Of Sound Mind the Halfling Way

[the Jester]

Who Is Ed Flapjacks?

“Who is Ed Flapjacks?” Lita calls at the advancing group. She seems genuinely puzzled.

“They don’t really seem all that reasonable,” mumbles Beau, the halfling whom the party just met. He glances ruefully at his disturbed camp.

“I told you he couldn’t be trusted, Tyrus!” barks one of the approaching warriors. “He’s with them!” The warrior glares at Beau. Several of them have crossbows out. The halfling in the lead nods a dangerous nod.

“Forget this!” exclaims Sandy, darting laterally while he draws out his bow. “Ed’s gone, we haven’t seen her in weeks! Maybe months!”

The group continues to implacably advance upon our heroes. Missiles start whizzing back and forth. Lita, trying to spread confusion, cries out, “I surrender! Help!” and rushes forward towards a human woman. To her distress, however, the human’s method of accepting her surrender involves stabbing her! She tries to erect a force screen, but a well-timed blow from the enemy ruins her attempt at concentration, and she stumbles back, bleeding. “Wait...!” she groans. “I’m giving up! I don’t want to fight,”

“Yeah, kill her,” Sandy shouts bitterly. What’s she doing, betraying us? Didn’t she pull something like this once before? Damn her! he thinks, snapping off arrows until he finally sinks one into the halfling leading the enemy. He grins as one of the enemy crossbowmen dies with one of Federico’s bolts in his eye, then frowns as he sees the enemy gnome launch a series of magic missiles at Timothy, but they dissipate off the autistic kid’s shield spell.

Beau, uncertain of what he should do, picks the target that seems to have everyone against it: Lita. He rushes forward and stabs at her with his short sword, then laughs when Sandy sinks an arrow into her. “Wait!” screams Lita.

Naomi, meanwhile has waddled up near the leader of the other side and jabs a mind thrust at him. The leader, Tyrus Laughletter, reels for an instant, but then repels Naomi’s initial attack by force of will and slashes out at her with a rapier gleaming silver in the sun. Naomi grunts as the blade draws a scarlet line across her arm. The burly humans nearest him have drawn greatswords, and now they close with Martini, who is attacking Tyrus. Their leader’s dog snarls forward as well, Tyrus having dismounted.

“Ed’s not even with us anymore, she vanished without a word!” exclaims Martini as he parries a blow from Tyrus’ blade.

“I don’t believe you,” grunts Tyrus Laughletter. “Give her up!”

“Who sent you?”

He does not reply.

There’s a flare of color from the side as Timothy drops several of the enemy warriors with a color spray. Full pitched battle has erupted. In the midst of it all, Beau picks Lita’s pocket, then steps back as one of the greatsword-wielding men cuts her down. She drops in a spray of blood and the man steps threateningly towards Beau. Ethyl has fallen in a flurry of greatswords, too; Federico gives a cry of dismay and shoots down another crossbowman. So far the battle is still undecided, with both sides suffering losses.

With a sob, Federico’s scrawny kobold arms crank his crossbow string back. He drops another quarrel into the slot and raises it to his shoulder. “It was Benjy Peachtree, wasn’t it?” he cries. “It was all an accident!” And he fires at Tyrus, sinking the bolt deep into his back. He collapses.

“That’s what we need!” cheers Martini, slashing at Tyrus’ dog, who is now snapping at biting frantically at him. But the tide has turned. Naomi rapidly slays several of the remaining warriors and then glances at the dog; suddenly it is bleeding out of its ears and eyes, and with a yelp it collapses.

It’s over.

Our heroes check the bodies. Naomi stabilizes Lita and sticks up for her firmly. “She was just trying to confuse things,” she argues.

“Well, yeah, she succeeded,” Sandy snips dryly.

“She was just trying to help! Sure, she’s a dumb ditzy blonde, but she’s our dumb ditzy blonde!”

“She better not do anything like that again,” Martini rumbles. He certainly seems more threatening lately. Why, I remember the days when Martini was a kind, gentle fellow, and he never would have buried his sword in a companion’s face like he did to Lita a few days ago. Speaking of that event, I wonder if there might be mutual hard feelings?* But I digress.

Beau nervously asks the group if he can travel with them. He’s had several unfortunate encounters on his own, and he needs help if he’s to survive in these dangerous lands.

Almost everyone is wounded but everyone is alive, so they determine that rest ought to be their next order of business. Federico heals those he can and they all apply bandages and salves and get down to the business of a good refreshing meal.

***

9/10/368 O.L.G., 1 p.m., along the Lofta River

Our heroes have skirted the mountains and are now north of them, following the broad Lofta River. Its waters seem extremely shallow. As they follow it, Beau questions the group about this ‘Ed Flapjacks’ that Tyrus’ group was pursuing.

“She’s an old companion of ours,” answers Federico. “I think those guys were sent by Benjy Peachtree. Ed shot out one of his eyes during one of our earlier adventurers.”

