yes, Rin often had problems sleeping while she was growing up so I made those mattresses for her and eventually for the rest of the castle. Well would you like some breakfast and a quick tour of the school? Splendid, well I had the servants whip up something extra special for you, since you are the solitary recipient of my rambling. It’s the eggs of a special bird on the elemental plane of air that you’ll be getting this morning! Doesn’t that sound nummy? Not really? Oh well, trust me, they are definitely worth the wait and effort it takes to make these eggs light and fluffy. So let me tell you a little about my school. I opened it a good while ago to cater to the daughters of royalty that didn’t want their daughters going to a state funded magical academy or they didn’t want their daughters location known to the rest of the world. Yes, as a matter of fact this island is hard to scry into and since it moves it’s hard to teleport on to as well. Ah, those were good eggs after all, I told you so. Now come with me and I’ll show you around the school.

Here we go, this is the school in front of you, and here to your left is the area where the dormitories are located and to your right are the classrooms. We don’t have very many classrooms you see, there are only a few teachers here at this school, and most of them are my colleagues and former students. Every so often I actually get Bob in here to give a seminar on the difficulties of running a kingdom or sometimes I get Mizu Yasha to come in and tell the girls an epic story. There’s usually a small intermission when he falls asleep. Once and a while I am lucky enough to be able to give the girls a bit of time with Ms. Winddancer. She really gives a great and rousing speech on responsibility and loyalty. Right after that is the time that I give them a long paper to work on that is worth a great percent of their final grade. Here is where the girls hang out when not in classes or studying. The area’s overhead lighting changes in response to the time of day. When the lights finally go out that’s when they know that they are expected to go to bed. Oh look here’s Miyazu, my valedictorian this year. She’s from the planet Kryandia and is one of the best students I’ve ever had. I only got her here because I asked Mizu Yasha to keep an eye open for outstanding talent and bring them to my school. He found her in a village that had been sacked and brought her to me. I felt awful for the girl, but once I saw what she was capable of I knew she’d fit right in. Oh well, classes just started so I guess we shouldn’t disturb the classes going on. Let’s go walk around the grounds for a bit shall we?

Ah, here we go, the younger children are playing. Did I tell you that our youngest is 13 years old? Yes, she is, but she’s the serious type. I have a strange feeling that we will also be sending her to Ms. Winddancer for training, I mean just watch her for a minute and you’ll see why. There, she caught that ball with telekinesis. Isn’t that cool for a child of her age to do? She also has the disturbing habit of telepathically talking to people she doesn’t know. Her name is Chyisis, by the way, and she seems to have a ton of potential. I hope Ms. Rydia will teach her a whole bunch of things. Anyway, let’s see here, we also have a daughter, Valestra, who fell in love with a bard and moved to Shadowdale to be with her sweetie. I hear through the scrying spell that even Elminster thinks she makes a great addition to the town ever since she opened a potion shop. She called it “Valestra’s potion shop”, not original, but it gets the point across. I have a strange feeling that the bard isn’t the best for her, but I’ve been down this road before with other daughters and I know that they have to work it out for themselves. She’ll come to her senses when she finds him using his great charisma for a different kind of Bardic performance.

Oh, one of the most interesting jobs one of our daughters managed to snag was as the secretary at the new “Limbo Tourist Bureau”. Alielle started it up after her restaurant had been destroyed in the calamity that befell Sigil. Where was Sigil? Well if you don’t know then it’s probably better if you just forget that I mentioned it. Where’s limbo then? It’s… uh… far to the west, near Maztica. Anyway, we recently found out that she changed her name from “Alystyria” to the more degrading “Busty”. I think that she got the job so easily from Alielle because she has a large chest. She also has these bright emerald green eyes and hair to match. She’s a smart girl, but I think that hasn’t helped her refuse Alielle’s romantic advances. I think they’re in a much deeper relationship already, but who can say. I guess “Busty Dragondust” sounds alright, but it’d be better for her if she was a stripper or something. I had a very difficult time telling Shandroa what she’d done without laughing, so I guess I don’t mind that much.

