Of Sound Mind the Halfling Way

[the Jester]

Is this the Promised Land at last?

Through the portal, our heroes find themselves on a wide strip of sandy ground, roughly torus-shaped and largely encircled by high stone cliffs. There is a comfortable-looking table in the center, just near a cooking pit; a small amount of exploration quickly discovers an opening in the walls that leads outside. The halflings can hear the crash of surf from outside. The air has the tangy smell of the sea in it.

When they emerge from the enclosed area, they find themselves in a very comfortable environment. They are about midway up the sandy area of a long, gentle beach. Before them is the sea, glimmering emerald in the sunlight. Behind them, a few hundred yards away, the sands end and the trees begin. The ground slopes gently up away from the ocean.

A great, tasty-looking crab is crawling up the beach in their general direction. It is incredibly large- its central shell is almost 17’ across. It’s thick, dangerous-looking pincers snap at the empty air.

Nara cries out, “Lunch!” She launches a flame strike, hoping to start cooking early. She follows it up with a searing light, while Naomi joins in with an elemental fireball and a psionic fire bolt and Ari tosses another flame strike.

But the crab is big and tough. It survives the cooking attempts and charges forward onto Jawbreaker, clawing him for terrific damage. The Chief roars in anger and transforms into a bear! He lashes out, returning the favor. The crab and he begin tearing and hacking at each other, leaving terrible wounds in each other. The monstrous crab has tremendous reach, and as our heroes move around it, they keep giving it the opportunity to attack them. Soon it has crushed several of the halflings with ruthless strength, leaving them noticeably wounded. The crab turns its attention back to Jawbreaker, and another mighty blow of the pincers shatters several of his teeth! Blood sprays all over from the bear’s mouth, and it gives a load roar of pain and displeasure. The crab’s other pincer snakes in and takes off two of his toes! Jawbreaker howls again.

The adventurers keep up their attack. Naomi continues her cooking attempts both through her psychic powers and by channeling the elemental forces. Erasmuz uses a spiritual weapon to keep hammering at the crab, and then begins casting a suite of buffing spells upon himself, starting with divine power and then casting righteous might to enlarge himself to the size of a human! Thus swollen with power, he strides towards the crab and first heals Jawbreaker, and then pulls forth his harpoon. Nara casts a mass cure light wounds and heals those that the crab has damaged- including herself, Chief Jawbreaker and Erasmuz.

Jawbreaker takes a swipe at the crab, but it scuttles away and he misses. Blood is pouring down his face from his mouth, despite the healing administered to him. He shakes his head to clear it, even as Naomi attempts a mind thrust on the crab. “It’s mindless!” she shouts.

“That’s okay,” Erasmuz replies, stabbing it with his man-sized rapier. “We can still kill it.” As if in agreement, his spiritual weapon pounds down on the crab, cracking its shell!

Then Ari, wild shaped into a dire bear, bellows and charges forward. The crab snaps at him with its pincer, tearing a long gouge in his side, but Ari thunders forward and crashes into the monster, shattering its skull and pounding its head to mush. The thing drops; its feet still twitch, but it is clearly no longer a threat.

“I bet some of it’s already ready to eat,” Naomi burbles, drool dripping from her chins.

***

The crab is delicious, and it’s easy enough to grab up the fuel for a large fire, upon which they can cook as much crab as they want, or at least, as much as they can.
“So is this the Promised Land?” wonders Ari.

“It looks pretty good so far,” Nara replies.

“I don’t know, I’m suspicious,” the druid says.

“You’re always suspicious.”

“That is true,” Ari admits.

“Well, look over there,” Queffe gestures.

There is a figure approaching. Everyone stands up and prepares for trouble. “Hello,” Naomi hails the approaching figure.

“Hello,” he replies, in Halfling. He throws down his hood. He is an elderly halfling gentleman, with a long-out-of-fashion “gnome beard” and silk clothing of an unusual, old-fashioned cut. “Welcome! Welcome!”

“Is this it, then?” asks Queffe. “Have we reached...?”

“The Promised Land?” the stranger replies. “Almost. You are on the cusp of it. You must simply pass the trials first.”

“The trials?” asks Nara.

“Yes. You must prove yourselves worthy of entering the Promised Land. Finding your way here is but the first part of that proof. You must still pass the trials. I am your guide to them.”

“What can you tell us about them?”

“There are seven known trials, and you will take them in order. You must impress the Promised Land to enter.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you pass the trials, or at least most of them, you will probably be allowed to enter.” The guide shrugs. “But I cannot say for certain. I do not decide; the Promised Land decides, and I can only guess at what it wants.”

“I see.” Nara pauses. “What’s it like?”

