day 38:
well, i should start with the dream, since that's the first thing. i've been spending so much time in the dreaming that it's strange to be in a dream where i can't control what happens. what happened here was that there was a army of pale orcs being led by um-zariel [1], but the army also had a bunch of guys who looked like goraj looks after he put on the mask. and the army was overrunning one of the gate cities --- not the one we're in right now, but the one where i was in one of my past lives --- but it was the wrong time for it. when i woke up, i was touching my mask, which has to mean something.
anyway, jarun may be a westerner, but he's no fool, so he didn't believe that cor and i knew nothing about where parna went. he asked a lot of questions, and we're not good liars, so what could we do?
we went along to the gate cave to test out whether it was parna or me who made the gate light up yesterday. the glow was less bright today --- no surprise. but it did glow, and it was brighter when i went near it. well, i didn't think that would happen. i wish jarun wasn't there, but i wanted to know what was causing it, so we had to find out. i already knew, really --- the mask was almost talking to me.
we had to tell jarun a lot at that point, stuff about the dwarves, and where we'd gotten our masks, and stuff like that. cor did most of the talking, and i just hoped jarun didn't notice me, which was unlikely, since i was the one with the mask, after all. luckily, he wasn't so interested in the mask. the cave glowed more yesterday, and he figured that was due to parna (or the s'angreal, but he didn't know that, of course), so he wanted parna back. he wanted to know if they'd come back for us if he kidnapped us. i was pretty sure we were both going to die then, since i'd seen the elites fight, and i knew we couldn't take them.
but he let us go, after insulting our honor a couple of times for good measure. i think cor was upset, but he's a soldier --- why do i care what he thinks?
after that, i tried putting the mask on. i figured something would happen, but nothing did --- there i was wearing a mask. something was telling me that it wasn't time yet.
so cor and i looked around the city a bit more, and then headed back to town. jarun and the elites must be waiting for us somewhere, even though we haven't seen them, so i magicked a pigeon to take a note to the others at tor's cloud saying we were coming.
day 39 - day 42:
we walked back to town. nothing happened, and it looks like jarun's gang aren't chasing us. i don't understand why not, and i don't like it.
day 43:
last night, we reached tor's cloud, and met up with the others. then i dreamed again. this time, sometimes i was the leader of this army, and sometimes it was orcs (pale orcs and normal orcs), and sometimes it was humans, and sometimes it was ducks. why ducks? and sometimes i wasn't the leader and the army was attacking things, like this dwarf settlement living in the long delving. but then i was the leader, and the army was coming up to that same gate city from the last dream, but not as attackers.
the mask has been more active the last few days. it gets warm when it's more active, but i can tell whether it's active without touching it --- it tells me.
so i guess my path is to go find these orcs and lead them, so they don't attack the dwarves. (i don't know about the ducks yet.) cor had some of the same dream, about the pale orcs attacking the dwarves, and quicksilver had a different dream, something about creating the world.
so i told the others, and they kind of agreed, and parna gave me one of the s'angreals, some money, and also the big weapon with the light pellets. (cor says it's an ancient illendi weapon that she saw used once, but she didn't know how.)
then siarrah got back from scouting downtown, and told us that the army was massing, so we had to move now. so quicksilver made us all fly, and we went back to the gate city. i was going to take the s'angreal and try to open the gate again and go through, and the others were too, to go to nothoreadel. but when we got there, the orcs were back in the tower.
then i pulled my mask out, and it was glowing, and i suddenly figured it out. a glowing mask, pale orcs, and a weapon that shoots light. i didn't believe it for a second, because it's a weird thing for a random orc like me to be. but i must be the lightbringer [2], and that's why the pale orcs will follow me.
apparently my face started glowing when i put on the mask. the others freaked out, and i had to answer a bunch of questions, but i wasn't really paying attention. so, as soon as they seemed to be okay, i picked up my axe and the light weapon, and walked into the tower with the orcs.
so, i had figured i was in a prophecy now, and whatever was going to happen next would just happen. but it didn't. the orcs just looked at me, and the bat-winged anghiel (who wasn't thisofon!) told them ``kill him!'' so i aimed the light weapon at them, but i didn't know how to use it. for a second, i wondered what the hell i was doing there at all.
while i fumbled with the weapon, i yelled something, maybe ``i am the lightbringer'' at the orcs, and that got me some time. i finally figured out how to use the weapon, and shot the bat-anghiel. well, orcs are an easy crowd, and that won them over pretty well.
now they're busy hacking up the burned body of the anghiel, which i guess gives me a little time to think. so i have to figure out what these orcs' were off doing right now, and who ordered them to do it, and who's the second-in-command of this group, and why there are so many bat-anghiels running around who aren't thisofon or um-zariel, and how i can get an army of warrior orcs to go off and be civilized and not knock over any settlements they aren't supposed to.
but i have an army now. whatever i want to do, it has to be easier with an army.
[1] um-zariel is a leader of orcs from the post-cataclysm times, who has the exciting feature of looking like thisofon's current form, i.e. a bat-winged anghiel. barg would not bother with this exposition, which is why it's in a footnote.
[2] another thing barg wouldn't bother to explain: the lightbringer is an orcish legendary figure (one of the few). he appears occasionally, in different incarnations, and it always has something to do with light in some way, but whether his appearance is a good thing or a bad thing for the orcs (and for others) varies.