Hey, watch out for the edge there. That’s why I gave you that ring when you came up here. Oh, I didn’t, well then here. It’s a ring that will save your life if you fall off the side of the cloud. I usually give them to anyone who comes up to the cloud, but I guess that it slipped my mind. Go on, put it on. No, it won’t change your sex or anything. There ya go. See? Nothing happened to you, but now you can fall off the edge and float down to Toril as gently as a leaf. Hey, if you look there you can see Achika’s lame island. I told you about that weirdo, right? Well, she couldn’t have made that island without our help, but does she ever tell anyone that? Nope, she’s just the queen of the island. Oh well, sometimes when we go over I like to drop an illusionary comet on it, but the residents of the island think that since it never hits that it must be a portent or something so I stopped doing it. At least she technically doesn’t run it. The oddest half dragon ever really looks after the operation and functioning of the island. She’s a half-silver dragon and half-drow elf girl whose name escapes me right now. She has a stunningly beautiful skin tone actually, and she’s really very attractive. Shandroa and I actually spent a month down there as half-dragons, just to check out the place. Achika didn’t have a clue that we were there, but when does she ever have a clue about anything. In the end we left because there were so many rules that made it just such a boring place, there was just nothing to do there.

Anyway, did I ever tell you the story of the time that I spent in La Bette? It’s a nice little kingdom on Kyrandia, that’s where I met the busty and dippy princess Angelique. I wasn’t attached to anyone romantically at the time, so I took it upon myself to try and woo her. She wasn’t intelligent enough to realize what the heck I was doing, and I never managed to get anywhere anyway, but I did find out the strange reason why the kingdom was curst in the first (hee hee, I’m a poet!) place. It turned out that a long time ago the current king, King Highfalutin the twelfth made a deal with a pack of wizards. They were supposed to make his entire personal guard into magically armored and armed killing machines capable of taking on nearly any challenge. Well after a year and a day the mages returned with arms and armor for his 12 personal guards, the armor provided the best protection known to man, magical resistance, elemental resistance, magical fortification, while the weapons magical enhancement provided an incredible amount to the attack power of the weapon. The mages requested their payment, which the king had neglected to look at in the first place. (Yes, he was a dope, even before the curse) The price was ten million gold, any of his unmarried daughters, and the Stone of Kusilimius. The king denied the mages their asking price and ordered his newly armored guard to slay the mages. Now, mages are always the cautious lot, so they weren’t actually there, just illusions and such, so the bodyguard’s new weapons passed right through the not-quite-so-there mages and they fell to the ground like the morons they were. The king howled at their foresight and then realized that his 4 youngest daughters were missing, as was the Stone of Kusilimius and ten million gold from the treasury. Now it’s not like the girls were abused, like forced into slavery or what-have-you, no in fact they were treated with the utmost kindness and asked how they would like their lives to unfold. The mages listened to their stories of their father’s cruelty and abusiveness and felt the utmost of pity for these girls. One of the girls expressed a desire to return, even if she would be punished. The mages debated and would let her return only if ensorcelled with powerful protective magicks. She agreed and they enchanted her thusly that if even a drop of her blood was spilled by her father or his men then the kingdom would forever be changed. They also piled on the defensive enchantments so that if any weapon came to bear on her she would stand a chance to live. She was returned home to the castle with the youngest of the mages by her side and when she stepped into the king’s chamber the king bellowed that she was a traitor to his kingdom. She warned about the magicks the mages had worked on her to protect her, but to no avail. The king foolishly ordered his men to attach her, which they did, because they also lacked the ability to think for themselves. A knight’s sword nicked her on the cheek instead of slicing her head clean off and a drop of blood spilt down her chin. She tried to catch the drop to save her kingdom from the curse, but another knight of the kings pushed her down and was about to attempt to cleave into her when the mage teleported them away. The drop of blood hit the ground with a sizzle and worked its way into the water supply of La Bette, where it became a powerful potion that made any native born of La Bette into a complete moron, so that the rest of the kingdom could revel in the foolishness of the king. The curse was to last five generations, and so when I got there the curse was actually beginning to lift. While Princess Angelique was still affected, her younger sister, the slightly creepy Princess Dominique, wasn’t affected at all. I eventually brought Angelique with us on The Planejammer and lost track of her. Last I’d heard she was working at Alielle’s “Restaurant at the Center of the Multiverse”, but as what I don’t know. She probably has a job at the new “Limbo Tourist Bureau” that Alielle started up, but she’d be something like 70 years old by now. Oh well, I’ll ask “Busty” (snicker) to look out for her.