The guide smiles beatifically. “It’s perfect,” he sighs. “It’s everything you could imagine, everything you could hope for. You’ll have a chance to taste it for yourself in the first trial.”

Cornbread tasted it and left, and could never go back again, Naomi reminds the others telepathically.

“One thing I can tell you is my own personal philosophy on the Promised Land, and what it means to be a halfling. I think there are certain halfling virtues. The Promised Land may not entirely agree with me- it seems to have a mind of its own- but this philosophy has served me well, during my time in the Promised Land. I believe that the Halfling Virtues are: Joy, Sharing, Prudence, Staunchness, Consumption, Creation, Cleverness and Gentleness.”

Naomi scribbles frantically, writing the virtues down. “Consumption,” she gurgles. “I can get behind that.”

“When do these trials begin?” asks Ari.

“That is up to you,” the guide answers. “You must merely tell me, and I will take you to the first trial. You may take as much time as you want between trials.”

“Forget that!” Erasmuz exclaims. “We’re almost there! I want to get in to the Promised Land!”

The guide smiles. “I can understand that.”

“Is there anything else you can tell us about these trials?” asks Nara.

“You won’t need your weapons and armor. You can leave them here. They’ll be here when you are ready to retrieve them. Oh, and I can tell you the names of the trials.”

“Please,” Jawbreaker grunts.

”The first trial is the Trial of Eating. Then there is the Trial of Drinking. Then Cooking, Dessert, Hunting, Cleverness and Faith.”

Erasmuz looks discomfited at the mention of faith.

Everyone takes stock and ensures that they are ready. Nobody is badly wounded, and they have most of their spells and powers still ready to go. “Let’s do it,” Naomi exclaims, chewing on another morsel of crab meat. “Take us to the first trial!”

Next Time: The Trials of the Promised Land!

 

[the Jester]

Current Party Roster:

Erasmuz Ham - wiz 1/psion 1/ranger 1/ex-monk 2/ur-priest 8; NE
Nara Ham-Shroomer - cleric 5/prophet 8; LN
Ari Ham - druid 13; N
Naomi Ham - psion 7/elementalist 6/sarcophagic slug 1; LE
Chief Jawbreaker Ham - barbarian 7/bear warrior 4; CG
Queffe Quaffe Ham - barbarian 1/fighter 4/dervish 6; CN

We're about three sessions away from the end of the halfling campaign at this point in the story hour. I'm not sure how many updates this entails- I'm guessing 3-8?

If anyone is interested, after I post the various trials, I'll post the mechanics of them. Several of them involved 4e-style skill tests and the like.

 

[the Jester]

For the record, I realized that I left an important thing out of one of the recent updates. Cornbread taught the party some halfling food magic spells before they parted ways. Once I get who got which spell straight, I'll post the details.

New update follows...

 

[the Jester]

The Trial of Eating and the Trial of Drinking

Naked of armor, with only a dagger or staff amongst them, the halflings follow their guide to the First Trial of the Promised Land: The Trial of Eating. It is pleasantly warm, with enough wind stirring that the air stays fresh rather than oppressive. The smells of delicious food cooking waft along on the air currents. It looks like it is about noon.

The guide leads our heroes to a massive spread of food of all kinds. A clearing, surrounded by a trellis with grape vines curling up it, hosts a mass of food unlike anything the party has ever seen. Spilling over a mass of tables, there are breads, fruits, cheeses, meats, pies... everything that a clan of halflings could hope for in a meal. Several pitches of water, milk, juice and other drinks are upon the tables. It all looks remarkably fresh, and the smells of fresh muffins, bread, bacon and beef mix to form a tantalizing olfactory experience that begs to go on to the next level: in the mouth, down the gullet to rest in the belly.

“So much food,” gasps Naomi in awe.

The guide nods. “Once you make it into the Promised Land, if you make it into the Promised Land, you will never want for food again.”

The party slowly walks up to the arch leading into the clearing where the food is set up. “There are even dishes for us to use!” Nara exclaims, pointing at one table in particular. Jawbreaker snorts at them disdainfully.

“Of course. This is the first trial,” the guide announces gravely. “You must show that you know how to eat like halflings. When you are done, walk out of the arch in the trellis on the other side of the clearing.” He indicates the position to which he is referring with a gesture. “I will meet you on the other side. Eat like halflings. Good luck.”

With that, the party advances upon the horde of food. Or is it... hoard of food?

***

They eat.

Everything, every single morsel, is as good as it looks and smells. This food is succulent, spicy. crispy, crunchy, bursting with juice, salty or bitter as required. It is perfect, literally perfect food.

