of Defects and Nuisances

[Hairy Minotaur]

Knock knock. Who's there? BOOM

Lord Horatius and the enermancer stare lost in thought at the growing forest fire, both with tears in their eyes. Lavender races to Gramps rescue with a timely kick to the ribs to get him coughing and throwing a fit. The two women drag the dwarf’s body to the cave entrance as the skies overhead begin to drizzle in preparation of a summer downpour.

The two firemen take a leisurely stroll to the rest of the party’s location while walking backwards to admire the glowing horizon. They reach the cave entrance as Gramps calms his lung down, the enermancer heads to the front of the party and throws his arms up.

“Comrades I wish to announce that after his assistance with helping me re-light the sun this morning, I have made the decision to re-name the sun Susan in honor of Lord Horatius.” The enermancer states

A stunned silence settles in first, then disgusted confusion, then finally snickers and giggles before Lord Horatius speaks up.

“You dissing me? You think this is funny? Don’t you dare denigrate the memory of Susan with your idiot-savant ways; Mr. Blister already must be washed and sterilized after your meat paws were all over it like a clumsy brown bear. That’ll take hours; I don’t know if I can convince him to spark up our campfire tonight.” Lord Horatius comments

“What’s the problem? Do you not agree how easy the phrase; look at Susan high up there in the sky providing me with warmth and nourishment, rolls off the tongue?” The enermancer asks

“No I find it humorless and not a fitting tribute at all.” The hexblade answers

“Well what’s done is done, I have already purged the generic name of the great ball of fire in the sky with the name Susan, I know not why you called it Susan before but I can see how much humanizing the object makes me feel one with the Susan.” The enermancer espouses

“What? You can’t rename the sun, you have no authority.” Lord Horatius replies

Slyphwhisper shakes his head and walks deeper into the cave and away from the crazy people. The gnome notes that the back of the cave was extended from its original shape and made bigger and deeper. The infiltrator comes to a fork in the tunnel with a huge boulder acting as a separation for the two paths. One to the left and near, the other to the right and back, the gnome crept up to the left passage and breathed slowly trying to pick up any sounds coming from that path. Hearing voices, Slyphwhipser snuck up some more.

“The Spatial Protectorate of Authoritative Zoning gives me the right to do so.” The enermancer relates

“So are you a paying member or does S.P.A.Z. let you in for free?” Gramps inquires

“You should get their latest issue, I signed up for the lifetime subscription based on just a couple of their issues.” The enermancer explains

“I’m sure they had issues, you’re full of them. I don’t care what kind of mentally deficient society you belong to, you can’t just.” Lord Horatius’ diatribe was interrupted by a screaming and fleeing Slyphwhisper.

“Run!” The gnome shouts as he passes the party headed for the exit followed by a salvo of sling bullets

Chasing down the infiltrator were a gang of Halflings, whipping sling bullets up the corridor. The gnome and the women retreated towards the exit while Gramps stood and placed himself in the path of bullets to give that part of the party cover for their escape. Lord Horatius retreats but at a slower pace and positions himself in-between Gramps and the fleeing members. The enermancer stands his ground fuming with anger.

“We’re too late! The sky god has impregnated Gaia with his mutated seed!” The enermancer decries

“Get out with the others, I got ye covered foolish human.” Gramps orders the enermancer

“No, I must destroy these abominations.” The enermancer replies

“What? They only be Halflings.” Gramps relates

“Exactly.” The enermancer answers, gritting his teeth and foaming at the sides of his mouth

Bullets fly up the cavern and ricochet off Gramps’ tower shield spraying the whole area around him and the enermancer with small steel balls. The dwarf gives the human a nod as if to say ‘let’s do this” then watches in horror as the enermancer drops his blade and pulls out a length of rope with a loop on one end. The enermancer begins twirling the rope over his head as the halflings enter the enermancer’s vision. Ignoring the stinging pellets, the enermancer awaits the arrival of the Halflings and as they close the distance he lassos the rope over the head of Gramps and pulls it tightly around his neck.

Gramps immediately grabs hold of the noose and tries to untie it; the enermancer however takes off down the tunnel towards the Halflings who have all crowded the right side of the tunnel as they make their ascent. Gramps grabs a hold of the rope around his neck hoping the enermancer doesn’t run off with his head. The enermancer runs through the gang of Halflings who were all too stunned to drop their slings in favor of swords as the human runs passed the cave defenders. The rope is drawn taught and Gramps is jerked forward but he holds his position as the enermancer lets the momentum whip him back towards the left side of the tunnel and start dragging halflings along with him. Gramps falls to the dirt floor with the added weight on the end of the rope.

The enermancer pulls himself another five feet to the left and falls through a pit trap he “knew” would be there. The weight of the human drags all but three of the Halflings over the edge of the pit as well. The enermancer swings down and over the sharp spikes at the bottom of the pit as a choking Gramps is dragged closer to the edge of the pit. Hitting the pit wall on Gramps’ side, the enermancer begins to climb up the excavated wall. The traumatized Halflings who remained on ground level above the pit are quickly added to the victim total as the hexblade cuts one of them down while knocking another into the pit. The last halfling runs away in terror as Lord Horatius celebrates the halfling’s retreating form.

The enermancer pulls himself up and over the edge of the pit as Lavender heals the friction burns and bruises over Gramps’ neck. Slyphwhisper approaches the enermancer as the hexblade taunts the fleeing halfling with a string of vile curses.

“How did you know there was a pit there?” The gnome asks incredulously

“You told me when you kept to the right side when you crept down the passage and when you ran back up the passage. Clever little man.” The enermancer answers

“Yeah, but I didn’t even know it was there.” Slyphwhisper comments almost under his breath

“That was certainly an unorthodox way to mass kill a band of halflings.” Discordia comments

“Unorthodox? That was wicked cool!” The hexblade announces

“Sonny, if you ever pull a stunt like that again out of yer arse, I will permanently silence you.” Gramps wheezes

Lord Horatius wastes no time in rappelling down the pit wall to loot the bodies impaled upon the spikes. The hexblade collects all the slings and bullets he can find scattered about the floor and rifles through bloodied clothing looking for loose change. After a few minutes rooting around on the floor of the pit, Lord Horatius is satisfied with his take and ascends the rope back to ground level. He shows off his recovery effort and reminds the party that one of the halflings did get away.

“We’ll need to hunt him down and make sure he tells no one else about our presence here, otherwise we’ll have trackers on our backs for sure.” Lavender mentions

“For a pacifistic cheese maker you know a lot about stalking prey. Gets me all excited.” Discordia states while emphasizing her ample chest assets.

“They’ll be time for trophies later, right now we have to catch us a thief!” Lord Horatius exclaims

“What thief?” Gramps asks

“The one who got away with the rest of my torch replacement funds.” The hexblade explains

The party avoids the pit trap and delves deeper into the cave, they take the left passage and ensure that no more halflings are hiding in the room. Lord Horatius sifts through the debris, but only manages to locate a half eaten apple and some torn cloth swatches.

“Well based upon this treasure trove I’d say we’ve flushed out the only roaming band of half sized fashion thugs Virdistan has ever seen.” Discordia comments

“Not likely, their kidnapping operations must down the other passageway.” Lavender surmises

“Ya think?” Lord Horatius answers

The enermancer busies himself by tying lengths of branches together with a sharp punching dagger on the end of the makeshift pole. The whole apparatus measuring over fifteen feet in length.

“What are ye going to do with that?” Gramps asks

“Spade the cave mother so no further abominations will plague the area.” The enermancer responds

“Oh, of course. Silly of me to not have realized that.” Gramps replies while sarcastically rolling his eyes

Slyphwhisper again silently nominates himself to scout out the right tunnel off the boulder. This time however he finds an empty room with a hole in the middle of the floor. Approaching slowly he kicks a small stone into the hole and listens as it clangs off some kind of metal on its way down. The gnome waits a few more seconds before walking up to the edge of the manhole and peering into it. A dark shaft leads straight down into darkness at least sixty feet and likely a great deal further.

“Find something?” Lord Horatius asks

“Maybe, I think this is the way the halfling went. Only one way to find out.” Slyphwhisper answers and begins to descend the metal ladder

The rest of the party arrives to view the hexblade staring down over the manhole.

“Where’s the gnome?” Lavender inquires

Lord Horatius does not verbalize an answer, instead he points at the manhole.

“What? Why wouldn’t he wait for us? He’s going to alter the whole complex to our presence and then we’ll be fighting an uphill battle.” Lavender responds

Lord Horatius just shrugs and begins to descend the ladder as well. Discordia wastes no time in going down and quickly follows the hexblade. Gramps is next then Lavender as the thought of being left alone with the enermancer finally drove her to accept the party direction.

After ninety feet of cramped crawling, the party reaches the floor, where they are greeted with the sight of a stumbling Slyphwhisper who falls onto Lavender and grabs a hold of her dress and then proceeds to empty the contents of his stomach all over the front of her dress.

“Oh nasty, I think I’ll going to be sick!” Discordia complains

“Are you okay?” Lavender asks while trying to shove the sick man off her dress

“Don’t…. go…. Down…. There.” Were the only words the sick gnome could muster as he pointed off into the darkness

“What’s down there lad?” Gramps demands

“I think we’re in the wrong hole, I can’t spay the earth goddess from this hole. We need to back out slowly and then re-search the halfling bunker room.” The enermancer elaborates

Gramps snorts off the enermancer’s remark and heads off into the darkness, he returns awkwardly before yakking up breakfast himself.

“Ugh, that was the nastiest smelling smell I ever did smell!” Gramps complains

“Nonsense, can’t be any worse than the smelliest I get down on the farm.” Lavender says before proceeding out into the darkness only to come back vomiting seconds later.

“Here let me try.” The enermancer says and heads over to Gramps

“What?” Gramps says weakly

“I want you to whack me in the nose as hard as you can to disable my olfactory sense for a moment while I proceed into the darkness.

“What?” Gramps asks

The enermancer gets out whack me and Gramps levers his shield into the enermancer’s face. Likely breaking his nose in the process, the enermancer cries out in shock.

“You could’ve warned me you were about to do that.” The enermancer questions

Gramps offers no explanation he just shrugs as he tries to compose himself. The enermancer gets about eighty feet away from the main party before his vision is blurred and he’s eyes are watering excessively. A few more steps and a small building come into view.

“It’s a latrine, that’s what’s causing all the foul air.” The enermancer relays

“We need to bypass it! Look for another exit.” Slyphwhisper

“I prefer a more direct approach.” Lord Horatius answers while retrieving a large bottle of alchemist fire, he then bends down and rifles through the enermancer’s backpack retrieving a sunrod. Activating the rod the hexblade then advances through the thick darkness, holding up the sunrod to lead the way Lord Horatius spots the standing enermancer pointing at a dilapidated shack through a hazy fog of nasal Draino.

The enermancer waves at the approaching light with his watering eyes and squinting through facial pain he can’t make out who is approaching. His ears hear a creak to his left and he turns in time to catch a long dark object jab into his side from within the shack. Reaching down he yanks the long spear from his abdomen and spies the dark liquid from the wound covering his hands. He drops to one knee as the gangly green creature with a white underbelly opens the door a little further to get a better aim on the enermancer’s head.

Both creatures hear an object sailing through the air, a glass object strikes the top of the privy and shatters, both creatures turn back to stare down each other when the alchemist fire ignites creating a fireball of methane that blows the enermancer back some forty feet into the cavern wall. Lord Horatius is knocked prone from the firestorm and the whole cavern is lit in a brilliant mock up of the elemental plane of fire. The shanty is destroyed in the process and the troglodyte which minutes ago came to relieve himself found his corneas burned out permanently, his skin fire roasted, his ears deafened, and his last breath a wreathe of smoke escaping from his nose before the fried husk collapsed.

“Yes! Woo!” Lord Horatius shouts while pumping his fists in the air

“I guess subterfuge is no longer an option at this point, even the thoqqua know we’re coming.” Lavender laments

 

[Hairy Minotaur]

Subtraction by Addition?

As Gramps gasped for breath after the methane blast blew the breathable air into dead air, the rest of the party backed up into the tunnel where the air was still good. The enermancer, blown against the wall behind him, flopped to the ground unconscious with a burned scalp. Lord Horatius rose and turned back to the party, he pumped his fist high and then passed out from lack of oxygen.

With the nauseating stench of ammonia and methane out of the way, Lavender crept slowly back into the cavern amidst the disgusting odor of burning waste matter and scorched hair. Holding her nose she checked on Lord Horatius to find that he was still breathing, she passed on waking him up fearing another incident of using a fireball to melt an ice cube. She made her way over to the enermancer and healed his bleeding abdomen puncture wound and then healed his head of third degree burns. She was unable to undo the retinal damage of viewing the bright fire envelope him as the creation of the blind spot would require a regeneration application which was currently beyond her reach.

