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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Monty Tomasi" data-source="post: 2987669" data-attributes="member: 40137">Torch… ah, what a sight!Here is a list of three nice things about Torch:1.    I’ve never been here before2.    I’ll never come back here if I have anything to say about it and3.    well there is no third nice thing to say but perhaps there should be, else it’d invalidate the Rule of ThreeThe Rule of Three, Centre of All and Unity of Rings are fundamental laws of the Multiverse. If one of them gets invalidated then everything ceases to exist. No refunds, no warrantee cover, nada. So Good Morning if you are reading this and yours truly – your dear and much beloved mentor, friend and personal saviour – has passed away and you should remember these rules. If you have learnt only one thing from me it is those three rules.Oh yes, the gate-town of Torch that’s right. It’s a pretty miserable place and the berks who call it home are an angry and nasty bunch of sods. If the burg had a town planning department they would probably have sat down one day and said: “wouldn’t it be nice if we planned this place with the theme of someone having picked up the town and hurtled it against the side of a mountain?”Chances are though that if the place did have a town-planner he’s likely to be buried in the festering and plague-ridden swamp outside of town. Might makes right on the plane of Gehenna and that philosophy spills over in to the gate-town which connects it to the Outlands. Near the bottom of town is the roughest part and closest to the horrid swamp. Plenty of berks here have boils, diseases and random puss-filled swellings from living too close to the swamp. Up the side of the mountain from there are some better off kips that stronger cutters hold on to and usually pay a local gang to look after their interests. Up near the gate (a red disc suspended between mountain peaks with a half a bridge span leading up to it) are the high-ups – literally – who as you guessed it are the toughest bloods to call this burg home.The portal that we stepped out of was formed by a tree branch sagging down and creating an arch. The tree was located just outside of town and at the outskirts of the swamp. There were plenty of snakes, toads, flies and other fauna around that thrives in the mouldering swamp. Personally I’d rather ritually disembowel myself than be forced to live in a place like this, but seeing as we had a job to do and I had no rusty spoon handy the simple choice seemed to be to head in to town.We found a reasonable tavern somewhere in the middle of town. The reasonable thing about the tavern was that they were not that likely to stab you as you stepped through the doorway. Some of the dives lower down in town looked like the kind of place where you only went in with plenty of bodyguards and a good selection of poison anti-dotes. This tavern that set up shop in had a miniature Cyclops behind the bar who seemed friendly enough once Sephus began to chat him up.Being a chant-monger, middle-man, general trouble-shooter and murder detective extraordinaire I volunteered to scout around town to look for our Mr. Lothar the Shiv. The whisper gnome and the tiefling girl also volunteered and seeing as we all appeared to be lone wolves – we came to a spoken agreement to go our separate ways.The tick to surviving in a town like Torch is not to be there in the first place. If you are forced to go there then be sure to act tough and never show a single moment of weakness. Yours truly cruised the local taverns, got the lay of the land and tried to get Lothar to come out of his hole by spreading the chant that we’d come about an inheritance that he was fortunate enough to recently become eligible for.The whisper gnome and cat-girl tiefling did their own thing and we all met back at the tavern after a couple of hours. In the mean time the earth genasi knight had knocked back the brown, murky pints that the barman had poured, the modron had analysed every single measurement of the tavern and the half-orc female was rapidly losing her patience.I’ve had this burning desire to find out for a long time to find out which races have a good sense of humour seeing as it might save my skin one day. Also I figure that you can tell a lot about a cutter by what she finds funny. So I asked the modron:“What do you call a modron with its brains bashed out?”The mordon blinked, whirring and gear ticking sounds came from inside and it eventually said: “I don’t know.”To which I replied: “Thinking outside the box!”Alright, alright I admit that it was one of my worst attempts at humour. If it’s any consolation I got my usual abdominal pain after telling a really bad pun and when I’m feeling particularly paranoid I ponder the notions that it’s the gods dishing out punishment. In any case, the half-orc laughed a couple of minutes later and the rogue modron never laughed at all; so that answered my question about humour.We stayed an hour longer in the vain hopes of Lothar coming to meet us. One suspicious-looking berk slipped out of the tavern and another suspect cutter slipped off after him. With the whisper gnome on the trail of that first berk we waited awhile longer when the half-orc slams down her fist and says: “I’m tired of waiting!”Half-orcs… they may not have much in the way of wits but they sure know what they want. Anyway, I was not