Oh here is Chyisis again. Hello little one, did you have fun playing with the other girls? No? Well it appears that our guest here would like to know about the tattoo that you have on your face. Oh there she goes, disappearing on me again; it seems that she’s a little shy. Well I’ll tell you about it then. When she turned ten I heard her screaming from her bedroom and when Shandroa and I opened the door we found her floating above her bed and a powerful psychic force swirling around the room. I cast a quick dispel magic spell on her and the energies vanished and she fell to her bed. When I held my poor baby to see if she was injured at all she looked different somehow. I tried every divination spell I knew to figure out what, or who, that energy was, but to no avail. Anyway, after that happened, her psionic abilities began to surface at an alarming rate, I guess she was coming of age or something, I’ll have to ask Rydia if she ever experienced a psychic whirlwind when she was young. Well after that she started drawing on her face a strange blade shaped tattoo that she wanted, but she was getting upset that it would smudge. She asked me to make it more permanent, and since I’m her sweet and loving mother, I cast a temporary tattoo spell on her. It lasts for months now, and as an added side effect it allows me to keep tabs on Chyisis. The design she wanted was just a black slash that fell from her left eyebrow and came to a point on her chin. It cuts across her left eye and she seems happy as a lark with it. I did some research on this particular design and found that it is the beginning of a tattoo of an ancient race of psionic angels that died out in the blood war. I wonder if that has anything to do with it, or if I’m just being too worrisome.

I guess it’s apparent to anyone whose listened to me this far that I enjoy rambling. It’s funny, but most people only listen to my stories for a short time before getting tired of them and wandering off. I’ve always got a really great story to tell, like one time I was getting ready to install the plane shifting engine in the Planedagger and little Sylvia came up to me and started asking me what it was. Well I didn’t really want her around, in case something went wrong, plane shifting engines being new and slightly chaotic things in the first place so I put down my work and told her that I was working on a new ship that would allow us to fly across the sky and to very different far away places. I could tell that she didn’t have a clue, just because she was so young at the time, only six or so years old, so I took her into the court yard and drew a large circle on the ground. This, I told her, represents where we live. Then I drew another circle a little further away and said that it represented another little girl’s home, just like the first circle represented her home. I stood her in the first circle and told her to get from one circle to another without crossing the lines. She of course was confused and said she couldn’t do it. That’s when I explained that the device I was building in the basement acted like a broom to those lines. I brushed away a portion of those circles and just for show she ran into the other circle and jumped up and down. That’s when Shandroa came out to see what we were doing playing in the dirt. I told her I had been working on the Planedagger when little Sylvia asked what I was doing. Shandroa looked at me and told me that it was time for me to stop working on the Planedagger (she had the habit of referring to it as “that stupid waste of time”, because it kept me awake for several nights and she didn’t like my slightly obsessive nature toward it) and come in and eat something. I agreed with her and went and locked up my work area. That night she had made the best quail I’d had in years. It turns out that Shandroa makes the best food out of anyone I’ve ever known. I mean, I’ve eaten food prepared for kings and princesses, but her cooking always topped that. Perhaps I’m being sappy, but perhaps the reason it tastes better is because it’s prepared with love instead of fancy ingredients. Wow, listen to me, I am being sappy. Oh well, would you like to see the Planedagger? I don’t just show it to anyone, but I think you’d like to look at it, especially after you’ve heard so much about it. No, I won’t make you wear any fancy rings to look at it, Sheesh, am I really that bad? Perhaps I am a bit too overprotective of people who visit my castle, but I feel responsible to you visitors. Oh the thing about the bedroom ring is still bothering you? Well, now that I think about it I used to know a silly druid that would experiment with strange and exotic substances. I would tell her that she needs to cut it out and she’d reply that I shouldn’t mock it until I’ve tried it, but you know what? I don’t need to be stabbed in the gut by a pit fiend’s flaming sword to know that I won’t enjoy the sensation. Eventually she snorted a green slime and that was the end of her, which would actually be a funny mental picture if it wasn’t so tragic. Okay, so that might be considered weird, but at least I’m not forcing it on you right?