Slyphwhisper ambled into the room next and made a point to walk past the downed hexblade and give him a good kick in the ribs before proceeding to the other side of the cavern. Discordia busied herself with re-tying her brassiere after she had loosened the knots the blast blew it wide open. She seemed to take an inordinate amount of time tying the strands back in intricate knots only someone who wanted a spring loaded escape hatch for her brassiere could appreciate. She watched as Gramps coughed his way back to reality then playfully strode into the cavern swinging her hips so that the tassels on her brassier spun around in opposite directions.

Slyphwhisper sped towards the opposite exit from the cavern to make sure he would be well notified of any incoming enemies who heard the blast go off and wanted to investigate. He found instead a short passage leading to a carved room that contained chained prisoners to the walls. Two troglodytes cowered on the floor, their eyes temporarily blinded and their ears ringing. The gnome quickly ran in and jabbed a dagger into the back of both their skulls then turned his attentions to the hostages.

The prisoners were lined up on either side of the room against the walls flanking the entry. Most of them seemed to be alive; there were two that immediately looked dead to the gnome. These bodies were slumped over, hanging out from the wall yet their heads were lying backwards at a most uncomfortable angle. Lavender entered the room next and began scanning the faces of the hostages for the baron’s offspring.

“Who here needs medical attention?” Slyphwhisper called out to which a crescendo of moans erupted in reply.

Lavender nudged the gnome and bent down to whisper, “I can’t heal anyone right now I’m spent for the next eight hours and even then I wouldn’t be able to help them all.”

“Great, these people can’t wait that long, we need to find the Baron’s kid and get out of here before the hexblade finds a natural gas deposit.

“We may have to fight our way out of here, who among you is able to defend themselves and or another as we retrace our steps?” Slyphwhisper asks

“Were you the ones who set off the explosion and tried to collapse the cavern trapping us in here until we died?” Spat a fuming man with green robes with a snake tattoo covering his shaved head.

“No, that was the troglodyte who lit a match to see where he dropped his spear after we hailed him.” Slyphwhisper replied

“What are you waiting for release us!” came a growing response

The gnome began rifling through the pockets of the dead troglodytes looking for the keys to the manacles around the wrists of the prisoners.

“What’s taking so long!” The response grew louder

“What’s the problem?” Lavender asked the infiltrator

“I can’t pick a lock, I need the keys and these troglodytes don’t have it.” Slyphwhisper answers

Into the cacophony of fuming vocal prisoners sauntered in Discordia, “Hey guys, look what I can do.” The tiefling stated as she showed off her tassel spinning technique.

“Not helping!” Slyphwhisper shouted to the warlock who quickly assessed that she was not in a friendly place

“You found the hostages! Why didn’t you release them?” Discordia questions

“Idiot! I’m trying to find the key!” Slyphwhisper shouts back

“Hey, the enermancer found a key on the troglodyte’s body by the privy. Maybe you need that one?” Discordia offers

The gnome shouts for the enermancer to meet him in the small room immediately. After a couple seconds the enermancer appears in the doorway.

“Whoa, what kind of demon worship is this?” The enermancer ponders

“Never mind that, sexpot over there said you found a key on the dead troglodyte.” Slyphwhisper asks

“Yes.” The enermancer replies

“Give it to me so I can see if it will unlock these chains.” The gnome demands

“Whoa, slow down there little buddy. We don’t even know to what demon these people were being sacrificed to. Don’t you think it prudent to find out that bit of information before releasing a lifetime of bad juju upon us?” The enermancer answers

“Give me the damn key!” Slyphwhisper demands

“Okay, but just so you know when they attack you that I warned you about the bad juju.” The enermancer says while handing over the small bronze key.

Slyphwhisper tries the locks only to find that the key is much too small. The frustrated gnome tosses the trinket across the room.

“Letting the sacrifices stay locked up, good man, an excellent choice. It’s what I would’ve done. It’s the right move.” The enermancer’s words turn the displeased hostages into a full hate on.

Unable to think, Slyphwhisper exit the room and heads back into the huge cavern. Soon followed by Lavender, Discordia, and the enermancer.

“What do we do now?” Lavender asks

“I don’t know, I can’t pick the lock and no one has the key.” Slyphwhisper answers

“Then there’s someone else wondering around down here or up there with the key.” Discordia offers

“Maybe we should go back and bring help?” Lavender suggested

“They’ll be dead by the time we return; most demons won’t wait for rescuers to return they’ll just eat them on the spot. Terrible table manners.” The enermancer explains

“Step aside; let a real man in there.” Lord Horatius huffs as he shoves the enermancer out of the way.

Lord Horatius turns and warns the others “Don’t come in here until I say so!”

As the hexblade enters the room, the cries for assistance increase, then lots of screaming and asking what is going ons, then all is quiet with the prisoners.

“All ready in here.” Lord Horatius says and the rest of the party enters a room so thick with fear that the enermancer got out his crackers.

“What did you do?” Slyphwhisper demands

“Nothing I wasn’t prepared to do.” Lord Horatius answers

“Why does it smell like lamp oil in here?” Discordia asks, Lord Horatius just whistles as if he did not hear the question

“Apparently there is a secret door at the back of this room, I believe the one with the key to these chains resides in there along with the important prisoners.” Lord Horatius explains

“How’d you find that out?” Slyphwhisper asks incredulously

“Intimidate is not only a skill but a tool.” The hexblade replies

Slyphwhisper goes to work on the secret door, finding the latch he releases the locking mechanism and backs away so the newly arrived Gramps can push the door open. The dwarf heaves on the door and it slides away, revealing a handful of troglodytes and a lone halfling.

“Abomination!” The enermancer screams and charges the halfling ignoring the short spears of the troglodytes.

Gramps wades into the room next, hacking down a prepared troglodyte as if he were surprised to see opposition. Lord Horatius, annoyed at the wide dwarf blocking his entry into the killing spree, tossed an alchemist fire just over the head of the dwarf and it landed under a troglodyte. The substance splashed up the creature’s legs and set his lower half on fire. Screaming and running for the door brought the engulfed troglodyte to meeting with the sharp side of Gramps’ axe and the dwarf chopped him down.

“Why do you insist on burning the evidence?” Lavender chastises the hexblade

“What evidence? I’m leaving a calling card.” Lord Horatius answers

Slyphwhisper sneaks past Gramps and helps the enermancer corner the halfling near the back of the room. The kidnapper takes a dagger out and presses it to the throat of a gagged and blindfolded female captive.

“Take another step and this one becomes a tax write off.” The halfling threatens

“Tell me what demon you plan on sacrificing these innocents to and I shall let you go first in line to meet it.” The enermancer challenges

“What? These are not for … we’re not sacrificing …. What are you talking about?” the halfling questions

“Surely now is not the time to be modest, be proud creature! Say his name out high so that all may hear of your twisted evil deed!” the enermancer espouses

“What is wrong with you man? We’re just selling these off for profit, no one’s sacrificing anyone. You got this all wrong.” The halfling counters and points his dagger at the enermancer to emphasize his point.

Slyphwhisper takes the opportunity to bound across the room and drive his dagger into the side of the halfling. The enermancer follows the gnome’s strike up with a swing of his own, nearly taking off the left arm of the kidnapper. Knocked prone and bleeding profusely, the kidnapper surrenders.

“Lavender we need a patch job!” Slyphwhisper calls out, but the enermancer had other plans as he takes out two tindertwigs and douses the halfling with lamp oil. The kidnapper already quickly descending into shock begins to hasten that retreat.

“What are you doing? We can’t burn him we need information.” Slyphwhisper decries

“What? Burning?” Lord Horatius bull rushes himself into the room, knocking over Lavender who was answering Slyphwhisper’s call and Gramps who was engaged with the last troglodyte. The hexblade hurdles the falling dwarf and collides with the enermancer.

Slyphwhisper quickly removes the tindertwigs and withdraws his waterskin so he can try to wash off the lamp oil. Lord Horatius clambers to the ground and ends up sprawled out on the floor, the contents of his backpack scatter across the floor. The enermancer picks up Mr. Blister and tries to ignite the halfling while Slyphwhisper pours water over the dying creature. Lord Horatius leaps to his feet and grapples the enermancer to try and wrest the flint stone out of his hands. Slyphwhisper succeeds in dumping the rest of his waterskin on the halfling while Lavender moves up to tourniquet his shoulder.

The troglodyte seizes its chance to escape and pokes its spear into the soft belly of the dwarf under his breastplate. Puncturing a lung Gramps begins heaving badly as the troglodyte turns to escape only to get a hole in its chest as Discordia eldritch blasts the thing back into the room.

“Ta da.” Discordia announces with the death of the troglodyte as she enters the room. Hearing the gurgling from Gramps she pauses to look him over.

“Um, I don’t think the dwarf is okay.” The tiefling comments

“He always sounds like that.” Lord Horatius answers without looking back at Gramps

“Maybe, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen blood pouring from his mouth like that.” Discordia replies

Lavender sprung up from the injured kidnapper and headed over to Gramps. Checking for wounds, she locates the slow bleed from under his breastplate. Releasing the armor from the dwarf’s torso, Lavender applies pressure to the wound.

“I don’t know how much I can do here; he’s going to need healing if he’s going to survive the night.” Lavender advises

Urgent moaning came from the back of the room from the prisoner the halfling had threatened. Lord Horatius and the enermancer ceased their fighting over the flint stone long enough to watch Slyphwhisper remove the binds and gag from the hostage. Long blonde hair cascaded around an innocent face of beauty. The hexblade and enermancer put aside their feud to attempt a quick grooming, to which Discordia was immediately put off by.

“I’m a cleric. I can help.” The sultry voice spoke

“Our old man over there got hurt and needs something to staunch the wild horses from pouncing on cotton monocles.” Lord Horatius speaks up

Slyphwhisper kicks the hexblade in the shin, “act like you’ve seen a female of your race before.” The gnome reprimands

“What god do you pray to?” The enermancer inquires

“Um, like she’s got blonde hair and lives in the woods. I love trees and animals and she digs them to so it was so totally a super combination of her power and my inventiveness that’s just an awesome pairing. Hee hee.” The woman replies

“Oh yeah, she’ll fit right in, as in you two idiot’s missing gestalt.” Slyphwhisper comments

“Can you heal our dwarf?” The enermancer asks

“I can try, he looks really bad off. I think I have an orison that may help him.” The woman answers

As the cleric espouses her lack of clericalism Slyphwhisper catches movement just to his left and turns to what he thought was the bedroll of a hill giant only to realize it was alive. The gnome cuts the bonds free from what ends up being the fattest human he’s ever seen.

“I have something that will help the dwarf.” The woman states and she discomfitedly rises from her seated position and agilely wades over to the dwarf. Reaching into her robes she produces a potion and dumps its contents into Gramps’ mouth.

The dwarf sputters back to life as the healing potion takes effect.

“Wow, what god do you pray to that gives you drinking bottles” the cleric questions

“I am Helga, I know not why I have been detained here but I wish to exact revenge upon my captors.” The rotund woman introduces herself

“Wait, wait if we’re letting Hefty Helga follow us around then I demand that, what’s your name dear?” Lord Horatius asks the cleric

“Tethys.” The cleric replies

“That Tethys be allowed to join the party.” The hexblade finishes

“Why would you want her she can’t even tell you which god she prays to and she’s not the one who saved Gramps.” Slyphwhisper counters

“What spells do you have?” Lord Horatius asks

“Well I prayed for fireball.” Tethys answers

“She’s in.” the pyromaniac hexblade drools

“Yay!” Tethys celebrates while jumping up and down, hypnotizing the two human males

“What? What god gives their clerics fireball?” Discordia speaks up

“Who cares, the fact the she’s got fireball clinches it for me.” Lord Horatius explains

“Oh I don’t have fireball, I just pray for it every day. I haven’t gotten it thus far but I figure I’m so totally wearing down the dude I pray to resolve.” Tethys replies

“I thought you said your god was a woman?” The enermancer interjects

“Oh this is rich; she’s definitely in because you can’t buy this kind of stupidity even in the abyss.” Discordia

 

[Hairy Minotaur]

Did someone say bachelor party?

The swollen party ambled out of the back cell room and back into the angry mob that was still dangling from their manacles in the previous room. Slyphwhisper ignored the crying, demanding, cursing, and racial slurs thrown his way as he scurried across the room to peer out the exit for any signs of reinforcements from the captors. He saw nothing but death strewn across the cavern. Behind him he heard clapping and the sound of coins being dropped at the back of the room where he left the rest of the group. Pushing the sounds out of his mind he re-focused on the darkness ahead of him.

