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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 3201160" data-attributes="member: 1210">Noon, approaching the last islet“Look!”  Federico points.  “There’s a shape in the water!”  He quivers with fright, his little kobold tail tucked between his legs.  “We could check it out,” suggests Erasmuz. “Island first,” Jawbreaker declares.  As he is the chief, debate subsides.  Besides, nobody really wants to go into the water.  Dandylion Ho and Ari (who turns into an eagle) fly up above and circle the isle, hoping to see any danger before it sees them, but though there are a couple of ruined buildings, they see no sign of hostile life or real hazards.  A more thorough search by the group turns up nothing new, but as they examine the islet for clues Federico suddenly stiffens and starts talking to the air.  “Auntie!”  He looks around wildly.  “Where are you?  What’s going on?  Is that you?  Hello?  Hello??  Is anyone there?  Hello?  Auntie??”“Are you all right?” Beau asks. The little kobold jester looks quite confused.  “She was just talking to me... didn’t you hear her?  No?  Wow...”“What happened?” Erasmuz inquires.Federico answers, “I heard my Auntie’s voice.  Didn’t you hear it...?  She was talking about poor Mama Flapjacks, and she asked me to come home...”  He pauses, looking thoughtfully at the others.  “Is there some kind of magic that will let you do that?  Send a message to someone far away?  It sounds like she’s still at home, on Strogass near the Western Precipice... How could she be talking to me here?”“It must have been a sending,” Erasmuz opines.  “She could send you a message, and then you could reply in kind.” “But I didn’t...”  Slowly, it dawns on the more magic-savvy members of the party that Federico’s reply to his aunt’s sending was something like, Auntie!  Where are you?  What’s going on?  Is that you?  Hello?  Hello??  Is anyone there?  Hello?  Auntie??  She was just talking to me... didn’t you, but it’s too late to make any use of it now. “I’ll have to go home,” Federico declares.  “Auntie Flapjacks asked me to- and she asked after Mama.”  He sniffs, a tear coming to his eye.  “I miss my Mama,” he whimpers.*While they talk, it soon comes out that Naomi’s “jerren blood” is all of her blood.  She is in fact a full-blooded jerren.  No wonder she’s such a bitch, thinks Nara acidly, as the party mulls the revelation.  By this time it is early afternoon.  Our party breaks from their mission- they are done searching, and next comes delving into the sea after whatever they saw just off the islet- for tea time, snacking on bacon and crackers.  Over tea, they discuss the implications of heading back towards Federico’s home area.  “The Peachtrees,” the kobold whimpers.  “They don’t like us.  And we’re wanted.”“You are?” Dandylion asks.“Yeah, well at least Chief Jawbreaker and I are.”“What for?” asks Nara.“We let a bunch of crazy people out of an insane asylum.**  But that place was terrible!  They did horrible things to people in there- they cut open their heads and poured liquids on their brains and stuff!”  Federico shudders. “Bad place,” Jawbreaker confirms.  “I hope Stupid is okay,” Lanzor says grumpily.“What about the Peachtrees?” asks Nara.  Jawbreaker groans.  “Jawbreaker didn’t mean to hurt Heather.”“Yeah, Ed didn’t mean to shoot out Benjy Peachtree’s eye, either,” Federico responds.“So you might say that they have a couple of reasons not to like you,” Nara muses.“Screw the Peachtrees,” Rock grumbles.  “Whoever they are.” “Well, I’m full,” announces Tron.  “Time to get in the water.”“No!” snaps Ari.  “Tron, you must know better- you must wait thirty minutes before swimming after you eat.”The party continues to chat for half and hour; then they enter the water.  All of them are soon under the influence of a water breathing spell, and they submerge themselves in the turbulent water.  As they enter the water, Tron moans, “I need some crahk.”Then they are below the surface, breathing the ocean itself.  Ari wild shapes into a shark and begins swimming ahead of the party.  Almost immediately he spots a large bed of kelp, and above it- some kind of bundle or growth of kelp, bunched into a globby shape.  It moves with purpose and begins to glide through the water towards the party.  Ari reverses course, heading back towards the party.  They realize that he must have seen something, but as a shark, he cannot speak to them.  “What is it?” wonders Rock, and then a strand of kelp wraps around him, instantly tightening and pulling the hapless fellow to it.  He yelps, and the party bursts into action.  Beau blasts a volley of magic missiles at it that pepper it with force.  But the thing is unrelenting; it soon grapples Jawbreaker as well, entangling him in its fronds.Our heroes, meanwhile, seem to be tripping all over themselves.  A collection of misses and missteps keeps them from doing much of anything; they cololectively miss or fail to effect it with anything at all, except for a single magic missile from Federico.  Ari returns to his normal form and begins casting summon nature’s ally VI.  It takes a few precious moments- during which Naomi successfully hits the thing with a mind thrust- but when the spell finally goes off, a small school of sharks appears!  They tear into the kelp creature, tearing it apart in a few short moments.  “Wow,” says Tron.  Our heroes regroup.  “Well, we know what was in water,” Jawbreaker notes as Nara and Ari dispense a little healing.“But still not what’s in the center,” Beau points out.  Jawbreaker nods.  “We will.  Poison first.  Try to kill it or draw it out.”“It certainly can’t hurt to try,” admits Queffe.“Then let’s go back to the ship,” Erasmuz suggests.  “We can see if we have the necessary stuff for Bacon Grease to cook up something nasty and get to work.”“And if he doesn’t have what he needs, Lox Pentor is only 12 miles away,” points out Queffe.  “We could be there before night falls by several hours!”***4:30 p.m., Lox PentorOur heroes disembark.  They have hours of daylight left as they stroll into Lox Pentor, thinking about dinner at Lambs.  Little do they realize that one of them will be dead before the night is out.Next Time: One of our heroes dies!!  Who??  How??  Find out- next time!*Mama Flapjacks is a former pc, a matronly halfling cleric mother-figure to most of hte party in the earlier days of the halfling party.  She died adventuring with the party. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" />**Federico is, of course, referring to the Asylum for Advanced Mental Treatment and the party’s adventure with it, which led to their trial and conviction.  (That marked hippijedi’s first game with our group; he is the player of Nara and Beau (as her cohort, these days) in the halfling party, and Gerontius in the epic game.</blockquote>

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