Madre Fortuna's Circus
by Greiz

Well, I have already done this via scrolls, however, Kesavaram wishes me to write this up into the lore books. I personally agree that it'd be a great idea. This way, all future Dawning brothers and sister will know that the circus is a prime hunting ground of hysterical fun. Yes, I'll be writing this up about the circus. Well, here goes my recounting of my findings:

Before I went off to wander the circus, I stuck with Kalane, a few minutes, armed myself, activated all my protective spells, and all else that one should do before wandering. Anyhow, when I thought myself fit and ready to go,I walked south from Kalane to the Merchant's Square; from there, I headed east until I was just out of the east gate of Arinock. From there, I headed north on the east trail around Arinock. As I walked north, I kept my eyes to the horizon, searching for the first signs of the tent tops... and I found them.

Inside the entrance to the circus, you'll find a barker. He is a wonderful specimen of absolute resistances. I noticed that he is damn near immune to my attack spells, being Nature's Wrath and Fireball. What I'd like to see is if he is immune to other attack spells of other elements. You might find out that this very person could very well be a rather valuable asset in the trek to practicing attack spells. From there I decided to head further north, through the entrance to the actual circus.

As you wade through he seas of slack-jawed gawkers, mobs of children, and dirty young boys, you'll see some wagons in front of you and to your right. Inside the green one, you'll step right into a tropical garden, one of great beauty, I might add further. Makes me yearn to be back in the woods again...

Anyhow, to your north, after you enter the wagon, is a door, open that, step through and enter into the manticore cage. The manticore in there isn't of the usual pep... in fact... he's rather tired looking and sickly. Hmm...something doesn't sit right with me and the circus, but it'll have to wait for the time being. Send the poor beast to its merciful sleep or let it be, your choice, but from there you can go through a door to your north and enter into a darkened cage with a rather ugly spectacle of a mass of tentacles. The sloppy painting in there claims that it's the son of the horror, but I don't know about that. It looked rather bedazzled, sort of like a charmed beast looks. Perhaps a warlock could come in here and betray it. On the other wall, there's a flap leading to the outside world, so go through that and go to a tent-filled field. Wait, I don't recognize this... I'll go head south again.

So south I went, and I, again, found the wagons. Joy. I decided from there to enter the other wagon, the one that smells horrible... sort of like... chicken excrement. Ugh! Disgusting! If you think the smell outside was bad, just wait until you step inside! My nose hairs literally curled under the assailment! Regardless, inside the doorway, there's a gaggle of cockatrice. I noticed a door on the east wall, so I opened it and found... a basilisk! No! Cover your... wait. It has a rather ill-fitting hood over its eyes. Go on... sigh with relief. Anyhow, I decided that I wanted to check out that hood, so I did what any self-respecting curious person would have... I killed it. The hood wasn't much to sneeze at, but I guess in a pinch, it might be a tad useful. It looks like this wagon has more rooms to it yet. On the north wall was a door, so I went through it and came face-to-face with a huge bugbear! Goodness it's big. Lucky thing its proboscis made it such a curious bugbear, because when I reached the room, it was busy scouring the floor with them. I didn't much want to mess with it, so I decided to head right out the door on the west wall to stare down a rather interesting sort of beast. It's name is a Kuo Toa. A giant bipedal fishman. Fun. Time to leave the wagon! I backtracked my way through the wagon, stepped through the doorway and came right back out into a trampled field where the wagons sit. From there, I decided to explore the western area from here.

A sign is in the middle of the road and looking it at, the sign declared that a witch by the name of Madre Fortuna has a harpy held captive in a cage. Interesting. I never caught a glimpse of it however because of the crowd there, peering into the cage. I swear that there must have been a good fifty people. Anyhow, I decided to follow the path I was on south into a unicorn pen with a rather shoddily penned note tacked to a post on the pen. Reading the note, it declared the obvious; a unicorn is in the pen somewhere. I waded through the crowd of people here and stepped full into a putrid pile of deplorable manure. Ugh! Well, wiping it off, I took a look into the pen at the poor unicorn that must live with such disgusting living conditions. Whoa! It certainly didn't look too happy! It had been sitting there just fine, and then all a sudden, the unicorn just ran full speed towards the pen, shoving its horn clean through the wood without even the slightest bit of resistance! Nearly went through my hand also! Time to leave before it actually gets out. so, north and east and I'm back in the trampled field.

