NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 2813963" data-attributes="member: 1210">A feast before the shrine of some long-forgotten halfling god.  The smells of delicious food, the sounds of merry laughter and conversation.  Our heroes are in a rare state of bliss, the politics of Dyshim and Zacradose forgotten, their periodic troubles with the Peachtrees put far out of mind.  Very little could make the occasion better.  Very little- except the promised land that the weird’s prophecy had seemingly promised them.  Naomi glances at the varicose veins surrounding the tattoo of the prophecy on her thigh and thinks about it as she gnaws a leg of lamb.  Is it my promised land? she wonders.  My folk are not like other halflings... Airhead Ed eats and eats, but then falls into a brooding state.  She and Naomi stare at each other, and each feels an itching at their mind.  Federico japes and jokes, amusing everyone, but he cannot help but feel somewhat out of place.  After all, even though he thinks of himself as a halfling- and he is, in fact, an adopted Flapjacks- he cannot escape the fact that his body is that of a kobold.  He cannot help but feel a tickle of doubt at whether he belongs here in this sacred place.Martini strolls around, looking over the various statues of halfling deities.  Who are they? he wonders, staring from one to the next.  None of them are familiar at all.  One in particular is disturbing: he looks thin and hungry.  Martini shivers and leaves a piece of bread before the statue, then returns to his fellows.  He notices that Ari has already fallen into a deep torpor-like sleep, and he smiles to himself.  A good night’s rest sounds like a good idea, he reflects.  As if reading his thoughts, Jawbreaker states, “We rest here.”  Erasmuz scowls, but the burly barbarian ignores him.  “Good place.”  He smiles his toothy smile and belches. Erasmuz turns his head away, the scowl fixed fiercely upon his face.  Gods, he sneers to himself.  He reveres no gods.  No, he steals from the gods- steals their power.  For Erasmuz is an ur-priest, disdaining the sacred and the profane for a conniving cynicism.  His so-called “friends” that he travels with have no idea of the depth of his disgust for this shrine.  Sure, there’s food- a persuasive argument, for a halfling- but this place is probably consecrated.  Or at least, it probably was at one point.  Even the brooding Erasmuz slips into sleep.***12/13/369 O.L.G., 9 a.m., the ruined keep of the small folk, ZacradoseThe next day forever more seems like a dream.  None of them can clearly remember it afterwards, ever, as long as they live.  Much like a dream, when they think about it too hard they start to wonder if they are changing their recollections of it.After a night involving pillow fights and seduction between Ed and Erasmuz, morning sees them in a fine breakfast (the supplies kept, of course, in Jawbreaker’s magical bag).  Then they question Enkirdos, their captive- the gnome who was part of the group that assaulted them.  She claims that she and her friends were essentially attempting to claim the keep for their own and fix it up as a headquarters.  “I don’t believe her,” Naomi declares.  “I think we should kill her.”  Under her breath, she adds, “...and eat her.”“You’re gross,” Martini remarks.They discuss it for a few moments before deciding to further explore the area.  They leave the gnome in the cage behind them, though Airhead Ed shows a strong desire to kill her.  As the party descends some stairs, she mutters, “Oh, I forgot something,” and heads back up to the cage.  After a moment’s hesitation, Martini goes after her.  But that hesitation is enough: he is too late.  The gnome is dead.  Martini glares at Ed.“It wasn’t me,” she protests implausibly.  “Well, okay, it was, but they held me prisoner.  You don’t know what kinds of things they did to me!”Martini just shakes his head.***11:00 a.m.Going deeper into the sublevels of the ruined keep, our heroes are beset by a swarm of stirges.  Naomi gives a terrified, pig-like squeal and discharges a fireball from her wand.  It explodes above her in a shower of sparks and burning stirges.  And yet more stream forth, landing on her body and beginning to suck her blood!Jawbreaker is just out of the stirges’ field of view.  When he steps into it, he is wielding his axe.  A single mighty blow cuts one stirge in half and cleaves into another, nearly severing its body in twain.  Ari inflicts light wounds upon one of the stirges clutching her bloated friend, and huge rents open up on it.  It drops off of Naomi and crashes into the ground, dead but still twitching.  Even as it does so, however, the remaining stirges are sucking great gouts of blood from her.Airhead Ed, meanwhile, cries in the back of the party and is ready to move away at a moment’s notice.Jawbreaker, on the other hand, continues to rampage through the stirges, and he cuts the last two of the vicious little bloodsuckers off of Naomi.She groans, nearly collapsing.  Her knees feel weak, and she groans, “I need something to eat.”***NoonIt is below that our heroes find the door.  It has no handle or method of opening. Nara steps up to it.  “Can you feel that?” she whispers, looking at the others.Everyone else shakes their head.“There’s energy running through this door,” she murmurs.  “Similar to the energy Coila lets me channel.”  She pauses for a moment.  “I wonder...”“Maybe that’s the key,” suggests Erasmuz.Nara nods.  “I was just thinking that.”  Taking a deep breath, she pulls forth her holy symbol and channels negative energy.  Immediately, the outline of the door begins to glow; and within seconds the door itself transforms into a field of white light.  “I don’t know if this is such a good idea,” cautions Ari.“Smell that?” exclaims Naomi, sniffing at the entrance.  Our heroes crowd close.“Bacon!”***Ed refused to go through, and Jawbreaker wouldn’t leave her unprotected.  If she was part of the clan, then she was part of the clan.  Regretfully, the chief stayed with her.  The others, unable to resist, went through the energized doorway.It seemed like the promised land, but it was not.There were fields of pies and cows that gave cream and... and everything.  It is so hazy now, trying to remember.  It all turned to ashes in their mouths.  None of it would feed them.  They wept, unable to believe the cruelty of it.  It was a terrible mockery of what must be a perfect world.  Why is it so hard to remember?  To remember anything past this point?  They came out of the false promised land, rejoining Jawbreaker and Ed.A pause, to try to remember.  There was a book that came with them, and then... what?  How long, how much time?A pause- mind-deadening confusion.  Smoke, and strange smells; light only from the fire burning around them.  Erasmuz had used his prized possession, his wand of summon bard, to call forth someone to tell their stories to, to spread their fame.  The party laughed over a good meal, but it was hollow.  The false promised land.But a book, a book of lore came out of it.  They found it there, and brought it back.  But...But where are we?What’s going on?  It’s dark...What happened?Dawning horror.“We’re surrounded!” Martini shouts.  They are in a cave: Martini, Naomi, Erasmuz and Nara.  The others are nowhere to be seen.  The guttering fires of some sort of mossy mass are burning.  Orange sparks of flaming moss matter flutter in the air.  Three passages exit from the place.  The entire tableau is overgrown with fungus, smuts and mushrooms and strange, alien-looking formations.From all three passages, strange, feline-looking things are moving in on the party.  Tentacles writhe beneath their knife-toothed mouths.“What the hell is going on?” cries Martini.Next Time: What the hell happened?  Where are our heroes- and where are the rest of our heroes?!</blockquote>

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