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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 2025011" data-attributes="member: 1210">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., GoodreedThe 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 houseFor 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 damBird 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., GoodreedWhen 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!</blockquote>

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