“Why did she do that?”

“Well, he caught her stealing his garen.”

“This doesn’t really paint her in the best light...”

“She was great,” opines Federico. “She was funny. She was a drama queen.” He heaves a sigh.

***

9/11/368 O.L.G., 11 a.m., Goodreed

Our heroes arrive in a small town of about 300 souls. It is called Goodreed for the reeds that grow along the shallows of the Lofta, but with the waters so low the reeds are dying out. It’s on the tip of everyone’s tongue; the water is unnaturally low, and suddenly so; what could be causing the problem?

In order to get in the city, Federico, a kobold, is forced to register as a dangerous pet of Lita’s. He is mortified. The guards at least have the decency to direct them to an inn they think the halflings will like, which turns out to be accurate. It is called the Filleted Salmon.

In looking for passage downriver, and thus a quick escape from Strogass- “people are hunting us, we’re being fined, we’ve gotta get out of here!” –our heroes learn how the water situation affects them.

“It’s too shallow for a boat to make it downstream,” groans Federico.

“Maybe we should try to figure out what’s happened to the river,” Martini suggests. “Travel by boat is much faster than walking overland.”

After a short debate, our heroes agree: the next day they will strike out to find out why the Lofta is so depleted.

Meanwhile, Timothy, Beau and Federico go to visit the local wizard, who turns out to be somewhat deranged and highly intoxicated on the fumes of his various alchemical experiments. He describes himself as “good with chemicals” and is clearly a little bit ‘off’ due to extended exposure to the fumes. He trades a wand of magic missiles and the material Timothy needs to summon a familiar for his writ**, and then throws a potion in as well. He’s becoming less and less lucid by the moment, so our heroes depart.

Elsewhere, Lita has found a half-orc merchant willing to cash in her writ for her in exchange for certain favors the loose-moraled halfling has no problem performing for him. The group doesn’t see her again until the next morning, when she goes to rest.

Over the course of the evening Timothy performs the ritual to summon a familiar. It’s full dark by the time he’s done, and the creature that answers the call is a bat. “Oh, hi, Mr. Bat,” Timothy says cheerfully. He extends a berry to the bat, who eagerly scampers forward and eats it. “What’s your name? Bob? I think I’ll call you Bob unless you tell me otherwise.”

***

9/13/368, 3 p.m., south of Goodreed

“Well, I’ll be dammed,” quips Beau.

Indeed. Traveling up the river a day and a half has led our heroes to what can only be described as a dam. It’s huge, constructed of lengths of wood.

“Who built this?” wonders Lita.

In the distance there’s a slapping splash.

“Beavers,” says Martini grimly. ”Dire beavers.”

Next Time: That’s right!! Dire beavers!!!


*In fact, at this point in the campaign Martini and Lita had both begun plotting to kill one another.

**Recall that, as a reward for capturing Manson, each of our pcs received a writ worth 2500 gp.

 

[hippiejedi2]

Beau and his fellow Highhills were wandering about doing Halfling things when ambushed by those seeking Airhead Ed flapjacks. As Highhill's none were to close fo Ed, much less knew of her whereabouts, so they paid the price of ignorance with there lives, all except of course Beau.
Beau met the party and immediately those searching for Ed appeared, so Beau had allegiance to neither, but he did seek vengence on behalf of his clan. In the battle w/those seeking Ed, Beau did attack Lita when she was surrendering, since she was standing next to the other party. Beau shot @ her under the pretense that he could claim he was fighting for either side. Towards the end of the battle when the tide had turned and the victor was apparent, Beau feigned tending to Lita's wounds and lifted her purse. After all it could have fallen in the midst of the battle?
In the shop of the chemically influenced wizard, Beau "sampled" a potion/oil. (magic weapon +1?) As he was leaving he noticed that the kobold, Federico was also of a similar mind of the wizard and out of the kindness of his heart sought to aid the kobld by carrying his heavy purse. After all the kobold was weak and the only two who would have a chance to know of any funny business was the drugged up kobold and the autistic kid Timothy.

 

[the Jester]

Picture if you will the mad agglomeration of logs and half-chewed trees that would dam a deep, wide river, made by 200-pound well-muscled dire beavers. Picture these beavers, anywhere from 5’ to 8’ long from nose to rump; and picture our heroes, a band of wee little halflings, struggling to overcome them and tear down that massive dam to restore the flow of water.

If ever a halfling foe there was, a dire beaver is that foe.

Joined by a gnomish rogue the group met in town who calls himself Whisperclick, our heroes make their assault. For a day and a night and a day again our heroes struggle with the nest of beavers. They struggle in combat as a group of four beavers charges them, slapping tails on the water; more beavers come and attack them in the night; and then, later, when they face the mother of all beavers, a grey-furred dire beaver with an amazing 12’ long body, they are hard-pressed but Lita’s swarm of crystal wins the day.

But waves of beavers keep coming, every few hours. It is exhausting. Finally their numbers trickle off, and they stop coming. Thank goodness Trinia isn’t there; surely, as a druid, she would have objected to wiping out the local population of dire beavers!