Would you like to know something funny? It’s really quite amusing, but sometimes when Bob, my greatest and wisest and most wonderful student needs to get away he comes here, borrows on of those rings and hangs out here for a couple of days. Hee hee, judging from your expression you seem to think that it’s totally weird. Just between us, I’m totally kidding. Why would he do that? He has a huge selection of spells at his command, why would he need one of my rings? Now we did have a party and only ladies could come so he did borrow one then, but only because he wanted to keep an eye on his wife and make sure she didn’t get too wild. We got him pretty tipsy at that party, and that’s always amusing. I’d tell you more about what he did, but he’s been scrying on us for a while now and I bet his face is fairly red by now. See there? Between those trees? That slight shimmer in the air? That’s what you can see when someone is scrying on you, they’re hard to notice, but I can usually find them. Hey, Bob! Stop watching and just come up here if you wanna say something to my guest. Oh there, he stopped. I wonder if he’ll come up here and talk to you also. .

Eh, I guess not. What’s that? You wonder why I allowed Alystyria to become romantically involved with Alielle, one of the biggest perverts in all the multiverse. Well, I don’t really see anything wrong with it, but just to set your mind at ease, I’ll tell you a story about the time that I met sweet little Alielle. You see, the two of us were working on the same spelljamming vessel for some reason or another, and we happened to need to run off into the woods for some other strange reason. This big stinky centaur joined us and told us that we needed to do something to save the woods, and we both wondered why. Well, we needed to attract the attention of a unicorn or an owl or something, I forget what it was, and Alielle had a great plan. The first part of her plan was that I should polymorph myself into a unicorn and she, being a virginal maiden, would sit upon me and sing a beautiful song in order to attract attention to us. The plan sounded like a good one to me, but upon assuming the shape of a unicorn and Alielle hopping up on top, she started singing one of the most offensive songs I’ve ever heard in all of my days. The lyrics and I quote, were “I’m a virgin! That means no dicks for me! Nope! No dicks for me! No dicks for me!” She went on caterwauling for nearly a half an hour, but to no avail. Not really a surprise considering how the local wildlife fled in fear of whatever dying creature happened to wailing. We ended up wandering the forest for quite some time until we ran into our stupid stinky centaur companion again. He shouted at us that we screwed up and that’s when Alielle whipped out her laser cannon and fired at the centaur. She missed, but the lord of the forest, a large treant, wasn’t happy that we had tried to blast one of the forests many defenders. Well, the centaur got away after he borrowed a highly magical dagger from me, and we escaped the wrath of the treant. I still need to go get that dagger back, that wasn’t a very nice thing to do. Anyway, that was years ago, and Alielle and I have been around each other enough, so I know she’ll treat Alystyria just fine, and perhaps she knows that if she doesn’t then she’ll call down the wrath of her mother. I’m just kidding, I wouldn’t do anything to Alielle, well maybe not if it was a Saturday.

