Castle Whiterock 9 January 2023: Tiger tales

The murderhoboes

Garreth, half-orc swordsman
    Bleu, droning elf wizard
Zaber, suave and debonaire man
    Logan, wolverine
Polly, cute and deadly elf archer

Stonemaul, dwarven cleric of Danethar

What they did

We see a rakshasa sitting on the bed. I ask him, "Hey, there, wanna drink up?"

The rakshasa scowls. "Drink? With you? What makes you think you are worthy to drink with me, intruders who have killed my guards and broken into my sanctum?"

I shrug. "We didn't wanna drink with your guards, man. We wanted the best!"

He pauses. "Have you any duergar stout? It has been so long since a shipment from Narborg arrived."

I turn to Garreth. "Hey, Garreth, got any duergar stout?"

Garreth sighs. "I don't think we have any left, we could go rummage around in the ruins and see what we can find."

Garreth starts looking, but the rakshasa pipes up. "Ah, Gar-Eff and the Murder Hoboes?" He sniffs. "I do not see the point of such frivolities as much, I believe that the truest form of artistic expression is fine oratory" It then goes into ancient speeches of forgotten generals from the past, in the Ancient tongue.

I turn to Bleu. "Bleu, getting all of this?"

Bleu looks at me point blank. "No."

Garreth mutters in Undercommon, "Is he worth being friends with? Music is frivolity? What is that, poetry?"

I say back, "He looks like he knows how to party, man."

The rakshasa says back to us in Undercommon, "Only if you are worthy to be my friends."

I go through the booze in the bag of holding. "Man, we need a liquor cabinet of holding, too."

Stonemaul: chimes in. "The garbage those under-dwarves drink is only fit for setting things on fire. You might be able to get it as a cornucopia of flame-syphon ammo."

The rakshasa cocks an eyebrow. "You know of something far superior?"

Stonemaul says, "I will differ to my compatriots who have a very adventurous pallet to make recommendation."

Garreth shrugs. "I'm less of a connoisseur than a heavy consumer. I like to get drunk but it takes flammable booze by the pint. I'm depressingly sober right now, though. We had a bottle of dwarven firewine a while back that wasn't bad."

I hand over my whiskeyskin. "G, have a little more."

Garreth eyes the tiger thing and shakes his head slowly. "After."

The rakshasa dismisses us with a wave. "Then, depart the way you came, and return only with appropriate gifts, then may I leave you pass."

Garreth asks, "What would we pass to?"

The rakshasa says, "Beyond my realm and into that of the dragon. Also if you run into a medusa, do not slay her, bring her to me bound and you shall be rewarded."

I say, "We don't care about your realm. I mean, it sounds sweet, but it's yours. We care about that dragon. The medusa, not my type. I like being stoned, but not stoned stoned."

Stonemaul nods. "What would your plans be for this medusa?"

The rakshasa smiles. "We've been together for a few centuries now so I think it would you know, as they say, spice things up." He gives Stonemaul a wink.

I give the rakshasa a thumbs-up. "I totally dig the way you think."

Stonemaul says, "So, you're already in a relationship with the medusa and you want to pay us to become third parties to your bedroom play?" He shrugs. "I am OK with that."

The rakshasa adds, "I can gallantly rescue her! It will be fun! I won't even kill you!"

I ask, "How do we all deal with her eyes?"

Stonemaul says, "They do say that if you close off your eyes your other senses are heightened."

The rakshasa scoffs, "Uh, if you intend to deal with the dragon you best be able to handle a medusa. Put a bag over her head?"

I agree. "That works! It works for a medusa or for Bea Arthur!"

Stonemaul sighs. "Well, we were going to have to deal with the medusa anyway, and this seems like a very valid opportunity to introduce some chaos into what seems like a longstanding relationship."

Garreth shrugs. "It's something to discuss and or plan for. We might want to go get a mirrored shield or four."

Stonemaul nods. "If you'd be so kind as to excuse us we'll discuss your offer in detail." He heads back to the barrel of radioactive waste.

The rakshasa nods as well. "Very well, do stop by after you have your little chat"

I tell Logan to stand watch, and we chat among ourselves, as much in Aquan as we can. Stonemaul says, "As I said, we were going to have to deal with the rakshasa and the medusa anyway. Doing this seems to make the job a bit easier. Further, with Zaber's platinum-coated tongue we can most likely simply inform the medusa of the plan, and have her act out the helpless victim, thus avoiding that fight as well."