But the dam remains.

***

9/14/368 O.L.G., 9:30 a.m., near the dire beaver dam

“But how are we going to destroy it?” wonders Sandy. “It’s so big... and it’s soaked. I doubt whether it’ll burn.”

“There’s that wizard in town,” suggests Lita. “He’s good with chemicals. Maybe he has something that can help.”

“Hey, good idea!” exclaims Sandy.

The party packs up and heads back towards Goodreed, traveling through a day of oppressive heat.

***

3:30 p.m., Goodreed

The party arrives at the Filleted Salmon. As they sit and cool off over a nice beverage, Sandy suggests they go to visit the wizard.

Lita shakes her head. “I think it’s too late in the day. He, ah, won’t be doing business.”

“What do you mean?”

“He likes his chemicals.”

“Oh,” Sandy answers, mulling it over for a moment. “Then why don’t we go invite him to dinner?”

“He won’t come,” Lita says.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t think he leaves his house much.”

“Well, maybe we should send a runner to tell him we’ll be there in the morning,” suggests Sandy.

“We don’t need to,” Lita responds. “There are no rules of etiquette with this guy. He won’t remember it if we do send a runner.”

“Humph,” snorts Sandy, and later that evening he hires a runner to announce their visit in the morning. Much to everyone’s surprise, the runner returns with the wizard’s reply: “Come now.”

When they reach the wizard, the strange odor of his chemical fumes hangs heavily in his house. It makes the halflings’ eyes water, their vision spot, their heads light. The wizard raves confusingly at the group for a while, obviously completely loaded; and then he gives them a book of elvish songs and sends them on their way.

“Well, that was helpful,” remarks Beau.

“We can always go back in the morning,” muses Sandy. “He might not even remember tonight when tomorrow comes.”

***

9/15/368 O.L.G., 11 a.m., the wizard’s house

For once ‘the crack head’ (as Lita, Naomi and Whisperclick have nicknamed the fume-sniffing wizard) is fairly coherent. He listens as they describe the dam and ask for his help.

“Hmm,” he says, thinking for a long moment. Then he snaps his fingers. “Green slime! That’s what you need! And it just so happens that I have a few ‘samples’ I could sell you...”

Before they leave, Lita smokes a weird crystal with the wizard. Afterwards, her world is officially rocked; her head spins, her stomach feels peculiar, she can feel a tightness in her cheeks from the big grin on her face. And boy, would she love some more of that good stuff! In fact, she buys one of the crystals- called dzur- from the wizard, but she holds off on smoking it.

Sandy shakes his head. “You should know better,” he says disbelievingly.

***

9/16/368, 4 p.m., the dire beaver dam

Bird song and the chirping of grasshoppers is our soundtrack as our heroes solemnly prepare themselves to use the slime. “What are we going to do with it?” asks Timothy.

“I guess we just throw it on the dam,” answers Naomi.

And that’s just what they do, in the deep shadows of the mountains in the late afternoon. The glass globe flies from Lita’s hand, smashing near the top of the dam. Greening goop slops out and seems to catch on the surrounding wood.

“Wow, look at that stuff go,” Sandy comments after a minute.

“That’s an awful lot of water,” remarks Beau.

They watch as the green slime seems to spread, almost as if it were sending out tendrils along the wood. Small areas are starting to leak significant water.

“What do you think will happen when the dam bursts?” Naomi asks.

The halflings look at each other, then back at the dam as a reasonably big chunk of slime-covered wood collapses out, landing in the water flowing downstream. More water begins escaping through the hole.

“We’re downstream,” Sandy say. “Oh, crap.”

Our heroes begin running to the side, hoping to avoid the flood that is about to ensue. But they are too slow. The dam bursts in a roar, water, green slime and massive chunks of wood slamming everywhere. Suddenly, several people just seem to vanish. Lita gives a shriek as she sweeps downstream, gasping and splashing. Timothy and Naomi are nowhere to be seen.

***

8 p.m., Goodreed

When our heroes drag themselves back to town, they are appalled at the level of devastation that the flood has caused. There are people missing- still no sign of Timothy- and green slime has infested several buildings that had to be burned out.

Worse yet, the party seems to get all the blame for the devastation while the crack head wizard takes all the credit for restoring the flow of the river! He even receives a medal and the reward that the pcs were hoping to get.

This leads a coalition of Sandy, Naomi and Lita to attack and kill the wizard. This nearly ends in disaster, but a combination of fast blades, playing it cool and fleet feet allow the halflings to escape downstream, looking for a fisherman’s house or a boat or... or something.

”You realize the irony that we’re still on foot,” Sandy comments to the others.

***

That night the party finds Timothy, cold and scared on the side of the river. They travel for a few days, heading down stream and hoping to find a boat. Eventually they meet a goblin community, where a bugbear trades them a rowboat for Lita’s dzur.