Seconds later he became aware of a large creature behind him, breathing heavily and licking their chops. He still heard the clapping, but what he thought were the sounds of rescued prisoners could not be as the din of their dissent echoed from all around him. Fed up at the distraction Slyphwhisper turned around ready to tear into someone’s ear when his face bounced off the girth of Helga and he stared up at the massively framed woman.

“Don’t stand so close to me.” The gnome advises

“I didn’t feel like taking in the show.” Helga says motioning to the back of the room with her thumb

Slyphwhisper walks around the potion carrying circus entertainer and spies the rest of the party in the back of the room huddled around someone dancing.

“Watch the door; let me know if anyone starts coming this way.” Slyphwhisper commands

“Sure thing chief.” Helga replied and saluted the small gnome as he walked to the back of the room where Tethys was dancing seductively amidst Lord Horatius and the enermancer tossing money on the ground in front of her.

“What the hell? Why isn’t anyone releasing the captives?” Slyphwhisper demands

“She said she was a hedonist, what did you expect them to do?” Discordia explains

“What’s your excuse? Can’t you free the captives?” the gnome questions

“Pfft. They’re not going anywhere, besides I’ve got a pocket full of me time with this one.” Discordia answers the gnomes and turns back to Tethys, *whistle* “Hey, 73 gold pieces are screaming lap dance for the teifling!”

“Well, okay, but no touching. I don’t know where you’ve been” The enermancer states, “we just going to do this here?” the enermancer inquires pointing at the floor beneath him.

“What? I wasn’t talking to you, get away from me.” Discordia says and shoves the sack of coins in Tethys’ face with her left hand and shoves the enermancer away with her right hand.

“Hey, I said no touching!” The enermancer protests

Slyphwhisper darts in and cuts open the sack, causing the coins to spill out all over the floor. Gramps and Lord Horatius immediately dive to the floor.

“Later!” Slyphwhisper yells, right now I want these people freed before they are made to suffer any longer for your stupidity!”

Tethys continues to dance away at her own inner dance music, eyes closed, oblivious to the world around her. Slyphwhisper practices his trip maneuver and causes the women to crumple to the floor.

“What’s the problem gnome? Don’t like Thellyne’s moves?” Tethys replies

“Oh so now you remember your god’s name, pity I have to be the moral majority in this band of idiots. You’d think your god would want you to spread her faith not your business card around.” The gnome answers

“What? Whose deity? Fertility rites are very sacred to… ah…. Um…. Hmm.. some people’s beliefs?” Tethys said shrugging her shoulders at the end hoping that was the right answer

Slyphwhisper shook his head and wandered away from the gas leak that must be at the back of the room. Around him he saw the joyous cries of freed prisoners happy to get away from the party at all costs. He made his way back up to Helga who was peering intently into the darkness.

“Any report?” Slyphwhisper asked

“Yes, there’s a bunch of people all headed that way, away from this location. I think we scared them off.” Helga breathed heavily

Slyphwhisper watched as former hostages raced around the large woman and into the dark cavern beyond, he saw Helga trace each one’s outline for as far as her human eyes could see. He then tugged on her robe until she turned and stared him down.

“Yes boss?” Helga huffed

“You’re a moron.” The gnome answered and headed out into the darkness to help those who had run aground of burnt troglodyte and were groping around in the darkness. Igniting a sunrod the gnome led the prisoners up to the surface and to freedom.

The gnome waits at the cave entrance for the rest of the party to stumble their way up through the darkness. After almost giving up from waiting over an hour the party arrives.

“Susan! Your light brings joy to the thousands of faces you golden each day.” The enermancer intones

Lord Horatius walks up behind the enermancer and slaps him on the back of the head.

“What?” The enermancer says and spins around

“Bug.” Lord Horatius answers and slaps the enermancer across the forehead, “worm.”

Unable to locate the missing baron’s daughter, the party congregates on what to do next. Tethys mentions she heard the halflings talking about another place they held prisoners. A ruined temple not too far from here as the halflings seemed to have made it there and back in one day.

“How do we find it if all the witnesses are dead?” Gramps pondered aloud

“I can speak with the forest creatures and ask them where this temple might be located.” Tethys offers

The party agrees that is a great suggestion and so Tethys flings off her tattered robe revealing a cloth bikini underneath. The cleric heads to the edge of the tree line to the left of the cave entrance and begins to intone her spell which sounds very similar to “here kitty, kitty, kitty.”

With provocative somatic components and a verbal component that sounded like a catcall, Tethys shimmied her way into the low lying brush next to the cave and the tree line.

“What the hell is she doing?” Slyphwhisper asks

“Calling for a big cat I would guess.” Gramps answered

“Why is she presenting in the breech position then?” Slyphwhisper comments

“Maybe it has something to do with a hypnotic motion of the rear muscles.” Discordia suggests

“Perhaps she is summoning a burro and therefore is talking out of her ass?” the enermancer offers

“That would explain your hygiene problem, I thought the stuff coming out of you face hole was a tad rank.” Lord Horatius says to the enermancer

“I await Susan’s golden shower of life to cleanse me, not when your olfactory senses dictate I wash myself.” The enermancer responds

Tethys walks back to the party with a ferret-like creature in her hands, “look I found a kitty.” Tethys says proudly

“Where? All I see is that muskrat in your arms.” Gramps replies

“Pshaw, no silly this is a kitty. Listen to it purr.” Tethys says holding it up for all to see

“That’s not a purr that’s a growl you idiot. That thing’s feral.” Lavender replies

Lord Horatius steps up for a better look, scaring the small mammal and causing it to release its musk scent all over Tethys. It then flees up and over her shoulder clawing its way as it goes scratching the cleric’s arm along the way.

“I think I know where this temple may be, my pappy used to tell us not to go too far south of the farm otherwise the zombies guarding the old temple would come after us.” Helga insinuates

“What took you so long to speak up?” Gramps inquired

“Well because the only thing I can tell you from that story is that the temple is north of here.” Helga mouth breathes

“Well it’s a start; we’ll head north and hope there a trail for us to follow.” Slyphwhisper comments and the party heads off to the north.

About fifteen minutes later they find the beginning of a path through the smoldering forest. Racing along the path they halt just short of a huge clearing with a large fresco cut into the side of a hill. The frescos depict large muscular men with heads of jackals looking down upon the area in front of two stone doors. A couple of trees breakup the view about twenty feet from the doors to the left, and a few bushes are sprinkle to the right of the temple doors.

“Looks like your instincts were right Helga.” Gramps comments

The party makes a run for the door trying to cover the open ground as quickly as possible to lesson the impact of an ambush. Gramps trips on his way out of the tree line and starts hacking up his lungs. Tethys and Lavender stop to help the dwarf to a sitting position as the rest of the part reaches the stone doors.

“We should probably search for traps.” Lord Horatius announces

Slyphwhisper was just about to comment when an arrow zips through the air and lodges itself in Lord Horatius’ right thigh.

“Ow! I’ve been shot! Medic!” the hexblade wails

“Those trees over there, we’re being shot at through the cover of the branches.” The enermancer points out before an arrow bounces off his chestplate and nicks his chin as it ricochets behind him.

Slyphwhisper catches some movement in the tree closest to the group, “there I see him!” Slyphwhisper points and scurries off towards the tree he saw the movement in. Lord Horatius follows the gnome hobbling along as best he can with the enermancer brining up the rear. Helga and Discordia hang back by the doors; Helga tries to motion to the group with Gramps to make a run for it to the doors while Discordia tries to strategically place Helga between Discordia and the hail of arrows from the trees.

Slyphwhisper begins ascending his tree as Lord Horatius peers up at the tree to the right of the one the gnome is ambling up. As he does so another arrow shaft zips down and pierces his left shoulder causing the hexblade to reflexively drop his weapon. The hexblade peers up into the tree’s canopy but still cannot make out and figures contained in it. The enermancer halts beneath the tree on the far left and stares up into it, only to get an arrow into his shoulder as well, causing the human to wince in pain as he grasps his shoulder.

Lord Horatius takes another arrow to his body, this one into his right foot, temporarily pinning his leg to that spot. Enraged with frustration Lord Horatius unslings his backpack and rifles through it while Slyphwhisper makes it up to the branch level that hides a crouching gnoll with a short bow. Creeping out along the branch the gnome manages to jab his dagger point into the back of the hairy gnoll startling the creature and making it drop its bow to the ground below. The half dog beast lets out a growl as it draws a short sword and faces the gnome in the branches.

The enermancer looks up into his tree, unable to see anything hiding he looks over at the pincushion; Lord Horatius and shrugs, “I don’t think my tree is attacking us.” As an arrow narrowly misses the human hissing past his right ear and sticking into the ground behind him.

“It fears your disinterest! Act like you don’t care and it won’t hurt you!” The enermancer calls out

“Screw you!” Lord Horatius answers, finding what he was looking for he tosses the glass bottle up into the tree’s canopy. The Alchemist fire ignites and the top of the tree begins to erupt in a ball of fire, “Yes! Burn baby burn!”

The gnoll in the burning tree begins barking hysterically; momentarily distracting the gnoll that Slyphwhisper is battling. The gnome uses this opening to jab his dagger in-between the beast’s ribs and into its lungs. A rush of air escapes the puncture sight as the gnoll backs away in pain and loses it’s footing on the branch. The gnoll tumbles though smaller braches and lands face down on the ground below unmoving.

The enermancer looks around and leans on the tree nonchalantly, picking at his fingernails, trying to appear uncaring over being shot at. The gnoll above him howls with glee over the easy target, yet again fails to hit his mark as the arrow catches a small branch on the way down, deflecting it enough to land in the trunk of the tree a few inches above the enermancer’s head. Lord Horatius chucks another alchemist fire into the burning tree above him and the wind fans the flames onto the tree Slyphwhisper is in. The gnome squeals and leaps for the tree trunk trying to fall gracefully from the burning wind.

Lord Horatius squeals like a child as his conflagration catches another tree on fire. The gnoll above the hexblade climbs to the highest weight sustaining branch it could find, but unable to escape the raging fire it leaps off the tree and crashes through several burning tree limbs and lands hard on the ground below. Whimpering and unable to move, Lord Horatius hobbles over and ends its life.

Terribly outnumbered and with an approaching killer gnome headed its way, the gnoll above the enermancer climbs to a lower branch and leaps off towards Lord Horatius. The hexblade dodges the hairy creature and engages it in battle with his off hand. The gnome reverses direction and is able to flank the creature as a stunned enermancer looks on.

“This tree gave birth to a gnoll? Astounding! I must document this for the rest of my fellow crypto-zoologists. Don’t kill it I need a fresh specimen!” The enermancer calls out and advances towards the gnoll with a crazed lust in his eyes.

The terrified gnoll backs into Lord Horatius’ blade and eviscerates himself as Slyphwhisper ensures that the gnoll’s blood flow won’t be staunched accidentally.

“Aw, how can I use that?” The dejected enermancer states as the third tree also catches on fire, “Aw, would you look at that? The evidence is going up in smoke!”

Tethys and Lavender help Gramps make it to the stone doors with the ambushers dead. The party coalesces around the temple’s entrance. Bright blue-green gems gleamed in the falling sunlight, the enermancer and Lord Horatius looked at each other sideways and then back at the gems. Tethys and Lavender work to remove the arrows lodged in the hexblade and patch him up to the best of their ability.

“Hey Slyphwhisper, can you climb up there and pry those gems loose?” Lord Horatius asks

“Yeah right, that situation screams trap if I ever saw one, there’s no way I’m going up there.” The gnome replies

“I can get them down.” Helga heaves

“Five gold she can’t get two feet on the statue.” Lord Horatius offers Gramps

“Ten gold says she topples the statue over.” Gramps counter offers

“Deal.” The hexblade replies

Helga spits in her hands and reaches up for a good set of handholds. Finding a good grip Helga hefts herself up to navel level of the left side statue. Grabbing a hold of the weapon arm, Helga hoists herself and stares eye level at the large Lapis-Lazuli gem embedded in the forehead of the jackal-headed statue. Reaching inside her massive robes, Helga pulls out a mini crowbar and small hammer.

“Easy as pie.” Helga says looking back at the party before returning her attention to the gem in front of her.

Helga taps her crowbar into place and leveraging herself against the weapon arm of the statue, Helga begins to pry the gem out. A few tugs weren’t enough to dislodge the gem so the woman grabbed the crowbar with both hands and gave it one good jerk and the gem popped free into the hands of Helga who cradled the hard won spoil, oblivious to the fact that she was now falling backwards as she had no grip on the statue. Helga plummeted the dozen feet to the earth with a loud thud shaking the ground beneath the party. Tethys and Lavender rushed to her side while Gramps and Lord Horatius tried to figure out who had won the bet.