I gurgle in Aquan, "I, like, know he wants to kill us and will do it when he has a chance, but I like his lifestyle."

Stonemaul says, "I believe you won him over quite well with your speech, and he seemed pretty honest about his offer. I'm totally down if you guys want to just get on with the slaughtering, but having a medusa and rakshasa in our debt seems like it may pay off more than having a few more notches on my sword."

Garreth has Bleu tell us about rakshasas. "So, they are a race of Lawful Evil outsiders. They enjoy power and dominance of a predatory aristocrat, but the lazy indolence and luxury of a cat. They cannot resist the finer things in life, and wield powerful sorcerous magic. They can shapeshift and assume various forms, preferring that of humanoid tigers, but are marked by their reversed hands."

Garreth raises his eyebrow. "Lawful? So they must keep deals?"

Bleu nods. "It does not appear it is a form of demonic contract, but yes, they should in general honor their word. They feel their nobility far exceeds that of lesser races." Garreth asks if they can grant wishes. Bleu says they cannot, but they can craft enchantments.

Stonemaul says, "So, it seems the real question is: how much can we negotiate playing bedroom pixies for?"

Garreth shakes his head. "So, I have a few other concerns. He associated with the slavers. I went a long way out of my way to murder those slavers."

Stonemaul sighs. "Suppose we could ask him what he intends to do after this is all said and done. Get back to the choppin' if it's more slavery."

Garreth shakes his head again. "The association with slavery, then the ask to bring us another creature bound up just rubs me the wrong way. I'll go along with the group on this, but making my concerns heard."

I say, "Will do whatever it takes to get in this cat's doubtless marvelous liquor cabinet."

Garreth chuckles, "Murder gets us there just fine."

Stonemaul says, "How about this? We do like I outlined: Zaber talks to the medusa. So long as she's down for whatever this relationship is, then are are just bedroom pixies facilitating … something. And we get them both to pay us for the troubles."

With that, we set forth for Cillamar again to get mirrored shields.

Castle Whiterock 12 December 2022: Eskimo

The murderhoboes

Garreth, half-orc swordsman
    Bleu, droning elf wizard
Zaber, suave and debonaire man
    Logan, wolverine
Polly, cute and deadly elf archer

What they did

Polly tries to find Ghost Touch for her rapier, which she does, but cannot find Shatterproof for it also. She gets a new bless, and we go back to Castle Whiterock.

We go back to the room where we fought the djinn, and outside the door, there's a sign. The sign has writing in many languages, including Common, Dwarven, Undercommon, and Elven. I start to read it, and Garreth peers at the sign sounding it out, mouth moving silently. The hair on the back of my neck tingles, I stop reading. "Maybe not read that." The others stop reading it as well.

Garreth glares through his eyelids at the sign while stepping back, sensing with chi. He beckons Logan to him, then rummages in the backpack of holding for his awesome mundane oricalchum sword. Garreth fishes it out and takes note of the sign's location. Logan pants and makes a couple of yipping sounds. "Zaber, get away from there!" Garreth hauls us and the barrel behind the safe rock wall.

Garreth asks Bleu, "If I put a greatsword through the trap, what are the odds I regret it?"

Bleu shrugs. "Sometimes things explode, sometimes they don't." She gives us a detailed accounting of the 1,801 observed objects hit with a greatsword by Twombius the Thwacker, of which 904 exploded

I roll my eyes. "Wake me when she's done." Garreth tosses his sword at the sign, splitting it in two and letting out a blast, far enough away so that nothing hurts us. I takes a swig of whiskey after a hit. "Wow. Cool."

Garreth goes to get his sword. He picks it up and sheathes it, in time to see the doors swing open! "Hey guys, that sign is a heath and safety hazard, imagine if someone fragile had been here."

We see a large three headed white tiger, and I haven't yet taken any mushrooms. "Hello, Kitty!"

Polly moves and takes three shots at the triger and it falls dead. "The three heads and being covered in spiky protrusions plus loud explosions are signs of not being natural, right?" Garreth starts to skin the tiger after a slug from my whiskeyskin, and takes its salamander amulet after the tiger melts.