One of them will try something, then declare how delicious it is. Some of their companions move over to join in the feasting on that particular item, but others are too busy with the specific taste that they have found at a different table. Even Ari, scrawny by halfling standards, who favors simple grains, vegetables and nuts, cannot deny that the granola here is better than any other granola that he has ever tasted. Finally he can stand it no longer, and he wild shapes into a bear to devour the mounds of berries, to dig into the fresh salmon, to lick the honeycombs.

Jawbreaker thinks like a chief. He prowls about, looking to find the very best first. It is a hard thing, when everything is the very best, but every man has things that he prefers. His inner bear quivers in joy as he begins nom nom nomming along with all his friends- along with his clan. Clan Ham.*

Jawbreaker smiles. Long ago, Jawbreaker’s old clan died, he thinks. At last, Jawbreaker has moved on. New clan. New family.

And soon, the Promised Land. His smile turns into a grin.

They eat and eat and eat. Of them all, only Ari is at all moderate. Soon they are all bloated and stuffed.

“Can’t eat any more,” gasps Jawbreaker. “So full.”

Ari, in bear form, moans agreement.

“Never!” Naomi cries. “Too much,” gasp wheeze, “is never enough!” She struggles to stuff another sausage in her mouth. Grease drips from her chins, pooling between her pendulous breasts. Butter stains dapple her shirt and collar.

Taking heart from their slug-like friend, Erasmuz and Nara continue. Erasmuz pauses, then casts righteous might, growing to medium size and thereby enlarging his remaining stomach space.

Finally, when they can barely move, they stop.** Stuffed like they have never been stuffed before, they rest for a time, cleansing their palates with cool water (and, in Naomi’s case, one last fruit tart) and finally staggering towards the arch that leads from the clearing. When they emerge, they find their guide waiting for them with a smile.

”Well, how did it go?” he asks.

“I thought you could tell us,” replies Ari (who is once again in halfling form).

The guide shrugs. “Hey, I’m just your guide.”

“What was your name again, buddy?” Erasmuz queries.

“Ask me again after you’re in,” the guide says. “Until then, my role is very tightly prescribed.”

“Well, what about the next test?” Naomi burbles.

“The Trial of Drinking,” the guide nods. “Are you ready?”

Jawbreaker chortles. “Jawbreaker ready!”

***

The second trial takes place just around the bend from the first, where a small hillside tavern awaits the group. Their guide leads our heroes inside.

Within the hillside tavern is a friendly room that smells pleasantly of pipe weed, fresh-baked bread and ale. It is peopled by a nice mix of races, including a few gnomes, humans, half-elves, a dwarf, even a trio of goblins and a fat centaur. Strangely, though in all cases their race is obvious, all of them are the size of halflings. There are also two other halflings in the place, who look rather glum.

The party makes their way into the room. Several of the strangers within nod or raise glasses to the, and a half-elf calls out, “Good luck!”

The party approaches the two other halflings. Shrewd Erasmuz notes that the guide doesn’t leave them yet. “Hello,” Nara says to the two glum-looking halflings, who nod at her. “I’m Nara. We’re looking for the Promised Land.”

“Yeah, us too,” one of the two strangers replies sadly. “Except, we found it; we just didn’t get in.”

“But maybe we can get in with you, if you succeed,” the second one puts in. “I’m Nullick Acorn, and this is my brother Tork.”

Gently, the guide says, “You know that it doesn’t work like that.”

Nullick’s face falls. “We’ll see,” he answers. “We won’t give up. We’ll find a way! We won’t go back to Cydra- we’ll stay here forever if we have to!”

The guide sighs. “Of course, you may stay as long as you like.”

The party moves off towards the bar, talking to the other, halfling-sized, people along the way. They are all creatures who attempted to reach the Promised Land with halflings, but didn’t quite make it. Like the Acorn brothers, they refuse to give up, choosing instead to stay on the border to the Promised Land. “They serve their purpose, though,” the guide states enigmatically.

The Trial of Drinking requires the pcs to “drink like halflings”, as the Guide invites our heroes to do to the cheers of the onlookers, who all seem to know what’s going on. The crowd boisterously wishes the party luck. Meanwhile, the dwarf tears off his shirt, revealing a formidably-muscled chest and neck, and announces, “I’d best get started, then!” He pulls a prodigiously large bottle of spirits out and takes a frightfully large pull off of it. Smacking his lips, he shouts, “Oh yeah! That’s good! Who doesn’t like that, oh yeah!!”

“Well,” Nara says, ignoring the dwarf (who is rapidly getting tanked and growing rowdy), “let’s drink like halflings, then!” She orders a round of beers (discovering that the tavern doesn’t charge for drinks) and casts blessed beer, one of the spells that Cornbread taught the party.