“I think you dented the stone.” Slyphwhisper comments

“Impossible, the only thing powerful enough to dent stone is the kidney stone from a flail snail that’s been fed a steady diet of orc beer.” The enermancer relates

Helga sits up shakily and is helped to her feet by the two healers. She shows off the Lapis-Lazuli and her darkened smile made possible by a tooth exiting its socket when the girthy woman slammed into the ground. Helga wobbled over to the other statue and began climbing that one.

“Please get down, let the professional up there.” Slyphwhisper pleaded

“I am a professional.” Helga huffed back as she reached eye level with the gem on the other statue, not wanting a repeat of the first statue, Helga reached back to brace herself on the weapon arm of this statue. Her hand reached back and found empty air and the woman crashed back to earth again as this statue had both its arms at its waist. The gnome almost lost his footing as the ground protested the sudden added weight.

This time however Slyphwhisper didn’t wait for the clerics to put humpty dumpty together again and he began clambering up the statue. Three-fourths of the way up his foot became lodged between two ham hocks as Helga clasps her meat hooks around the ankle of the gnome and pulls him back down off the statue.

“If I needed an amateur to do my job, I’d have asked for the pyromaniac. Not sit there and watch a master at work.” Helga orders

“The only thing you’re a master at is falling on your ass, I don’t have time to wait for you to bring the gem down by knocking the statue over by your multiple vibrations on the earth.” Slyphwhisper protests

“All this standing around in the sun is making me sweaty, if we don’t find shade soon I’m going to have to start unencumbrancing myself.” Discordia announces

“Way ahead of you teifling.” Tethys declares flipping off her bikini top

The enermancer, Lord Horatius, Gramps, and Discordia immediately lost interest in what Slyphwhisper and Helga were fighting over.

“What the heck? What is your people’s problem, get right or get lost. You keep taking that thing off we’re going to get ambushed by a hill giant with a head cold and a tourettes problem.” Slyphwhisper comments

Slyphwhisper watches as the shadow around him grows larger in a hurry as the sound of a manure cart getting shoved off a cliff whistles through the air over his head, cowering in fear for his life, Slyphwhisper watches in horror as the rest of the party has turned their attentions back to Tethys’ chest as now Discordia as taken her top off and the two women are comparing brassieres. Slyphwhisper glances up at his fast approaching death and sees a huge form blot out the sun as it descends through the air and pounces on the ground next to the gnome. The massive form of Helga straightens out while holding the gem in front of her for Slyphwhisper to see. Shaking and dizzy Slyphwhisper waves off the gem collapses in a heap next to the statue.

“What’s the backing made out of?” Discordia asks

“Chainmail it’s the latest in stylish defense. Look defenseless while protecting the assets. Plus it gives me a good pinch every once in a while to let me know I’m still alive.” Tethys replies

“I like behir skin myself, a little rough to the feel and every now and then you get a warm electrical buzz through the fabric. Very exhilarating, makes me want to get a complete undergarment set of behir. Too bad apparently no tanner I’ve found will make me a behir thong.” Discordia relates

“That’s a shame; if I knew how to work with dead animals I could do it for you. About the only thing I can do now is cast grease on it, but I usually reserve that for my own issues when the metal is especially nippy” Tethys offers

The two women get re-dressed and the mob makes its way to the stone doors.

“Figures the gnome would wind up in a fetal position.” Lord Horatius comments

Gramps and the enermancer grab hold of the doors and pry them open with surprising ease. Their satisfaction in a job well done ends when the first salvo of crossbow bolts shoot through the party as the dust from the doors opening begins to clear and the forms of gnolls can be made out beyond the dust.

 

[Hairy Minotaur]

Dwarf tossing gone wrong

Chaos ensues as Lord Horatius and the enermancer press against the door to avoid the direct fire of the crossbows. Gramps dives to the earth as Lavender, Tethys and Discordia dive behind Helga. The initial volley fails to hit a target as the hexblade and the enermancer peel themselves off the doorframe and step up to meet some gnolls ready for some melee combat. The next wave of missile fire whizzed past the front combatants and peppered Helga over the head of Gramps.

The dwarf reached over and tugged on Slyphwhisper trying to get the gnome’s head into the battle. From behind him though a water buffalo kicked up dirt and raged against the situation. Rolling to his right and knocking into the gnome, Gramps hoped to avoid the trampling hoofed creature. Craning his neck around, Gramps saw Helga pawing at the dirt beneath her feet like a rhinoceros before it charges.

“Clear!” Gramps yelled, confusing the hexblade and enermancer who battled within the temple

Lord Horatius was set to reply when he heard the steam engine behind him. The hexblade moved off to the side of the enermancer, allowing the gnolls to fight back to back as they turned to face the two adventurers.

Perplexed as to what the hexblade was doing, the enermancer was caught distracted and the gnoll slammed it’s mace into the temple of the enermancer, staggering the human. Then the frothing bloated porcupine charges into the room, her robes adorned with five bolt shafts sticking out of her at odd angles and giving the impression of a wild porcupine. Helga bull rushes the front two gnolls and shoves them to the back of the room. She then whips out a dagger from a hidden fold in her robes and brandishes the blade for the defenders to see.

Lord Horatius uses the commotion to advance upon a gnoll archer and force the beast to engage him in hand-to-hand. The enermancer staggers back and collapses into the arms of Gramps as the dwarf was getting up off the ground. Discordia, now without cover of fat begins blasting away at the far left gnoll archer. Tethys helps relieve Gramps of the extra human weight and starts tending to the enermancer’s wounds.

Helga brings her dagger down hard upon the shield of cowering gnoll and the blade breaks off from the wooden handle. Further enraging the large pincushion, quickly scanning the surrounding floor for something to use as a weapon, Helga hefts up a sack of flour and swings the bag upside the head of the gnoll in front of her. The bag rips open, spilling its white powdery contents all over the creature. Momentarily blinded, the gnoll flails weakly at the rotund woman. Helga looks again for something to use and this time hauls up an empty wine cask and bashes in the head of the gnoll. The cask fails around the head of the beast, lodging its jackal-like face inside the barrel. The gnoll stumbles and falls onto his back. Then the living loadstone body slams herself onto the creature, causing its lungs to expel all the air they contained and making the gnoll gasp for breath. Breaking off four of the bolts that were stuck in her torso and sending splinters flying across the room.

Lord Horatius slices down the archer in front of him while another blast of eldritch kills the far left archer that Discordia had hit previously. This causes that one to redirect his fire towards the women outside the temple and sending Lavender scattering away from view of the temple room and to relative safety. Helga rolls herself off the gasping gnoll and she looks for something else to slam into the beast, reaching back she grabs a hold of a small metal object.

“Hey! What the hell??!!” Gramps protests as Helga lifts him off the ground and holds him prone over her head.

Battle lust fills the woman as she flexes the dwarf higher.

“Put me down! What are you doing?” Gramps complains as he tries to grab the back of her hair to get her attention.

The woman was too quick however and she smashes the dwarf down on top of the prone gnoll with a clunk as the wide dwarf bounces off the large metal shield of the gnoll and then Gramps slides off across the beast’s chest and onto the floor. Not wanting to wait to see if that was the killing blow, Helga wheels a full barrel over to the gnoll who is breathing through a few cracked ribs and then tips the barrel over on top of the gnoll, pinning it to the floor.

Tethys races to the shocked dwarf and tries some soothing words to ease his post traumatic stress disorder, alas his leg was too close to Helga’s bear paws and she slings the dwarf’s body across the room, sending it crashing into the last remaining gnoll archer. The gnoll drops his bow and falls to one knee as he tries to untangle the flying dwarf from his body. Tethys gives Helga a displeased glare as she races over to where Gramps is now; the dwarf slurs his speech as he demands to know what orc fired the canon that catapulted him through the room.

Slyphwhisper and the enermancer re-enter the fray with both of them teaming up to take out a gnoll that had crept up behind Helga and was threatening to tenderize her. The last of the gnolls fell to the combined might of Discordia and Lord Horatius. With the enemy defeated, the party began to take stock of the room. The room at one point likely served as the cloak room but was now being used by the gnolls to stockpile foodstuffs. Several bags of flour and corn meal were stacked along each wall; half a dozen barrels also lined the walls. There were three other exits, one each to the right and left and at the back of the room where the archers had been stood a set of stone double doors with demonic faces carved into the stone. The double doors were also flanked by a statue to each side of the doors both of them had human bodies but jackal faces.

Helga waves off Lavender’s offer of healing as she waddles up to the statues to inspect them for additional Lapis Lazuli. Tethys gets Gramps to breathe normally and then leaves him propped up on some bags of flour as she goes around tending to the scratched and bruised. Slyphwhisper walks up behind Helga.

“These statues don’t have rocks in them.” The gnome intones

“Crap, I guess they ran out.” Helga breathes

“Well sure, that’s one theory, or more likely they only had two and by placing them on the outside it would draw people to the entrance so the gnolls could kidnap or kill them.” Slyphwhisper counters

“Your story makes it seem as if these dog-men were capable of long term planning. I assure you they are not. Gnolls are nature’s way of awarding man’s best friend with human qualities. Note how they have human bodies yet very dog-like faces, also note that they used sophisticated weapons for a breed of creatures that draw their intelligence from a canine. Clearly this reveals that they have been blessed with the ability to think outside of the master’s call and to fend for themselves. One wonders what nature will do to those wizards who chose a familiar. I think we’re on the verge of a new spell casting feline race. How do you think the Rakshasas came about? I mean all of this is common knowledge that you can find at any roadside tavern, this isn’t ogre science we’re talking about here. You want to see my collection of canine coprolites? Biggest set in Virdistan.” The enermancer rambles on.

“Soooo, through the big bad doors to rescue the baron’s daughter, or wander around the rest of the facility looking for loose change?” Lord Horatius asks

“Your rhetorical questions have failed to sway me flamer, I choose rooting out the lot of these gnolls and making the whole tribe an afterthought.” Gramps replies

“It wasn’t rhetorical?” Lord Horatius quizzically responds, but Gramps was already plodding down the right exit and into a long corridor with a couple doors along its walls.

The thirty-five foot hallway ended with a door; there were also doors fifteen feet on the right side and twenty feet on the left side of the hallway. Gramps quickly advanced to the left door.

“Why did you pass up this one?” Slyphwhisper inquires, pointing to the door on the right side of the hallway.

“You want that one? Feel free to check it out, I’m going in this one.” The dwarf answered and opened the door

A filthy room now used as a barracks unveils itself to Gramps’ sight broken pottery and scraps of cloth litter the floor, all surrounding three gnolls that are kneeling on the floor playing a gnoll version of the dice game Knuckles. The wheezing Gramps coughs and the startled gnolls toss their game pieces away as the stare down the intruder.

“You boys wanna grab a weapon or can I play as is?” Gramps barks out in gnoll

Howling, the gnolls reach for their weapons and charge the dwarf in the doorway. Gramps steps back about half a foot so that his shield takes up nearly the entire doorframe. The first gnoll reached him and slammed its mace into Gramps’ tower shield, the blow ricochets off and pounds into the next gnoll to reach the dwarf. Gramps coughs and laughs in the same breath as his axe unerringly strikes the gnolls from behind his shield. Gramps begins to whittle away the gnolls as Lord Horatius and Lavender stand ready to assist should the dwarf need to pull back.

The rest of the party goes to investigate the door on the right side of the hallway. Slyphwhisper places an ear on the door but fails to hear any sounds coming from within. Pushing on the door opens it easily inward revealing a twenty foot square room. A cupboard is hung on the wall to the left of the door; the back of the room is dominated by a large bed next to which a chair and desk are located. The entire room is covered in a thin layer of dust that hangs low in the air by the door after being disturbed.

“Ah, rest time.” Helga huffs as she clambers over to the bed through the cloud of dust, turning her back to the party she falls back onto the bed. Creaking and straining against the weight the bed supports her then suddenly slides away into two halves and Helga is dumped unceremoniously into a pit below the bed with a starving hell hound. Miraculously the hefty woman manages to avoid the rusty metal spikes sprouting from the floor of the pit.

Contorted and nestled between several spikes, Helga called out for help. Slyphwhisper and the enermancer raced to the edge of the pit. The enermancer grabbed a length of rope from his backpack; he tied one edge at the nearest bedpost and grabbed the other end tightly. Backing up he gave himself a ten foot running start and then dove out over the pit. It was at that moment that he realized he gave himself far too much slack as he slammed into the fall wall and then fell backwards into the pit, impaling his right leg on a rusty spike and howling out in pain.

