A Tunnels and Trolls® play-by-post adventure run by khara_khang
When he finds the others at the usual table, Jax plops down with the usual terse Orcish grunts of greeting, but especially toward Olvarin and Quickly. He tells them about Bela's party later on just in case they haven't heard.
Taran is also there, wearing a long face, just like Olvarin's. Both of his comrades' visages have "women" written all over them. He shakes his head sympathetically, at the same time silently thanking the goddess he doesn't share their travails. As far as he is concerned, the uglier sex (translation from Orcish: "fairer") is just more trouble than they're worth.
After Shipy's suspicious departure, Jax keeps an eye on him as the party examines the loot. Shipy leave treasure? Not a chance... unless he's already taken what he wanted. Jax can't put it past the little bugger. He will have to corner him at the noonday feast. Jax turns to the pile of treasure and thinks the potion or a few rubies would be nice.
But then Olvarin explodes and attracts some most unsavory attention. A huge Half-Ogre saunters over to the party's table, pointing with his immense double-bladed axe at and bellowing threats against the Elf Healer who lies collapsed in the corner under Ebony and Bela's care.
The Half-Ogre seems to know Olvarin. "And you call yerself a 'Healer'? My rashes are back. I demand a full refund!"
His eyes grow wide at the treasure heaped on the party's table, and then they narrow as he correctly concludes what is about to happen. "What timing! I'll just take the phony's share. He couldn't have pulled his own weight anyway. Hell, I'll just take all of it. Consider it interest. As in, 'It's in your best interest.' Ha! Move over, shorty." He shoves Jax out of his chair.
Bad move.
"Who're you calling shorty, you overgrown hemorrhoid?" he says as he stands to his full height---a full two heads shorter than the imposing Half-Ogre.
"Oh."
Only momentarily daunted, Jax interposes himself between the creature and the table as barflies drink up and clear out of the way.
Axwall puffs up and folds his arms around his axe. His smug grin broadcasts his clear amusement at the challenge.
"Uh, Jax..." But he can already see his headstrong brother will not let the insult lie.
Jax cuts Taran off with a knife-like swish of his hand, saying privately, "Take this stuff to the feast. We'll divvy it up then, dude. Now lemme handle this Ptahk."
He turns back to the Half-Ogre and looks up into his beady eyes. "I'll have you know two things, Puff Daddy. Olvarin here is an integral part of our team. Besides healing the party many times over, from burns, slashes, rakes, what-have-you," Jax ransacks his memory for examples of Olvarin's deeds....
"This Elf singlehandedly freed himself and two of his comrades from chains, launched himself through an unfamiliar portal to snatch their stolen possessions, cracked the code on the door to the treasure room, stood by me bravely to fend off a swarm of vicious Gargoyles as our comrades escaped (see those rents in his clothes?), exorcised a parasitic worm off my back, and exposed the beguiling enchantment on a cursed tome that could've fooled us into ending the world as we know it!
"Uh, not necessarily in that order."
Axwall yawns. "And the other thing, mush-mouth?"
"You should stay away from strawberries. Your rashes have rashes."
That does it. Axwall's fist comes up like a meat hook under Jax's jaw and sends him flying into the wall. With amazing speed, the Half-Ogre is on top of him, readying his terrible axe.
But then he howls in pain as the tip of an oxtongue plows all the way through the meaty part of his shoulder from behind, exploding in a burst of sinew and blood that splatters the wall in front of him. Paralyzed, his axe-arm loosens its grip; the axe falls heavily to the ground, slicing through a chair on the way down and embedding itself into the floor.
"Hey, you're paying for that!"
Axwall growls menacingly through his pain.
"Ok, maybe I'll take it outta Shipy's tab," he mutters.
"Come with me," the tavern's Centaur bouncer announces huskily from behind the Half-Ogre. Using the oxtongue as a lever, she forces the intimidating brawler away from Jax. She maneuvers her rippling flanks between the would-be combatants, and helps Jax up with one surprisingly strong arm.
"You too, Dracon." She takes Jax by the ear and escorts them both toward the tavern doors, whereupon she kicks the crippled Half-Ogre out into the street. "I don't want to see you back in here," she yells out at him as he zig-zags across the street, avoiding the heavy cart traffic and clutching his right shoulder.
Turning to Jax, Chereva lifts him up by his chin so that he dangles a few feet above the ground. Curiously, she has a question for him. "Is all that you spouted about the Elf true?"
"Ack, yes. Ollie's a... gurgh... a regular hero," he replies sarcastically, but this Orcish nuance is lost on the Centaur.
Chereva drops Jax in the street like a Rodan turd and clip-clops back into the Tavern to resume her post. She fleetingly glances over in the corner, and as she cleans her oxtongue, some would say she wears a thoughtful expression, if not demure.