I takes another swig. "Hey, where's Blah?" I look around, and Bleu comes up from behind us. "Wow, Blah, we didn't notice you were gone!" The door is now open. I go into the room. I see a pair of incongruous stone doors are set into the wall across the surface of the lake. They seem to be unadorned. Intricate tracework of spellruin ivy surrounds the locking mechanisms. "We got any more magical Roundup?"

Garreth nods. "Bleu, let's say you wanted to contain a highly magical creature. Would planting spellruin ivy be a good way to get that done?" Bleu happily babbles on The Care of Magical Creatures, and we learn that trace amounts of spellruin ivy like this would be effective against small but mighty magical creatures such as the Lavender Micro Salamander, but not ones which might be able to physically force it. This would make it tough to use Lockmaster or other magic on the lock.

I sigh. "I think I wanna know what she's on."

Garreth asks, "What if there's a lot more beyond the door?" Bleu gives us many many many details of the Lavender Micro Salamander. According to her, one has big eyes, can set giant amounts of fires even though it is small, and likes blonde princesses and snow. It can control its temperature and makes a great pet if you don't mind it burning down houses, settlements, or woods from time to time.

Garreth sighs. "Bleu, I don't care about the salamander you kept as a pet. I want to know if lots of spellruin ivy could keep larger powerful magical creatures captive."

Bleu says, "Well, this door could stop a Lavender Micro Salamander, which is a powerful magical creature. It would not stop say a a very large elemental."

Garreth asks, "Or a demon?"

Bleu adds, "Possibly the lavender micro salamander could slip under the door, but not through the lock, as you can see the spellruin ivy, though only trace amounts, is very near the lock." Bleu happily babbles on the many and varied demons, of which only less strong ones would be stopped by this.

Garreth strips down to his shirtsleeves waiting till last to remove the amulet. He rushes the door and splatters the hinges and lock with herbicide, killing the ivy. He sets down the barrel and sprints back to the amulet, tossing it on, as well as the rest of his gear.

Bleu keeps babbling, "Now, the Lavender Micro Salamander would be able to melt out the locking mechanism and wiggle through." We also learn that Lavender Micro Salamanders enjoy hot peppers, hot coffee and hot lava baths.

I beckon to Bleu. "Bleu, come here. Smoke this." I light up my joint again and put in her mouth. She smokes it, and soon is telling stories of Lavender Micro Salamanders dancing through the clouds upside down to thin air. She is somewhat less boring. She flies through the air sideways, divorced from the call of gravity. "I'm gonna move her up to shrooms next."

I pick the lock, and the door opens. The path ahead is not rough stone, but rather a smooth corridor decorated with mosaics on all surfaces. The floor and ceiling resemble the delicate scales of a snake, and the walls feature bold designs similar to the pelt of a tiger.

However, Bleu keeps talking. She tells stories about phase serpents and cat snakes from college. "On the first day I fed four ounces of phase snake kibble, on the second day I fed four ounces of phase snake kibble, on the fourth day I fed four ounces of phase snake kibble, and on the fifth day I fed a dead rat!" She tells how the dancing clouds elevate the rats soul to the great beyond in the sky. How sad.

I chuckle, "Pretty soon she'll be my kinda woman."

After a few more feet, I make out lights ahead. The tunnel ends in an arched stone door. On either side of the door is a pillar, each mounted with the head of an animal: a tiger on the right and a snake to the left. From each animal’s mouth hands a low-burning, hooded lantern. I go past the doors, down the stairs, and check out the door, which is locked with even more spellruin ivy. I beckon Garreth for more Roundup, and he takes care of it before I pick the lock.

The door opens into a T-shaped room with high ceilings. In the middle of the room is a long table, with costly dishes atop it. Each end has a wooden thrones. Double doors are set into the wall on the other wide, and curtains hide what is beyond to the left and right. I check the left passage, pushing aside a spider silk curtain with a tiger print pattern.

Beyond the curtain is a big bedchamber with a big, four-poster bed fit for a king, a big vanity on the far wall with ribbons and combs all over it, and pillows scattered on floor. The ceiling arches overhead to a height of twenty feet. Checked tiles cover the floors, and smaller tiles make dizzying geometric patterns on the walls.

Lounging on a pillow is a man with a tiger’s pelt and head, and its paw-hands are set on its wrists backwards. It idly looks over at us as we go into the room and then smiles, showing a mouth full of sharp teeth.

I smile with envy. "Man, you have a great life!"