Living Ramana's Life - 1 - Waking Up in Nektaria

(( This thread here is a continuation of Ramana's life story which began on the Island of Thain:
Original background and Thain summary: Thain Bio,
Her first diary thread: Living Ramana's Life,
Continuing diary thread: Profitable and Unprofitable Ventures. ))



She hadn't found her cat yet, so she had no confidante to talk to in order to calm her nerves about suddenly being somewhere else. She'd met a nice gentleman named Ray, to whom she'd perhaps incautiously blurbed out the facts of her situation, the quandry of suddenly shadow-jumping from wherever she was to wherever she is now, and thank the gods that he'd been sympathetic and actually had had a similar experience. But she didn't know how much she could really confide in him, so she decided to start a journal to sort her thoughts and keep a record of her experiences.

So, she'd woken up in a bed in an inn, not in her own clothes, nor apparently with any of her previous gear. The Innkeeper said they'd found her unconscious nearby without a stitch on. From the lady's attitude, it seemed like maybe this kind of occurrence was not such a rare thing. The last thing Ramana remembered was being with her beloved Lord Kastian on an outing, when suddenly she felt that familiar feeling of transiting the Shadow Plane. Being halfway between the planes and fading in and out had been something she'd gradually gotten used to since the incident with getting that riftstone dust in that head injury. But something felt a little different this time --and there had been some signs of maybe some wild magick or something in that area they'd been exploring.

And she'd never jumped so far away-- it looked like she wasn't even on Toril anymore. This was most upsetting. She missed Kastian terribly. Funny how the Inn was called the Sleeping Dragon... it gave her some comfort to sit under its dragon statue as it made her feel connected to her beloved dragon lord. And where was Dae? She hoped her panther kitty was okay, and maybe the gods might bless her to deliver her to Ramana, after all, they had always seemed rather soul-bound. Ramana hoped that Dae wouldn't get hurt or in trouble. It would break her heart if some farmer took the overgrown housecat to be something dangerous getting into the chickens, and... Well, she couldn't even bear to think of it.

Well, no use for fretting over any of this, one just had to get on with dealing with it, and maybe someday she'd get back...

--- ( warning: quest spoilers ) ---


Ramana had started taking odd jobs to earn a little gold and a good reputation, and learn her way about. She didn't know the layout of the land yet in order to offer her previous profession of Wilderness Guide, so odd jobs it was. She wondered if she should post an advertisement on the posting board. She remembered the long bulleted list she'd settled on before, one that seemed comprehensively impressive of her various talents, but to a discriminating eye hinted at potentially even more skills that were not mentioned: Ramana Domefarar -- Ranger, Wilderness Guide -- Bow and Sword-arm Escort -- Scout, Tracker, Hunter-Finder -- Locksmith -- Discreet Courier and odd jobs -- Award-winning Dressmaker-Tailor.

But until she'd learned more about the paths and ways of this new universe --even the locks here seemed to have a slightly different kind of mechanism from those she was already familiar with-- she couldn't very well advertise herself as capable in such. What was a ranger that didn't know about the local environs? As for earning money with her other talents while she got up to speed, she hadn't even found a decent upscale brothel for earning gold through giving massages and other pleasure. She preferred working in a House rather than freelance for such a profession, it was much safer. Although she hadn't earned gold that way since before that incident that had changed her little runaway aristocrat girl's life, of being beaten nearly to death by a group of human sailors (while freelancing her services, thus doubly reinforcing why she'd never be without a secure environment and a guardian bouncer nearby, ever again, when playing with strangers), and then being rescued by her first love Megiltura (swordmaster) who turned her into a self-reliant ranger.

Since becoming a ranger she'd made gold and lived by her improved wits and skills, with a big bag of tricks and traps. Wilderness Guiding hadn't been all that profitable, but it had given her cover to pursue tomb-raiding in the name of exploration, that was usually very profitable, and she still found the exercise of her skills against the challenges and danger to be quite thrilling. The recent run through the goblin lairs to find that child was great fun, seeing a whole crowd of them fall down with a few well-placed traps, and taking care of the rest by a shot through the eye socket, or by artfully making their little heads roll in a spurt of blood, was better sport than lawn bowling. The nasty little creatures hadn't collected terribly good weapons and stuff, but a couple nice things made it worthwhile. And of course, the goodwill of the community obtained by rescuing that cluelessly incautious human child, it's a wonder the girl hadn't been eaten yet. The goblins were now on Ramana's permanent hit list for having had an elf's ear in their stewpot. And also fun and profitable, even though not quite as dangerous, was the occasional cat-burglary of some rich noble's mansion, who could afford to unknowingly contribute some excitement and pretty things to her. Her last residence had rather dried up for such opportunities in the one real city on the island --especially after that plague-- so she hoped that maybe here there might be some new fat pigeons to pluck. She had to learn the lay of the social landscape in the cities as well, so as to be careful and discreet, and not inadvertently burgle someone who might better be an ally.