The party gets to drinking, Queffe dances around, not stripping for once, and the party gets pretty drunk. But not outrageously so; not like the dwarf, who keeps getting louder and louder and more and more obnoxious. Soon he is mocking Naomi. “Damn, girl, I thought that I’d seen fat halflings before, but you’re fat!” he screams.

“Why thank you,” she bats her eyelashes at him.

The dwarf utters a series of what he means as blistering insults, and Naomi flirts right back. He grows red in the face and gives an angry roar. Queffe steps up between the two of them and says, “Calm down, big boy. You need to relax-”

The dwarf throws a drunken punch.

Queffe tumbles away. Jawbreaker throws his bucket of beer at the dwarf with a hearty bear-guffaw, and Naomi dominates the dwarf.

“Oh, sit down and have a drink with us,” she says, and puts her hand on his knee.

***

Happily drunk, our heroes leave the tavern behind singing traditional halfling songs about bacon and wine. The dwarf, after his intoxicated and dominated strip tease, was left to gather up what dignity he could and sleep off the effects of the dramatic amounts of liquor that he drank.

The guide claps his hands appreciatively as they approach. “If I had to guess, I’d guess that you’re doing well so far,” he tells them.

“Can we wait a while for the neksht tesht?” slurs Nara.

“As long as you’d like,” he nods.

Naomi is already snoring.

Next Time: The Trials continue!

*For the record, the founding of Clan Ham took me completely off guard. I had been expecting a “Clan Jawbreaker” to congeal for about a year (real time), but it never did.

**Naomi took 4 points of dex damage from eating, Erasmuz 3 points and Nara 2 points. They really did eat until they could barely move!

 

[the Jester]

The party walks along at a leisurely place. They can see trees with lollipops hanging like fruit in the distance, but (their guide explains) they cannot reach them. “They lie in the true Promised Land, not here on the border.”

“Like those fields of bread I saw, while I was flying in eagle form,” Ari exclaims.

The guide nods. “Exactly.”

Up ahead, a cheerful-looking cottage with many chimneys comes into view. The smell of baking and cooking is strong. Our heroes quicken their pace, and soon they arrive at the cottage. “The Trial of Cooking,” their guide announces. “Cook like halflings.” With a smile, he takes his leave of them.

The party moves inside the cottage. Its interior is very large. It is dominated by a bank of huge ovens; wood stoves, as well as several firepits, are in the place as well. The walls are covered in shelves and cabinets of cooking-related materials: spices, flour, cutlery, dishes and more. It is the most impressively-stocked kitchen that any of our heroes have ever seen.

“Good,” Jawbreaker says, and smiles broadly. “We get to work.”

The party rolls up their collective sleeves and begins to put things together.* Ari finds the best wood for the fire while Naomi uses her considerable cooking skills to start an intriguing chocolate horseradish chicken dish. Jawbreaker uses his sharp sense of smell to sniff out appropriate spices and ingredients. Erasmuz bluffs the others into thinking he’s helping.

Soon enough the delicious smell of Naomi’s chicken dish becomes tempting. She fends off her friends for a little longer, and then they eat. Nom nom nom! Ahhh, delicious. As always, Naomi’s cooking skills come through for our heroes.

When they leave, their guide is waiting for us. “Well, how are we doing?” Ari asks.

The guide shrugs. “I don’t know. It looks good to me so far, but the Promised Land itself will judge you.” He sniffs the air. “Hmm, what did you make?”

Naomi and the guide get into an animated discussion about cooking for a few moments. But they are eager to continue along their quest, and to reach the Promised Land at last.

Next is the Trial of Dessert.

“You’ll need to go get it,” the guide explains. “It is kept in the back of a cave.”

“A cave!” exclaims Ari. “Should we get our weapons and armor?”

“You won’t need them,” the guide replies. “You are just getting dessert.”

“Okay,” Ari agrees dubiously.

“What’s for dessert, anyway?” Nara asks. “And why is it kept in a cave?”

The guide smiles. “It has to be kept in the cave in order to keep it cold- the back of the cave is an ice cave, you see. It will be delicious, I promise you. It is a mix of fruit juices with crushed up ice- similar to a sherbet. It is astonishingly good.”

Our heroes exchange a collective glance. “All right,” declares Ari, “let’s go!”

The guide gives our heroes very simple directions to the cave, and Erasmuz casts wind walk on all of them. In vaporous form, it takes them all of twenty seconds to reach the cave, and then they land and rematerialize. On foot, then, the party treks inside. The cave is much deeper than they had originally expected; they descend and follow it back for several minutes before they see the first few patches of ice. Slowing to ensure that nobody has a nasty slip, they continue. Soon the walls are coated in a layer of ice. Finally, the back of the cave opens up into a small chamber.

