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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 2153600" data-attributes="member: 1210">The Liberation of Dyshim!Noon“The blinding sickness.”  Monli the druid sighs, shaking his head warily.  “Restoring your sight is beyond me.  The loss is permanent unless treated properly, and I do not have the magical faculties to remove it.  However...”  He pauses, purses his lips.  “Dyshim is a place of great natural wonder and power.  There is a set of springs, well known for their healing properties... I could brew up an herbal remedy that, when soaked in the mineral waters of a specific spring, should aid you in seeing again.”The party agrees readily to pay the cost of brewing up the herbal concoction, and the druid agrees to brew it up.  According to him it will take about two days to cook up the mess.  The party has obtained a map of Dyshim; Monli marks the location of the pit that the healing springs are in on it.  The pit, apparently, is on the far side of the jungle, up against the mountains.  Beau groans.  “We go around,” Jawbreaker says emphatically.  Martini snorts.  Our heroes return to the place they are staying, the Black Barracks.  Once there they eat a significant meal and then laze about for the rest of the day.  Dinner comes and goes, and then the party reclines into sleep.***7/2/369 O.L.G., 10 a.m.Just after second breakfast the party heads out on the streets, buying a new dog for Federico (whom the little kobold jester names Portnoy) and generally re-equipping themselves.  They snack on the local cuisine; dark-skinned humans selling hunks of tender grilled fish on a stick seem to be all around the business district.  Tropical birds flash overhead in sudden blots of color.  Fruits are abundant, sweet and juicy.  Naomi takes special joy in walking about the community after being paralyzed for so long.  The blind- Beau and Jawbreaker- get much less enjoyment out of the town than the others, since they can’t see the exotic sights, but they can smell the delicious scents of cooking food and the flowers that seem to dot every house’s garden.All day our heroes spend wandering the town.  All too soon evening falls, and they begin winding their way back to the Black Barracks.  Thanks to a couple of taller buildings near their inn, they have little trouble navigating the unfamiliar streets.  As they walk they notice a man trailing along about 20’ behind them.  At first they think nothing of him, but then another young fellow drifts along after them, and another wanders out of an alley to the side.  Each fellow wears a green armband.  And suddenly there are about a dozen guys, young tough-looking humans for the most part, making hard eyes at our heroes.  Suddenly the toughs stop moving.  They have encircled our heroes, and so our heroes halt as well.One of the ruffians- an especially ugly half-orc walking with a longspear- gives a thick smile to the party and says, “Good evenin’, folks.  It seems you are in the Green Tigers’ territory.  I’m afraid you must pay our toll.”“How much is your toll?” asks Federico worriedly.“Well, how much have you got?”“No way!  These guys are trying to oppress us!”  Ezeekiel strikes a stern pose, gesturing at the half-orc.  “We’ll never give in to you!”That seems to be everyone’s cue to burst into action.  Federico casts mage armor first on Portnoy and then on himself while Achtung and Martini start shooting arrows out into the mass of hoodlums.  The leader stabs Ezeekiel with his spear, slicing through armor and flesh and shocking the paladin with its force.  Ezeekiel draws his axe and then the two are locked in a deadly dance of steel.Though blind, Beau casts a shocking grasp.  In Halfling, he calls out, “Hey watch out, guys, I’ve got a shocking grasp going!  Don’t come too close unless you identify yourself or I might zap you!”Achtung, meanwhile, keeps up a rapid fire of missiles from his bow.  He peppers a couple of the toughs, who are being pressed more by Portnoy than by the arrow fire.  Then Federico drops a number of them with a sleep spell even as Ezeekiel and the leader sweep apart.  Hortense casts a healing spell on Ezeekiel while the gang leader chugs a potion down, and some of his wounds heal as well.  Determined, the paladin sweeps into a mass of the thugs, and in seconds another is down.  The battle is definitely turning in our heroes’ favor.  Martini lands several more arrows in the gang leader.  The toughs land an occasional blow, but they are not used to dealing with savvy customers like our heroes, armed and armored and unafraid.  Soon the toughs break and flee, though our heroes capture the leader alive and bind him up.Ezeekiel takes on the task of keeping the prisoner hidden safely away, and yet still a prisoner.  The party manages to return to their inn without further incident, and they rest.  In the morning the party mostly starts an early heavy drunk, but Ezeekiel and Hortense go to speak to the gang leader.  His name, it turns out, is Grizliwentho.  Ezeekiel sternly lectures him about civic duty, about standing up to the oppressors, about not preying on the weak.  He demands that Grizliwentho and his gang change their ways and turn from their current street activity to more of a local police force.  Grizliwentho agrees blithely to everything Zeke says.  Has he seen the error of his ways, or is he just saying what he must to survive?  Who can say?  Ezeekiel warns him that his network of eyes and ears will make sure that the Green Tigers stay in line.  “We defeated you and we could have taken a lot more of you if we had had to,” Ezeekiel remonstrates.  “Don’t make us come back and finish the job!”The paladin turns Grizliwentho loose, making a mental note to check up on him soon.  I hope he becomes a good soldier for the resistance, thinks Zeke with a smile.  I think I got through to him.  I think I did.***4 p.m., Monli the druid’s houseOur heroes have sobered up enough to make it practical to attempt a little diplomacy.  According to Ezeekiel, the tyrant governor of Dyshim has not received any backup or support in over a year.  He is being abandoned by more and more of his troops and is in fact down to a handful of bodyguards.  The time is ripe for the revolution to strike, to end the oppression!  But the druid, the best-respected resident of the city, is strongly against a bloody turnover of power.  The party visits him and persuades him to meet with Ezeekiel to discuss the current state of affairs.  “Killing the governor would be a mistake,” Monli insists. “He has to go.”“You may have to compromise.”“Well, as long as the end result is that the people are no longer oppressed.  That’s the important thing.  The people need to govern.”In the end, the only thing that the two can agree on is to seek a non-violent solution.”Now is the time,” Ezeekiel says.  “Will you help me get him out of here?”Our heroes agree, and they march to the governor’s mansion.  What starts as a hard negotiating session ends in tragedy as Martini, frustrated with the governor’s insistent ignoring of the fact that he no longer had any cards, shoots him through the eye with his bow.  The governor falls dead, and his only two remaining guards throw down their weapons.Just like that, Dyshim has been liberated.  “What if there are reinforcements coming?” asks Federico.“Well, then we’ll deal with them,” answers Ezeekiel.“Are you ready to deal with an assault?” the urd Achtung inquires.“Not yet,” Zeke replies, “but we will be.”Next Time: So what will the new government of Dyshim look like?  How much will our heroes- especially Ezeekiel- be involved?  And how much time will they work on this before attempting to cure Beau’s blindness?</blockquote>

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