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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 2151675" data-attributes="member: 1210">6/30/369 O.L.G., 10:15 a.m., near the edge of Sriti’s JungleBirds twitter overhead.  Fat drops of warm water dribble from wide cup-like leaves.  Spiders as big as a dwarf’s hand crouch in their webs, catching insects the size of cherries.  Warm, moist air rises all around.Jawbreaker heaves a sigh as he stumbles along blindly, probing ahead of him with a stick.  Beau staggers next to him, blind as well, the two of them holding to a rope that Martini has tied to the travois upon which the paralyzed Naomi lies.  The ranger grunts with effort as he drags the fat girl behind them.  Above them, there is the sound of the branches of trees rustling as the urd Achtung descends from above.  “We’re near the edge!” he reports excitedly.  “Hey you guys, we’re almost out of here!”“Thank god,” groans Beau.  “The jungle sucks.”“You just need to be more careful,” admonishes Martini.  “Jungles are dangerous, but with proper preparation, it’s easy to get by.”*Jawbreaker snorts disdainfully.Indeed, in about an hour, the group finally pulls itself out of the thinning line of jungle plants.  The edge is fairly abrupt, with multi-layered canopy giving way to a thin dusting of trees and thick undergrowth, and then even that falls off and then a high grass sweeping over more or less flat land is revealed.  To our heroes’ considerable delight, the air is less humid, less hot.  The singing of thousands of birds gradually recedes as the group moves out across the plains.Before long, they find a small farm.  In the fields, a pleasant enough human farmer greets them.  He wears a simple grass skirt and some bone and wooden jewelry tied to him with leather thongs.  He speaks Strogassian, an directs them to the nearest town, Sritivara.  He speaks of it as if it’s the big city.  He also seems to know something about both the paralyzation of Naomi and the blinding sickness.  The sting that incapacitated Naomi lasts for weeks or months, until the eggs the wasp (called a spider eater) injects into the victim’s body hatch and the larvae consume it for food.  The blinding sickness, alas, is permanent.Well, maybe there’s someone who can cure it there, Naomi sends to Martini telepathically.  He nods.  His poor friends!***7/1/369 O.L.G., 9 a.m., the Black Barracks Inn, SritivaraThe next morning, bathed and rested in the Black Barracks, an inn in the town they have reached (which seems to be predominantly humans living in wooden huts), our heroes assemble for breakfast.  They are glum; the previous day they searched for a cleric powerful enough to remove blindness in town- to no avail.  On the other hand, despite Beau and Jawbreaker’s poor prospects, the town’s cleric was powerful enough to prepare a potion of remove paralysis for a fee.  After breakfast our heroes go and pick it up, then dribble it down Naomi’s throat.  She coughs and convulses and at last can move again- though for almost a day she feels pins and needles throughout her body.  Then our heroes head into the halfling quarter.  They had naturally made inquiries into the presence of other halflings, and though the island as a whole has very few of their kind, they almost all live in a single neighborhood in Sritivara.  So our heroes head down there, and almost immediately they attract considerable attention.  In a population of 40 halflings, everyone knows everyone else; so the arrival of a half-dozen new faces is a big deal. The first halflings to approach are a pair of curious youths.  The party introduces themselves, and as the youths start to reciprocate, a voice calls out from a nearby doorway.  “Did you say your name is Martini Hempflower?  And Federico Flapjacks?” “Uh-oh,” whimpers Federico.“Yes,” Martini says, as a beautiful halfling girl dressed for battle emerges.  “Have we met?”“My name is Heather Peachtree,” she says solemnly.  “You- your clan- has dealt a grievous injury to my cousin Benjy.”“Who’s Benjy Peachtree?  Is this connected to those other guys who were hunting you when we met?” Beau asks.“Yes,” groans Martini.  “Listen, Miss Peachtree, we didn’t put out your cousin’s eye- the one you want is named Airhead Ed.  Ed Flapjacks.  But we haven’t seen her in months now.  As far as we know, she’s somewhere on Strogass.  We had no quarrel with Benjy, and we have no quarrel with you!”“Well, I have a quarrel with you,” Heather Peachtree retorts.  “Hey, settle down here!”  A new voice, powerful and masculine, cuts across the tableau.  A strong-looking halfling wearing a solar symbol strides up.  “We don’t need any fighting in the streets.  Come on, Heather, you look you’re ready to draw steel.  Why don’t you folks let me buy you a round of drinks or something?”  The newcomer skillfully defuses the situation, guiding Heather away, and then returns to the party.  He looks them over for a moment, then he says, “Sorry about that.  I’m not sure what go into her- I mean, she’s a hot head, but not normally that bad.”“Oh, it goes back to some old trouble between her clan and ours,” Federico explains.  “Sort of.  But we don’t want any part of it!”“I don’t blame you,” replies the newcomer, and he introduces himself as Ezekiel.  Behind him, a beautiful halfling woman smiles and introduces herself as Hortence.  It is obvious that he is the leader between the two of them.  “Come, let’s get a bite to eat,” suggests Beau.  “Surely you know of a suitable place around here?”Indeed Ezekiel does, and he leads the party to it: a small indoor place, cozy and warm (though not quite stifling).  There the party and Ezekiel enjoy a meal of the local cuisine.  Naturally, our heroes recount their recent adventures, telling Zeke that they left Strogass because they were being oppressed and fined by the authorities.  “Besides, that place is falling apart,” explains Martini.  “There was a general breakdown going on gradually, it seemed.”“Yeah, and the Emperor is dead!  Did you know that?”  Federico seems impressed by his knowledge.“I didn’t know that,” Ezekiel admits.  “And it’s very interesting indeed.  Strogass sucks- there’s all kind of oppression there.  But there’s just as much oppression here, actually.”  He gets a steely glint in his eye.  ”For now.”  Then he smiles again. The party asks Ezekiel if he knows of anyone capable of restoring the lost vision of Beau and Jawbreaker, and he seems dubious.  “Well, there is a druid that dwells around here.  Maybe he could help.”  He shrugs.“Eventually, I will have such abilities, thanks to my divine patron Fensor,” Hortence remarks.  “Hmm... maybe if it takes that long, we’ll take you up on that.”Beau groans.“If you’re going to seek help from the druid,” Ezekiel says diplomatically, “you might want to do so before you become too embroiled with me.  He’s... not always happy with my choices.”Next Time: Can our heroes get their sight back?  And who- or what- are the Green Tigers?  *This update marks the start of a new session, and Martini’s player missed the latter portion of the last one, i.e. all the jungle stuff.  Throughout the next few games, anytime the idea of heading into the jungle would come up, Martini’s player was like, “Sure!” while everyone else chorused “NO!!”I'll try to post another update to this thread later today, if I have a chance to finish the second half of this one!</blockquote>

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