Slyphwhisper shakes his head in disturbed disgust as he carefully climbs down the near edge of the pit. Smelling the spilled blood the hell hound pounces on the injured enermancer and begins nipping at back. Discordia begins blasting the beast from topside while Tethys retrieves a crossbow and fires into the side of the creature. Hungry and injured the hell hound gets desperate and breaths a gout of fire over the injured body of the enermancer. Lavender shoots forth a beam of healing into the prone enermancer as Slyphwhisper sneaks up and sinks a dagger hilt deep into the haunch of the demon dog. Baying in pain, Discordia ends the beast’s life with a well placed eldritch blast between the thing’s eyes.

“What the hell were you doing?” the gnome questions the enermancer

“Well, I had to account for the spatial distortion.” The enermancer replies

“What are you? Wait never mind I don’t want to know why you thought that.” Slyphwhisper states as he pries the human’s leg off the spike.

“Imagine my surprise when the pit really did turn out to be only ten feet deep. It was like finding a turducken on the menu but then realizing that the town had no access to turkeys so the first part wasn’t a turkey but the town did have lots of manure. I think you can do that math.” The enermancer responded

 

[Hairy Minotaur]

Fire Safety

”I ain’t waiting for you people to pull the splinters out o’ yer arses, I’m checking out the last room.” Gramps shouts as he walks the hallway to the northern and last door.

With a purpose and a mind uncluttered with reason the dwarf doesn’t bother to check to see if the door is locked or trapped, he merely walks up to it and kicks it in. Stepping into the room the dwarf has entered another barracks; this one however contains four sleeping gnolls. One of which has elected to sleep in a bed within reach of Gramp’s axe as he hacks away at the neck of the beast. Screaming and unable to cover its face from the sharp blade the gnoll succumbs quickly to the dwarf’s attack.

The noise brought the other three gnolls out from their slumber and they reach for their weapons before rolling out of bed to meet the interloper. The rest of the party makes their way up the corridor with Lord Horatius leading the way; they reach the room in time to see the floor in front of the door frame fill with blood from the nearly decapitated gnoll. Two of the gnolls rush the dwarf who fends off their awkward attacks easily with his tower shield. The third gnoll bounds across the beds and makes his way for the exit just behind Gramps.

Lord Horatius’ appears in the doorway in his customary stance, bottle of alchemist fire in one hand and something pointy and sharp in the other hand while his mouth spews curses of all manner in every language the hexblade knows, all two of them. The bounding gnoll reaches the bed with the dead gnoll on it just to the left of the exit, it pulls up when the body of the hexblade enters and reacts to the new intruder by slamming his greataxe at the head of the human. With an amazing dexterity display, Lord Horatius twists away from the axe and tosses the vial of liquid at the gnoll who bats it back into the hallway to land at the feet of the enermancer. The hallway erupts into flames around the enermancer who dances backward only to bounce off Helga the roadblock and back into the flames.

Surrounded on three sides Gramps lashes out at the gnoll to his left to try and get him to move so that Gramps can get his back against a wall. The flurry kicks up a coughing fit for the dwarf who doubles over as he hacks up the heat of battle. The gnolls press their advantage and rain battle axe blows to the undefended back of the dwarf, bringing the dwarf to his knees and making the coughing worse. Lord Horatius manages to slip his blade inside the guard of the left gnoll as he was pounding away on the dwarf. Shocked, the gnoll turns his attention to the hexblade. With a flip of a finger the hexblade activates his curse ability and an unnatural weight presses onto the mind of the gnoll.

Slyphwhisper sprints past the burning straw man and covers the back of Gramps from the right gnoll as the gnoll that had leapt across the beds slides out of the room and into the hallway. The screaming enermancer begs for someone to put the flames out, ever willing to lend a hand Helga drops to all fours and begins blowing into the fire trying to put it out that way but she only manages to fan the flames back at the enermancer. Tethys and Discordia make their way up the hallway and the enermancer spies his escape route, diving at the tiefling he lands on top of Discordia weeping and begging for salve.

“Sorry, I don’t do charity.” Discordia answers dropping the enermancer to the floor.

Helga was too busy blowing the flames back away from her to see that the enermancer had jumped to safety. Frantic the woman reached behind her grasping for swatch of cloth from the back of her belt. She gets her hands around a good chunk of cloth and slams it down in front of her to beat the flames with. Lavender never knew what happened, one minute she’s behind the fleshy galeb duhr and the next she found herself being flung repeatedly into the floor with flames surrounding her as Helga failed to realize she had grabbed a living creature again and not some mundane piece of dungeon decoration.

Lord Horatius finishes off the gnoll he wounded and using Gramps as a possible threat, Slyphwhisper gets into a flanking position with the remaining gnoll and finishes him off with a feint to the groin. The gnoll that had escaped lunges at Tethys and rips flesh from her shoulder and spins the woman into the wall face first and then down to the floor. With a drooling grin the hyena-like man eyes the warlock. Discordia aims an eldritch blast at the beast’s head and unerringly hits the ceiling above his head. Discordia backs off as the smoldering enermancer rises to defend her position. Raising his blade up to meet the massive gnoll’s attack, the enermancer’s defense collapses and the greataxe sinks into the clavicle of the human. The gnoll kicks the enermancer off his axe and brings it back up to take out the tiefling.
Helga had other ideas however and the sumo woman shoves the gnoll against the wall pinning him there. The mad cow then delivers a couple shiv sticks to the gnoll’s ribs collapsing the right lung of the beast. Panic creeps in for the gnoll and he uses the increase in adrenalin to push the gargantuan paperweight off of him. Slyphwhisper seizes upon the distraction to shove his blade into the kidney of gnoll felling the beast to his knees. Badly wheezing, spitting up blood and too weak to hold his weapon any longer the beast sways momentarily in place as Tethys recovers from a quick healing spell she used on herself when she went down.

Still sitting on the floor, the cleric insults the defeated gnoll, “gnolls are stupid!” and then she kicks the beast in the head sending it to its final prone position.

Helga picks up the bleeding enermancer and using her eclipse-like body to cushion and cradle the injured man, she slips a potion bottle from inside her robes and uncorking it with the flick of her double-wide thumb she places the opening in the mouth of the enermancer as if she were feeding an infant. Lavender and Tethys take care of healing Gramps and finishing up the enermancer where Helga’s potion left off. Discordia enters the barracks to quickly confirm that there was nothing of magic hiding out in the room, only to be surprised when she detects something small coming from within a wooden dresser against the far corner. Lord Horatius and the tiefling investigate and return with a small amulet.

“Do you want it?” Discordia asks of the hexblade

“Does it cast fireballs?” Lord Horatius inquires

“Don’t think so, its aura is not very powerful.”

“No, don’t need it then. Why don’t you keep it?”

“Nah, it would obstruct the view of my cleavage and I would feel smothered then.”

Discordia hands the trinket to Lavender when she exits the room with a knowing wink.

Repaired to the best of health they could be, the party heads back to the entry room where most all of the party save Gramps halts to discuss whether or not to enter the double doors and where the hostages are likely to be found. Gramps ignores the pause in the party’s advance and continues on to the south and to a door on the eastern wall. Made of stone, this door does not budge on a kick instead the dwarf has to plow into the door with his shoulder to get the heavy portal to open. Even forty feet away the party could see the dust spill from the room as the dwarf tumbles into it. Throwing their hands up the rest of the party walks south to catch up with Gramps.

The room is a twenty by twenty-five nearly square dusty sitting chamber. In each corner stood a nightstand the remaining wall space was taken up by wooden chairs upon which a single beautifully crafted and shining item rested. Gramps stood just inside the door, trying not to disturb the thick dust and giving himself another coughing fit. Discordia appears in the doorframe and scans the room for magic.

“The pile of coins and the candle are radiating magic.” The warlock relates

“That seems odd, who would make a pile of coins on a rotting chair magical?” Lord Horatius wonders

“Lemme check chief.” Helga heaves, knocking Gramps to the floor and shoving Discordia into the room as she enters.

The triple Whopper saunters over to the decaying chair where the small pile of coins rests, attaining the Lotus position, Helga reaches out her arm ready to swipe the entire pile into her sticky bear claws. Gramps, who had righted himself and had come over to complain about the abrupt change in his horizon just now, grabs her hand.

“You sure you want to do that? What if it’s a trap?” Gramps warns

“Pppffttt.” Comes the sound effect reply from the squatting behemoth
“Let me have a look.” Slyphwhisper interjects. The gnome inspects the chair and the floor beneath it and declares the area safe for pillaging.

Helga’s greased palms filch the coins and in one fluid motion she shoves the pile into a fold of her robes. She stands to go to the next chair when she grabs her side where the coins went.

“Ow! That hurts.” Helga complains

“Yes, that is your soul rejecting the improper expectations you’ve been placing upon it. First you stretch it perilously thin as it has to cover your massive girth, then you force feed it various potions and balms. Finally the last straw was when you tried to bribe its silence as you brow beat it towards Lawful goodness. Just despicable, I’m glad it’s fighting back; if I had an extra blade to lend it or a spit to shove through you I would gladly do so to prevent the death of another assassin.” The enermancer explained Helga’s pain.

Wincing in pain, Helga shoves a finger in the enermancer’s face. The enermancer, mistaking it as another gesture he returns the signal with a thumbs up and a knowing wink. Just as the coins rips through the woman’s robes and fly into the air. Small winged jackal heads swarm over the living gravity well as Helga tries in vain to swat the tiny gnats.

“Fascinating, your lard has become sentient and taken on the form of malformed bats. I need to document this.” The enermancer states trying to grab one and shove it into an empty potion bottle as he does so a few of them fly down and slice into his fingers. The enermancer pulls his hand back and tries to staunch a blood flow that seems far too heavy for such small scratches, “Your sweat has the wounding quality, and I must have some for my sword!”

Through the swarm and the flailing Helga, the enermancer gropes his way into the folds of Helga’s robe.

“Great, heat of battle and I’m all sweaty and the only one who gets fondled is the animated gristle. Figures, oh well looks like I’ll just have to loosen these brassiere straps all by myself.” Discordia complains

Gramps grabs the enermancer around the waist and tries to pry the human out of Helga’s clothes; meanwhile Lord Horatius whips out two bottles of Flaming Frank’s Frisky Flask of Fire and takes aim at the swarm of animated coins.

“What the hell are you doing? You’re going to hit Helga, the crazy guy and Gramps with those.” Slyphwhisper points out

“You think I could get all three in one shot?” Lord Horatius asks rhetorically as he does not wait for the reply from the gnome before he chucks the vials at the swarm, they both burst and shower the three party members in a firestorm of confusion and pain.

The liquid does the trick though as the swarm is dispersed and soon transforms back into the coins that were on the chair. Gramps protests the use of a maul when a sap was warranted from the hexblade.

“Look shorty, no thanks are necessary. The mere fact you survived is all I need in my heart to realize a stronger potency is needed.” Lord Horatius smiles

 

[Hairy Minotaur]

Anything you can do, I can do better

Slyphwhisper uses the distraction the insane enermancer and the mobile gateway to the plane of gravity create by swatting at tiny insects, to advance on the far chair and the crown that was laid upon its seat. The silver headpiece remains untarnished after all these years of neglect. Slyphwhisper pegs the crown as magical due to the impeccable condition the crown is in. The front of the headpiece is fashioned to appear as the upper jaw of a jackal complete with ears flanged up either side of the headpiece, the wrap around is formed to appear as dark bat wings that just touch in the back to complete the circle. Giving the chair a thorough look over for any obvious traps (as he had no formal skill yet fell into the party’s stereotypical rogue role) and then reached out and grabbed the crown off the chair. It felt odd in his head, alien to the touch almost, shirking it off as effects of the crown itself, Slyphwhisper placed the item in his backpack for further investigation later with a useful rogue skill he did have. Discordia giggled at the little man’s attention to the crown, as she had already determined the head jewelry was not magical in nature.

Helga shoved the enermancer away from her and brushed off the debris remaining from the destroyed coins that had fallen upon her. Glancing to her left she spied a sword, a cloak and a small metal object lying on the chairs starting from next to the crown and wrapping around to the entry door. Helga went for the sword first; knowing that resale of a weapon is much higher than for a used dusty cloak, especially one that a gnoll had worn. Remembering the embarrassment at the coins chair, Helga examines the chair thoroughly and discovers it is indeed trapped. Some kind of spring mechanism is waiting underneath the chair’s seat to go off. Helga tried to discern the proper way to disarm the trap; she had narrowed down her options to either applying pressure to the seat in order to force it lower a bit and then unhooking the spring or taking the whole chair apart systematically. Impatient she goes with the pressure option, standing up and facing the chair, Helga positions herself next to the chair’s seat and while removing the curved blade, she scoots her massive frame unto the chair to take the place of the sword’s weight. The chair manages a weak cry of death before utterly collapsing under the pressure of the pachyderm-o-sapien setting off the falling block trap above the chair. A five foot cubic block of stone comes crashing down on the woman who somehow managed to roll her bulk off of the slight one foot dais the chairs sat on and avoid the trap.