“Wow!” exclaims Naomi

A bucket of crushed ice stained dark purple from fruit juice is in the center of the cave. Nara immediately points out the other dozen or so jugs of icy, half-frozen juice throughout the chamber.

“This one smells like kiwis!” exclaims Naomi.

They set to figuring out how to contruct their dessert, and naturally they have to sample things to make sure that they get them right. They put together a bucket of mixed blackberry, cherry and kiwi juice over crushed ice. Soon most everyone is having an icy, refreshing treat. “That is good,” remarks Queffe. “Oh, yeah.”

“Well, clearly we can’t carry this all back,” Nara says. “We should mix something up here and bring it back.”

“Yeah,” Naomi agrees, “and I think I know just the thing to add to this recipe to make it even better.”

And she pulls out some bacon.

***

The bucket of icy goodness is flavored with the juice of peaches, bananas and blueberries. There is a hint of bacon, as well as a touch of hazelnut in it.

And it smells fantastic.

Eager to complete the trial, our heroes hurry towards the exit from the cave.

And, weaponless and armorless, stumble upon a troll.

The warty green giant roars at the sight of them. It rakes the air with its claws and gnashes its foul yellow teeth.

Yet, at least immediately, it does not attack.

This is part of the trial, too, thinks Erasmuz. He smirks to himself. I get it. He tries to catch the troll’s eye, to attempt to stare it down, but the monster is pacing around and throwing its head back too much. It roars again, saliva drooling from its mouth.

“Troll hungry,” Jawbreaker comments. “Want slushy?” He holds up the bucket of dessert.

The troll roars and licks his lips. He glares at the chief.

The party feeds the troll honeyed snow cones, peanut butter and bacon and chunks of chocolate. Finally, the menacing- yet never actually violent- troll starts to yawn and fall asleep.

“We didn’t even have to use our own slushy stuff,” Erasmuz chortles.

“Victory!” predicts Queffe.

“Let’s hope so,” Ari agrees. But he thinks, Somehow, it still seems too good to be true...

***

Together with their guide, our heroes finish dessert. It is delicious, and the guide beams at them. “Good choice of flavors!” he exclaims. “There was something different about it, too- some little nuance I’d never tasted before...”

“That’s us, all right,” Naomi agrees with a lewd wink.

“Well, you just let me know when you’re ready for the Trial of Hunting.”

“I’m ready any time,” Naomi jiggles suggestively.

“Uh, great, how about the rest of you?”

“I’m full,” Erasmuz sighs. He glances at Naomi. “Hey, buddy, let’s have a good sleep first, what do you say?”

“Fine by me,” she shrugs. She turns her attention back to their guide with a leer. “Will you be sleeping near us?”

“Uh, not that close,” he tells her.

***

The next morning, between breakfast and second breakfast, they set out. The Guide leads the way. “Nothing can be good if it is made up of bad ingredients,” he tells them. “A chef must know what he is cooking with. That is the point of growing your own vegetables or fruits, or of raising or hunting your own meat. That’s the point of this trial. You have to find some worthy prey, hunt it and bring it back.” He looks at them. “You will know your quarry when you find it, I promise you,” he adds.

“I can gather nuts and berries,” Ari starts, but the Guide cuts him off.

“That’s well and good, but this is the Trial of Hunting, not the Trial of Foraging.”

“Right,” the druid acknowledges. “Fair enough.”

The Guide takes them to their equipment. “You can’t hunt without weapons,” he smiles. “Good luck!”

The party sets out. Within the first day they have gathered a number of birds, hares and other smaller creatures, as well as various wild vegetables to go with them. They bring down a large elk with a poisoned crossbow bolt, and then Ari casts neutralize poison on the corpse before they begin to prepare it.

It is not until the next morning, however, that they encounter what they immediately recognize as their quarry: bacon beasts.

The bacon beasts look like huge dire boars that have already been roasted. Cherry red apples are stuck in their mouths. Immediately, the mouths of our heroes all begin to water.

“We are on the way to the Promised Land,” Ari cries. “Bacon, already cooked- and it’s coming towards us!”

Next Time: Against the bacon beasts! Return of the Acorn Brothers! And the Trial of Cleverness!


*This was a 4e-style skill test.

 

[the Jester]

The bacon beasts smell delicous. Their tantalizing odor makes drool drip from the mouths of our heroes as if they were a pack of rabid dogs.

The bacon beasts trot into the underbrush, seeking cover. They have clearly spotted the party, and it seems likely that they know what to expect from an encounter with halflings. The party starts to pursue, enthusiastically. Ari wild shapes into an eagle and launches himself into the sky. The others simply begin moving forward.

