Poesy: Hive

Today on when I came out of the library I heard Shay report that a group was fallen in QC. I tried to get fighter help, but no one was around so I headed in by myself. Not long after I'd entered Ruen SS'd me that she was nearby and could help. I met her by the entrance, then we heard that Topaz had chained the fallen out. Guess I was too slow. If I'd'a made it in by myself likely there would have just been one more body on Topaz's chain though. So long as they got rescued alls good.

Poesy: Brambleberry Beer

Soldi, day 35 of Summer, 549

Today at the Winds of Dawn clan meeting we had green beer! Brambleberry beer to be exact! Rather interesting... tasted a bit... fruity... but in a green way... and a little tart I think. Practically Wine! Mebbie I should start offerin' it ta those that are always sniffin about beer not bein' a proper drink.

I was a little late to the meeting, so I missed the keg, but Bob saved me a mug! (I have a feeling that Aerizith drank most of the keg... at least from the way that he managed to swill down half of the lagger I set out later at the meeting. ) It was Bob's keg too. He told us about how Patti Sprin had come to town and was trying out some new beer recipies. I guess he'd been praying for some green beer for some Sylvan day of significance, maybe that's why she started out with brambleberry beer rather than bark beer or uh... chigger beer? (Well, ye can make beer outta lotta stuff... I bet if th' chiggers were nae poisonous they'd make a redish beer with an interestin' kick! Heh.)

In other big clan news, also involving Bob , Bob the Archer and Dani Diuber are now married! I could wish they'd have let us throw them a party afterwards, even if they did want the ceremony to be private, but I'm heartily glad for the both of them. I have to wonder if he proposed over a keg o' Patti beer... nah, that'd be dwarf style!

Oh, and Bob doesn't have ta leave for several Puddleby years! We were pretty sad about that. Er, I mean his leaving, not his not leaving... er... Now we're happy 'cause Bob's still here!

After the meeting we had a nice short hunt in the snells around the entrance to Melabrion's Mines. I got a sketch of a nice fur Archemar skinned too.

On the way back I stopped in the brew house to see if I could make some brambleberry beer. Farhope came too, and tried her hand first. Sadly she discovered that she lacked sufficient training to make the brew. Since I'd recently finished learning all Bruia Stout was willing to teach me I figured I wouldn't have a problem. I'd got a few ingredients donated at the clan meeting and thought I had everything ready, but Patti Sprin told me (with some exasperation) that my barrel was empty, I'd forgotten the water! Luckily Farhope was still there and cheerfully exchanged her barrel of water for my empty one. Thanks Farhope! And then Patti let me use her mixin' tub and I had my cask of brambleberry beer. I think I'll save it for the next Winds of Dawn induction.

Poesy: Brew Master!

Fordi, day 19 of Summer, 549

Today I came out of the library to discover that I had finally trained enough with Bruia Stout to become a brew master!

Beer!

Poesy: Bard Auditions

Sombdi, day 68 of Spring, 549

Well this is awfully long in coming! I had so much to say that it took me a while to get it all down though. (That and I've been so busy I've hardly had a chance to come out of the library!) I want to remember everything about my Quester Audition though! Wow. It was one of the most exciting things that's happened since I was exiled.

Wheatstone and I showed up just as things were getting started. There were no Questers there to audition for full bard so all the full bards gave a concert for an hour. I think it would have been easier to audition if we hadn't heard all of their best music just before playing ours!

First Rakshasa played "Unstable Ether", on the harp, that was beautiful. While he was playing though... I thought I saw Perkusi... tip something from a flask into Maz's drink... I suppose she was just trying to mellow him out for the auditions. I admit I probably could have used a nip of that flask... My palms were feeling pretty sweaty.

Then Perkusi requested the Fish Song, but there seemed to be some differing opinions on that. Seems not all the exiles are as excited about the Fish Song as the Thooms are. /speak thoom Thweep!

Phineas followed that up with a hoe-down, very jiggy! He crowd surfed during it, although he had a bit of difficulty getting started, as Ledward Vicious tossed him off again the first time he tried. Hee.

Around then Rincewind declared the Winds of Dawn clan meeting moved to bards field to support clanmates.. And there were an awful lot of Winds of Dawn members at the auditions! Not all of them were there at the same time, especally since there was a group of WoDers fallen that needed rescuing, but there was always a good number of them throughout the whole audition. Wheatie an' I felt very blown up! /yell Whee! I'm Windy!

Then a bunch more bards played. Xel played something pretty, then Firebird played 'Hero's Forest', and Lundar played a childs song, 'Fyr So'zur Dreemi' that reminded me a little of a song I knew as a young dwarf... Who says Elves and Dwarfs don't share any cultural heritage?! Heh, I bet we all sang th' same nursery rhymes as a child, maybe with a couple o' different words.

And then everyone yelled at Polerand to get up onto the stage, even though he tried to insist he was only there as a neutral observer, and not a bard. Nice try. An people made lots o' really bad pole puns.. Heh. I will nae pain ye with them.

While Polerand was looking for his sheet music we finally got Ayella ta get on stage and play Wutold's 'Fish Song'! Yay! I'm not terribly fond of fish, (when Ayella doused us with Mackerel at the end of the song I gave all the ones that landed on me to Wheatstone), but it's very Thoomy, an' I do like Thooms!

After Ayella played Wutold's 'Fish Song' she thought she'd gotten off, but the rest o' th' bards made her play something she'd writen too. She played 'Ethereal Battle' on her conch, wow! I had no idea conchs sounded like that! It was so thrumy and vibralant and mysterious! I didn't realize you could play more than one note at a time on it either, I guess I must have only given it a cursory glance before, although even when it's only playing one note at a time it layers on itself so nicely that it sounds chorded... what a nice surprise!