The chair and sword were crushed as well as the muted silence of the rest of the party that had busied themselves with picking through the rest of the treasures. Lord Horatius had a momentary feeling of elation as he thought the block had crushed the enermancer, but he returned to his sallow nature once he discovered that no one in fact had been injured and wondered why the fates tormented him so with the continued existence of the insane one.

“Is there anything left of value that we might want to take Discordia?” Tethys asked in her bubbly I’m sexier than you’ll ever dream voice

“Just the candle, everything else appears to be falling apart and thus not worth our time.” Discordia answers load enough for most of the room to hear.

“Dibs!” Helga and Lord Horatius yell as they both dive for the candle.

“Then why did Slyphwhisper take the crown if it’s worthless?” Tethys wonders

The enermancer had wondered over to the women by this time and hearing Tethys' question opted to divulge his unique knowledge at this time.

“Pounded tin takes a long time to tarnish; the gnome was merely taking the item to cultivate it as a useful hat that will block the demonic voices in his head. Tin is a good barrier that keeps out disembodied voices and the demons that are inherent in every gnome’s brain are difficult to avoid, I’m impressed that our little fellow there hasn’t snapped and gone insane, killing the lot of us and using our spleens to call forth the third coming of Grazz’t to dance upon our powered spines. I consider myself lucky to awake to Susan’s light every morning as it reassures me that the gnome hasn’t become possessed yet.” The enermancer explains

Lord Horatius reaches the chair with the candle in it first, he grabs the stick with his right hand and holds aloft his prize a smile of happiness that only a fellow pyromaniac would find comforting he turns slowly to see his life flash before his eyes as the human siege tower comes crashing into him with all the momentum of an avalanche. Helga envelopes the hexblade and forces his body between the cold stone of the wall and the sweaty fat of the marshmallow woman. His body under great strain, his hand relinquishes his prize and the candle rolls down the shoulder of Helga to be scooped up by her paddle-like mitts. Helga pushes off the wall and Lord Horatius and backs away with her prize now. Fumbling through her robes, she produces some flint and goes to work on the candle’s wick. A stunned Lord Horatius stares off into the room as the blood rushes back to his faculties.

Slyphwhisper passes the last chair on the north side of the room, spying the odd piece of metal on the chair, the gnome easily palms the item and places it in his backpack next to the crown for a better look when the rest of the party is sleeping, dead, or both. The final two items were rotting and were left untouched, a cloak and a crossbow, as the party backs out of the room and they head across the hallway to the next door south of the entry chamber. Listening to the door, Slyphwhisper deems the room safe to enter. Gramps slowly pushes the door open and the smell of ale and blood readily assails the party’s noses.

“Look sharp, there’s killin’ afoot.” Gramps warns

The rectangle room is thirty by twenty; several cupboards line the walls to right and also across from the door. Another exit lies in wait at the southwest corner. Boxes and crates along the southern wall belie the function of this room as a storage room. Lord Horatius storms over to the southern wall where a lone barrel sits quietly; its top shows signs of scratches as if it has been pried off recently. A strong smell of alcohol wafts from the lid and the sides of the barrel. The hexblade licks his lips in anticipation of a drink, using his dagger Lord Horatius forces open the lid to reveal the dead body of a gnoll that has bled out to half the volume of the barrel, a strong tang of blood drifts out from the makeshift coffin. Lord Horatius backs away disappointed and turns back to the party shrugging his shoulders at the loss of drink.

Gramps saw the shadow first; a small creature had climbed up the backside of the barrel and was leaping through the air. Lord Horatius was caught unaware as the assailant planted twin daggers into both sides of the hexblade’s clavicle. Lord Horatius yelled in alarm as Gramps raced up eager for a fight. Lavender quickly shot the bleeding man with her healing power as Discordia and Tethys moved to get better ranged options as the small figure was using the front of Lord Horatius as a shield. Slyphwhisper circled around to the opposite side of the hexblade from Gramps. The small pale female gnome barred her teeth and hissed at Slyphwhisper. Gramps set up a perfect flank for Slyphwhisper but the neither man was able to get the female deep gnome to open her defense up. Using the kneeling Lord Horatius who was getting healed as fast as the deep gnome was shoving her daggers deeper into his flesh, the female gnome kept Slyphwhisper and Gramps at bay.

“She’s possessed! Put your tin headpiece on her to get the voices to stop.” The enermancer cries out his vocal assistance.

Slyphwhisper shifted tactics and decided to try and feint the gnome to get her off-balance. The deep gnome was unimpressed with the amateur gnome and turned the tables on Slyphwhisper by showing him a feint of her own, the false move brought Slyphwhisper’s arm up in defense. The deep gnome dislodged the dagger from Lord Horatius’ left shoulder and shoved it hilt deep into the right rib cage of Slyphwhisper. The gnome whimpered in pain and twisted away quickly, Gramps tried to capitalize on the shift of attention, but the deep gnome was too quick and deftly dodged the lumbering dwarf. The deep gnome then replaced the missing dagger in the hexblade’s left shoulder with one from her belt.

“Crap, I’m going to run out of healing in a few seconds and we haven’t hit her and she’s downed two of ours already.” Lavender announces

Tethys fires magic missiles at the deep gnome, they hit her unerringly causing her to back off from the hexblade but leave her daggers still placed in his shoulders. Lord Horatius falls forward on his face, exhausted from the constant pain and healing that he had spent enduring for the last few moments. Slyphwhisper writhed in agony as he took shallow breaths trying not to rip the muscle even further. Blood was filling the back of his throat as his lung was quickly drowning from the wound. Discordia then backed the gnome up even further by blasting her with an eldritch bolt. The deep gnome skipped to the far door and retreated through it, slamming the door shut behind her.

Gramps removes the daggers from Lord Horatius and Lavender spends her last reserves bringing him back to consciousness, Tethys pulls the dagger from Slyphwhisper’s side and uses her healing magic to reduce the angry wound to a mere seeping hole. The enermancer races to the door the deep gnome exited and throwing it open expecting to find a waiting adversary is disappointed to find an empty hallway; he leaves the room to follow the small footprints as they head off to the east. Helga hands Tethys a bottle of liquid from under her robes and goes about kicking in the crates lined against the south wall.

“What are you doing?” Lavender questions the hefty woman

“Looking for the Jack-in-the-box.” Helga responds and returns to kicking in the crates

The noise in the room can be heard in the hallway as the enermancer creeps up to the bend in the hallway to the north, he sees the open door the party just entered through and feels a small hand on his back. Twisting quickly and aiming low he narrowly misses Slyphwhisper.

“What the hell?” The gnome questions

“What? Your hand was small, I’m hunting a gnome. What did you expect?” The enermancer answers

“Okay, I’m sorry. Which way did the B**** go?” Slyphwhisper demands

“Well, I think she’s stalking the rest of the party and has re-entered the room through the door we entered.” The enermancer relates

“What? Then what in the hell are you doing just standing there?” Slyphwhisper yells

“I thought you were attacking me remember?” The enermancer replies as the gnome races up to the door in question, peering in he sees a chaotic scene as the deep gnome has downed Lavender with twin kidney shots.

Gramps and Helga are trying to force the gnome back to the door so that Tethys can get to the bleeding Lavender without worry of harassment from the deep gnome. Slyphwhisper blocks the door and attempts to feint the deep gnome again but fails and takes a slash to his left forearm for the failure. The party backs the deep gnome into a double flank and a ranged aggravation from Discordia. The deep gnome manages to keep her defense up for a few seconds longer before the enermancer manages to slice into her shoulder, causing a cascading effect that brings down the deep gnome from a pummeling from the rest of the party’s attackers.

Tethys stabilizes Lavender and the party regroups by stripping the deep gnome of everything on her body and then stuffing the paler naked form into the top of the gnoll corpse and then the lid is hammered back into place. Their healing used up and not looking for another fight, the party elects to go across the hall and make a resting stand in that room as there is only one door into the room. Helga passes out two more healing potions as the enermancer stands guard at the doorway by emptying his water skin unto the dusty floor and shaping the mud into little figures.

“What hell are you about to subject us to now?” Slyphwhisper implores

“Quiet, giving birth is a complicated matter.” The enermancer replies

“What?” comes the gnome’s response

“I’m birthing some mudbaby protectors who will watch over us as we sleep.” The enermancer replies

“We’re not sleeping here and you’ve got mental issues that are going to prevent me from ever sleeping while you’re on watch.” Slyphwhisper answers

 

[Hairy Minotaur]

A new Addiction

Slyphwhisper was determined to outlast the enermancer, the gnome propped himself against the wall opposite the deranged fool and watched the madman shape his army of mud replete with splinter weapons and long dead grass kilts. Through two watches the gnome practiced the walk in his head, envisioned the blade slipping between the shoulder blades and wondered if the idiot would call it macaroni. The enermancer paid little heed to the lawn ornament and busied himself with making a formidable conversation piece. An hour into the last watch the enermancer proclaimed his work completed and wiping the dripping sweat from his brow he turned back to view the gate into the heart of the plane of fire, otherwise known as Lord Horatius’ campfire, at the restless bunch of outlaws and miscreants and smiled. He vowed to one day tell them the story of how planer energy is really a myth perpetrated by doppelgangers but that could wait a few more days.

Slyphwhisper glared at the human redundancy and cursed the fact he’d let the night get away from him as he viewed the couple hours of sleep he would get as worse than no sleep at all and now he was going to be sitting up all night watching mud puppets getting sculpted. Lord Horatius was first to rise as his offering to the god of annoying brightness and uncomfortable warmth flickered out in a flood of wetness. Checking the fire and finding the bottom logs damp with some kind of liquid, the pyromaniac went into a cursing rage. Cursing Tethys and Gramps before he stepped into something wet and hearing the unmistakable sound of soggy dirt squishing under his boot, the hexblade traces the small rivulet of water to the beached whale being dehydrated before his very eyes.

“Well done, moron you’ve managed to flood your own oven.” Lavendar remarks

“You seem to like sticking your nose into places it should expect to get sliced off.” Lord Horatius replies

“Doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the irony of it all.” Lavender answers

“Classic!” Slyphwhipser comments at the hexblade’s defeat

Lord Horatius smirks and retrieves a couple of the enermancer’s mud men and heads back to the dwindling fire.

“Hey! Those are for protection; you can’t just waltz over here and deplete the south flank without compensating with the rest of your sides. What am I supposed to do if the gnome goes feral on us and starts using his rakshasa like agility to attack me from the south?” The enermancer complains

“I’m sure you’ll cope, drink some of Gramps’ ale it helps the normal people cope, might be half as effective on you so I’d double the dosage.” Lord Horatius answers

The hexblade smashes the mud men together to create a mud wall for the sweat to trickle away from the fire.

“Why not just move the fire to another spot, or move the whale closer to the beach?” Slyphwhisper offers

“What? And accept defeat? Never! If I have to open a gate to the City of Brass to get this thing burning again, so help me I will do it!” Lord Horatius shouts

Helga snorts herself awake at the hexblade’s battle cry and turns over in her puddle, “Oh uh, I think I had too much to drink last night, and I seem to have a fever. I’m so hot. Whew!” The woman fans her face with her massive hands.

“You’re fine Helga, hemorrhoid boy here got irritated when his beacon for the invading azer army was extinguished.” Discordia states

“Oh, why are my clothes all sticky?” The large woman says as she picks herself up off the floor.

“That’s nothing, you should try wearing a leather bodice so tight that when you sweat the salt water drains down between your bosoms and collects there, then it gets cold and you’ve got this temperature gradient thing happening, the mountain peaks are burning up while the valley is in an ice age. It’s the most fricking uncomfortable feeling in the world especially when you run and the water sloshes.” Discordia explains

“I feel yucky, I need a shower” Helga complains

“Covered!” Tethys shouts and creates gallons of water over the large woman’s head, snuffing out the fire in the process and creating a smoke signal the size a titan would use.

The room is instantly blanketed in a thick mind numbing smoke. Gramps hacks himself unconscious as the rest of the party tries to gather their things in total darkness. Slyphwhisper feels his way along the wall until he reaches the door and tries to open it only to realize it’s locked. Fumbling through his pouches, Slyphwhisper locates a set of bent metal pins he uses to act as if he really knows how to pick a lock. Slyphwhisper however hides a secret as he has the unfortunate ability to cause mechanical objects to fail when he operates them. Sometimes this results in an unfortunate circumstance, other times it performs as it does this time as the entire locking mechanism disengages from the door and falls out into the hallway beyond.

“I can’t see anything! Who dropped the smokestick in the room?” Discordia’s voice rings above the din

“Soldiers attack!” The enermancer screams and starts launching mud men at the locked doors and the wall adjacent to the doors.