Then, as our heroes close in, the bacon beasts do something rather unexpected. Each belches forth a great spew of bacon grease, applesauce and savory spices, but it is burning hot! Nara, Jawbreaker and Queffe get splattered, and it is very slippery on top of everything else. Seeing this, Erasmuz casts freedom of movement before he begins to move in on the tasty-looking monsters.

Grinning like a madman, Jawbreaker charges in. He is surprised to discover that the bacon beasts are actually rather difficult to hit- they are quick, and very greasy; his blows tend to slide off rather than penetrating. Ari and Nara, on the other hand, have more luck with a pair of flame strikes. Soon one of the beasts is down and on fire. Only a moment later, after Jawbreaker hacks it with his axe, the beast seems to reconsider. It tries to flee, and it is fast and greasy.

But no creature in the world escapes a greased halfling!

Jawbreaker gives out a yell and charges after it, swinging his axe in a wild arc that comes down and crushes the beast’s side. A great spurt of bacon grease spews out. The creature lows in pain, and Jawbreaker takes a quick bite out of it.

The halflings fall upon them, and the bacon beasts fall.

***

“Congratulations!” the guide says enthusiastically. “You’re moving right along, aren’t you!”

“Thanks, buddy,” Erasmuz replies. He wipes his mouth with a hanky. “Those thiings were certainly tasty.”

“Some of the best eating that I’ve ever had,” the guide acknowledges. He sits down and digs in with the party for a few moments.

Eventually, Ari says, “What’s next?”

“Ah,” the guide responds, “next is the Trial of Cleverness.”

“Trail of Cleverness... what’s that entail?”

“I can’t really say,” the guide answers. “You know that by now. You’ll find out. Just let me know when you’re ready.”

“Not yet,” Naomi gasps, masticating noisily. “So... much... bacon.”

***

Eventually, the party is ready for their next challenge. However, it does take a while for them (or rather, Naomi) to get full enough, and then to digest a little. One more snack, and they’re ready to go!

The Trial of Cleverness turns out to be an old tradition: a halfling boasting contest. The party finds themselves arrayed against the Acorn Brothers, whom they met in the tavern during the Trial of Drinking.

Some round mocking of Jawbreaker and Ari leads to the chief throwing some nuts at the Acorn Brothers “because they ain’t got none”. In response, they offer to show the evidence. Nara interjects, urging the Acorn Brothers to join the party and attempt to get to the Promised Land.

“You’re doomed to fail,” the Acorn Brothers sneer.

The boasting continues, both sides taking it to outrageous heights. Erasmuz even convinces the Acorn Brothers that he is their father! By the end of it all, though, it is plain that the Acorn Brothers have won.

The party has lost their first trial.

“I hope that doesn’t stop us from getting in,” Nara says worriedly.

“It won’t. Look how much halfling spirit we show!” And Naomi gives out a thunderous, foul-smelling belch.

Next Time: The Trial of Faith!

 

[Brain]

The boasting continues, both sides taking it to outrageous heights. Erasmuz even convinces the Acorn Brothers that he is their father! By the end of it all, though, it is plain that the Acorn Brothers have won.

One of my favorite Erasmuz bluffing moments for sure. Everything stopped and the room burst into laughter. I think bluffing the guy into trading him a ring of water walking for an unidentified potion (which he claimed was a potion of longevity - maybe it was ) was my favorite.

Also, Erasmuz was confident going into all of the trials, except the next one, the trial of faith...

 

[the Jester]

After their loss in the Trial of Cleverness, the party consoles themselves with a meal. “Just think,” laments Naomi, “those Acorn Brothers beat us, and they can’t even get into the Promised Land!”

“I think they are serving their purpose right where they are,” Erasmuz muses. “Maybe they are supposed to stay where they are so that they can oppose other halflings trying to get to the Promised Land, like us, in the Trial of Cleverness.”

“That’s a horrible fate,” Nara says. “To be so close, yet... never to reach the Promised Land.”

“You can even see elements of the Promised Land- I saw fields of bread, earlier- but you just can’t get to them.” Ari sighs heavily. “I hope our loss in that last test doesn’t weigh too heavily against us.”

“Well, those punks deserve it,” Nara replies. “They’re total dicks. Once we get in, we should send them a care package. ‘From Mommy and Daddy, too bad you couldn’t be here.’”

“We send them fruitcake,” chortles Chief Jawbreaker.

***

Later, once they are ready to move on, their guide consoles them. “You could still get in. A lot of folks in the Promised Land failed one or more trials when they tried to get in.” He shrugs. “I failed one myself. Good luck.”

