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="BoldItalic" data-source="post: 7318476" data-attributes="member: 6777052">Her first decree would be......... to declare gold anathema."Gold is unholy and ye must free thineselves of its baleful doom," announced Penelope, who was quite enjoying the situation and lapsing into archaisms she hadn't used for thousands of years. "Scour the Land of Nod for gold," she commanded, "and let none withhold it. Bring it verily down unto the harbour, where shall it be loaded even onto the Phase Rider and taken away for safe disposal far out at sea, in the deepest abyss from which there is no return. Only thus shalt thy land be free."And so it was done. The warlocks raided the storehouses and treasuries and arrived at the harbour towing many, many, floating disks laden with gold coins, bars, ingots and jewellery. The gnomes kept a tally and saw to it that the gold was safely stowed away in empty wine casks below decks. At Nord's suggestion, they even replaced the ship's ballast with gold ingots. In all, at the end of a few days, they had collected about fifty tons of gold and the Phase Rider was settling commfortably in the water. Herewulf was kept busy all the while, blessing the vessel to rid it of the evil effects of all the gold it was carrying.The Nodlanders solved the problem of the sudden absence of gold coinage by not really caring. The silver 'Nod', as normally used by merchants, was declared to be worth forty 'winks', the latter being a small copper coin equal to a labourer's daily wage. Everyone carried on as before except for misers, who had been keeping gold pieces in socks under their beds and even they were better off because they now had more pairs of socks that they could actually wear and they could stop worrying about being burgled by sock burglars.It was time for Penelope to make another decision. Jeli phrased it nicely: "Where do you want us to take it to?" she asked.Penelope had it all worked out. "There's an uninhabited island many days sail to the west with an abandoned temple to a forgotten god. Take it there and bury it in the secret crypt beneath the floorboards. But keep some for yourselves. As much as you like. Think of it as an advance on expenses. You're probably going to need it.""Why, where are we going?""You are going on a quest, tiny adventurers. I want you to bring me the biggest diamond in the world."This seemed like a worthwhile quest and that completed their fourfold aims: they had a ship, a crew, some marines and a sponsor. Life took on a clarity that it had lacked until now and they sailed away in good heart to find the uninhabited island to bury their hoard of gold.After an uneventful fortnight, they arrived at the island and moored in a sheltered bay near the ruins of an ancient harbour. Now, when I say 'uninhabited', I mean there were no people living on the island. And when I say 'abandoned' I mean that people had stopped going there. But there was a reason for that, as the heroes were about to discover when they went ashore ...</blockquote>

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