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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 8325740" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 10: DEATHBEDPC Roster:  Alewyth Putterpye, dwarf priestess of Aerik 2             Thurloe Pulver, human fighter 2             Wakuren, half-orc cleric of Cal 1/paladin 1             Xandro Silverstrings, human bard 2             Zander Quilson, elf sorcerer 2Game Session Date: 26 June 2021 - - -The sun had set over an hour, perhaps even closer to two, before Alewyth pulled the mule-driven wagon into the village of Potter's Creek.  Somewhere in this small village, she knew, they would find the next person who had been trapped in their dreams, unable to escape without help.  But that would likely have to wait until morning, for this looked to be a small farming village and there probably wouldn't be a whole lot of people up and about to ask if there were anybody around the area needing the special kind of assistance only a dreamwalker could provide.So the best course of action would be to head for the nearest inn or tavern, for in such a building would they not only find the most likely source of information about the location of any trapped dreamers, but also some overnight lodging.  Alewyth's darkvision allowed her to see fine even in the dark of the cloudy night and she spotted a sign ahead above the door to a sturdy wooden building.  "'Smokey Joe's Tavern,'" she read to the others.  "Looks like we found our rooms for the night.""If they still have any," grumbled Thurloe.  He'd been all for making camp an hour back, even if it meant sleeping in the back of the wagon again; he didn't much like riding by moonlight, where the everburning torch Zander Quilson held for the benefit of the horses and mules made them a target for any bandits who might be lying in wait.  But Alewyth had held firm, certain the directions given to them by the Queen of Dreams herself would get them to Potter's Creek and a decent bed for the night.  The dwarven priestess didn't mind roughing it now and again, but she'd had far too many days sleeping in the back of the wagon and wanted the comforts an inn or tavern could provide.  Plus, in an inn you didn't need to set a watch all night; you could lock your doors and sleep in relative safety and comfort."We'll find out soon enough," Alewyth replied cheerily, refusing to succumb to the fighter's grumpy mood.  She steered the mules, Wakuren's Perseverance and her own Mica, to a halt before the building and leaped down from the driver's seat, Wakuren stepping down beside her."Stables across the road," pointed out Zander Quilson.  "We can probably keep our wagon there overnight as well."For now, Thurloe stayed with the horses while the others stepped inside and made their inquiries.  Alewyth was pleased to learn there were three rooms still available, two doubles and a single.  "Well take them," she said, calling dibs on the single room as was only fitting for the sole female member of their little troop.  She passed over the payment from a small pouch of coins at her belt; the rest of their money was stored in a large chest out in the wagon, the main reason Thurloe had opted to stay behind and keep an eye on it.  It was hidden beneath a woolen blanket, but it was much better to be safe than to be sorry in the fighter's estimation."I'll bunk with Wakuren," Zander decided, leaving Xandro stuck with the grumpy Thurloe for the evening.  Xandro said nothing about the sleeping arrangements, for his focus was centered on the man playing the lute in the corner of the tavern.  It seemed Xandro had been beaten out this evening, for he often picked up some spare coin providing entertainment in the inns and taverns where they stayed during their travels.  But Xandro wasn't overly disappointed, for the bard - a human looking to have seen forty summers or more - was quite good.  Right now he was playing a wordless melody while the few customers drank their ales at the bar or dined upon the evening's fares at one of the long tables."You come with me to see about the wagon and mounts," Wakuren said to Zander, nodding him back outside.  The two of them and Thurloe made arrangements for the overnight care of their mounts and the owner of the stables agreed to let them keep their wagon off to the side of the stables.  Once that had all been taken care of, Wakuren hoisted the chest up onto a burly shoulder and activated his ring of invisibility, both he and his heavy burden fading from view.  "Let's go," he said to Zander.  "You open the doors for me - I don't want anybody seeing this chest going inside to our room."Once everyone had gotten settled into their rooms, they all agreed to meet in the common area and see about some dinner.  There were three barmaids tending to the customers' needs and they brought out a thick venison stew and some hard rolls.  While the others sat at one of the few tables for four, Thurloe went across the room and sat down at a long table and bench, next to a good-looking woman with flowing blond hair.  He introduced himself and asked if she minded if he sat there; she waved him to the bench beside her, giving her name as Valoria Costernackle.  She was just passing through town on her way to visit a cousin, several villages to the east.  Thurloe had hoped she might have been a local, for he had wanted to ask her about any potential sleep victims in the area, but now that he was seated here beside her he decided it would be rude of him to leave.  So he started plying her with his best stories of his exploits, hoping to impress her.  She smiled at his tales but seemed rather distracted, her eyes darting away from the young fighter.  