The party follows him to the top of a small hill. Below them is a shrine. “That is a shrine to the old gods,” their guide tells the group. “Use your symbol to both open the doors and to make an appropriate sacrifice within.”

“Uh, symbol?” Nara asks.

“Yes, your symbol of the old gods.”

The party exchanges a few uneasy glances. “Anyone got a symbol of the old gods?” asks Naomi. “What does it look like?” She looks at the guide.

“Sounds like not, then. Interesting. Hmm, I guess that I have said all that I really can. If you don’t have a symbol, the old gods will probably test you.” The guide hesitates. “Well. Good luck, then. Go in and make an appopriate sacrifice, would be my best guess.”

“What kind?”

The guide shrugs. “I’ve said all I can.”

“Is there somewhere that we could go get one first?” asks Nara.

“No,” the guide says flatly. “Not without leaving the testing zone.”

“And that means...?” Erasmuz wonders.

“That you failed.”

“Ah,” Erasmuz declares.

“It’s a forfeit, more or less,” nods Ari. “That makes sense.”

Jawbreaker scratches his beard and puffs out his chest. “We here. We try.”

The party walks down the hillside and towards the shrine. It is walled, but not roofed. Within, through a large window, they can see an altar.

They pause long enough for Nara to use her prophetic divination ability. What should our symbol be? she asks.

If you do not bring one from without, your only symbol can be valor.

“Jawbreaker valorous,” declares the Chief.

Erasmuz stone shapes a horn of plenty from some surrounding stone. Cradling it in his arms, he rejoins the others, who have meantime examined the shrine itself. A large, heavy stone door, graven with images of all kinds of food, seals the place up. “We should use the cornucopia as our symbol,” suggests the ur-priest. “It is very halfling.”

“It’s probably our best hope,” Naomi agrees. “Do we even know what it should look like?”

Silence.

“We probably missed that one about six times,” she grumbles. With a sigh, she hoists the symbol. The party approaches the doors, but as they do so, a great, loud voice booms out.

“PRESENT YOUR SYMBOL.”

The party stops. Gritting her teeth, Naomi steps up and offers up the stone cornucopia.

It crumbles to dust.

“THAT IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.”

Suddenly a blast of flame erupts from nowhere, and the airs whips instantly into broiling winds. A creature forms, a mixture of churning air and fire, and with a speed none of our heroes can match, it fires a meteor swarm at the party.

Next Time: Our heroes fight a holocaust disciple!!

 

[hippiejediz]

How will Erasmuz the ur priest handle The Trial of Faith? Will he be able to bluff his way around it or eat his way though it?

 

[the Jester]

The holocaust disciple is a blazing whirlwind of evil fire and air. Burning-hot winds whip around it as the blazing explosions of the meteor swarm wash all over our heroes. Their cries of pain echo through the small vale that the shrine is in.

Already, our heroes are pressed.

The worst-wounded scatter. Naomi dimension doors away, while Ari wild shapes into an eagle and scrams, but- as it will turn out- not far enough. Meanwhile, Erasmuz casts a quick resist fire on himself.

“Watch out!” Nara cries, casting a mass cure light wounds on the party. “That thing is dangerous!”

“No keeding,” Naomi agrees, channeling elemental power and shrouding herself in protection from fire.

But Nara’s warning comes too late. The holocaust disciple explodes in a blast of fire, raining blazing air all around the eagle-shaped Ari- and, for the second time, the druid dies!

“Ari! Nooooo!” screams Queffe.

The flaming whirlwind of death swings back towards the others, heading towards Nara, but the prophet of Coila time slips away, vanishing into the future. Then Naomi hits it with a cold bolt.

Queffe gives a mournful howl, then downs a resist fire potion. Then she charges in, striking at it! Flames burst everywhere as it blasts back, and a terrific struggle ensues. The others jump in- with Nara reappearing in the middle of the fight and Queffe getting full use of her dervish dance ability.`Erasmuz grimly summons a spiritual meat cleaver and begins chopping at the deadly elemental; then he adds a huge earth elemental to the mix. Gouts of fire keep shooting off of the monster, and it is all the party can do to hold their own!

But it is only a single monster, and against all of them- plus Erasmuz’ summoned elemental- it cannot overwhelm them. It inflicts terrible wounds on them, but one at a time they can fall back to heal a little while their companions keep the holocaust disciple busy.

Nara casts a prayer and glances at Naomi. “We need to get in to that shrine!” she cries.

Naomi nods. “You’re right. And those doors are locked.” She glances at the elemental. “Hey Erasmuz,” she calls, “maybe your elemental can be of more use elsewhere!”

The ur-priest glances at the door. His eyes widen. “You’re right, buddy!” he exclaims.

