Tessarael and Phoranin's honeymoon in Mount Celestia (1028/12/07-1029/01/07)

Tess brings along Darielle and Aldara on the honeymoon. Phoranin is prepared for hiking, with a tent, rations, and so forth. Tess brings along wine, cheese, and some nice food.

Tess is a bit bouncy, kind of relaxed, kind of excited to be getting out and doing something different and not work related. It's been a long while since he had a real break.

With a Plane Shift, they appear with a splash, floating in warm water, with no land in sight. Gentle waves bob them up and down. Floating around them in the water are occasional small motes of light. Tess sends Aldara to fly up and have a look around. Darielle perches on Tess' shoulder and head, looking disgusted at landing in water, shaking her fur off on Tess.

Tess makes a mental note for future reference: "Be way more careful with Plane Shift to more hostile planes."

With a splish, a dolphin pops up and examines them gravely. It then ducks back under the water. They then feel something brush past them, then stop underneath them and push up a bit.

Phoranin: "Hey, I think the fish is holding me up." Tess looks down in the water ... not quite comfortable about this ... Aldara can see land in the distance. Tess offers a "thank you" to the dolphins in Alphatian.

The dolphins slowly push Tess and Phoranin along in the water towards land. Phoranin looks intrigued, while Tess is bemused. Aldara reports several boats coming towards them from the land, spreading out as they come.

Tess waves to the boats. The boats spread out a bit and seem to be quartering the area. After a shile while they notice Tessarael waving and one comes over. The smallish boat is crewed by humans who wave back.

Tess waits for them to speak a language before he responds. The boat crew inquires in Celestial, "Hello in the water! Do you require assistance?"

Tessarael: "Hello. Ah, I guess we're getting assistance thank you, but maybe it would be easier on these dolphins if we were able to join your boat. Thank you." Tess and Phoranin are then helped aboard the boat. Phoranin thanks the crew, though they don't under her. "I'm Tess, this is my wife, she doesn't speak Celestial. She thanks you."

The dolphins leap high into the air and splash back into the water, and are gone. Tess thanks the dolphins in Celestial as they depart.

The boat crew says, "You are both welcome. Spiced wine to warm you up?"

Tessarael: "Thank you. Just a little." In exchange, Tess shares a bottle of wine with them that he brought from Mystara after getting Phoranin's okay. Phoranin and Tessarael sip the wine grapefully, and the boat crew toast with them as they sail back towards the shore.

Several of the other boats rejoin this boat, and call out a challenge to a race. The boat crew yells, "Hold on tight!" and the race begins amongst the small boats. Each tries to get any advantage of wind or current that they can, as they race towards the shore. The boat with Phoranin and Tess is neck and neck with another boat, and arrives at the shore as close together as to not be able to tell who won.

At the shore is a smallish village. It has a few piers, some forest, maybe a church, and fields of waving grain. The name of the village is "Tooalong." Some of the crew, of the boat Tess and Phoranin are on, go over to the other boat and laugh with the other crew - mutual backslapping and promises of beer ensue. The other boats arrive and there is good natured laughter at them. Darielle shakes herself off further on dry land, twitching her nose with a sneeze in the direction of the sea.

A couple of women come down from the village to the shore and try and ask Phoranin if she needs anything like a place to change. Tess translates and explains again that Phoranin doesn't speak Celestial. Tess also goes and changes. The women lead them into the village, into a small house and show them a bedroom. It is well equipped with towels and a bath.

Phoranin: "Strange people here."

Tessarael: "Perhaps there is no reason to be other than friendly. But yes, I agree. I wonder if they are souls that have gone to the afterlife here, or if they actually live here."

Phoranin: "I wonder. Maybe some human souls come here? That is in some theological texts of the humans." They did see some children on the way in to the village, so it would appear that these Humans live and grow up here.

Tessarael: "I'm curious who the church is to, if it was a church. Do you need anything, are you going to be okay with me translating?"

Phoranin: "No, I'm currently pretty ok. I think we fairly safe here. Best to be at least somewhat on guard though, Humans are unpredictable."