With a frown, Thurloe realized she kept looking over at the bard in the corner.Turning to see what all the fuss was about, he looked at the bard playing the lute.  Okay, so he was a fairly good-looking sort, with a dashing mustache and a goatee that came to a point, and he had a nice singing voice - for he had now started upon a popular ballad about the far-reaching love between a princess and a commoner from the next kingdom over - but dang it, Thurloe was a fairly good-looking sort as well, even if his face was shaved smooth and he couldn't sing worth a darn.  With a sigh, he realized any hopes he might have had at any dalliance with Valoria were unlikely to materialize.  Instead, he dipped his fingers into his bowl of stew, pulled out a decent-sized chunk of venison, blew on it to cool it off, and whistled for the dog sitting by the fire along the eastern wall, on the other side of a suit of full plate armor on display.  The dog trotted over and accepted the treat with a wag of its tail.  Thurloe noticed the dog had several scars on its muzzle; it had seen some combat of its own in previous years.  He gave it a good scratch behind the ears."His name's Devil," supplied the tavernkeeper, a grizzled old sort who introduced himself as the eponymous Smokey Joe.  "We been together since my own adventurin' days, but that's a younger man's game.  Now runnin' this tavern's all the adventure we need, ain't that right, boy?"Taking advantage of a conversation with the man most likely to know about the local inhabitants, Thurloe asked him if he knew of anybody who'd been stuck asleep for any amount of time.  Smokey Joe scratched his balding head, moved his cigar from one side of his mouth to another, and shook his head.  "Stuck asleep?  Naw, I haven't heard nothin' like that.  Closest I can figure is the old Widow Greene - she been taken to bed for some months now, but then she's gettin' on in age.  Her niece looks after her, so I hear."  Thurloe asked how to find the Widow Green's house and was given directions.Wakuren was giving the common area a good look-over as well, but in his case he was focusing upon the auras of the people around him.  The bard playing the lute in the corner seemed a decent sort, as did the woman seated by Thurloe and the few late-night visitors to the bar, engaged in drinking and tale-telling.  The tavernkeeper's aura was a bit dark, though, as if evil wasn't anything with which he was unfamiliar; the half-orc vowed to keep an eye on him.  Having been raised in the temple of Cal in Port Duralia, Wakuren knew that simply detecting the presence of evil in a person's aura didn't give one the right to accuse that person of anything, but it was a good indicator of who you might not want to turn your back upon.Alewyth chatted up the barmaid who brought them their food and drink and got pretty much the same answer Thurloe had received: she wasn't aware of anyone stuck in their dreams, but she did know that Lavinia Greene's elderly aunt, Hortence Greene, had been bedridden for some time now.  That seemed like their best bet, so Alewyth vowed to track down this Hortence Greene in the morning and got directions to her house.Xandro excused himself when the lute player took a break and grabbed a glass of mead.  He went over and introduced himself, shaking hands with the man who gave Scandolucio as his name.  He was a traveling bard, much like Xandro had been before being trained as a dreamwalker and sent across the continent to rescue those who couldn't escape from their own dreams.  "That's a marvelous instrument," he said, looking at the lute Scandolucio had been playing."This," said the older bard, pulling the lute's strap from over his shoulder and passing it over to Xandro, "is the Dardolian lute.  Elven make, several centuries old.  Magic woven right into its wood, or so the legends say; I've been working for years plucking at some of its hidden abilities and figuring out how to make them work."  Xandro gave the strings a few strums, closing his eyes and listening to the perfect tuning each had received.  He handed the instrument back to Scandolucio wistfully."I've been enjoying your performance," Xandro said."That's good to hear - it's the only reason I perform in the first place," Scandolucio replied.  "Well, that and the occasional free room and board.  And the odd fringe benefit now and again," he added with a slight smirk, making eye contact with the good-looking blonde wearing the travel cloak, sitting by some goof feeding a dog.  They chatted a bit longer, Xandro learning the older bard had also just gotten in that afternoon; he planned on staying a few more days in Potter's Creek before moving on.Xandro returned to the table and finished his stew when Scandolucio's break was over and he resumed his music.  But eventually the set was over, the food had been polished off, and it was time to hit the sack.  The five heroes said their goodnights and wandered off to their rooms.Alewyth removed her armor, set her warhammers by her backpack, and sat on the edge of her bed saying her bedtime prayers to Aerik, God of Protection and Earth.  She asked Him to look over their little band and to keep them safe in their travels.  Then she set her head down upon the comfortable pillow and was fast asleep."Are you seriously going to sleep in your armor?" Xandro asked Thurloe, who had laid down upon his bed holding his bastard sword in a two-handed grip, the blade's scabbarded tip between his still-booted feet.  He looked, the bard decided, like the ornamental carving one found on the stone coffins of rich warriors.  "That can't be comfortable.""You know what else isn't comfortable?  