Then it’s down river in style for several days that are unremarkable except for the heat. Well, and Lita’s attempts to come on to Timothy. This freaks him out; he doesn’t really like her very much. Timothy is a fragile thing of purest goodness, though not entirely right in the head, and Lita has become a darker soul thanks to the influence of Naomi. He flees when she tries to touch him in his no-no place.

***

9/23/368 O.L.G., 11 a.m., on the Lofta River

The forest has been ahead of them for some time, and now they finally enter it. The cool shade is a relief after days of hot sun; and quickly the character of the air changes, becoming more humid, cooler, with dappled amber light.

Sandy is their boatman; as a stout, it’s only fitting that he pilot. But unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be his day. About an hour after entering the shade of the trees, the boat suddenly lurches as it hits a submerged obstacle, and it shudders as the bottom rips open. Water starts pouring in through the hole in the planks.

Sandy curses, quickly getting the boat to shore. A quick examination shows that it would take tools and materials not present to fix the damage. Sandy sighs glumly.

“Well, looks like we’re on foot again,” says Beau.


Next Time: Lost in the Lofta!

 

[the Jester]

Here's an updated party list at this point in the story hour:

Lita Alexander, rogue 1/psion 3; CE. "The fine bitch."
Naomi, psion 4; CE. "The fat bitch."
Phynel "Sandy" Sandybanks, rogue 3/fighter 2; LE.
Timothy, autistic sorcerer 4; CG.
Beau, rogue 3; CE.
Martini, ranger 2/fighter 2; LE.
Whisperclick, gnome rogue 2; NE.
Jawbreaker, barbarian 3; CG.
Federico, kobold bard 3/sorcerer 2; CG. "The dog."

As you can see, somehow our beautiful halfling party has veered drastically towards evil! Between Naomi's inflluence on the formerly-chaotic neutral Lita and Martini's change in perspective after he donned the helmet... well. Anyway, we'll see if it lasts and what 'evil halflings' do...

 

[the Jester]

Into the Lofta Forest

9/23/368 O.L.G., 12:10 p.m., the Lofta Forest

The Lofta Forest proves to be a fey place.

How much time the group spends there, they can never after be sure, for after the arch it is always twilight beneath the overarching canopy of the trees, and one moment seems to stretch into the next. Time is distorted, like an image from a funhouse mirror, with that same sense of derangement; but we’ll get to the arch soon enough. Until then, the environment is pleasant enough and full of the rich aroma of the woods, dappled with the amber light of the sun through the overhead leaves. The thick vegetation forces them away from the river before they’re half a mile into the thick woods, but they keep a reasonable sense of direction.

When the plants come alive and twist all about, entangling our heroes, they are caught by surprise; but they cease their struggles and attempt to reason with the beautiful creature that steps from her tree.

She wants only Timothy; she wishes to show him beauty and ecstasy like he’s never seen. Unable to read between the lines, he easily agrees. “I like beauty,” he says. The dryad takes him into her tree, but after only about fifteen minutes he walks over a rise and returns to the party.

“What happened?” asks Beau.

Timothy looks puzzled. “I don’t know... she said I need to be healed.”*

***

5 p.m.

Somewhat later, out heroes fight off a rabid bear. They briefly discuss eating it, but reason that it might be bad to eat diseased flesh. Then, as the darkness thickens, our heroes rest for a time.

***

9/24/368 O.L.G., 1 p.m.

“Do you hear that?” Lita asks, puzzled, cocking her head.

“What is it?” asks Sandy?

Naomi is blathering away and totally fails to notice that they’ve even stopped to listen.

Faintly, they can hear music in the distance. “Ooh, music!” exclaims Timothy. “I like music!”

The group follows the sounds, veering off to their left, and soon they find a thin arch, covered in vines, leading to a manicured tunnel through a thicket. Exchanging glances, our heroes pass through and follow the tunnel. All around them, the plants form an almost-frightening, impenetrable barrier.

The tunnel leads to a clearing, within which is a well. Our heroes approach it cautiously. A path leads by the well, heading out of the clearing to either side. Next to the well is a fancy-looking comb. Lita picks this up, interested. “I wonder who lost their comb,” she chirps aloud, then drops the bucket in the water. She hears it splash into liquid, so she hauls it back up. To her surprise, there is a head in the bucket! Even more surprising, it speaks.

”Arrr! My tangled locks! Comb them out for me!”

After a moment, Lita shrugs. “Umm, okay.” She starts combing the head’s hair with the comb she found next to the well. It hisses and groans in pleasure as she does so; the whole experience is very unsettling.

”Ahh, well done, but my brothers are not so easy!” exclaims the head. ”But for your skills, I’ll tell ye this: STAY ON THE PATH!”

Lita frowns. “Hey, don’t tell me what to do!” She hefts the head in her hands, a wicked grin on her face, and she drop-kicks it into the woods.

“What did you just do?” exclaims Sandy. “What are you thinking?!”

