Writing and reading comprehension skills are very important to a knight. I mean, sure, you would think being a big, buff guy in armor, fighting evil doers, and rescuing damsels might be enough; however, being able to read and understand what you read, and write so your thoughts are conveyed in an intelligent and clear manner (even if no intelligent thought is taking place), are important knightly skills. After all, it becomes a read bother to everyone if a knight can't read and _understand_ the loot policy posted by the general.
It had been one of those perfect days, my dearest love, Sir Eyrk was exploring Thaxanos, and I was bar hopping along with him. I arrived back at the Keep fairly tipsy and was going through the list of new applicants and recruits to the Knighthood, and noted that one of the required writing portions of the GKEE (General Knighthood Evaluation Exam) was poorly writ and not well thought out. In addition to that it was also brief, dull, and unorignial.
Statistics currently show that over 86.4% of the incoming recruits are orphans. What this startling number means is that today's incoming knights have not had the love, care, support, and hours of proper discipline and holy education that one would expect of a young human noble.
Naturally, being ever open to suggestion on just about any issue, I turned to Sir Suradis to ask his opinion on whether or not we should demand better quality writing on the writing portion of the GKEE.
At which point I noticed he was asleep.
Now, I'm not the sort to go rat on a knight who has fallen asleep on his on duty hours; however, Sir Suradis' sleep disorder has some rather bad side effects that I know he tries to avoid. Mainly he tends to forget things, particuarlly about his true love, Taggett. Which I can imagine causes some very awkward moments the morning after.
This also would have bad repercussions for me, as I never really did memorize all the GKEE recruitment questions, and I commonly just ask Sir Suradis, as he's rather anal-retentive, as many holy knights are, and seems to have them all memorized. If he were to forget the recruitment requirements while he slept, I'd be doomed.
Naturally I did the first thing that came to my mind.
After screaming, I commenced poking, shaking and singing 'the Rooster Crows' to my sleeping comrade. I did manage to rouse Sir Hengst in all this, who sat about, looking very holy and wise as he's very good at doing, and watched my antics, not entirely certain as to why I was making a fuss.
After dumping a cup of cinnamon coffee on Suradis' head, Hengst's keen intellect started to work, or in his case, vork.
'Vat evil magic ist dis? Perhaps ve should try dispeling him.'
Sir Hengst is a great man. He's not the greatest of dispelers though.
After soundly beating Sir Suradis' helm, to no avail, Hengst tried laying on hands the sleeping knight.
Oohhhh baby, I wish he'd do that to me.
It might have been more effective too.
After Sir Suradis started glowing blue like an empowered weapon filled with holy energy, I started to relate to Hengst about my latest adventure with Sir Suradis, which involved him exorcizing a demon. As such things are tricky business, the holy paladin of Austinian quickly took to searching Suradis for any evil looking or tainted unholy paraphenaila. Going through his bags like a kender snitch, I came across a rather creepy old book filled with advice on demons, spirits, and other creatures from other planes of existence.
Now, demons and other evil things from the netherworld are rather exciting, yet this book was rather old and bland so I gave it to Sir Hengst to read as it seemed to be written in a style that he might appreciate more than I.
Thus I state again the importance of reading comprehension skills for knights.
Hengst decided that we should check for demon possession in Sir Suradis. Personally, if I was a demon, I would have held out for possessing his older brother, Sir Jhervais, but thats just me.
So Sir Hengst and I set out for demon possession detection equipment. After being attacked by the city guard, getting lost in No Man's land, digging up the jungle for new top soil, and being beset by pygmies, we finally returned to the keep with the necessary demon possession detection equipment.
Naturally Sir Suradis wasn't possessed, just souless.
'Dis vould be easier if it vere ein demon.' Stated Hengst, masterfully pointing out the obvious.
Now life in the bard guild is not just holy beer and games mind you. Our music puts us in touch with a deep inner power that flows through multiple planes of reality, a power that can summon the souls and powers of the ancients to obey our will.
In other words, after a few holy beers, if I sing real loud, I can 'Wake the Dead'.
Naturally, if Sir Suradis' soul was out walking, the other spirits on the spirit plane must know about it. So I asked my new spirit friend (who looked suspiciously like one of Ami's many former war horses) if he'd seen Sir Suradis' soul out about.
The spirit howled about some river in the netherworld, and someone called Louthe, and vanished, muttering something about 'in order to obey someone's will they have to have a will.'
Hengst looked these things up in the book about demons we had found, and got to a particularly interesting part about some plane called Louthe where souls were being eaten for breakfast. Apparently this plane also has a taste for eating books, as the book Sir Hengst was reading this rather important information from vanished without a trace.
This left us pretty much where we had begun. Me, slightly tipsy; Sir Hengst, with the holy energy to lay on hands again; and Sir Suradis' souless body sleeping on a pew in the altar room of the Keep. At a loss as to what to do next (besides get Hengst to lay on hands me) we decided we should call it a night, and leave a note on Suradis' body, as the General would probably be wondering what he is doing here in a magickly induced sleep, and not out smiting evil and doing good deeds like it says in his contract.
Sir Hengst's note explaining the condition of the sleeping knight left me wondering about one thing:
How is it that his accent seems to show up in his written missives?
I went to bed determined that no matter what happened to Sir Suradis' wayward soul, someone had to do something about the reading and writing skills of incoming knighthood recruits.