Getting stabbed in your sleep because you decided comfort was more important than protection," Thurloe retorted."You really need that much protection?  In a room with only one entrance, that locks from the inside?""You get as comfortable as you like.  I prefer not slipping into bad habits, that's all."  And with that, Thurloe closed his eyes and refused further conversation, determined to go to sleep with armor on and his weapon at the ready.  Xandro shrugged, slipped off his own armor, got himself nice and comfortable and blew out the candle on the nightstand beside him.In the room between Alewyth and the other two men, Wakuren had likewise removed his armor and crawled into bed.  Zander sat on his own bed, his back against the wall, and closed his eyes.  Elves often slept fully and in such cases usually laid down when doing so, but every once in awhile they preferred entering a reverie, where they could sort through their memories and put them into some sort of order.  Wakuren mentally shrugged and went to sleep.All was quiet in the tavern until the screaming began.  Xandro awoke at once, sitting upright in the dark of his room.  The snores coming from Thurloe's bed told the bard the fighter hadn't heard anything, so he shook him awake.  The next door over, both Zander and Wakuren snapped out of their own night training (all five had been put to work practicing finding specific dreams inside the endless hallways of dreams).  Wakuren grabbed up his shield while Zander buckled his belt with the dagger sheaths around his waist, over his robes.  One room further down, Alewyth was asleep by herself when she found her consciousness all alone in the hallways of dreams, where only a moment ago her four fellow dreamwalkers had been beside her.  She knew what that meant, though - something had awakened them and it was probably in her own best interests to wake up immediately as well.  Putting to use the training she'd practiced for weeks now, she did just that, found herself back in her room, and grabbed up the first warhammer at hand, not wanting to waste time bothering with her armor.Zander opened the door, stepped into the hall, and pulled a jade figurine from his pocket.  There was a narrow window above the door at the far end, which the elf knew led outdoors to the two outhouses and could only be opened from the outside with one of the room keys.  As expected, the door was closed and didn't look to have been disturbed.  But the screams were coming from that direction, at the far eastern end of the hallway.  Zander dropped his figurine on the floor before him and the canine carving grew in size, becoming a full-size, living cooshee.  The elven dog looked ready and eager for action, its pointed ears erect at the sounds of the screams ahead.Behind the elf, the door to Thurloe and Xandro's room opened and the fighter stepped into the hallway, fully armored and lighting a torch the better to see by.  Wakuren entered the hallway behind Zander and immediately faded from view, activating his ring of invisibility.  He passed by Thurloe and Xandro's room and tried the door at the end, the door to Room 5, where it sounded like the screaming was coming from.  But the door was locked.Xandro had taken the time to gear up if not don his armor; he had his lute and crossbow over his back, his quiver of bolts at one hip and his rapier belted at the other.  He pounded on Alewyth's door as he passed, just in time for it to open up and the priestess join their hallway procession.  "We know what's going on?" she asked."Door at the end," was all Xandro could offer her.  But that was all Alewyth needed to know; skirting past the others, she brought the head of her old warhammer crashing into the wooden door, near the knob.  The wood splintered but the door still held firm.  Behind her, Zander stiffened: among the screams - which definitely seemed feminine, and filled with pain and terror - he thought he could hear crunching sounds and a masculine moan."Go get Smokey Joe!" Thurloe called to Zander, pointing to the door at the other end of the hall, where the tavern owner slept in a room with his dog.  While the elf hurried to comply, Thurloe tried opening the door to Room 4 and the knob turned without hesitation; from the light of his torch the fighter could see it was unoccupied, the bed not having been slept in.  Leaning against one wall was a backpack, though, and the Dardolian lute sat perched on the middle of the small wooden table within the room.  This, then, was Scandolucio's room.The elven cooshee sat crouched on his haunches, head aimed at the door to Room 5.  Thurloe readied an arrow, its head also pointed in the same direction, as Wakuren shouldered the door open and spilled inside, still invisible.  He gasped at what his darkvision let him see of the room inside.There were two figures on the bed, although in the bed was probably more accurate, for only Valoria's top half still emerged from the bed, while a pair of hairy legs and arms were all that could be seen of the other figure.  Blood stained the sheets and blanket on the bed...which Wakuren was surprised to see had somehow sprouted teeth and was using to try to chew up the two people caught inside its body-wide mouth.  A word popped into Wakuren's mind: mimic, a creature capable of changing its shape into any of a number of innocuous shapes, a bed apparently one of them.  But how in the name of Cal did a mimic get inside the tavern? the half-orc wondered.Wakuren didn't let his puzzlement slow him down, however.  Dashing forward, he grabbed Valoria by the shoulders and pulled, the body of the man beneath her preventing the mimic's teeth from getting too much of a purchase on her.  