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Message: <blockquote data-quote="spyscribe" data-source="post: 2817138" data-attributes="member: 5808">Part the One-Hundred Eighty-EighthIn which: *sniff* Isle of Hue too, man.As the children start dropping off to sleep, Thatch and Lira are able to take a break from their duties as entertainers, and the tenor of the celebration changes.  Kegs of the local ale are brought out and Philinimbram soon approaches the party with an overflowing stein.  Even at a distance they can hear it hissing and popping, and it effervesces with a vaguely noxious odor.“Want some?”“What is it?” Eva asks, clearly skeptical.“Badgerbite!”The party members all look to Lira.  (Except Thatch, who—somewhat miffed—mutters, “I drink Dwarven Ale too, you know.”)Lira ignores him.  She takes the offered beverage with thanks, privately amused at her role as party imbiber of potent potables.  My mother would be so proud, she thinks.  In her head, Euro snorts.With silent toast to their hosts, Lira knocks back a healthy slug of the local brew.  She analyses the first mouthful thoughtfully.  Okay… looks nasty, smells worse, but once you get past that… not half-bad.  And actually, it isn’t even too stron—The ale knocks back.Boss?  You cool?... Oh….It always takes a few seconds for alcohol’s full impact to hit the other side of the mater/familiar bond.  A stray thought flits across Lira’s consciousness that she hadn’t been aware that “brick to the head” was available in beverage form.  Lira sits by the fire blinking for a few seconds.  Holy crap.Eventually, with an act of will (and use of an action point) Lira calms her stomach, and a beat later, manages to get her voice back.“Not bad,” she rasps, and then, to the chagrin of the tiny piece of her brain that still cares about such things, she giggles.The others watch with a mixture of amusement and incredulity.“Is she actually drunk?”  Thatch whispers to Eva.Lira giggles again.“I believe the proper term is ‘wasted.’”“Am not,” Lira retorts, the effect of her scowl somewhat marred by a delicate hiccup.###When one of the hues starts hitting on Annika, the party decides that the time has come to make their exit and go pitch camp.They find Philinimbram to say good-night, who waves cheerily and then asks, “Are you going to your burrow now?”Anvil and Reyu exchange glances.  In all of their interactions with the hues, no one made mention of guest accommodations.  But there’s something about the way he said, their burrow… Could he mean…But before anyone can think of a way to ask what Philinimbram might mean without broadcasting their ignorance, Lira blurts out, “We have a burrow?  Where?”  Philinimbram looks a little puzzled, then realization dawns. “Badgerbite’s good stuff, huh?”Lira nods happily.  “Yeah.”“Here,” he says, gently taking her hand.  “I’ll show you.”###Philinimbram leads Lira (and the party) to a small copse of trees not far from the village.  Apparently satisfied that he has seen them to the door, he takes his leave and returns to the village, where the festivities show all signs of going until dawn.The party has only one problem.  There is no “burrow” in evidence.  Reyu and Kiara scour the area, but aided only by Anvil’s light spell and Annika’s everburning torch, they can find no sign of any shelter at all.“If Barnabus or other ‘big feets’ do come around,” Annika offers, “he seems to be pretty careful not to let the hues see him.  If he’s made himself a place to stay, he’s probably hidden it magically so they can’t find it.”“Well, that worked,” Eva grouses, indicating the route Philinimbram took back to the village.  Lira giggles.  “We could tell the hues we lost our key.” Annika, who has already had several offers of a burrow where she could spend the night, is the first to quash that suggestion.  “No.”“Do you have detect magic prepared?”  Reyu asks her.  “If the burrow is magically concealed, perhaps we can locate it that way.”The wizard shakes her head.  “I used it earlier.”Both women look at Anvil.  “Kettenek did not see fit to grant me that ability last time I petitioned him.”  He clarifies, “More to the point, I did not ask.”  He then shrugs and indicates Lira.  “She can always cast it.”Lira realizes that someone is talking about her.  “Cast what?”Reyu pats Lira on the arm.  “Never mind.”Lira is not to be put off.  “Cast what?”“Detect magic.”  “Of course I can detect magic.  Why didn’t you ask?”  Lira rolls her eyes at her friends’ apparent idiocy and begins to cast the spell.(“Concentration check, please,” says the DM.)It takes a little longer than usual, but Lira finally finishes her arcane chanting and arm-waving.  Finished, Lira stands perfectly still, staring at the party.  The others look on expectantly.“Are you alright?” Reyu asks gently.Lira blinks.  “Ooo,” she says at last, “pretty colors.”###Once the rest of the party is standing behind her and Lira is no longer distracted by the auras of their magic items, she does manage to locate the concealed entrance to what is presumably Barnabus’ “burrow” by the aura of abjuration radiating from the latch.When repeated attempts at opening the door fail, the party finally decides that the best plan of action is for Annika to memorize knock in the morning, and in the meantime, they take out their bedrolls, and camp under the stars.###The next morning dawns bright. Really bright.  Far too bright.  And—as far as Lira is concerned—far too early.  She has never in her life been this hung-over.  Not even after the dwarven ale sludge.  Her head aches, her mouth tastes like the inside of a sock, and every sound reverberates inside her head.Very carefully, Lira finishes her morning prayers and focusing exercises, and opens her eyes.  A beam of sunlight, Ehkt’s glory on earth, comes lancing through the trees right into her eyes and explodes inside her brain.Lira winces, and grits her teeth.  This is a challenge, she reminds herself.  Embrace it.  This is a challenge.Next time you take on a challenge, leave me out of it.  Euro grumbles into her head.What’s your problem?I’m just sayin’.  You think you could think a little quieter maybe Boss?You’re not the quietest thinker yourself, you know.[size=-1]Oh… sorry about that.[/size]Sigh.  [size=-1]Yeah, me too.[/size]As Lira and Euro work out their morning grumpiness, Annika easily knocks open the door to the burrow Philinimbram led them to the night before.From the outside, the door is highly camouflaged behind bushes, branches, and other natural brush.  Otherwise, it looks very much like the doors on the hues’ own burrows.  Inside, the party finds to their surprise and satisfaction that the ceiling is high enough to allow everyone but Thatch to stand comfortably erect.  The burrow consists of a single room, simply furnished with a table and two wooden stools.  The floor, ceiling and back wall are bare dirt; however, the side of the burrow facing the hues’ village is made of woven sticks and leaves.Through the screen, the party is able to see outside remarkably well, although from the outside, the wall is completely opaque.“It’s like a duck blind,” Thatch observes.“So Barnabus brought the hues to the island so he could observe them?”  Eva looks a little unsettled.  “That’s kind of creepy.”“Creepier than <a href="https://www.enworld.org/index.php?posts/2297393/" target="_blank">keeping a talking golden skull in your basement</a>?” Kiara asks.Eva has to admit she has a point.  “Well, no.”Lira, recovering a bit already from her hangover casts detect magic again.  Although the auras she sees on the party are not quite as… vivid… as they were the night before, at least they don’t make her want to lose her breakfast.After a close scan of the room, she returns her verdict.  “There’s nothing magical in here that we didn’t bring ourselves, and,” she adds, “nothing we brought with us reads as magical that shouldn’t be.”Eva sighs.  If she still owned something beyond the clothes on her back, she might be more worried about things like that. Although Reyu finds many tracks, none appear to have been made more recently than a month ago, leading her to surmise that this probably isn’t one of Barnabus’ primary haunts.  Still, the party composes a note to the archmage and leaves it on the table, just in case the long absence implies that he will be returning soon.Once that is taken care of, the party decides that the time has come to move on to another island in the archipelago.  Of course, this will necessitate bidding good-bye to the hues.  As they shove-off from the dock, it is Reyu who finally finds the words to express the party’s thanks.“Good-bye,” she tells Philinimbram warmly.  “May all of your sheep be succulent.”</blockquote>

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