“I gotta get outta here!” Helga grunts and bull rushes the doors.

Sylphwhisper hears the stampede of water buffalo behind him and moves to one side of the door, he then grabs a piton out from his backpack and as the Sphere of Food Annihilation comes rumbling through the door, the gnome sticks out the piton and trips the large woman. Helga bursts through the double doors and slams face first into the wall opposite the doors in the hallway. The force of her attack on the doors causes them to swing all the way open and then quickly rebound on their hinges. The doors close again as Helga falls backwards unconscious and lands on the doors, wedging them shut against her wide girth.

Tethys drags Gramps behind her as she joins the enermancer, Discordia and Lavender at the door. Lord Horatius stands over the remains of the fire and tries valiantly to restart the conflagration. Slyphwhisper tires to escape but finds the doors immobile now. The rest of the party begins pushing on the doors and they creak and groan under the top heavy force against the human doorstop. Lavender flails around for the door handle and finds the hole Slyphwhisper’s machinations created. She reaches through and while searching for the exterior handle, comes up with a handful of greasy hair instead.

“Something’s blocking the door and keeping us in here to smother to death! I think it’s a troll!” Lavender announces.

“Let me see!” Tethys replies and drops Gramps to bend down at the opening in the door, through the smoke billowing out from inside the room, Tethys can faintly make out the top of a head resting against the door. Shoving her lithe hand through the hole, she takes aim and fires off two magic missiles into the head. The force of the blast knocks Helga’s head to one side and it lolls there, “I killed it!” Tethys rejoices.

The door however still won’t budge, Lavender comes up with a plan and the women grab one side of Gramps while the enermancer and Slyphwhisper grab the other. Using Gramp’s plated helmet and head as a battering ram they begin to beat the door down. The door cracks under the pressure and the quintet double their efforts to get through the door as the room behind them erupts in a blaze of victory as the hexblade howls with glee over his triumph of the soggy logs. The women scream and shove Gramps into the door one final time and the right side of the entry snaps in half spilling the party out into the hallway and over the cataleptic Helga.

The party regroups as Slyphwhisper plops down next to the startled Helga. Mistaking Slyphwhisper’s exhaustion as a friendly boost up, Helga plants one of her leviathan meat hooks on the gnome’s head. Ignoring the screaming and arms flailing, Helga wrenches herself up to a standing position as Slyphwhisper’s back and neck becomes an accordion of fractured bones and torn tendons.

“Ouch” Slyphwhisper managed to say before passing out. He wakes up an hour later as the party is arguing whether or not to camp outside the temple or press on in search of the baron’s daughter. Lord Horatius wins out after assuring the party if they can try just one more door he’ll only make the fire visible from the next county over as opposed to being visible from space.

Choosing the fancy double doors by the entrance, the party steels themselves for a fight. Gramps slowly inches the door open and the sounds of a dog barking and a something else in pain issue from the crack in the door.

“Quickly, open the door Gramps that could be the girl we’re looking for!” Lavender pleads.

Lord Horatius shoves the door open above Gramp’s head, throwing the dwarf off balnce and he falls into the room.

What was once a great cathedral has been desecrated and taken over by the gnolls. A crude altar of stone sits in the back of the room, a large female gnoll with a wicked looking cat-o-nine-tails stands ready to deliver another thrashing to a chained female prisoner on the altar. Throwing assessment to the wind, Lavender throws her healing hand outward towards the chained prisoner and connects as the gnoll’s flail slams across the chest of the prisoner.

“No, please. Mercy, Mercy!” The woman cries

“There is no mercy for the trespassing and weak!” The gnoll barks and connects with the prisoner just as Lavender’s healing bolt arrives.

“No!” *Crack* “YES! Hit me again!”

Confused the gnoll pauses and observes the squirming human quizzically.
“Uh oh, looks like in my adrenalized state, I amped up my healing bolt into uncharted ecstasy levels.” Lavender comments

Discordia bolts for the other side of the room as Slyphwhisper ghosts his way down the opposite side of the room. Gramps stands to his feet, flanked by the enermancer and Lord Horatius , while Tethys pines for wilderness help for the battle that is about to take place.

The gnoll priestess power grips the flail with both hands and brings it to bear on the writhing prisoner. Instinctively Lavender throws another bolt of healing at the human female.

“Oh God! YES! Hit me harder! I want it! I need you to hit me! Come on you upright canine piece of trash. Whip me like the infidel that I am!” The prisoner screams

“Crap.” Lavender comments

The gnoll is now thoroughly confused and stops to check the instrument of her torture for defects, as she focuses her attention on the flail, both Slyphwhisper and Discordia flank her and cut down the gnoll easily. Discordia grabs the flail and points out the other magical objects on the gnoll’s body for Slyphwhispwer to relieve the corpse of.

“Hey, tiefling. Psst.” The chained prisoner calls. Discordia turns to face the woman.

“I’ll get you out of there in just a moment.” Discordia answers and then returns to cherry picking through the gnoll’s possessions

“Hey wench, focus on the living you twisted freak!” The prisoner rankles Discordia

“What did you say?” Discordia inquires her blood temperature rising

“Oh, did I say something bad? Why don’t you come over her and whip me for being bad?” The prisoner pleads

“Fine, you want it you got it.” Discordia answers and whips the tar out of the prisoner.

The prisoner’s screams of pain and terror fill the room, Lavender looks up to see Discordia hammering away at the nude captive with the flail and recognizing that the screams are not in ecstasy but in pain and fear, throws another healing bolt at the prisoner and makes a dash for Discordia yelling at the warlock to stop beating the prisoner.

Discordia hears Lavender’s pleas and ceases her beat down of the chained captive. The men in the party stare uncomfortable at Discordia after the prisoner squirms in her chains and arches her back.

“Why did you stop! Hit me again you worthless half of a giant demon dropping, soulless womb of eternal stupidity!” The prisoner screams

Discordia raises the flail again but Lavender reaches her and stays her hand.

“What? Get away from her wench! She needs to finish what she started!” The captive cries

“No, I’ve got to think of how to best handle this dilemma. It might take awhile; I believe I short circuited her brain into associated horrible pain and suffering as intense waves of pleasure from my healing powers. I may have broken her mind.” Lavender explains

Helga finally reaches the fray with Tethys in tow.

“You! El Lardo, smack me around. I’ve been a bad girl and I need to be punished, whip me like an orc between you and a stack of crème filled cakes with syrup and icing and whi…” Helga’s ham fist flew into an involuntary rage from the perceived withholding of food and slammed the head of the captive from the side, dislocating the prisoner’s jaw and wrenching her neck sideways.

“ow… where’s the ecstasy?” The prisoner mutters before passing out on the cold stone altar on a pool of her own sweat and fluids.

Tethys tends to the chained captive while the rest of the party frees a group of prisoners lined up in a hallway adjacent to the altar room each one awaiting their torturous death at the hands of the gnoll priestess. The party learns that these captives are from an armed caravan that was waylaid two nights ago about a mile south of the temple. The gnolls had taken Captain Ettaire to torture first in hopes of breaking the rest of them, her distorted shouts of pain and ecstasy had frightened all of them into thinking their torture would go on for hours. None of them had seen any other prisoners but that had heard the gnolls mention another group of prisoners that the drow might like instead.

The able-bodied of the group were happy to don their equipment again and join in the battle to slaughter the remaining gnolls in the temple. The merchants fled to the entryway and barred the door from the inside and waited for what they hoped would be a victorious return. Captain Ettaire was healed and returned to consciousness. Where she promptly begged to be beaten like a cur, disturbing her former band mates and merchants alike, Lavender calmed her down and assured her that no one was going to beat her and that it was a side effect of the whip and that it would pass. Captain Ettaire elected to go with the group to hunt the rest of the gnolls with hate in her eyes.

A few hours later with no luck in finding any other prisoners or gnolls the group ran across a couple of retreating gnolls who fled around a corner and disappeared. They redoubled their efforts in finding a secret passage and Slyphwhisper came through. As the gnome and dwarf worked together to find the unlocking mechanism, Captain Ettaire approached Discordia.

“You whipped me like you knew what you were doing, as if you had handled that kind of situation before.” A Captain Ettaire started; sweat pouring down her forehead as she tried to control the trembling her body was wracking her resolve with.

“What’s your point? I can’t whip you anymore; you’ll need to find another outlet for your new fetish.” Discordia explains.

“Do you have anything sharp you could casually run across my body while applying pressure?” Captain Ettaire begs

“Yes, but I have a nasty habit of removing organs and spines with it. Best to move along.” Discordia says and moves up to join the rest of the pack as Tethys brings up the rear of the people train and encounters the twitchy captain.

The gnome and dwarf figure out the hidden latch for the secret door and get it open to reveal a long hallway with an enormous fresco of a human head at the near end of the hallway. The floor of the hallway seems to be covered in very fine sand, several inches deep. At the other end of the hallway is a large fresco of an armed human warrior.

“Well, they went down there somehow, lets keep pressing.” Slyphwhisper announces much to the joy of the rest of the group. The expanded party moves into the hallway, the light from behind them dims as bodies crowd the secret door, blanketing the corridor in twilight.

Lavender gets a tap on the shoulder, “Psst, Lavender. Can you come back this way for a moment?” Tethys whispers

Lavender heads back up the corridor outside of the secret door and finds Captain Ettaire prone on the ground, her Cuirass slashed open in front and a bleeding wounds skate across her chest.

“What the hell did you do?” Lavender screeches and races to heal the Captain

“We were playing a game called connect the dots, I went first and She told me to connect all the freckles on her chest with this little metal stick here.” Tethys replies holding up the object.

“That’s a dagger you moron, you cut her all up.” Lavender says and pours healing into Captain Ettaire

The Captain’s eyes flutter open and she grabs Lavender and pulls her onto her chest, “More! More! Give it all to me! I feel it!”

Lavender pries herself from the captain’s grasp, “Pull yourself together, I will not indulge you in this addicted destructive persona. I admit my role in its creation but I shall not continue to feed it.” Lavender explains and walks away.

“Oh! It was supposed to be mine turn next. That’s not fair!” Tethys pouts as Captain Ettaire squirms on the floor, a far off look in her eyes and an idiot’s grin across her mouth.

"What do you make of this?" Slyphwhisper asks Gramps while pointing at the layer of sand in the hallway.

"Obviously we're near a portal to the demi-plane of beaches, watch out for hermit crabs. Dude" The enermancer interjects himself into the gnome and dwarf's conversation, "see no danger here." The enermancer stated as he advanced down the hallway.

As he reached the midpoint of the hallway, the face fresco distorted and opened its mouth wide. A rush of air sound began race up the carving's mouth. Two stone minotaurs emerged along with a blast of air that stirred up the fine sand, blocking vision, making speech impossible and burrowing its way into every open crack and crevasse of the party in the hallway. The air picked up speed and begin to push the enermancer over the sandy floor as if he were skating. As he neared the far end of the hallway the large human fresco animated and waited for him to come within reach of its massive stone sword.

 

[Hairy Minotaur]

Pray harder

“I’m not going to make it son, you’re going to have to be the hero and save the lunatic from his own demons.” Gramps spat at Slyphwhipser.

“Are you drunk already? Why the hell would I save him? I’m hoping his carcass slows down the advance of those two stone guardians before we press on.” The gnome answers

“Fire in the hole!” Lord Horatius shouts as he shoves his way past the two shorter members and presses his way up behind the retreating against his will enermancer. With a mighty toss, Lord Horatius unleashes a vial of alchemist fire into the teeth of the wind. The gritty air grabs the glass container and flings it back at the pyromaniac who quickly ducks out of the way as the vial explodes against the wall next to Slyphwhisper and Gramps.

“We’ll never make it down there with the wind like that and with those two morons leading the charge.” Discordia muses.

“We need to get to the other side of the hallway but there’s no way either I or grandpa here will make it.” Slyphwhisper answers

As the trio mull over their next move, the enermancer and Lord Horatius meet the first of the two stone minotaurs and begin flailing blindly against the stinging sand.

“I got this chief.” Helga bear hugs Discordia, Gramps and Slyphwhisper and begins trudging through the sand down the hallway.

Helga’s wide frame plugs up the hallway behind her, creating a zone of breezy air as opposed to the cyclone that raged in front of her. The stone minotaurs were easily out maneuvering Lord Horatius and the enermancer, their heavy rock hooves allowed them to flank the duo constantly. Helga shifts Gramps to get him alone in her right arm.

“What’re doing?” Gramps wheezes

“I’m gonna toss you over the fight so you can help from behind.” Helga replies

“Dwarf tossing is illegal in this country, besides the gnome is build for this kind of work, I think the best move is to throw him.” Gramps answers

“What?” Slyphwhisper objects, but Helga agrees with the dwarf’s suggestion and drops him to the ground as her massive meat suction cups seize the gnome and launch the burglar over the combat. A stream of high pitched swearing streamed down the hallway and alerted all to the presence of a flying gnome.