That's what happens when you chew with your mouth full, Wakuren thought to himself as he dropped Valoria over a shoulder and started backing out of the room, his first thought getting the young woman to safety.Xandro stepped into the room beside what he assumed was an invisible Wakuren - it was the only explanation the bard could come up with as to why there was a naked woman floating, bent over, through the air - and stabbed the tip of his rapier at the "bed" that was busy chewing up another body.  The mimic didn't particularly like that and sent a hastily-formed, sticky pseudopod slamming into the bard, pulling him forward to be crushed against the mimic's body.Alewyth then stepped beside the bard, her warhammer crashing down upon the mimic as it pulled the naked man further into its gullet.  Her hammer almost got stuck in the  mimic's adhesive, but she gave it a good tug and it pulled away.Zander, in the meantime, was pounding on the closed and locked door to Smokey Joe's quarters.  "Something's going on in the room at the end of the hall!" he shouted through the wooden door."Probably just somebody havin' a bad dream," Smokey Joe's voice came from the closed door.  "Not my problem.  I ain't responsible for people's dreams.  Just leave 'em alone and they usually go back to sleep soon enough, that's my advice."  But Smokey Joe was sweating at the fact that the five overnight adventurers were apparently all awake and investigating the mimic in Room 5, and just how was he going to explain that?  He'd assigned Valoria Costernackle to Room 5 because she was just passing through and her garments said she was fairly well to do; likely she'd have some cash or jewelry on her and she likely wouldn't be missed.  And he could always claim she'd taken off early the next morning if anyone here asked about her.  But somehow these adventurers were now in the thick of it, and that wouldn't do at all.  With nervous fingers, Smokey Joe grabbed the amulet he wore around his neck and summoned the dread guard he kept out in the common area, where everyone just assumed it was a suit of decorative armor.  Upon hearing the mental summons from its master, the dread guard sprang to a semblance of life and started clomping its way through the dining hall, heading for the residential quarter of the tavern.Back in Room 5, the cooshee had entered the room and bitten the edge of the blanket hanging over the bed, pulling on it as if trying to remove it from the structure.  But as bed and blanket were both part of the same living creature, the cooshee's efforts were for naught.  Thurloe shot another arrow at the mimic, missing again; the arrow stuck into the back wall above the ersatz bed.Wakuren opened the side door and dropped Valoria to the ground.  He examined her wounds briefly, coming to the conclusion they were mostly superficial; apparently the mimic couldn't do too much damage to her with a mouthful of 40-year-old bard already taking up space.  He cast a quick healing spell on her and suggested she go wait in one of the outhouses, out of harm's way.  Valoria hastily agreed to the idea, slamming the outhouse door behind her and latching it into place.Xandro struggled to pull himself away from the mimic's embrace, but the adhesive was too strong and the pseudopod had too strong of a grip upon him.  In response to the bard's struggles the mimic tightened his grip even further, expelling the breath further out of Xandro, to the point it was getting difficult to get in a decent breath.  Black dots started forming along the edges of Xandro's vision - that couldn't be good!Alewyth swung again at the mimic, striking a solid blow with her warhammer and pulling it back before it could get enmeshed in the creature's sticky adhesive coating.  And down at the opposite end of the hallway, Zander gave up trying to convince Smokey Joe to come check on his guests and returned back to where the action was happening.  He cast a mage armor spell upon himself for good measure as he did so.The cooshee kept his teeth clamped on the "blanket" in his jaws and scratched the mimic's surface with its front claws.  It was getting crowded in the room, so Thurloe pulled back rather than risk hitting one of his friends with his next arrow.  Instead, he headed down the hallway and aimed his arrow at the door to Smokey Joe's room, for the fighter had at this point figured out the tavernkeeper had to be complicit in the mimic's attacks.  As soon as Smokey Joe made an appearance in his doorway, Thurloe intended to send an arrow shooting at his center of mass.Wakuren stepped back into the hallway and from there into Room 5.  It was too crowded to be able to be able to do much in the way of fighting the mimic, but he could easily reach out and touch Xandro, so he did just that - sending Cal's healing energy into the beleaguered bard through a cure light wounds spell.  If he couldn't help kill the mimic, he could at least prevent Xandro from being its next victim!  With renewed energy from the burst of healing, Xandro tried pulling himself away from the mimic, but he seemed to be stuck fast.  And by now the beast had completely swallowed up Scandolucio, so his mouth was empty enough for the next victim in line; Xandro only hoped the first meal had put off the mimic's appetite for any additional food for some time.The mimic didn't try biting Xandro, which was a definite plus in the bard's view, but it continued squeezing him, apparently trying to at least kill him and perhaps set him aside as a future meal.  Alewyth attacked again with her warhammer, this time not pulling it away in time - it was stuck fast!  Snarling at her misfortune, she realized her other warhammer, Sjondra, was still back in her room.  