Lita shrugs. “He was a jerk.”

“Yeah, but he might have been able to help us get back to the river, or get out of here, or something!”

“Oh well.” Lita shrugs again.

The party chooses the left path, and they head into the thick woods again. Almost immediately, they catch a whiff of something that smells delicious. Something like... fresh-baked pie!

Through the woods, screened by trees and barely visible, is what appears to be a cottage. Immediately leaving the path, our heroes scurry towards it.

Next Time: Well, our heroes have dug themselves in deep already and they don’t even know it! Next they eat some poisoned pie!


*What happened is that the dryad came on to Timothy, who was utterly confused. She realized he was insane, and took pity on him; and so she released him to his companions. Whew! Coulda lost that kid for years!

 

[the Jester]

Lost in the Fey Realms

Stumbling along through the woods, following the scent of baked goods, our band of intrepid halflings wanders their way to a small cottage.

“I smell pie,” mumbles Naomi, her mouth watering.

“Oh come in, come in!” The door swings wide and a matronly elven woman stands beaming. “Would you like some pie?”

“We’re halflings!” cries Beau. “Of course we want some pie!”

Do they remember nothing?

Too late; our heroes eat heartily of envenomed food, and only after weakness steals over their limbs do they realize why the oven is so large.

Next Time: Our heroes, poisoned and weak, lost in Faerie, try to avoid becoming a witch’s dinner!

 

[the Jester]

Oven Stuffin

It’s a peaceful little scene at first glance. The scent of baked goods wafts upon the air; a pretty little herb garden is along the side of the cheerful-looking cottage. Just the kind of thing to put a band of halflings at ease. Especially the smell- mmmm, it’s delicious. How could you turn that down, if you had a grumbling belly? No, not if you’re a halfling you couldn’t.

But alas, alas, they really should have.

Lita’s head falls forward. She groans, unable to even move. There was poison in the pie, realizes with a shock. What a terrible thing to do to a halfling! Her eyes fluttering, she grimaces as Timothy topples forward as well. She feels herself fading... fading... then oblivion.

Sandy struggles weakly to his feet and lifts Lita up. “What’s going on?” he croaks.

The elf opens the oven, humming merrily. “Oh, nothing. We’re just going to do a little cooking.” She grins wickedly and starts to drag Timothy over to the oven.

“What are you doing?” Sandy exclaims. “Hey, hold on a minute!”

The elf stuffs Timothy into the oven and turns to face Sandy, hands on her hips. She purses her lips and looks the group over. “Surely you understand,” she says. “You’re halflings. You have to eat. Here, why don’t you have some more pie?” She smiles kindly as she moves over to Beau’s unconscious form.

“Wait a minute!” Sandy steps between the oven and the witch. Uh, I mean elf woman.

“Come now, lad, there’s no need to be difficult. Have a little of my wine,” she gestures at a bottle.

“No thanks!” Sandy retorts sharply. “Don’t make us kill you!”

“I doubt whether you could,” the witch says frankly. Er, elf. “You can barely stand, and half of your friends are asleep.” She smiles. “But there’s no reason to get all cranky. You and your awake friends can leave.” She nods towards the door.

“We aren’t leaving our friends behind,” Sandy snaps.

“Well, how about this,” the elf says after a moment’s cogitation. “Why don’t you just give me the fat one and we’ll call it even?” She points at Naomi.

“Hey!” Naomi cries. “Forget it!”

“Well, let me get the oven started while we think about it-“

“No, I don’t think so!” Sandy stands firm, though he can help glancing yearningly at the pie. But it was poisoned! he reminds himself. “Lita!” he calls, reaching over and shaking her.

The elf matron puts her hand upon his shoulder. “She’s just sleeping. Come on, now, just lie down for a minute, it’s nap time,” she murmurs, but he jerks as he feels his life energy being leached from him and sucked into her. He groans and drops Lita from nerveless fingers. He staggers forward and wheels around, whipping out his bow and firing a shot. But it sails past the elf woman and buries itself in a cabinet behind her.

Naomi, stomach churning, cries out, “You poisoned us, you witch!” Her mind strikes, a quick rapier of pure thought- but the elf just smiles, turning the mental blow off her formidable will. Then she vanishes.

“Oh crap,” Sandy moans, swaying on his feet.

Naomi hurries to the oven and extracts Timothy’s limp form from it. He’s still breathing, she notes with a combination of relief and disappointment. Swiftly, she drags the crazy boy to the cabin’s door. Sandy grabs up Lita and drags her to the door as well.

Locked.

Beau’s body jerks into the air.

“She’s got him!” Sandy cries. He fires his bow, hoping to hit an invisible elf-witch, but to his dismay, his arrow sinks into Beau instead! With a cry, the halfling awakens. Cursing, Sandy fires again, and this time his arrow hits. The hag hisses in anger as Beau squirms free of her grasp, and another arrow hits! The witch snarls and its hand glows green. It swipes at Naomi, who ducks and weaves; but it only needs to touch her, and in only a few seconds it has done so. She feels her life energy leaching away, just as Sandy did.