about to argue and seeing as I was not going to buy another round of drinks for the earth genasi - off we all trudged in the direction of town where Lothar was known to be a small-time mover and shaker. I’d got a rough idea of where about he was located but not the details of the building where he could be found. Seeing as I had some angry muscle with me this time I stopped a random merchant in the street and asked him if he knew where Lothar was hiding.The wart-covered man opened his jacket to display a variety of frogs, toads, salamanders and albino newts hanging off hooks on this inside of his coat. Some of those animals were still alive and in a voice that was slimier than the film covering the surface of the swamp he said:“Toads, get your lovely toads here good Sir guaranteed to give you a good time.”Well, he was not a bad salesman I’ll give him that. But when you have an angry half-orc standing only two feet away it’s really not the best time to try to sell mind-warping fauna for questionable leisure pursuits. After I hinted in very strong language that he’d be walking as funny as some of his merchandise if he did not cooperate – the merchant pointed to the building that Lothar was known to frequent. The merchant was even kind enough (after a little more coercion) to give me a free sample and I happily stuffed the live bright red toad in to my medicine bag..Since we were all strangers we’d never been in a conflict situation before and so each person took up position in the place of their choosing. I went up to the front door with the still very much irate half-orc and knocked on the door. The others went around the side, into an alleyway and elsewhere out of sight.A voice in my head that sounded remarkably like our whisper gnome friend confirmed that we were heading for the right house. Ash, that’s his name by the way, was even kind enough to fill me in with how many bashers were likely to be inside the building. Speaking in to a sods mind is a neat trick, something that I’ll have to get the hang off one of these days.Anyway a bruiser with the wits of a dretch opened the door and even though I tried crossing his palm with silver, he seemed only interested in the kind of diplomacy that involves sharp implements moving at rapid speed towards vulnerable body parts.Luckily for me he took the time to pour some flaming oil on to his rather flash hand-a-half sword that gave me sufficient time to command him to then drop the sword shortly thereafter. Several of his mates had come rushing to the door and I knew that there was more trouble when they each drew their swords. Fortunately for me the now unarmed thug saw fit to charge me and push me all the way across the road away from his weapon-wielding buddies.Steun de Aarde was a real rock solid cutter who stepped up to the doorway and single-handedly knocked down one basher after the next. It was like watching a game of “knock the mephit’s head off”; that unfortunately I did not have time to watch as this berk still had me cornered against the building. I tried stuffing the livid red frog down his throat to give him something to chew on, but the silly sod turned his face to the side and he ended up with a big red smear on his cheek.I did the one thing that any good sales-man would do in that position and I improvised. So whilst muttering a curse about how the frog would bring him bad fortune I was desperately looking for a way to get out of the sticky situation. Good Morning was kind enough to come up and cause a little damage but on the whole he was not of much use.The berk pulled a knife and I pulled a sickle, he tried to rejoin his friends and Veedevee stepped up and took his head off in one clean sweep of her large axe. So you see – my frog curse actually worked! Anyway, once the half-orc had the taste of blood she went charging up to the house and to avoid running through the now flaming doorway she simply ran through the wall a few feet to her right. One stroke of her axe later and the last of the thugs joined his compatriots in the after-life.As it turns out Lothar the Shiv had skipped town well over an hour before out little scuffle. Seeing as he lived near the bottom end of town I should perhaps have guessed that he would be a great coward. After all, if he had any sense of self-worth, wits or courage he would have been located higher up in the town instead of at the bottom with the riff-raff and other swamp scum.Sephus did locate a few interesting pieces of information about a weapons sale to a group of goblins living on Acheron. The sensory stone that we had for tracking Lothar was working once again now that he had skipped town and was some distance. So after one or two members of our merry band had finished their stealth looting we set off to track down this irascible chant-monger of little courage.And thus it was that I discovered the second nice thing that I lied about Torch… namely leaving it. All being well it’ll be the last time that I visit that hell-hole of a town. But if there’s one thing to remember about planar travel it’s never say never. Well you can if you like but just don’t expect it to always be true.Actually one more thing, Good Morning if you are reading this, if there is one piece of advice that you would listen to it should be the following: wear oil of flame resistance. You never know when it might come in handy.</blockquote>

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