But by that point Zander had made it back as far as the doorway to Room 5 and was able to cast a magic missile spell directly at the mimic, despite the other combatants there in the room between him and his target.  That was the good thing about the magic missile spell, the elf decided: you just had to be able to see even a portion of your target for you to be able to strike true.The cooshee continued biting and clawing at the mimic, dealing enough damage to have pierced the beast's flesh in several places, assuming the blood dripping down wasn't Scandolucio's.  Wakuren grabbed Xandro at the shoulder and tugged with all of his might, but even the half-orc's strength wasn't up to the challenge of freeing the bard from the mimic's embrace.  As if finally realizing the futility of trying to escape from a creature much larger and stronger than himself, Xandro suddenly switched tactics altogether.  He got the tip of his rapier aimed directly at the core of the mimic's body (still more or less in the semblance of a bed), and leaned into it.  If he couldn't pull away from the mimic, he'd put all of his strength and effort into pushing toward the mimic as far as he could - with the point of his rapier leading the way!Alewyth tried futilely to pull her warhammer free of the mimic, but it just wasn't going to happen.  She gave it one final tug and when that didn't do anything she gave up the effort as a waste of her time.  Instead, she cast a cure light wounds spell on Xandro, who was continuously getting crushed by the mimic's pseudopod.  Another magic missile spell went crashing into the mimic and for the first time Zander felt they had a decent shot of slaying the shapeshifting beast before it killed Xandro.  Hopefully, once it was dead it would be much easier extracting the bard - and Alewyth's warhammer - from the fake bed.But then the door opened at the end of the hallway - not Smokey Joe's door, but the one leading out to the bar area.  Into the hallway stepped the suit of armor that had been on display by the fireplace earlier that night.  It turned the corner and started walking at its unhurried pace down the hallway.  Thurloe released the bowstring of his composite longbow, sending the arrow flying down the hallway to strike the dread guard's armored chest, for he had seen the animated armor draw the sword from the scabbard at its hip and knew it had been sent here to slay those who had witnessed the mimic scam.Zander cast yet another magic missile spell at the mimic as the cooshee, perhaps sensing the creature's imminent demise, pulled back from the room and ran down the hallway toward the dread guard, whose pace had not slowed after having been shot by Thurloe's arrow.  Wakuren cast another healing spell on Xandro, who was putting his full weight onto his rapier, slowly stabbing it deeper into the mimic's bulk.  In desperation, the mimic formed another pseudopod and slammed it into Wakuren, sticking to the half-orc and pulling him in tighter for a crushing embrace - and away from Xandro, so he couldn't keep supplying him with healing energy.  It might be necessary to kill the half-orc before it could kill the bard, although by this point the mimic was up against far more than it could eat at one sitting; it would have to have the tavernkeeper hide the bodies somewhere before the mimic could dispose of all of them.Wakuren let out a grunt of pain as the mimic's crushing embrace forced the air from his lungs and his ribs started to feel like they were beginning to crack.  Alewyth, unable to free her warhammer, followed Wakuren's previous strategy and cast a cure light wounds spell on the half-orc, keeping him alive enough he'd hopefully be able to cast his own spells upon himself while the dwarven priestess of Aerik moved over to take over "keep Xandro alive" duties.  Behind her, Zander cast another magic missile spell at the mimic, slowly but surely inching it forward to its eventual demise.The dread guard kept moving forward and attacked the closest enemy at hand - which turned out to be Zander's elven dog, the as-yet-unnamed cooshee.  It let out a yelp of pain as the construct's longsword cut a gash across its fur-covered back.  Thurloe got in one last shot at the dread guard before dropping his composite longbow in the hallway and advancing, pulling his enchanted bastard sword Spellslicer from his back.With a roar of defiance, Wakuren broke free from the mimic's adhesive embrace and then - seeing the mimic just about dead by this point - backed away from the room, activating his ring and running invisibly past Thurloe and into his own quarters in Room 2.  He hoped to let the dread guard pass by his doorway and then he'd be able to attack the construct from behind, hopefully catching him in a pincer maneuver with Thurloe and the cooshee.Xandro continued leaning into his rapier, stabbing it deeper into the mimic's flesh.  At last it realized this was a fight it could not win and it did something it didn't do very often: it spoke, in a deep, halting voice:  "Stop.  No fight.  Release you."  Xandro found himself no longer sticking to the mimic's pseudopod and pulled himself and his rapier away from the shapeshifting monstrosity.  It also spit out Alewyth's warhammer and the dwarf stepped forward to grab it.  "Go now," the mimic suggested."Got one wee thing to do first," Alewyth replied, bringing the warhammer swinging up over her head to crash down into the center of the mimic's mass, breaking off a tooth or two in the process.  It was as she had suspected: the mimic's sudden willingness to let them all go was prefaced by its nearness to death - and the dwarven priestess was more than happy to push it over the edge into whatever waited beyond.  