So she'd made it to the city of Macedone, and found it to be a fairly interesting metropolis, moreso than the tiny boring farming villages that dotted the countryside. She'd found Ray's estate in the city, but when knocking on the door there hadn't seemed to be anyone home at the time, so she didn't use his key to get in. Instead she left a note in the mail slot, about working together to figure out how to transit the planes back to their respective origins, and each discreetly inquiring of any that seemed knowledgeable on such things.

It was surprising that she hadn't felt herself transiting the planes since she'd landed here in Nektaria. She wondered if she were cured of her malady, and her next thought was how inconvenient that might be, to not have that talent anymore.

Then she'd seen a note back on the posting board in the Sleeping Dragon that seemed to be code for finding the opportunists' guild in Macedone, so on her next visit to Macedone she went to find it. But so far, Ramana had only found a back-street fence, and in thorougly searching the city sewers over the space of a couple of days, had found nothing of interest there except some person muttering crazy dangerous things to an altar, whom she'd passed by quietly.

Then she'd met another kind person, this time she was approached by a mage in the Temple of Jewel where she'd been visiting to learn more about the gods of this new universe. It seemed that gods had limits to their domains, and her old gods didn't really have much influence here. So Ramana had settled on selecting two of the new pantheon of gods to negotiate with, Jewel and Gort, that seemed to have the same sphere of influence as her previous ones, Sharess and Fenmarel Mestarine the Lone Wolf. Jewel got top place, as Ramana was most emotionally solaced by the assurance of finding pleasure, beauty and gain of one sort or another, in every experience, even in this disconcerting change of residence, and Gort's care of lost souls seemed as dryly serious as the Lone Wolf's dispassionate care of the outcast. But she could never deny the need to have such a practically useful god as Gort on her side, too, and she still retained the Lone Wolf's credo of self-reliance, engrained into her by her first master. There was a god of rangers, Andra, but since Ramana was a ranger, survivalist, and master of traps and tricks only by necessity rather than by upbringing, philosophy, or disposition, she really didn't feel much affinity there. Sure, she liked Nature and all that, what Elf didn't, but she was just as good an urban ranger as a wilderness one. Always maintaining, insofar as possible, a carefully-cultivated neutrality among all factions, she didn't want to get involved in any save-the-wilderness movements and those kinds of altruistic and therefore unprofitable occupations. Besides, she wanted a god or gods that wouldn't interfere with the pursuit of her other less-public hobbies.

So, anyway, this mage, his name was Crideas, she met him in the Temple, and he was very friendly and chatty. Came to welcome her, he said, and Ramana had wondered how her presence had gotten so known, but then after a while she learned why every new "arrival" was special and taken note of. She had decided to ask the mage whether he knew much about planar travel, and the fellow was an expert so it seemed. He explained the whole situation to her, of how this world sucked in people from other planes. She was so relieved to get some answers, that she wound up telling him quite a bit about herself, about how she'd been Shadow Plane transitive and sensitive since the incident with the Illithids and the riftstone dust, about how she missed her cat Dae, and even about her special relationship with Lord Kastian. Crideas said that from what she'd told him about her cat and how it seemed rather linked to her, that it might be possible that Dae was pulled through also-- or that if she would seek the aid of Andra, the god of rangers and wildlife, then the god might give her the grace of bringing the cat to her. Ramana committed to go straightaway and find an altar to that god to open petitionary negotiations. As to Lord Kastian, Ramana had to give some thought about whether it was right to ask the gods to bring him here, as he would be trapped in this dimension just as she now was. Better would be, for Ramana to find her way back to the other dimension --even though unfortunately Crideas had said that no one who'd ever arrived had ever found a way out.

Crideas had also been quite generous, delving into the bottomless pockets of his mage robe while he relaxedly floated there in the air a foot off the ground, to pile her arms up with various collected odds and ends that he thought she might find useful. She'd immediately noticed the agility belt that she'd had her eye on in a shoppe. But looking through it all later, she was even more appreciative of his generosity for all the various items he'd dropped on her, as they would definitely add to her survivability. And there were two books, one on agility training and one on strength training, and she'd immediately set in to absorbing all she could from the first. Over the next week, she had progressed rapidly in the exercises of jumping between logs floating down a stream, and in a coin-manipulation trick that she was eager to show Crideas when she might see him again. It was good to pursue physical development again, she'd gotten complacent in her previous environs, but one had to stay quick and adaptable. And it was another pursuit to keep her mind occupied, rather than thinking about whom and what all she'd lost, maybe forever.

