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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 3128771" data-attributes="member: 1210">The Return of Beau!Beau’s head throbbed in agony.  The snake-man’s bonebreak had broken the bones of his face.  He jerked painfully in the web that held him and watched as Lundey cast a desperate mending spell to try to stave off the burst of the small dyke in the back of the cave.  Then she vanished as she blinked through the door.  From beyond came the sounds of battle, and then the door seemed to vibrate and shiver for a moment.  Beau groaned in pain.Then Jawbreaker, in his bear form, crashed through the door, slamming it off of its hinges and propelling himself over it.  He was just in time: the dyke burst and water roared out and flooded the tunnel.  Beau gulped in a great gulp of air and then it hit, tearing the webs free from their anchors in the cave wall.  His face burst into a white-hot explosion of pain as he was swept away, nearless senseless!  Battered and rolled, Beau was rendered nearly senseless.  The water roared past, depositing him on the muddy floor of the cave in a disoriented, painful heap.Slowly, as the sounds of fireballs exploded nearby, Beau dragged himself up and managed to get his bearings.  There, he thought, the others are assembling at the stairway.  Got to join them...  He staggered over to the party and groaned for healing.  As the party took stock of their resources, Sandy pulled out his healing wand and began trying to ‘trick’ it into working on Beau.  After a few moments, he succeeded.“This is bad,” somebody said.  Indeed it is.  The party is badly injured and their resources are fairly depleted.  The snake-folk did significant damage to the halflings in their assault.  The group elected to make camp.  Sandy and Beau waited for Lundey in the hallway below the stairs while the others retreated to the relative safety of the jungle outside.  Beau’s face was still broken, and he was in considerable pain.  His head throbbed.Something... “Hey,” Beau painfully asked, “do you hear that?”Sandy cocked his head.  From the direction of the top of the stairs, there came a sound- almost like chanting.  Nervously, he kept working on his wand of cure moderate wounds until he finally managed to heal both himself and Beau several times.  Then the two of them crept up the steps to the door.  “It’s not locked,” whispered Beau, after checking the door.  He pulled out his sword; Sandy pulled his spear, staying several steps below.  His dog, Rider, stayed immediately in front of him.Beau hurls opened the door and gives a choked, horrified gasp.  There Lundey is- bloody and possibly dead in the great serpentine mouth of some kind of unholy snake altar.  A muscular in monkish garb stands guard before a snake as large as a man, with muscular human arms.  This terrifying abomination gestures and suddenly, Beau shrinks and changes, turning into a wee little garter snake.Things are simpler.  There is fighting and confusion for another few moments, and then comforting hands pick snake up.  Stroking and a warm place to lay.  All snake needs.  Then there is more fighting, and new hands take snake.  These are warm, but soon hands put snake into a box.  The box is safe but not as warm as snake would like.  Snake comes out of box sometimes when hands open it, and there are many rats.  But now it is colder, and the air is wetter and tastes different.  Also it rocks and moves; the ground is wood.  Snake spends most of its time in box.  No sun; there is wood sky.Eventually it stops rocking and the next time snake comes out of box sun is in sky.  Air tastes different; snake is somewhere new.  Lots of disturbance and ruckus.  Lots of rats.  Sometimes snake is underground, sometimes snake is under sky.  Then snake’s head hurts for a while.  Things feel bad.  Air tastes very strange, very bad.  Mossy and snotty.  Not good tastes, although moss part strangely not bad.  Weird things around, snakes under face but part of face, not really snakes.  Strange, bad head hurt things.  Bad things.  Hands no longer come.  Hungry.  Rats.  Then hands grab, back in box, go back.  Under sun again.  No more head hurt.  Then, after a while, wood sky, wood ground, rocking world with wet taste and cool air.  Just started- even in box, snake knows.  Hands come, pull snake out, and snake starts to stretch out.Beau would fall down if he had been standing.  As it is, he gives a loud, “UH!!” of confusion.  “What- where- who- what’s going on?” he sputters, completely disoriented.“Relax, buddy,” someone standing nearby grins.  “You’ve just been saved.”“Who- who are you?”  Beau blinks a few times, then licks his lips.  He feels- lean.  He focuses on the other.  He is a halfling, too- a bald-headed one, with a black goatee, moustache and eyebrows.  He looks, Beau thinks warily, rather sinister.“My name is Erasmuz,” the other replies.  “What do you remember?”“I- I don’t know,” Beau stammers.  He tries to sort it out.  He remembers Lundey’s death, and then- what?General contentment?  Was he a prisoner?  He can’t remember much of anything...“You were my magic snake,” Erasmuz crows.  “I’ve been trying everything to find out what you were.  Every time I learn a new spell or power that would help, I’ve been casting it to try to figure you out.”“What- what worked?”“Break enchantment,” declares the sinister-looking Erasmuz.  “Now, who are you, buddy?”“My name is Beau,” the former snake tells his- rescuer?  And, interestingly, Erasmuz’ face changes.“Beau!” he exclaims.  “That travelled with Federico, and Jawbreaker, and...”“Yeah!” Beau replies enthusiastically.  “Do you know my friends?”“Sure, buddy!  They’re just up on deck, as a matter of fact!”And so Beau returned to the party.*Next Time: Return to Strogass!  The quest for the Promised Land is on!!*Beau is now Naomi’s cohort.  Naomi’s player is the same player who played Beau before he was baleful polymorphed into a snake.</blockquote>

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