Then Polerand got back up on stage... and played... for about 5 seconds! I blame Polerand! Sheesh. You'd think after all that he coulda played a real song!

Luckily after that fiasco we got to listen to a nice duet written by Ayella, 'Wandering Minstrel' played by Ayella on the Harp and Coriakin on the flute. Mmmm pretty, and relaxing... Then Coriakin played his 'Fugue-ey Thing' on his harp, with Wangah Rah on reed flute and Blue on his bone flute, very interesting, with plenty o' points and counterpoints, a whole arguement ta itself. I've been playing with writing some fugues too, but nothing nearly as complicated. Tha's what I get fer missing out on that whole formal training thing...

And finally then the Quester Auditions! Eep!!! Xepel offered to loan me his Violene, I'd asked when the auditions were first anounced if there would be one available, and been told no! A few days later Xepel said he had one he could loan me, but I'd already started re-writing my music for the harp... I was drawn ta th' violene and bagpipes at first as they're such traditional dwarfish instruments, but after being told there wouldna be a violene available at th' auditions I started re-examinin my motives and true inclinations. I decided that really, here in Puddleby anyway, the starbuck harp sounds better. Hrm. It's kinda embarassin fer me as a dwarf ta admit that fer some reason... So Xepel loaned me his harp instead. Thanks Xepel! He was also very patient with me as I fumbled to get the hang of it. I'm sure I would have been a little nervous if it was my instrument I was loaning ta me! Eventually I got my sheet music straightened out, so I could look at it and play the harp at the same time... I know I should have had it memorized, but I was so nervous! And I'd never held a real harp until Xepel loaned me his right before the audition! Oh but it was exciting!

Coriakin finished handing out instruments to the rest of the questers, and then Xepel played 'Lost Hope' "To all you questers out there.... ;)" What a terrible thing to say! And all the bards ran off to the bard tower to review the audition rules.

Ruen seemed pretty nervous, and I tried to make her feel better, I was sure she'd do fine. I was feeling pretty nervous too and glad to have so many of my clanmates around. I was sad so many of them were still fallen though, as Archemar said, "half clan here, other half scenery on MI."

Yuna came to the auditions too! Wheatie and I met her a zodiac or so ago, when she'd just gotten kicked off the boat and we showed her around a little. I'm surprised she wanted to come to our audition after Wheatie bored her so badly by trying to show her how to grow Kudzu... Silly Thoom.. I hope she had a better time at the auditions than growing kudzu! She seemed to anyway. Maybe she'll be auditioning next!

Not much was happening while the full bards were all off conversing, so I ran off into a corner to make sure I at least knew how to start playing all of my pieces. I was pretty nervous though! When I was practicing I couldn't even stand to play my pieces all the way through! Maybe I thought it was bad luck... Really I was just too jittery.

Then all the bards came back, and Cori played a tuborn charge and we were off! Cori told us to all shut up durrin th' auditions, and that each of our songs should have a title... oops! I hadn't really thought about titles...

And then he announced that Ruen was up first! I felt nervous for her. She was auditioning on the reed flute and played 'Yellow Butterflies', 'Misty Forest', 'Frolic', and '_____'s Gift'. I think I liked the last one the best, the melody was very nice, although the dynamics seemed a little extreme. Hmm, listinging to my vision stone though, my dynamics sound kindof overdone too though... Ah well. Maybe it's just the recording. I hope so anyway, I don't remember them sounding like that live. But then the blood was pounding so loudly in my ears at that point that I can't say for sure what anything sounded like!

After Ruen it was my turn to audition! Oh, I'm getting nervous again just remembering it! I played a tinkely song about Bawkmas with lots of bells and excitement, Hopeful Lament which is about a story my mom told me when I was a young dwarf (ok, even younger...), one that's completely untitled, well, I see I've scrawled 'Progress' on the scroll, but I don't really think that's the title... Then I played my drunken dwarf stomping song, and finally my younger dwarf dance. Woo! Oh it was fun. People seemed to like it too!

Writing music for this audition has been really interesting... When I started out I figured I'd try composing for one of the flutes, or another instrument that can only play a melody line. Now two Puddleby years later I've learned a lot about chord structure and harmony. Learned is probably a bit too strong a word... maybe really thought about and put into practice is a better description. Growing up I've always been surrounded by music, I've always sung. I'd never really thought about writing anything myself until now though. And wow it's been fun!

Next up Wheatie auditioned. I thought he had some very nice flute melodies. He even dedicated his 'A Spriggin's Run Off With Me Beer' song to me! What a nice Thoom.

Then Gluttony played his torjo with a fork! And all of his songs seemed to be about food... That's a halfling for you I guess... He played "The Muffin Lullaby", "Overeating", "Feed Me", and "Feed Me (Doughnut Delights)"... Very foody.

Ly'fender started out his audition with the intimidatingly titled piece "Theme and Variations in G". He spilled the sheet music all over the ground, but I still wouldn't have wanted to have to follow an act like that. Then he played "Battle Cry of the Lost Soldier", another amazing vibra piece. Next was "Dance of the Rat Catcher", and finally "Ride of the Cloaked Messenger." I think of all of us hopefulls Ly'fender was the best.

And then came the nerve wracking time when all of the full bards left the field again to talk about us and decide our future as bards! Ok, I was really more exhausted than nervous at that point, I'd done everything I could do, and really I thought things would come out fine.

Then one by one they started calling us in...

And we were all accepted! Yay! Now Wheatie and me can make beautiful music together... at least once we con Hendrux into making us instruments...