Cursing and spitting, Naomi blasts the elf witch with a recall agony. She flinches back, but then strikes with her bare claws. Her image seems to be wavering as she does so- she is not as she appears! As her terrible claws rip Naomi to the ground, the elf witch is revealed as a terrible, twisted woman, with iron-tough grey-green skin and long matted hair. Her rotten teeth stink terribly, and suddenly our heroes catch their first whiff of it. “Caught you, fat one!” she cackles.

Beau groans and pulls out his lock picks. “We have to get out of here!” He sets to work on the door. “Hold her off!”

“Uh...” Sandy glances around. Yep, that’s him all right.

The elf-hag rushes in, clawing at Sandy, even as he fires his bow, continuing to land arrows. But the terrible claws rend and tear at him, forcing him to tumble away, and the giggling hag advances. It glares at Beau. “Stop that, boy! I like my door locked!” She strides towards him. He squeaks and tries to bolt, but she grabs him by the head and slams him into the very door he was trying to unlock! With a groan, Beau falls unconscious.

“Uh, maybe the fat chick isn’t such a bad trade after all,” Sandy tries.

The hag laughs. “Fool, you had your chance! Now it’s the oven for all of you!!” With a gleeful shriek, she lunges for him, and he backpedals, sinking another arrow into her. Her claw rips at his shoulder, and Sandy’s starting to be more than a little worried- he’s becoming downright terrified.

He’s it. He’s all that’s left. He’s the last one, do or die. If he fails, the entire clan is dinner.

Oh, man.

Sandy redoubles his efforts. Back and forth the battle carries them through the house; and, unnoticed by either of them, Lita’s eyes are fluttering again. Slowly, dreamily, she’s waking up. She groans, barely able to move. But she doesn’t need to move to use her psionic powers.

A swarm of crystals blasts out from her trembling fingertips. The hag shrieks in surprise and Sandy laughs in joy. Maybe... maybe!

The hag whirls and rushes towards Lita. She blasts it with another swarm of crystals, and it screams and staggers, but its claws catch her at the same moment- digging across her forehead- and Lita slams down to the ground with a crack!

The hag takes a single, faltering step, staggers around to face Sandy, and falls over.

“Oh thank the gods,” he groans, collapsing to his knees. Then, seeing his friends bleeding out, he moves quickly to do what he can to aid them.

Around him, the fabulous cottage changes appearance. It is suddenly a dilapidated, worn-out shack. The fabulous baked goods are pie shells full of bugs and worms, and Sandy doesn’t even look to see what the other food and drink might have been. He vomits briefly, then watches mournfully over his friends in the witch’s house.

Next Time: Our heroes continue to be lost in faerieland!

 

[the Jester]

The Big Fish

In the witch’s cottage, lost in the Lofta Forest

Battered, poisoned, nearly dead- our heroes need to rest. Martini keeps watch while the others collapse into a fitful sleep. It is not long before he notices that it is always twilight. Once the others awaken, he worriedly reports this to them. Perhaps more frightening, he heard the sound of music in the distance while they rested, indicating that someone- or something- is out there.

After some discussion, the group decides to rest until they’ve recovered somewhat more. Martini and Beau notice that they need neither sleep nor food. This revelation is horrible. “Can you imagine?” chokes out Beau. “Life without food??” With a shudder our heroes pull out rations and chow down.

“I can’t stop eating,” mumbles Timothy around a mouthful of salted beef, “I’m on the halfling program!”

***

After a long while the party is well enough to go on. How much time has passed? They have no idea. It feels like days, but the eternal twilight doesn’t ever change significantly. “We need to find the river,” Martini states, “and follow it downstream. That will get us out of the forest. So while we’re traveling, we need to try to find a creek or a rivulet and follow it downstream- it will lead us to the river, and eventually to the sea.”

“And off Strogass!” declares Timothy. “They aren’t very nice here.”

“Let’s get back to the trail,” suggests Beau.

Unfortunately, they seem to have lost the trail. After searching thoroughly for it for hours, they give up and strike off cross country. Martini’s near infallible sense of direction seems utterly confused here. Long hours of marching through deep woods ensue. Our heroes are careful to always stay within sight of each other, lest they become separated and lost. More and more this feels like an enchanted forest from a faerie tale or something, and it’s still that cursed twilight.

Finally, the party stumbles across a small brook. Grinning, they start to follow it downstream. Periodically, the sound of music in the distance drifts out to them, and once in a while one or another of them blinks, startled, at a trick of the light and shadow that almost looks like a winged creature riding a snail or something similar. Then, as they crunch across a bed of gravel alongside the brook near a small waterfall, they catch sight of someone moving, rising from a rock upon the brook and turning to regard them.

”Hey, it’s that guy,” Timothy mumbles.

The figure squints at the autistic halfling and smiles. “I remember you,” he says. “You owe me one!”

