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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 3299356" data-attributes="member: 1210">9/4/372 O.L.G., 11 a.m., backtracking the giants“We need more muscle,” states Queffe.  Chief Jawbreaker snorts.  “Seriously,” Queffe continues.  “We just lost Tron, who may have been an idiot-”“Stupid crahkhead,” Jawbreaker snorts.“-but he was our idiot, and he was one of our front line fighters!”“He was good in a fight,” Ari admits.“Well, I’m not taking the front line,” Federico giggles.*Beau snorts.  “Me neither.”Jawbreaker glances around and harrumphs.  There really isn’t anyone who can step up into Tron’s shoes.  Nara will get in there, but she needs tme to cast spells and prepare (Jawbreaker’s nose wrinkles in disdain).  No one in the group (other than the chief himself) is as effective as Tron was in a fight.So the party finds a new soulknife.The giants’ trail leads to another small community that they had been terrorizing, and upon the news of the giants’ defeat, a celebration breaks out.  The townsfolk are very grateful for their liberation, and one of the men of the town offers to accompany the party in thanks until he has killed forty creatures for them.  Amused, our heroes interrogate him for a few moments about his skills and abilities.  “What weapons do you use, or do you cast spells?” asks Ari.The man, who has introduced himself as Rush, sneers.  “I need no weapon.”  And from his hand, a mind blade projects!Our heroes exchange glances.  Serendipity.  ***4 p.m., Lox PentorAs the party climbs the gangplank back onto their ship, Rush asks, “So what are we doing?  Where are we going?  Is there money to be made?”Nara explains.  “We’re seeking the halfling promised land.  We know where it is- it’s on Natchoor Island, off the east coast of Strogass- but we don’t know how to get into it yet.  We know that ‘cornbread opens the way’, but we aren’t sure what it means.  Right now, we’re going to a sunken temple of a halfling subrace-” (she does not elaborate on the evil jerren) “-where we have reason to believe there may be a clue about the cornbread.  Ari detected some kind of weird powerful creature underwater and so we’re going to try to poison it- our cook, Bacon Grease, is going to take a few days to whip up some especially foul concoction.”Rush stares at her for a moment.  Finally, with a shake of his head, he says, “You are very strange people.”With a grin, Nara hurries off to confer with Captain Tarth.  Soon the ship is under way, heading back to the small cluster of islets beneath which they believe the jerren ruins to be.  Standing at the rail, Ari squints out to see; is that- a figure, bobbing far behind them?  The figure of Dogtooth?  Strangely reassured, Ari goes below decks to rest.**Meanwhile, Bacon Grease, the ship’s cook, is far from resting.  Slowly, he combines rotten fish, various toxins purchased in the city of Lox Pentor, salt and lethal herbs, cooking them together into a hideous vat of death.  Then he starts adding unsavory ingredients, of which the vomit of those seamen catching a whiff of his horrific brew is perhaps the mildest.  He and Naomi engage in repulsive lovemaking amongst the stank; it requires his iron constitution and her general disgustingness to overcome the foul reek pouring from the kitchen.  For three days he adds more (and fouler) ingredients to the mix (including some scrapings from his sessions with Naomi), until finally he announces that the repugnant process is complete.“Thank god,” mutters Captain Tarth.The halflings can only agree.  The stink is clinging to the entire ship, now, and it is the kind of stink that a discerning nose finds... unappealing.  Hideous, even.  Yet it is necessary.  Ugh, that’s awful.Everyone is very happy to see the foul mixture dumped into the water in the center of the four islets, above the well of deep water.  The stench decreases immediately and considerably, but unfortunately the stink still clings to the ship.“You know,” Queffe says, “I hope that this works.  I would hate to have to go in there now, with that mess in the water.”Nara looks stricken.  Jawbreaker shrugs.  “We wait now,” he declares laconically.  “If nothing comes up, we go in after a while.  If something floats to surface, we go in after a while and loot.  Either way, we wait a while first, then go in.”  He shrugs.  “No difference.”Ari says unhappily, “Those poor fish.”Next Time: Our heroes wait a while, then go in the water!*Our resident sorcerer/bard/jester with tons of 1st-level spells has a Str of 2, and that’s after he put his 8th level ability increase there!**Dogtooth was a salty sailor that our heroes hung with briefly while they were shipwrecked.  He made a huge impression on the group, even though he died somewhere in the session he was introduced or the one after, and he’s become something of a standing joke in the group.  “+1 for Dogtooth!” is a common mantra when someone misses an attack or check by one, and sightings like that detailed above happen periodically in the halfling party. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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