The mimic died instantly, its faux-bed form losing cohesiveness upon its death, slowly flowing outwards as if melting into a featureless, sticky mass of goo."You okay?" Alewyth asked Xandro and he nodded in the affirmative, too winded from being crushed to catch his breath.  "Then let's go!" the dwarf replied, running back into the hallway to see what the others had been fighting, for she'd heard the unmistakable sounds of combat coming from the hallway behind her.  Xandro followed.The dread guard swung its longsword at the cooshee again but this time the dog backed off in time, barking furiously at the animated enemy.  But it had continued advancing down the hallway as it attacked, and now Wakuren popped back into view as he brought the bottom edge of his shield crashing into the dread guard's lower back.  He caused the magical construct to lurch forward and almost lose its footing, only to be struck by Thurloe's sword in a sideways swing to the chest.  As it tried swinging its sword at the fighter in return, the cooshee darted back in underfoot and set the dread guard toppling backwards in the hallway, where Wakuren crushed the front of its helmet with his shield and Thurloe stabbed down into its chest plate, piercing the armor.  Together, this assortment of attacks caused whatever magical powers were animating the armor to dissipate away and it lay unmoving on the hallway floor, the longsword dropped from its gauntleted hand.With nobody visible to fight anymore, Thurloe and Zander made a dash for it down opposite ends of the hall.  The elven sorcerer dashed out the exit door into the crisp night air, heading over to the outhouse to make sure Valoria was still okay.  "I'm fine," she reassured the elf, "but could you bring me my clothes?"  Zander returned to her room to grab up what he could find.Thurloe, in the meantime, sped through the open doorway to the bar area, verified it too was empty of enemies, and spun about, ready to attack Smokey Joe when he exited his bedroom - for in the young fighter's mind the tavernkeeper had to be the one behind all of these attacks.Wakuren took a more direct approach.  Stepping up to the tavernkeeper's door, he knocked politely.  "Smokey Joe?" he called.  "We've slain your mimic ally and destroyed your animated armor.  Would you care to come out here and explain yourself?"There was a moment's hesitation before Smokey Joe answered.  "Mimic?  What mimic?  I dunno what you mean - I don't got no mimic.  And if you're talking about that armor over by the fireplace, it don't move!  Unless maybe there's an invisible wizard mucking about with us!  Yeah - that's probably it!  An invisible wizard!""Very well!" Thurloe called out.  "Then we'll just have to spike closed all of the doors to this tavern and burn it to the ground!"While all of this shouting back and forth was going on, Xandro decided to check out Room 4.  It was unlocked, and sure enough, there against the wall was Scandolucio's traveling pack but more importantly, lying upon the wooden table was the Dardolian lute.  Xandro picked it up tentatively, realizing its excellent craftsmanship marked it as a masterwork instrument - even magical, if what the elder bard had said was true.  He put the strap around his shoulder, held it in place, and began strumming the strings with his fingers, beginning the song of courageous inspiration.Alewyth returned to her room as well and grabbed up Sjondra, stuffing the pieces of her armor into her own pack - it sounded like that fool Thurloe was planning on burning this place down and she didn't put it past him to set it on fire before they had a chance to talk him down.Wakuren was still holding a conversation with Smokey Joe.  "If you choose not to open this door and come talk with us, then I'm afraid I'll have no choice but to smash down the door and drag you out," he warned the tavernkeeper."No, no need for that," Smokey Joe's voice came from inside.  "Hang on, I'm coming out!"  By this time Smokey Joe had gotten his old adventuring gear on, the studded leather armor a lot tighter than it used to be back when he was a full-time adventurer, many years ago - back when he still had a full head of hair.  He made a point of noisily putting the key into the lock and twisting it, then swung open the door and falling back, his short sword in hand as he called out, "Kill them, Devil!"Devil had been well trained by his master.  He leaped forward, biting down on Wakuren's leg and nearly bringing the half-orc crashing to the floor.  But just as quickly the cooshee darted forward, snapping at the guard dog without having even been instructed to do so, for Zander was outside handing Valoria her clothes through the outhouse door.  Thurloe finished off the dog with a powerful downward stroke of his bastard sword, wistfully recalling that a scant hour or more ago he'd been feeding this same dog scraps of venison from his bowl of stew.  Then, a fierce scowl on his face, he stepped through the doorway to Smokey Joe's bedroom, looking for blood.Wakuren followed Thurloe into the bedroom, swinging around the tavernkeeper and dodging a strike from his short sword as he did so.  The blade glanced off Wakuren's shield, and then he struck that shield smartly into Smokey Joe's face, breaking his nose in the process.  Behind him in the hallway, the sounds of Xandro's tune continued, the bard doing what he could to aid his friends in their fight against the true evil in this tavern.  Alewyth exited her own room and went to see what this latest commotion was all about.Seeing Wakuren held no weapon, Smokey Joe assessed Thurloe as his biggest threat and tried to take him down fast.  But the years had not been kind to Smokey Joe, nor had the smelly cigars he habitually smoked, and the much younger fighter had no trouble avoiding the older man's slow stab forward.  