Hey, I told you about Achika and her stupid island a bit, right? Did I tell you what her prime minister and I are doing? Well she’s that half drow, half silver dragon that Achika hired on the spot, but it turned out that she was a genius at manipulating idiotic half dragon queens, so she’s doing well. I recalled her name since I last spoke of her, it’s a rather pretty name, Darkmoon Silverwing, and I suppose it fits her well. She actually met me when Shandroa and I were sneaking around the island and she was annoyed that I was doing what I was doing at the time, but I told her that I was wondering if the half dragons on the island were as happy as Achika always said they were. Darkmoon told me that several of them had the same sad tale, that they were normal till around the time they hit puberty. They said that they’re skin changed funny colors, their facial features changed and they grew monstrous wings. Then their families and friends shunned them because they thought they were curst and freakish. Most of these youngsters were of course, adopted so their parentage was unknown. There was a story of a young priestess who was attracted to a bugbear who was really a blue dragon, but trickery is a huge way dragons spread their seed into the human population. Anywho,. Darkmoon was all upset at me for being on the island and trying to do what I was doing, which wasn’t that big of a deal, I mean all I wanted was someone to take over the position of “Queen” and so what if it was Shandroa disguised as a half silver dragon? Anyway, instead of Darkmoon telling on us, I offered to make those half dragons on the island who wanted to go back to their normal lives back into their normal selves. All I could really do was alter their forms, and I first used my polymorph spells to do just that. Alas, many of the half dragons, who of course retained their great strength, became adventurers and would eventually get a Dispel Magic dropped on them and revert back to their normal forms, and thus ruin all my hard work. Okay, so casting a spell of the fourth circle isn’t hard work at all, but you get the idea. I was sick of seeing these half dragons over and over so I used the overwhelming power of the eighth circle of magic to see that the changed form was much harder to dispel. I also made it so that if they needed to, they could use their wings or breath weapons without attracting any attention. I still do this probably only because it would peeve Achika to know that her citizens are leaving because of my skills, not because of any relations she creates with another government. Have you ever heard her rant and rave about how much good she’s doing in the world? It just doesn’t make any sense. Oh well, I’m just glad she doesn’t know about the portal from her island to my cloud castle.

I really miss Shandroa, she went off chasing that bow of hers a couple of days ago and hasn’t been back yet. I wish she’d hurry up and catch it. Why should she need to catch her bow you ask? Well her bow is in truth ‘The Silver Bow of the Moon’, a rather legendary artifact from the elvin isles that are somewhere off in that direction. Or maybe that direction, who knows, it’s not relevant right now. Anyway, her bow animates every so often by turning into a naked lady made of pure mithril and runs off toward the island. I keep telling her that I could make her something better, but she keeps insisting that she’s going to keep the bow no matter what. Honestly, it is rather funny how she hides around a corner waiting for the bow to make its move and then begins to chase it, but you’d think it would get old after a while. I need to sit down one of these days and paint a portrait of her to hang in the bedroom, I think she’d like that. If you ever want to meet my dear sweet darling, you can. Just be sure to bring lots of pretty gems and give them to her, because she absolutely loves gems and pretty, sparkly rocks. That’s why she and Achika don’t get along very well. Achika, being a monster and all, actually eats gems and other precious metals. You can see how that wouldn’t go over very well with someone who collects them to hang in our bedroom.

You want to see our bedroom now? Well I suppose it’s alright, but let me make sure that we didn’t leave anything, umm, embarrassing lying around. Come with me it’s this way. We like our room to be rather isolated and inaccessible, so that’s why it’s all the way on the upper most tower. No, silly, it doesn’t get hit by lightning, nor is it effected by heavy winds. I made a magical barrier around it so that doesn’t happen, otherwise, we would have a huge problem. Ah here’s the stairs leading up, there’s a probably ten thousand stairs leading up to the top of the tower, so we’ll take the quick way. Stand on that blue glowing circle there in the floor and don’t lose your balance when it starts lifting you up to the highest point. Oh, that was a bit bumpy, I always just fly up to our room, so I guess I didn’t know that the lifting pad was that unstable. Here we are, top floor, now just stay here a moment while I tidy up a bit.

Okay, there we go, all nice and clean, or at least shoved under the bed. Oh what’s that there on the floor? It’s something I missed, just forget you ever saw it. Let me just take this and throw it into this here closet. Wow, those chain mail bikinis make a lot of noise hitting the floor. Okay now you see, I wasn’t lying about the pretty gems in our room. Shandroa cast spells on them to make them glow dimly from within, so that at night they’re really gorgeous. They twinkle like little multicolored stars and tend to help me go to sleep at night when I have a lot on my mind. Oh hey look at that, there was a kitty under the bed when I shoved everything under there. Hello little Celestine, did you get squished up with all that, uh, clothing? Poor little kitty, I’m just glad you aren’t one of the talking ones. Now run along like a good little kitty! Shoo! shoo!