By now the holocaust disciple has been damaged badly enough that it draws away from the party for a moment and erects a wall of fire. Waves of cooking heat emanate from it.

“Either way, he has to go through that wall,” Erasmuz declares. “Go on, get him!” he tells the elemental- and it plunges through and continues its attack on the disciple. The doors will have to wait a moment.

The rest of the group hurries away from the roasting heat of the wall of fire. Erasmuz starts creeping towards the doors, around the far side, and Queffe flits up in the air with her broom of flying.

Nara lumbers to the side, clearing the edge of the burning wall and bringing the holocaust disciple back into view. Immediately, she casts searing light- and her spell is just what it takes to finish the burning elemental wind off! It implodes with a rushing hiss, and then suddenly there is silence.

”Victory!” cries Naomi.

“But at what cost?” asks Nara somberly, looking at Ari’s corpse sadly. “I can bring him back again, but we don’t have the diamonds- or, probably, the money to get the diamonds.”

“We haven’t achieved victory yet,” Queffe reminds the others. “We still need to get in the shrine.”

“Leave that to me,” says Erasmuz. He whistles to his elemental.

***

Ain’t no door that’s going to hold out against a few blows from a huge earth elemental. The party soon has access to the shrine.

The layout is very simple, with no roof; grapes grow along the perimeter. The large altar is lush with carvings of foodstuffs, and is obviously set up to be used as a feast table.

They make a great sacrifice of food and similar goods, using the halfling food spells that they have learned or have scrolls of. Erasmuz deems the time right, and summons beer elementals. Nara then casts blessed beer upon the elemental. As the group lays out food upon the altar, Naomi garnishes it with create gravy.

Cod, salmon, seven pounds of bacon, some rations, eggs and more eggs, half a pound of butter, ten pounds of sausage, a gallon of honey, five pounds of beef jerky, two pounds of salted pork, salted fish galore, salt and spices (including cinnamon!), an entire wild tureky, 5 onions, a cooked osquip, one of Cornbread’s muffins (the last of them!), and some ham soon cover the table. Another create gravy tops it all off.

“I can’t believe we’re leaving this behind,” says Naomi wistfully.

“Hopefully something better is just up ahead,” Nara replies.

“You know,” says Erasmuz from the corner (where he has been poking around), “I think we can fix Ari.”

“What?” exclaims Queffe.

“This shrine has all kinds of religious implements and materials all over in it. Just in case, I started poking around.” Erasmuz holds up a glittering gemstone. “Sure enough, they have diamonds here.”

“But ‘they’ who?” wonders Nara.

“Us,” declares Naomi. “The halflings.”

“I can true resurrect him, with this,” says Erasmuz.

“What?” exclaims Nara in amazement.

The ur-priest smiles. “My path is... nontraditional. It takes a while to pay off, but when it does, it pays off.”

***

Ari’s eyes open slowly. He stares at Erasmuz in confusion. “What...?”

“Hey, buddy,” Erasmuz says. “Welcome back.”

“Thanks,” Ari says. He still sounds vaguely puzzled. “But...” He shakes his head. “Have we made it?”

“We don’t know yet. We need to go back outside.”

“All right.”

The druid stands back up. He is regaining his orientation quickly. After only a few seconds, he nods to indicate that he is ready, and the party moves back out the doorway of the shrine, striding across the broken remains of the doors, which now lie upon the ground.

Outside, the day remains bright. The party takes the path that their guide escorted them in on, and starts moving south.

“Hey, look, over there,” Nara says abruptly, pointing. “Did anyone else see that? It looked like a group of figures moving into the woods. I think one of them was on a bird or something?”

Nobody else, it turns out, saw the party.

Uneasily, the party continues. They come into a clearing, and stumble upon thier guide.

Dying.

They rush forward. “What happened?” cries Erasmuz.

Blood is pooling beneath the guide. He smiles. His breathing is labored. “Githyanki,” he wheezes. “They have slain me.”

“I might be able to-” Nara starts, but the guide interrupts her, albeit somewhat feebly.

“My part in this is done. You must stop them. The githyanki seek to enslave those of us that have achieved the Promised Land, and to take us to a terrible realm called the Astral Plane- a realm where you never need eat, and there is no food!” The guide pauses to cough up some blood. With difficulty, he continues, “You must stop them, no matter the cost. Fight to defend your people. Fight to defend the Promised Land. What is it worth to you? Find your answer, for you must now show it.”

As the guide slowly expires in the party’s arms, Erasmuz slips to the back and casts true sight. All is as it appears (though Erasmuz is intrigued to note the golden Lawful Good aura around the guide).

“We can’t just let you die,” Queffe protests.

“Too late,” the guide sighs.

Next Time: The Hidden Test!