North some more and I come to a beaten path. Nothing of great of great import here, really, save for a vendor I met up with. Apparently, the vendor wanders the circus grounds selling a bottle labeled 'local specialty', a cheap bottle of brew, and a beaker filled with potent alcohol. The bottle of local specialty and the bottle of cheap brew weren't anything more than your average alcohol, but the beaker was a different story! I drank that thing and I went into a blind frenzy! Boy oh boy. It took me a second to compose myself. It was rather odd how it has affected me. Oh well. Onward further north!

Here, I strode further along the path and met up with a juggler and a madrigal. The madrigal sang a rather interesting song, to say the most. I didn't quite care for it, but oh well. I asked the madrigal if I could see his lute and he let me. I didn't think it was much to sneeze at, much like the ill-fitting hood, but I decided to check it out anyhow. Not to wise to judge a book by its cover, but I guess I was right this time. Oh well. There was also a juggler here. She tells me that she wanders the circus a lot offering a form of entertainment with her juggling balls. Before she could stop me, I snatched the balls right from mid-air, identified them, and tossed them right back. It looked to be rather well suited for new adventurers. Remember well where to get these balls, brothers and sisters of Dawning! I'm sure you'll find much use for these balls! Well, anyhow, with the juggler and madrigal talked to, I decided to take the path east to a clearing and checked the surroundings.

There wasn't much there, save for a rather sorry excuse for even a poorly made booth there. Entering the booth, I noticed a madman sitting in the corner, rocking to and fro'. He spoke to me, saying something about missing the children that used to come to see him. Rather disgusting fellow. He also charged me to bring something of theirs back to him, adding later that he loved to finger paint. Hmm. Maybe there's a kid out there with some paper and paint. Well, I'll have to keep that in mind as I wander the circus. So, back west and north, and I come to the familiar tent-filled field.

I went into a tent emblazoned with images of stars and checked about the tent's entrance for anything special. There was a rug with a rather weird rhyming message stitched into its weavings. The message said that there were faeries here, so I looked about and sure enough, they sort of... flittered about the tent. They seemed to have rather blank expressions on their face. Weird. Not only that, but looking at them, I saw that the wings didn't seem to come in very well. They actually protruded from enormous lumps of disgusting scar tissue. That is very, very odd indeed. Perhaps it's tied in with the weird behavior of the animals around the circus. I dismissed that thought, for the time being, and went deeper into the tent to the faerie theater. A troop of the same faeries sang something about Flowertime Fae and something about Madre's circus. Hmm. Oh well. Back to the tent's entrance. From the tent's entrance, I went north into a room with tons of faerie pens. A crowd of spectators, here, gave those poor faeries not a second of silence. Poor beasts.

While looking over the faeries, I noticed curtain hanging on the east wall, so I went inside and met up with a rather short, stocky humanoid sipping from a filthy mug. I introduced myself to him and he just grunted back 'My name is Glorfang and you need to leave about now'. I didn't leave, however, but I did ask him about the faeries and why they had such disgusting lumps of scar tissue where their wings came out. He got angry at me, grunted, 'That's none of your business! You get out of here NOW!' I didn't like that much and asked him to be more polite and courteous to me. I was sincerely offended at his rudeness! After I had finished my request, he just screamed and charged me. I had no other option than to kill him, poor soul. I got from his corpse a corroded key, a barbed herding prod, and a black eye-patch. I decided, then, to identify these. The eyepatch was about as useless as the ill-fitting hood and the lute, but oh well. The prod was a rather disgusting polearm to say the least. I went back to the entrance of the tent from here, stepped out and back into the tent-filled field. I was really rather tired, so I took a short nap behind the faerie tent in the brush with my wolf keeping me warm.

When I came to, I set out again to check out the circus. I stood up, strode over to a tent with lizard pelts covering it. I stepped inside and saw many spectacles of lizard-man life. There was a lizard man squatting in the mud, a rutting pair of people sprawled out in the mud, disgusting buggers trying to get it on right there, and a lizard-man painted with swirling designs of mud basking there... with so sun visible, so I found that quite odd that it was basking. Anyhow, I noticed the painted lizard man had a crocodile totem about his neck, so I peered at it and the lizard man went berserk, clawing madly at my face. Brandishing my mace of decay, I defended myself as best as I could... ending up with the lizard man dead. A small price to pay for keeping my life, I'd expect. Anyhow, from its corpse, I got its totem and checked it out. Anyhow, leaving the tent, I had to make a decision about where to go next. Right as I was about to decide to head west along a path, I remembered I had a key and that with the key, I could finally get a good glimpse of the harpy, so I set out to go back.