Tessarael: "Well, we don't know their customs, I doubt they will intend ill will, but I agree, we should be careful not to offend them."

Phoranin and Tess leave to explore the village, with Tess teaching Phoranin one or two phrases in Celestial as they go. Tess leaves his wet clothes in the room to dry, but takes his magical equipment with him.

The village is fairly peaceful, but industrious at the same time. The people spend their days tendign their crops, maintaining their structures, practicing for their rescue teams, and so forth.

It turns out that the villages specifically rowed out to pick Tess and Phoranin up from the water. The sea is actually holy water. Visitors always arrive in the sea. There are no gates, portals or plane shifts which do not arrive in the sea; except for those leading to deeper layers of the plane.

Tess occasionally get the feeling of invivible beings passing about overhead. The motes drift about, apparently they are souls. The Humans on the other hand do grow up and die here. There are no signs of other celestials.

The church is nondemoninational. It has a service every few days which Tess and Phoranin are invited to and attend. At the church, there is communal singing and someone gets up to tell a tale - a fable. They later discover that the person telling the tale wasn't a cleric, just one of the people here.

In the distance, Tess sees a mountain chain, with a series of peaks. However, Phoranin sees only a single mountain. The natives say "The path is many, but walked by one." The natives talk about walking the path as being a lifelong journey and beyond. The path to enlightenment. It seems the mountain can take either a short time or maybe a long time to climb. The villagers might be talking about different meanings of the word climb though, especially when they talk about ascending. Phoranin would prefer not to go mountain climbing.

At night time, the stars seem very bright, and just beyond their reach. They do not appear magical to a Detect Magic.

The people here are vegetarian. Even the village dogs. The dogs explain that it's not appropriate to eat their friends here. Darielle kind of likes the place, but is kind of annoyed by it too: she caught a mouse, but it pleaded for it's life, so she let it go in disgust; having a comversation with the other cat is good though. The animals seem slow, but wise and down to earth. Phoran is interested in the talking animals.

The villagers tell them of trails through the wilderness if they want to wander. There are another couple of villages; the islands if they want to borrow a boat; and the headquaters of some sect or other of off-planar people.

Tessarael and Phoranin decide to take their time wandering towards the sect headquarters, taking advantage of some privacy along the way.

When they arrive, they hear screams in the distance. Tessarael tells Phoranin to wait, and sneaks up to look quietly. There is a sprawling compound. Running around screaming are dozens of children. They are being chased by winged creatures, half-bird half-man. Occasionally one of the children will be caught and lifted into the air for a while, there they scream and giggle some more, before being out down to run around some more. The children seem to be enjoying themselves greatly. The children are mostly Human. Some of the children are Elven, Dwarven, Halfling, etc. Tessarael goes back to Phoranin.

This is the headquarters of the Little Shield. It's an order dedicated to the rights of children. These kids are orphans who have been scarred by various tragedies, such as having their parents killed in front of them or the like. The order contains archons (the bird-men) as well as mortals. Not all the children seem so happy - some have arrived only recently.

Tess and Phoranin give the members of the Little Shield some help taking care of the kids. They have too many kids and not enough time (or hands). Phoranin helps, although see knows little about the care of children - good to learn though. The people there seem pleased to have the husband and wife pair of Tessarael and Phoranin there.

The children are from Mystara mainly, but other planes as well. The Cage is a place they frequently try to help, but the situation there is pretty hopeless. Tess donates 1,000 gold pieces to help out monetarily.

Tess and Phoranin spend the remainder of the vacation here and outside. Phoranin wants some peace and quiet sometimes - she is normally a quiet person, surrounded by other quiet people, who spend a large part of their day in comtemplation and meditation. This is a bit different. Nice, but she needs some time away too. Tess is more used to the bustle. After a couple of weeks Phoranin is keen to get back to her work.

Tess and Phoranin Plane Shift back to Aengmoor Forest and land almost on target on the outskirts of the city. When Phoranin arrives back, she is immediately met with a heavy load of work to deal with. Tess gives her a hug and a kiss, then gets out of her hair, heading off to Darokin City.