Crideas had even magically transported her to a couple of towns to find her a better bow and swords. The fellow was also quite fun, and as they conversed, about magic --which was supposedly something that Elves had in the blood but that Ramana hadn't been able to do all that much of without the help of scrolls and amulets, at least so far in her life, but she was after all still a child by Elven standards, so perhaps maybe she might grow into it-- he demonstrated some of his spells, one that put a trailing image of tentacles on her head that tickled. He said that he'd attuned to her now, or something like that, so that she could call him telepathically if she wanted to. That seemed a bit disconcerting to her at first, but as long as he wasn't going to be reading her mind she guessed that would be acceptable. The fellow seemed to be a quite powerful mage, and she wondered if she could learn more magic from him-- she made a note to ask him about it in the future. And he was apparently quite well-off too, which accounted for his effortless generosity, as she saw the evidence of his wealth a few days later when she came across his estate in one of the burgs she was passing through. She'd asked a local about a big cathedral that dominated that small town, and had been told that it wasn't a cathedral, it was the estate of Archmage Crideas Bane. It was always good to cultivate powerful friends.

She had eventually found an altar to Andra and had prayed to find her cat, but it hadn't happened yet. Ramana did seem to be very popular with the little local cats, though --and even with the rats-- and seemed to find herself with a following of them whenever she passed through any village. Which sometimes ended in a bloodbath when the rats didn't notice the cats because of focusing on her. Oh well, the order of Nature, survival of the most vigilant, and all that. But maybe she was starting to pick up that animal magnetism that rangers were supposed to be gifted with. Back on Toril, she hadn't been able to really commune with any animal except her panther kitty. She'd tried to calm the wild wolves, in honor of the Lone Wolf, but that was usually very short-lived, and had been somewhat of a risky pasttime, that didn't always end well for an uppity wolf. But she really didn't think it was her fault for not being able to reason with a stupid canine. Ramana found cats to be so much more of her own ilk. She wondered if Jewel liked cats as much as Sharess. Even rats were so much more clever, adaptable, and resourceful, and Ramana still proudly identified with the nickname an old opportunist friend had given her, Nyanelle (little rat).

Thinking of that, she thought of another name, her private Elven name that Kastian always loved to call her by, Mir (gem), and she missed hearing him call her "the best gem worth being owned by a dragon, that put all other jewels to shame". She missed him so much, and she felt very lonely, all alone in this new world. She wondered, that should this situation go on for a long time, if Kastian would blame her for finding solace in companionship here, until she might find her way back to her beloved dragon lord. Probably not, as Kastian was very understanding of her devotional nature, of her irresistably powerful innate need to be emotionally anchored to one who could encompass her and to surrender to that one in self-transcending devotional bliss. And if Kastian and she were lost to each other, it would not be long until the little girl inside Ramana instinctively gravitated to someone who could be her god.

But for now, she had to keep focused on establishing herself. Ramana had to keep it together, she had to be strong and self-reliant, and follow Jewel to whatever happiness was waiting for her here, in this strange new world.

It had been quite a while since Ramana had updated her journal. She had usually used her journal to scribe out her sorrows as a method of dealing with them, so when her cat Dae and then Lord Kastian had finally fallen through the planar rift to join her, she'd been so overjoyed that there had no longer been any unhappiness to write out of her head. Writing seemed more for when one was wishing things to be different than they were.

To catch up on her life preceding these happy events, she'd found her way to the Elven lands and had entered their service as a scout, spying on the hostile Orcs and nullifying the enemy's own advance scouting parties. In fact, she had very much wanted to be the in the Sylvan Realm all of the time, among the lovely environs and more refined society of her own race, but it was very out of the way, and not much happening in the small surviving Elven civilisation. Not even really a room for let, she always had to camp out when there. And no hot baths like her previous residence of the very civilised Elven city of Elisara-- the best hot bath was back in the Vale at the Conflagral Temple.

And along the way of pushing back the Orcs, she'd befriended a clan of Copper dragons in the Rift mountains who were much beleaguered by those same horrible genocidal creatures, and so she'd been helping them with withstanding the invasion. In gratitude and friendship and out of their need for their own race to survive, they had even entrusted her with several of their precious eggs so that she might help transplant their young away from the endangered ancestral nest to find them new safer territories, or homes with vetted good companions.