Martini squints at the figure. Who- ? Then a memory tickles him. Yes, the fellow who gave Timothy the gelatinous snack beneath the waterfall, that helped him pass his psychological evaluation after the group was put on trial!

The man- some sort of fey, Martini is almost sure- is named Latheo, and now it is time for the party to pay back his previous kindness to Timothy. His favorite swimming hole is hunted by a giant gar, leaving him unable to enjoy it. Our heroes easily agree to go kill it.

“It’s just downstream,” Latheo says.

”How far?” Beau asks.

The fey man shrugs. “Oh, you know.” He kind of flutters his hands.

“Uh... no. How far did you say it was?”

“Just a little ways.”

“Right... meaning?”

“You know, a bit.” Again, Latheo makes vague gestures.

Beau sighs. “Right.”

***

The swimming hole is large and placid. At first there’s no sign of the gar. “Don’t get too deep into the water!” Martini warns the group. “If it grabs you in deep water you’re buggered- not only will it be eating you, you might drown! We need to lower it to the edge.”

His friends gulp.

Still, there’s no sign of the giant gar.

“How big do you think it is?” asks Beau.

Martini glares at him. “Big,” he growls. “Bigger than us.”

Beau gulps again.

Finally, ignoring his own advice to stay out of the water, Martini slogs in to his hips and starts dangling himself as bait. Sure enough, he soon spots motion in the water. “There!” he cries, pointing, and he whips his bow out. An arrow is fitted to the string, while on shore Beau does the same. A pair of projectiles of force zip out from Timothy, striking the fish under the water with the spell! It darts forward, virtually ignoring the arrows that stick in it, and in one smooth gulp it swallows Martini whole.

“Martini, no!” Timothy cries in horror, firing off another pair of magic missiles. The fish surges forward, snapping at the source of its agony, as Beau keeps shooting his shortbow. Then suddenly gar leaps forward and grabs Beau in its mouth, though he’s only knee deep in the water!

Beau gasps and struggles against the gar’s tongue and teeth, which are attempting to force him down its gullet. The fish is starting to retreat with him, and Timothy, shrieking in terror and dismay, invokes a flaming sphere. The fish thrashes as the flames lick on its back, and Beau takes advantage of the monster’s distress to squirm free. Staggering through the muck of the shallows, he slogs towards shore while Timothy creates a second flaming sphere. Then, to his distress, the gar retreats, apparently willing to settle for a one-halfling sized meal.

Beau, gasping, reaches shore and whirls around. “Timothy, no!” he cries.

The sorcerer is waddling into the water. “We have to save Martini!” he cries. “Come on, Beau! I’ll attract the fish-“

Indeed he does. Suddenly, in a spray of muddy water, the gar seizes Timothy around the chest. Its long teeth rip into the halfling’s tender skin, and Timothy screams as the gar gulps him down. The sorcerer disappears into the fish’s belly.

“Oh no,” whispers Beau.

He fires at the gar as it struggles in the shallows, shooting it right in the eye. The fish jerks convulsively, terribly wounded; and Beau shouts in rage and frustration, firing another arrow into its other eye. The fish spasms once more, and then expires.

Quickly, Beau hurries over to it. His knife slices open its belly, and he finds his companions within its stomach.

Martini is dead, but Timothy yet lives. Beau works fast, binding the lad’s wounds and working to keep him from falling past the veil. When he’s satisfied at last that Timothy is out of danger (at least for the time being), he lays back, exhausted, against a tree for a moment. Only one more thing before he can rest.

With a sigh, Beau begins looting Martini.

Next Time: The terrible loss of Martini leaves our heroes even more lost in the fey woods. What they really need is someone friendly to talk to!

 

[the Jester]

Party update:

Martini- ranger 2/fighter 2; LE
Beau- Rogue 3; CE
Timothy- Sorcerer 4; CG
Naomi- Psion 4; LE
Whisperclick- Rogue 2; NE
Sandy- Rogue 3/Fighter 2; LE
Jawbreaker- Barbarian 3; CG

By this time, Lita's player had moved to New York, so I'll leave her off the list. iirc the character just vanished while the pcs were wandering around lost in the woods.

 

[the Jester]

The Forest Oracle

Lost in the fey realms

The best part, muses Beau as the group heads back upstream, is that now he has Martini’s helmet. With an inward grin, he thinks of all the fun he’s going to have with it.

It took them a long time to heal up enough to travel on; but the entire time it has been that eerie twilight. Beau shivers. This wood definitely feels unnatural- who knows what lurks within it? And what about the head? wonders Beau. It said something about its brothers... He sighs. Stupid Lita, kicking the head away! It might have known something helpful.

Shaking his head, Beau keeps his thoughts to himself.

The group reaches Latheo after several hours, and upon hearing that they slew the gar, the strange man’s face contorts in a grin. “Excellent!” he exclaims. “Ah, my swimming hole! Come, friends, let us go put it to use!”