When I got back to the cage, I headed around back, unlocked the door, opened it, stepped into it, and almost instantly, the harpy flew full speed at me with its claws flailing madly! Luckily my wolf was with me, because he tore the thing to pieces at the moment. He's quite protective of me, Rufus F. Barkley is. Rufus was gnawing on a claw of the harpy so I picked it up and it looked quite... interesting to me. I felt like it had the power to be a foci, oddly enough. I've never had a piece of organic matter as a foci before. Oh well. I identified it to check out my feelings and I was correct. After that ordeal, I went back to the tent-filled field and headed west from there. A sign in the middle of the path said to turn back, but the harpy and manticore and unicorn and faeries... all the animals I've seen so far didn't seem to be very normal at all, so I decided to press on anyhow, hoping that I could meet up with a circus worker that could answer my questions.

Down the path a little bit, I ran into a stable hand and a pack-mule. The mule looked rather sickly, overworked, and dirty too. Flies practically covered mule from head to toe. The stable hand looked overworked, also, and very depressed. He wore a pair of ostentatious orange pantaloons that I quite looked a tad fond of, so I traded him a robe and dirty pair of pants I had gotten from Three Firs. With the pants in hand, I decided to check out the making, see if the trade was worth it. The pants weren't worth the trade, but I decided that he needed all the coverings he could get. He seemed much happier. I pressed onward to the west along the trail and came to see a dimly lit pavilion.

As I walked closer to the pavilion, a bearded lady and a drunk muscular man were babbling back and forth to each other. The bearded woman told the man that her job as the bearded lady was all but done because everyone wanted to see the manticore and the harpy. She also included something about them, saying that they weren't even rea... Before she finished her sentence, she noticed me and kept quiet. I didn't like that much. They wouldn't answer any of my questions, but they did let me have a cloth wristguard. Looking it over, I decided that it was about the same quality as most everything else here... bad. The pavilion looked rather inviting, so I stepped inside.

Just after I entered the doorway, I heard an abductor speaking harshly at a harlot, obese man, and a thin man. Poor people looked half frightened out of their mind. Before I could demand the abductor to shut his yapper, he charged me, swinging his bludgeon about like a loon! Well, after a short scuffle, the abductor was... permanently put to sleep, shall we say. Anyhow, I took his bludgeon and identified it. What I found out was that this mace/club was much like the cattle prod... except for worse. In return, the thin man, obese man, and harlot all offered me some items as thanks. From them, I got a concealed shiv, a loose bodice, and a wide cracked leather belt. I identified the shiv and found it quite... inadequate for a dagger. The bodice somewhat of a slightly higher quality than the rest of the stuff I've found thus far, but still quite bad quality. The belt was of similar quality as the bodice... although... well... it was still horrible. With the pavilion cleared of the horrible abductor, I decided it'd be a good idea to proceed back down the path, back to the tent-filled field. The main path went north, so I went north also. From there, the path bent and turned east. Following it further, it turned again to the north and ended up deep within the brambles, where it forked east and west. I went east because in the distance, I saw another wagon.

As I neared the wagon, I noted that it was windowless and black. Very imposing, to say the least. I opened the door, stepped in and found the big cheese of the circus, Madre Fortuna. She was quite the homely looking sort of soul, but still to be respected for capturing a harpy, manticore, unicorn, and all others. I asked her about the faeries, but she just glared at me and ordered me to never speak of them again. I shrugged and asked her about the manticore, but she just shot me an even colder glare and told me that I had best leave before she got angry, but once more, I stuck around because I KNEW something ill was going on. I finally asked her about the harpy and I guess that must have been the straw that broke the camels back because she readied a spell and told me that if I didn't leave in three seconds, she was going to blast me back into the void from whence I came. I tried to calm her, but after three seconds were up, it was on. She threw her spell at me and my wolf charged her and it all happened so fast. Before I knew it, I was casting dispel magic counters at her from every opportune moment in the fight. After a long, tiring fight, she fell dead. From her body, I looted a strange looking bone charm and an orb pulsating with darkness. The charm happened to actually have a magic incantation scrawled upon the back of it. I recognized the magic words to be energy drain, plague, and poison. Quite a powerful charm, to tell the truth. I could feel its resilience radiating quite prominently. The orb, on the other hand, was a matter of confusion. I didn't know what it was until I identified it as a weird sort of exotic weapon with much higher quality than the past weapons I found.