Then she'd still been helping out the guards at the Nektarian Crossroads with keeping that area free of bandits and their traps. Along with that and the tiresome job of killing about a thousand vampire bats and other pests, her efforts had paid off. By culling menaces, she had gained a public reputation throughout the countryside as a helpful ranger, and people she wasn't even acquainted with waved to her along the roads, expressing their gratitude for her helping to make their lands safer.

So her ranger skills and her familiarity with the land had grown, and also her shadow-jumping skill had returned and even stabilized under her control to a great extent, to where she wasn't prone to just fade out of the Material Plane randomly like before. In fact, this world seemed to have an especial suitability to her proclivity to travel by transiting the planes. It seemed that nearly every mage that she'd spoken with here made frequent use of teleport and transference spells, these being explained as slipping through the Astral Plane, seemingly in much the same way as she'd come to understand her own transit through the Shadow Plane. It seemed that because of the instability of the resident planar rift, the planar intersections and transitions here were quite slippery, indeed.

She'd questioned everyone she could on the planar rift in Nektaria, still seeking an answer to how one might leave this world again, and she'd found quite a few who had made studies of the phenonmenon. She'd learned quite a lot about the planes, and was beginning to think that travel from this world just might be possible. Although the only potential obstacle was that it would likely require the skills of a mage to do so. And not just that, but it might need for the advanced skills of a mage to be in the body of the one transporting. And though she had always hoped that her race's innate ability with magic might activate in her blood eventually, she didn't foresee herself becoming a mage anytime soon. She'd studied spell scrolls and magic tomes for many years, but still had only enough aptitude in it to cast a couple of memorized natural magic spells. As for the arcane, she didn't know how she could sometimes somehow persuade or charm the words off of a few simple scrolls, but it felt more like cheating than casting.

So she had been keeping busy with establishing herself in this new land as a ranger and also keeping her eyes open for opportunities, all the while praying to be reunited with her Lord Kastian and with her panther friend Dae, either by returning to her previous world, or in this world. Acting on the archmage's advice, Ramana had prayed religiously to all the local gods that she thought might be amenable to helping her get her beloved cat --to Andra, Jewel, Gort, and Lysis, too. She wondered what more she could offer the gods to negotiate for Dae's transport, but as much as she worried over it, she couldn't think of what more to do. She took care to be kind to the woodland animals, and also avoid getting them killed whenever they came to her aid in combats, trying to please Andra. And she hoped that Jewel might like cats as much as Sharess had, and see that the world would be a more beautiful place if the two companions were reunited. Or maybe Gort might enable the planar travel for either of them to reunite with the other. Or maybe Lysis might just shower some luck on the situation. But weeks had gone by with no apparent results, and Ramana could only keep on keeping busy trying to not think much about how much she missed Dae, and her beloved lord Kastian as well.

Then one day she had gone to Magia Correllon's glade to use the portal, and to her great surprise and pleasure, the Elven magess was looking after a panther, that was her beloved Dae! Apparently right after having fallen into this world, the cat, with her good nose and good sense, had sought out the first Elf available, in order to find protection from unpredictable humans and other dangerous creatures.

Ramana had been so happy and so grateful, that she gave prayers of praise and offerings of gold to all the gods that she'd been petitioning, as she wasn't certain which might have been responsible for delivering Dae to her. With her kitty back with her, Ramana didn't feel quite so entirely alone anymore.

After that, the only thing she could think about was of being reunited with Lord Kastian, the only thing that would make her life totally complete. She'd been so uncertain whether she should be praying or even wishing for him to find her and so become entrapped in this world just as she now was. But it wasn't very long after her reunion with Dae, that she did find her beloved Lord Kastian, just sitting in the Sleeping Dragon Inn! He had finally fallen through from the same area from whence she had. He related to her how after she had disappeared on their outing, he had never stopped searching for her, and had returned to that area again and again to search for her. He poured his heart out to her, and spoke of how he had realized that he truly loved her, that she was not a mere dragon lord's possession, gem, or pet, but she was his heart-beloved, his companion, his mate. This reunion was the happiest moment of her life, and her heart was liberated from all those feelings of loss that she had endured.

She related to him how she'd been making her way in this new world, and was eager to provide all that he needed to help him settle in also. She now had her lord back, and her heart that had always been happiest in serving him was again joyfully surrendered in devotion, and blissfully at peace. He agreed that it didn't matter where they were, as long as they had each other. They set out to make their way in this new world, and even spoke of finding a place where they might build their dragon aerie. Life was perfect now.

OOC: A very nice read Ramana. I look forward to the next installment.