“Is there any way you can help our friend?” Timothy asks. “Martini died helping you.”

“Ah! Not I, not I,” Latheo laments.

Glumly our heroes follow him back to the swimming hole. With him at their side, the trek takes only about fifteen minutes. Blissfully, he swims out into the water, and- reluctantly at first- our heroes join him. Soon they find themselves relaxing, despite the mournful loss of Martini; and they determine to take his body with them, at least for the time being, to see if aught can be done for him. Latheo happily advises them to seek out the oracle of the woods. “Perhaps it can help you,” he offers.

“Where do we find it?” asks Beau.

“Oh, you know, that way,” replies Latheo, waving a hand kind of negligently around in a few directions.

“Right,” Beau groans.

***

Tromping for hour through the woods, our heroes struggle through the undergrowth until they finally meet a wise old treant named Fleswood. Impressed by their good manners, he is friendly enough and, when asked, gladly guides them to the cave that the oracle is said to dwell in.

The party sets camp outside the cave and rests and eats for a time. Beau sneaks off and removes Martini’s magic gem from the setting in the helmet that Martini had put it in. Smirking, the rogue pockets it for the time being. Then, whistling, he returns to the group.

“Say, Timothy, you should try Martini’s helmet on,” he says.

”Why?” asks Timothy slowly.

“It will make you powerful. Remember how powerful Martini was? It was because of his helmet!”

“I don’t like helmets. They’re too heavy.”

“Why do you want him to try the helmet on?” asks Whisperclick, the party’s gnomish companion.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea in any event.” Sandy frowns. “I think that it changed the way Martini thought. He used to be all soft, but it really firmed him up, gave him some discipline.”

The gnome looks at the helm, interest obvious in his eyes.

“Try it on,” suggests Beau.

“But then you might not be able to take it off,” warns Naomi, wincing as she remembers the blow Martini had delivered to Lita’s face when she took it off his head.

“I’ll do it if you do it,” offers Beau, a mischievous gleam in his eye.

Whisperclick obviously torments himself in internal debate for a few minutes; thenhe shrugs. “Okay.” He hefts the helmet for a moment, testing its weight, then slips it over his head.

Everyone looks on expectantly, but there’s no immediate visible effect. Whisperclick sways for a moment, but then he shrugs and removes the helm, handing it back to Beau. “Okay, it’s your turn.”

Beau mulls it over for a minute, then shrugs and puts the helmet in his backpack. “Nah. I’ll do it later.” He wanders off to eat, leaving Whisperclick sputtering in dismay.*

“But we had a deal...”

***

The oracle is a strange earthen woman named Brakrin. Again, the party approaches politely, hats in hand so to speak, and she is impressed enough by their manner that she smiles and says, “My prophecies tell of doom and destruction, of dissolution and the decay of all things, and also of wealth and material gain. I will speak once only, and then you must go from here; such is the custom. In return you must each leave two things well-chosen from your pockets and pack. Listen well, for my words come but a single time.

“Many endings are coming fast upon us all at this time; an end to the restraint of some realms, which you are experiencing; an ending to unities long tied together with cords of blood; an end to an era of history. You, personally, you have all suffered much loss lately; many of your companions have been lost to you. A dreadful curse will lay across your shoulders once you leave our lands, and one of you will likely die before you escape it. Many enemies are following you, and you will draw them like moths to a torch at night. The deadliest of all will follow you to the Final Battleground before all is done; and death will visit that battleground with terrible greed and hunger.

“Indeed, the price for your escape- or a price- is death for at least one of you. There may be other ways, yet the guide must always be paid lest you be lost forever, here where time passes differently than you perceive.

“The Three Haligonians will never forget your face,” pointing at Lita, “for the terrible insult you dealt one of them. As long as he remains without the well, you shall not find the path.**

“As for wealth, the greatest wealth you have amongst you is not money but favors. Do not underestimate the power of your currency. It might perhaps be enough even to overcome the terrible curse of the Haligonians, or even death itself.”

The party turns as one to Lita. “Dammit, Lita!” exclaims Sandy. “Why did you have to kick that head into the woods?!”

“Maybe we can find him.” Timothy looks at the others. “If we put him back in the well, maybe he’ll help us find the path.”

Everyone within the cave leaves two items for the earth oracle. Timothy leaves the torch and dagger combo that he always carries (almost for security). Naomi leaves a bottle of liquor, a trade bar and a piece of the ruined city that the party found in the mountains. Whisperclick leaves a mug of water and some caltrops. And Beau leaves a bunch of copper pieces, the skin of one of the dire beavers that had dammed up the river coming out of the mountains.

Then our heroes head out, hoping to find their way back to the head that Naomi kicked into the bushes so many hours ago.

“And it’s still twilight,” notes Naomi.

Next Time: Our heroes meet a horny satyr!


*And lawful good.

**Yeah, I stole the name of an ENWorlder(s) for the heads; I just loved the sound of “the Three Haligonians.” You take inspiration where you find it.