Like a Shiny Metaphor Burning with the Heat of a Thousand Suns

Lord Turnips was sorrow-filled from the [apparent] death of Fedor. He decided to take to his cabin aboard the Planetary Sovereign. As he drifted off to sleep he noted that he had blacked out during a portion of the fight with the sea creatures and had missed the action [or so he thought?].

He began to dream again of Hannon the ennui-suffering, troll-slaying, time-travelling, cleric of Heimdall. The Heimdall the vaunted guardian of Asgard that would have no sympathy for one of his more powerful lords moping about after achieving all of his life goals. Yeah, that Heimdall.

Hannon decided to talk to Trose, the uni-dimensional, non-player character he met during his encounter with a demon spider goddess Lolth in the infamous Q1 Module Queen of the Demonweb Pits.* Sadly, Trose was only good for basic lawful good advice and could be relied upon to reveal no true insights into the kind of metaphysical suffering Hannon faced. Lawful good characters were supposed to be so devout and true to their beliefs that you seldom saw them at cafes, clad in black turtlenecks, chain-smoking unfiltered Gauloises and reading Sartre or Kierkegard.

Trose offered that perhaps if Hannon, on bended knee prayed and made certain offerings things might become clearer. As Trose said this he placed an encouraging hand on Hannon's shoulder. After a few minutes of looking into Hannon's eyes in a blandly spiritual way, Trose placed a very alarming hand on Hannon's hip. Hannon abruptly got up and left the vestibule where Trose kept his sacraments to some never clearly delinated god of a different pantheon from Asgard. No wonder Trose had never married.

Hannon decided to go visit a female friend, the lawful good thief Salina. Salina was a dazzling person to talk to and she was as beautiful as she was dexterous [charisma 17 and dexterity 17...see?] As usual, Salina was in the nearby Theocracy of the Pale gaol because she had left her calling card at the scene of her latest crime. This was an occupational hazard of a life of thieving as a lawful good character. Poor Salina, was enormously proficient in footpadding and cutpursing from evil characters, but the line between good and evil was becoming especially blurry now that major combat operations in the Troll Fens had come to an end.

Salina and Hannon had never been a romantic item because it was strictly professional between them [again: lawful good]. But Hannon was fond of Salina in a chaste, blood allies; till the poisonous death; self-sacrificing; powerful sense of emotional longing; is this sounding too much like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon sort of way. His feelings perhaps could no longer be denied now that he was suffering so. Perhaps this comely lass could shake him from the horse latitudes in which he found himself? Hannon was sure that Salina was also fond of him. Still it was possible that she also kept a warm spot in her heart for the co-leader of the party John Wisshard. It was all so complicated to consider. Hannon became distraught with inertia.

Perhaps it would be best if he approached Salina about changing the nature of their professional relationship under some pretext rather than just coming out and asking? His warrior heart weighed him with the combined gravity of over 1000 suns and burned slightly less hot but still his chest thumped as if 1000 plate armor barding-clad warhorses were charging on the dry stones of very hot desert. Hannon considered coming out and asking Salina to be his helpmate in a more familial sense. He considered his options. Perhaps he could think of some excuse to meet her in the boat house? Such a scheme might blow up in his face because as a lawful good cleric he was not supposed to be deceptive and surely Salina would be as filled with rage as . . . a something that is filled with an enormous amount of rage. Salina would be filled with nearly 1000 burning suns full of rage. Perhaps it was time to make a direct inquiry of Heimdall? Perhaps he would sanction a union of such a powerful force as Salinas with a favored warrior-cleric?

Hannon realized that he thought of the 1000 sun metaphor before and as he considered why he would be thinking that . . . Lord Turnips awoke with a start as he realized that he left his tanning lamp on in his cabin of the Planetary Sovereign. Crikey! He was going to have some bad sunburn.

*Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits (1980) is the final chapter in the mega-adventure which includes T1-4 The Temple of Elemental Evil, A1-4 Scourge of the Slave Lords, G1-3 Against the Giants, D1-2 Descent Into the Depths of the Earth, and D3 Vault of the Drow.