But the tavernkeeper was focusing on Thurloe while trying to keep Wakuren in his field of vision, and thus missed seeing the cooshee dart forward around Thurloe's feet and snap at Smokey Joe's ankle.  He fell to the floor with a crash, knocking his head against the side of the hard wooden bed on the way down.  It was no trouble at all for the heroes to overpower the overweight man and truss him up with rope fetched from Thurloe's pack."Now then," Thurloe began, sticking his snarling face into that of his overweight captive, "let's see about getting some answers.  Start spilling your guts, tubby, or I'll be more than happy to spill them for you."  He hefted his bastard sword to make sure Smokey Joe didn't fail to catch his meaning."I don't know what you think I've done--" the tavernkeeper started to sputter, but Wakuren cut him off.  "You're a murderer!" the half-orc spat out."I never killed nobody!" Smokey Joe pleaded, then saw that Thurloe wasn't buying his act for a moment.  "It was the mimic what killed them!  And they was only ever vagrants what was just passing by and wouldn't be missed, anyways!"  He gulped and decided to try his luck with a false equivalency.  "And you killed my dog, so that makes us even!""Can you believe this crap?  Let's just kill him and be done with it!" suggested Thurloe, raising his bastard sword.  Wakuren placed a hand over the fighter's trying to calm him down.  "We do not slay helpless captives," he cautioned Thurloe."Maybe you don't," Thurloe argued and would have gone on had Alewyth not entered the conversation at that point and impressed upon the hot-headed human that they were not killing Smokey Joe in cold blood and that was the end of the discussion.  Thurloe gave the dwarven priestess his very best scowl (and it was, if truth be told, a very impressive-looking scowl indeed) but backed down, sheathing his bastard sword.  Smokey Joe let out a breath he hadn't been aware he'd been holding - maybe he could talk his way to freedom after all!But no luck on that front; Alewyth insisted they'd stay watching over their bound captive until morning, when they'd have one of the local townsfolk fetch the sheriff, or whoever represented the forces of law and order in these parts.  That turned out to be a sheriff over in the next village, who was responsible for six or seven villages in all, according to the first of the barmaids who showed up for work the next morning.  Alewyth sent her to go have somebody go fetch him and they all waited for his arrival.  And when he did show up, they were able to give him plenty of evidence as to his past behavior, having spent the evening scouring the entire tavern for evidence - and finding the hidden storage space behind a false crate in his wine cellar where he put the belongings of the people he fed to his mimic.  (Of course, despite there having been dozens of leather and silk coin purses in with the previous victims' clothes in the secret storeroom, Smokey Joe kept the coins he took from his victims in a strongbox under his own bed - a strongbox the heroes had broken into and whose contents they'd taken as their own.  They reasoned it was a way for the previous victims to posthumously thank them for their assistance in ensuring the mimic would take no further victims - and it wasn't like they had any use for the money themselves, nor would it be easy - if even possible at all - to track down the identities of the mimic's prior victims, to see if they had any relatives.  This way was easier and it was logical enough reasoning for the heroes to take the money as their own without any feelings of unease.)That, plus Valoria's testimony and the body of the mimic was all the sheriff needed to see.  He took custody of the bound tavernkeeper and promised the heroes he'd pay dearly for his crimes.  "I'll have him before the judge in less than a week, and he'll likely be hanged before the week's out," he told them."Well," Wakuren said, "I supposed we'd better gather up our mounts and wagon and go check out this Widow Greene's place."They had no trouble finding the place; the barmaid's directions had been spot on.  Knocking on the door, Alewyth was greeted by Lavinia Greene, who expressed surprise at the heroes' presence but admitted that yes, her elderly Aunt Hortence had been bedridden for months, but several weeks ago had fallen into a deep sleep and she'd been unable to awaken her since.  "She's been no bother at all to care for," Lavinia admitted.  "She doesn't even wake to eat or drink, or to use the chamber pot.  You say she's stuck inside a dream?"Alewyth explained the situation as best she could and told Lavinia what they planned to do.  The young lady agreed to let them go about their business, more than happy to see her Aunt Hortence back awake again after all these weeks.  A dreamstone was fastened at Hortence's forehead by a bandana and each of the five dreamwalkers sat around her bed in a circle, clutching a dreamstone in their hands.  "We'll meet up in the Dream Hallways, as before," the dwarven priestess told the others.  Then they each closed their eyes, calmed their spirits, and one by one went to sleep."Hey, kupo!" greeted their individual moogle guides as they entered the dreamlands.  "Here's the dream you're looking for, kupo!" they said, opening one particular doorway in the endless Hallway of Doors.Stepping inside Hortence's dream, the group was surprised to see Lavinia there, sitting in a fancy gown at an elegant table with a finely embroidered tablecloth.  Hortence was sitting beside her young niece, pouring tea from a swan-necked teapot into a dainty cup.  