Once over the combat, Slyphwhisper looked up and into the walking wind tunnel as the fresco slapped the gnome in the air like a hockey puck. Slyphwhipser’s stunned body slammed into the back of a stone minotaur, throwing it off balance with all the wind in the hallway. The enemy fell forward, allowing the enermancer, pyromaniac, asthmatic and exhibitionist the opportunity to crush the thing and they waste no time in completing that action. The enermancer presses against the wall and begins to close the distance on the animated fresco. Discordia and Lord Horatius use the downed minotaur as cover against the sandstorm, Helga keeps pressing on and meets the remaining stone guardian a few feet from where Slyphwhisper’s stunned body lay motionless face down in the accumulating sand.

As the enermancer got within fifteen feet of the fresco, the animated wall mural bent its head and blew its forceful wind straight down at the human, effectively immobilizing the enermancer to the hallway’s wall. The lapse in the sand blowing, gave Discordia the opportunity to eldritch blast the fresco from cover about sixty feet away. Shards of rock careen off the hallway as Helga presses her way up to the fresco swatting away the fragments like flies. Slyphwhisper continued to play the part of a lifeless carcass in the hopes that the fresco would overlook him.

Helga could see that the hallway dog-legged to the right. The fresco however took up the entire corner and made getting past him while he still stood a near impossible task.

The fresco released the enermancer from the wall and as he sagged off of the wall, the fresco slapped him back down the hallway with the side of its blade. Ducking, Helga dodged the airborne man and heard him ricochet off of Gramps’ head and finagling coming to rest a couple feet from the prone Slyphwhisper. Lord Horatius scrambles up to Helga as he weighs whether to attempt a firebombing on the massive animated wall carving or attack with his sword. Helga’s girth answers that question for him.

“You go on ahead; I’ve got your back.” Lord Horatius assured the woman

“Uh gotcha chief.” Helga replied as her light bending frame raced towards the fresco

“Wait! I said I had your back, not that I would follow you to certain death!” Lord Horatius yelled after the woman.

Maybe it was the perfect shot from Discordia into the eyes of the fresco, maybe it was the sweat that greased the lumpy pillow through the small round opening. Whatever the case, Helga twisted herself sideways and squeezed past the abbreviated swing of the fresco as Discordia’s blast struck true. Helga positioned herself behind the fresco and in the cramped space in the hallway the fresco had wedged itself so that it could only face the party in the hallway. For several minutes it flailed in vain to swat Helga who methodically picked the stone art work apart. As Gramps, Lord Horatius, Slyphwhisper and Discordia made sure there was nothing left of the stone minotaurs to reanimate.

As the fresco crumbled to dust, Lavender and Tethys arrived with the captain to witness the aftermath. Slyphwhisper ran to Helga’s position to listen down the corridor beyond for signs of company. Tethys checks on the face down enermancer.

“Is it dead?” Gramps asks of the enermancer

“No, I think I can save him.” Tethys replies

“Don’t tempt the fates; if he’s meant to stay he’ll live.” Gramps replied

“I don’t have any healing spells prepared so all I was going to do was pound on his back to see if that helped and maybe left his legs above his heart.” Tethys answers

Gramps’ face contorts into a mixture of disgust and disbelief, “I’m sure that’ll be sufficient.”

“Maybe I should get Lavender.” Tethys muses

“Why? Can’t you perform final rights?” Gramps inquires

“No, I didn’t study any bardic techniques.” Tethys relays

“I’m going to need therapy if we get out of here.” Gramps whispers to himself

Tethys waves over Lavender who rescues the enermancer from certain death much to the chagrin of the dwarf and gnome. Once the party can walk again they all make their way to Slyphwhisper who’s peering around a corner down a long hallway. Slyphwhisper motions for the party to follow him as he carefully traces his path along the sandy floor, keeping a close eye out for anything that he might call a trap, spotting a depression in the sand Slyphwhisper calls the enermancer up to the front.

“I need you to go stand along that section of wall, I think there’s a lever trap in the floor and we need to balance the weight to avoid falling.” Slyphwhisper instructs

“The best way to counteract gravity is to use loadstones to make you out weigh the pull of gravity, the double negative weight created will cause you to be repulsed by the ground and then you can glide away.” The enermancer declares

“I’m repulsed by you already, get over there!” Slyphwhisper demands, pointing at the other side of the corridor.

Slyphwhisper watches as the enermancer steps in the depression and arrives at his destination across from the gnome. Perturbed that it wasn’t a trap, Slyphwhisper presses on.

“I thought you don’t do traps well.” Gramps wheezed

“That’s almost right; actually I don’t do them at all.” Slyphwhisper confirms

The group rounds a turn and Gramps perks up and alerts the team that his underground mining senses have revealed the location of a secret door in the wall behind him. Pushing the door inward the party enters a well travelled corridor with a closed and barred on the outside door thirty feet down the hallway on the right side. The hallway continues and makes a left turn another twenty feet beyond the door.

“Awfully odd to have the brace on the outside don’t you think?” Slyphwhisper asks of no one in particular

“I don’t know, my pantry at home had the bar on the outside and we always closed the arn door with the bar on the outside.” Helga explains

“So you’re contending this is either their food supply or it’s where they keep their chicken coup? Who would do that hundreds of feet from any water, grass, feed, light or fresh air?” Slyphwhisper questions

“Stupid people?” Helga replies

“Lantern archons would do that.” The enermancer chimes in

“What? Why would outsiders need to store chickens on the prime plane underground and behind a secret door?” Discordia counters

“If I go check it out would you whip me like the demonwhore I am?” Captain Eterie offers. The party turns back to face her, “just offering is all.”

Lord Horatius pushes his way through the party and marches up to the door. He grabs the heavy wooden bar and instantly pulls his hand away and looks at it for a brief moment before collapsing in a heap at the base of the door.

“Should’ve checked for traps.” Slyphwhisper announces as he glides up to
the door with a smile on his face that gets washed off as blasts of healing magic from Lavender erupt into the hexblade’s body. With a disheartening sigh Slyphwhisper examines the door.

A hard shove from his right flings the gnome ten feet down the hallway as Captain Eterie begins to fondle the door looking for the poison the affected Lord Horatius, “Don’t use up all your special sauce on him I’m going to be injured as well!”

Lord Horatius retched on the floor as the poison and healing magic battled each other within his body. The hexblade lost all bodily function control and spasmed on the floor in a paralytic convulsive state, foaming at the mouth and projectile spitting at the same time. Captain Eterie stops groping the door after watching Lord Horatius’ display.

Sweating and drained, Lavender drops to one knee and declares Lord Horatius saved. The heaving waste stained mass on the floor of the hallway began to twitch before its ragged breathing normalized and it lifted it’s head, “next time please just kill me instead.” He groaned

The enermancer walked up behind Captain Eterie and grabbed her hand, before the protesting captain could free her hand the enermancer had placed her hand on the wooden bar and shoved the bar aside.

“What the hell! Don’t ever try that again. You could’ve killed me, why would you do that?” The captain protested

“I always practice safe trap disarmament.” The enermancer replies

A muffled shuffling sound came from behind the door and the party readied for action. The enermancer flung the door open and rush of cool air blew out the sconce across from the door, dim illumination reached only a few feet into the room. The enermancer’s moved to the threshold, preventing more of the dim light from reaching the room.

“Unless you be of turnip parentage I believe now is the time to gaze upon your savior.” The enermancer gloated

“What the hell was that?” Slyphwhisper scoffed at the notion the enermancer did anything more than open a door.

A soft mummer quickly gathered strength as a group of beaten and battered humans stumble forward amid tears of joy at the sight of other humans. The party quickly ushers them out of their prison, three males and a female. All of them fawn all over the party declaring them their saviors and praising multiple deities for their good fortune.

“Are you Baron Muchausen’s kid?” Gramps asks the female

“Yes, did he send you to rescue me?” The woman ecstatically perks up

“More like he’ll be paying us when we deliver you to him.” Slyphwhisper responds

A knowing nod from the woman ended the conversation as Slyphwhisper retreated to the secret door and waved the others to follow him. Half way to the door the gnome raises his hand to urge them to halt. He curses and spits at the ground, “We’ve got company.”

“Back into the prison with you!” The enermancer yells and shoves two of the male captives back into their former room.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Discordia argues and shoves the enermancer away from the door.

Captain Eterie shoves Discordia. Discordia stands confused, “now hit me back really hard.” The captain demands. To which Lord Horatius complies, a double axe-handle chop to the back of the captain’s head staggering the woman. The baron’s daughter begins creeping back to her prison, fearing it the safer place to be than in the company of lunatics.

Slyphwhisper throws a dagger to the feet of the enermancer which causes the group to pause their internal conflict, “you’ve got five seconds to follow me or you’re on your own.” The gnome runs to his dagger and retrieves it, then heads down the passage to the left and disappears into the darkness. One by one the rest of the party, including the newly rescued, follows the gnome down the corridor. The gnome finds a rotting wooden door ajar midway down the corridor and ushers the rest of the party inside.

Lavender creates a blue glow with her hands so that those without darkvision could see they were in a crypt, sarcophagi stretched out in a row to either side of the door along the left and right walls, “quickly find a hiding place, get low and don’t make a sound. Somebody put a sock in Gramps, I don’t want his wheezing to alert the gnolls about to spill in here.

With racing hearts the party scrambles to find suitable shelter, with everyone but Helga finding a hiding spot. The raised barking noises from down the hall told the party they would soon have visitors, Slyphwhisper told Helga to lay on her back at the rear of the room in the middle of the wall and act like a stone sarcophagus. Helga complies as the door to the room gets shoved open by a group of gnolls who peer through the darkness with eyes used to staring down prey in the night. Seeing no movement and unable to hear anything from all the panicked barking behind him in the corridor they continue on their way. After minutes had passed, Slyphwhisper steps out from his hiding spot and peeks down the hallway, seeing and hearing nothing he alerts the others that the coast is clear.

Syphwhisper tried to close the door but its hinges were rotted and the door slowly swung back open, frustrated the gnome knew they would need to move out of this room soon if they were to make it out with the baron’s daughter. Seeing his frustration, Tethys walked up to the gnome.

“What’s wrong?” The cleric asked

“This door won’t close nor lock, we’re going to need to move again unless we can get it locked somehow. I’ve tried everything I have to get it to stay closed.” Slyphwhisper relates

“You want me to wizard lock it?” Tethys offers

“Really? That would be awesome if you could do that. It would allow us to rest in peace.” Slyphwhisper accepts

Tethys comes up to the door and pulling it closed fumbles with the locking mechanism for a few seconds and then releases the door with a smile and pats the gnome on his head.

“That’s an odd somatic component to that spell; at least it was silent though.” Slyphwhisper sighs as the door slowly swings open, “Uh excuse me.”

“Yes?” Tethys answers turning to look back at the gnome

“The door didn’t lock nor is it shut, what the hell did you do?” Slyphwhisper inquires

“I wizard locked it.” Tethys answers

“Impossible, it’s not locked. If you had cast Wizard Lock it would be shut.” Slyphwhisper counters

“Cast Wizard Lock? No silly, I locked it. I’m a wizard and I locked it. Therefore its wizard locked.” Tethys smiled blissfully ignorant.

“Wizard Lock is a spell that’s what I thought you were doing!” Slyphwhipser shouted

“No silly, I didn’t pray for Wizard Lock, I prayed for fireball.” Tethys huffed

“What?!?!” The anger in Slyphwhisper’s eyes glowed in the pale blue light of Lavender’s hands, “What kind of wizard prays for spells?”

“Wizards don’t pray for spells goofy, clerics do.” Tethys said innocently

“I know that! What the hell are you doing praying for fireball then?” Slyphwhisper demanded

“Duh, it’s a cool spell; wouldn’t you want to cast it?” Tethys answered as she skipped away to talk to the baron’s daughter about fashion; “Let me know if you need my help again.” She called as she hopped away.

 

[Qwernt]

This is great stuff. What are the new PC's traits? I am guessing Tethys nimpho + airhead. For Helga, obviously obesity and inatentive (keeps grabbing the wrong thing)

 

[Hairy Minotaur]

This is great stuff. What are the new PC's traits? I am guessing Tethys nimpho + airhead. For Helga, obviously obesity and inatentive (keeps grabbing the wrong thing)

Tethys has hot body and nympho - her INT just isn't that good

Helga is obscenely obese and fugly - her WIS is horrible

Depending on how much of the next part I can get into one update, the session coming up has immortalized Tethys' player in the annuals of our gaming group.