I exited the wagon and went deep within the brambles once more and took the other fork. I found a tree stump and after a little bit of examining it, I noticed a long rope ladder descending into the darkness within. I climbed down until I hit the bottom, in which case, it wasn't that dark. I noted that there were several torches along the wall and strange marks on the ground. Regardless, I peered in every direction and noticed that there was a room to the west of me. Stepping into the room, I found a slumbering goblin, a goblin in the middle of eating, and a goblin laborer. Nothing of interest.

I went back to the hallway with the rope ladder and proceeded to walk to only other direction possible: south. I finally reached the end of the hall and found a goblin surgeon down there. The silly bugger was complaining about some stains, but I didn't care much about the stains. I was more concerned why there was a surgeon down there! I began to question the goblin about it, but he demanded gold in return for answers. I didn't give him any gold, but instead tried to reason with him. I did get out of him that Madre Fortuna hired him, however, but nothing more. Oh well. I did ask him if I could see the stains so he gave me his drenched smock and said 'Look at those! It's horrible! I can't get them out either!', but I didn't see the multiple stains he was talking about. It seemed to me like the smock was just about totally covered in blood! Ugh! Upon closer examination with the identify spell, I decided that all the information I got out of it would have to suffice... which wasn't much at all. Giving the surgeon back his smock, I peered, again, around me at my surroundings and noted that the only directions I haven't checked yet were east and west. Something told me to go east before west, so I sated that curiosity and headed that way.

After heading west for a little bit, I came face-to-face with a goblin guard, who seemed to be quite tired as he yawned a lot. He was guarding an enormous locked room. I bartered with him a bit and we finally settled on a price for letting me into the room. I gave him a fur blanket and he unlocked the door for me with the very key I got from Glorfang. I strode into the room and I couldn't help it but weep. I saw a half conscious woman who looked like she had been mugged and quite possibly raped! The poor woman... I walked to my right, south, and found a aged blind man there, crying so hard, I could have sworn children couldn't cry harder. Poor man was muttering something about a son named 'El' and how he wishes his son would come for him. The name 'El' doesn't ring any bell, but then again, I couldn't think very well at that moment.

Such a sad sight, seeing an aged man weep, so I turned and walked out the room in the direction of some weeping that sounded like children. I walked east and there, huddled in a corner, was a knot of children. The poor souls cringed and flinched with every step I took! My wolf tried to walk over to them and lick their faces clean, but they just wept harder. I called Rufus back to me and decided the best thing I could do is leave a fur blanket with them and head out before I started crying just as hard as them. I so wished I could have slaughtered the moron who decided to keep children captive!

Walking north, I came see an odd sight. A stallion could hardly stand on his muscular legs and a lioness without any teeth... then I began to put things together in my head. A manticore, with the head of a man, body of a lion, and a tail of a scorpion... no...certainly those beasts out there couldn't be fake. It’s simply not possible. I quickly ran from room, past the surgeon, and down the west hallway. Once at the end of the hall, I saw a room that looked like it was used for preparing something. In this room, there was a desk with many bloody papers, all askew, scattered over the it. On top of all those papers was a journal, splattered with blood, with words that detailed 'attempts'.

‘First one: Bonding failed. Rejected tail, head soon after. Second one: Incantations altered. Bonding successful, heart burst. Third one: Proportions fixed. No parts rejected. Lived for three days, ate nothing. Fourth one: Longer survival- week. Looks more false. Fifth one: Better. Tried black root mixture.’

At the time, my mind was racing. What could these... these 'attempts' be? Was I right in thinking that they pieced together every single one of their attractions from several different organisms? No! No!

No one is that disturbed... no one... I stumbled about the room. I shook myself back to reality and noticed that I was in a storage room just south of the preparations room. In this storage room was a bin filled with ice. Further examination of the contents of the bin made me realize that perhaps... I was right in my thoughts. Madre Fortuna was ordering her beasts to be made via the surgeon. That's... no single word or group of words can describe the feelings of rage I felt... but I kept my cool and remembered the last 'attempt'. It said something about a black root concoction. I attempted to identify each and every individual thing I found in the bin and found out that the black root I got from the bin was something of a catalyst for strengthening limbs and slowing bleeding. The eyeball I found was... a rather strange thing. I speculate that it was a lich eyeball. The gory heart I found was just a heart... nothing special about it. I did find a scorpion tail in the bin that was magically imbued to cast poison several times like a wand.

I was so disturbed by the circus... that I'm going to have a hard time going back there without retching. Seriously. The visions I saw, the realizations I had... I recommend that no one ever go too deeply into the stump... you may come out totally changed in emotion, attitude, and disposition.