She too wore an elegant gown, much fancier than the simple homespun nightgown she wore back on the Mortal Plane."Good day to you," Hortence said, inviting the heroes to take a seat.  "You are more than welcome to join us...although I don't recall ever having met you before.  It seems odd that I would be dreaming about you."Alewyth's brow furrowed as she took a seat beside the elderly woman.  "You are aware this is all a dream?" she asked, puzzled.  She'd never encountered anyone who was aware they were in a dream while dreaming; most people threw themselves fully into whatever dream they might be having."I have suspected it for some time, yes," Hortence replied.  "But I am also aware that I'm dying.  I have a weak heart, you see, and it's been doing its job for quite a few years now.  All of this," she said, waving her hands to indicate the elaborate tea room around them, "I know quite well this is all just a dream.  And I know I'm really back in my bedroom, fast asleep – in what is no doubt my deathbed.  What I don't know is who any of you are, or what you're doing here, or why I should be dreaming of such complete strangers... unless you're the representatives of Death, Akari's foot soldiers, come to tell me my time is up.  But you're welcome to stay here with me if you like as I say my final farewell to Lavinia, even if it is only here in a dream.  I fear if I wait until I wake up I shall have put it off until too late.  And perhaps you can help me to help my niece in some small way after the dream is over."Hortence described to the group the location of a small wooden barrel of money buried in her back yard and asked that they dig it up and give it to Lavinia – it was all she had to pass on to her for her years of taking care of her as her health declined.  "It isn't much," Hortence said, "merely 68 pieces of gold, but that's quite a lot to mere commoners like ourselves."  Alewyth agreed they'd do as she asked and explained about the dream plague and how they'd been helping people out of their dreams."Very well, then," Hortence agreed.  "Let us finish our tea and then we can go."  She passed tea cups to the others, who all took a seat at the table and spent a few moments in conversation with her.  When all of them had finished their tea, Hortence nodded her acceptance.  "What do we do?" she asked.Alewyth took her by the hand.  "Just come with us," she said, "through this door."  Xandro had concentrated on making the exit door to the dream visible and he opened it for the elderly lady.  One by one, they exited the dreamscape.  Wakuren was the last to leave and he hung around a bit, wondering what would happen to the dream when the dreamer herself left it.  As expected, it started fading away until he stood in a vast, white emptiness.  Nodding to himself, he stepped through the door as well.  The others were already gone, so he concentrated on waking himself up - and soon found himself back in Hortence's room, sitting in a circle around her bed with the others.Lavinia was there in the doorway, looking in at the group as they rose to their feet.  "Is she--?" the young woman asked."She's passed on," Alewyth informed her.  "She was ready to go but unable to do so on her own.  We merely helped her on her way."Lavinia looked over at the body of her Aunt Hortence.  A thin smile lie upon the older woman's face.  "She'll be reunited with her dead husband, then," Lavinia said.  "She'll be glad of that."Thurloe walked outside without a word.  Concerned, Zander followed him.  Sure enough, the fighter grabbed a shovel from their gear in the wagon and went straight to the spot in the back yard where Hortence had told them her treasure was buried.  "Um, what are you doing?" the elf asked."Digging up the old lady's treasure," Thurloe answered him, proceeding to do just that."You're not thinking of helping yourself to her 68 pieces of gold, are you?" accused Zander.Thurloe's brows dropped into a scowl.  "Just what do you take me for?" he asked, pulling up the buried wooden barrel and popping off the lid.  Sure enough, the bottom of the container was filled with gold coins.  Thurloe then carried it back to the wagon and dropped in enough coins from his own stash to top the barrel off at an even 300 pieces of gold before placing the lid back on and taking it in to Lavinia."You really surprise me sometimes, Thurloe," Zander told him."Yeah?" grunted the fighter.  "Best way to prevent that is not to make assumptions ahead of time." - - - This adventure was fairly short, but that was okay because immediately after it had finished we leveled everyone up to 3rd level.  And Fate decided it wasn't done with Joe just quite yet, for his elven sorcerer, who started game play with 4 hp at 1st level and advanced all the way to 5 hp at 2nd level, now managed to get stuck with 6 hp at 3rd level when Joe once again rolled a "1."  "That's it!" he declared.  "I'm taking Toughness as my 3rd-level feat!"  So Zander Quilson now has all of 9 hp and is guaranteed to definitely hit the double digits on the hit point front...after five more adventures.  I helpfully pointed out that this was simply karmic fate for his PC in "Raiders of the Overreach," a 12th-level (at the time of this adventure) dwarf barbarian with 204 hp, thanks in part to his whopping 29 Constitution. - - - T-shirt worn: My red "Coke" T-shirt.  I didn't have anything particularly relevant to this adventure so the best I could come up with is Coke is a refreshing drink and the bulk of the adventure takes place in a tavern, where they serve refreshing drinks.  Plus, one particular Coke slogan is "It's the real thing," which exactly what the mimic disguised as a bed wanted everyone to believe.</blockquote>

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