Meanwhile, Jax picks himself up and dusts himself off, then finds something to do before the party starts.
[Jax] tells [Olvarin and Quickly] about Bela's party later on just in case they haven't heard.
Quickly, with a nod and grin replies, "Argh! A party? Whee-hee! What's his place like? Do we have to bring him something? I guess we can bring a bottle, but doesn't everyone?"
Jax turns to the pile of treasure and thinks the potion or a few rubies would be nice.
Quickly follows his glance. "Yeah, lookit them rubies! Y'know, those'd look mighty fine on a belt or summat for ya.... Me, I'm scarabs all over, rubies look like Nifelheim on me."
"This Elf singlehandedly freed himself and two of his comrades from chains..."
Quickly flutters well out of reach. "Yeah!"
"...launched himself through an unfamiliar portal to snatch their stolen possessions, cracked the code on the door to the treasure room..."
"You bet!"
"...could've fooled us into ending the world as we know it!"
Quickly pauses and loses a good 2 feet of altitude before he catches himself. "Oooh... that's right!"
...she kicks the crippled Half-Ogre out into the street.
<polite golf applause>
"At least this adventure ended well, don't y'all think?"
Taran grumbles.
"Hey! What kind of party is this? There's not much booze being drunk and only one hooker."
"Lucky, Lucky, Lucky," Ebony says, shaking her head from side to side disapprovingly. "I'm afraid you could lose a limb over that comment, and you don't seem to have many to spare. Fortunately for you, I'm squashed in at this table and I don't want to spill anyone's drinks jumping up to throttle and do general discombobulative harm to you."
"I thought only Wizards could use six-syllable words?"
Ebony gives Shipy a wizardrous look.
"Oh." <gulp>
The bouncer, having heard Ebony's remark to Lucky, relaxes after realizing there isn't going to be rumble. Another light day at the Frog.
"Maybe at the feast we should make a toast to Megol and Ocullos."
"I should be the one in a grave!"
Ignoring Jack, Taran at last takes interest in something that has been said. He raises his mug and toasts their fallen comrades.
"The backpack, Shipy?"
"Backpack?" He scans Shipy's backpack, thinking the little bugger has his backpack. No such luck. Without asking where Shipy got it, he returns to staring at his drink and only casually observes the treasure.
"Well, there you go. Good guys win for once. It's like having a child that you never knew of, what a surprise."
Dun-dun-dunn!!!
"Take this stuff to the feast. We'll divvy it up then, dude. Now lemme handle this Ptahk."
At his brother's bidding, Taran scoops up the loot and pushes it back into the bag. "We'll split it up at the party, what say?" he echoes, hoping to avoid any more attention to the party's treasure. He slings the backpack over his shoulder. "Don't worry, I won't lose it!" He grumbles to himself at the irony.
After things with the Half-Ogre calm down, Taran proposes one final toast. "To my ever stinkin' brother, the Orc defender of the true hero!" he shouts, motioning to Olvarin. "And to all of us, the saviors of the great city of Khazan! Well, the great occupied city of Khazan, anyway." <sound of mugs clinking in toast>
Taran hates the Zweetz invaders [cf. Taran's past adventures Agents of Lerotra'hh and Dangerous Creations for more of this multi-adventure arc --ed.], but he knows one day Arahk will come back and kick their slimy butts all the way back to Orcus Major or wherever they hail from. He just knows it, as if he has had a vision of the future, as if his life is but one speck in a grand timeline posted publicly for all to read.
"Down with the Balrog! Long live Khazan!"
<insert Dragon Continent national anthem here>
After the toasting and singing, Taran asks Bela for directions to Ruth's house.
"And to all of us, the saviors of the great city of Khazan! Well, the great occupied city of Khazan, anyway."
In the brief silence following, and holding his thimbleful of drink up high, Quickly pipes, "And Gods Bless us Every One! 'Coz we needs 'em ALL!" He then collapses giggling on the table.
Nah, I didn't think it was that funny, either, but hey, blame the Fairy.
[Olvarin] exposed the beguiling enchantment on a cursed tome that could've fooled us into ending the world as we know it!
Of course, better not say that while he did detect the enchantment, he then immediately urged Jax to take the sword out and to ring the Bell of Lost Souls. ;P
Jay! Shush! You and I know that your Omnipotent Eye revealed more information than mine. That's only fair: the "Trollstone Caverns" scenario in my rule book clearly shows that multiple castings of the spell might reveal further information. But that's not important.
What's important is that Jax has given me a slim chance to impress that vivacious and bountiful Chereva! Come on, I need your help! I'll give you your boots back! :)
Respectfully,
Olvarin
You and I know that your Omnipotent Eye revealed more information than mine.
Not really. It just confirmed what Shipppy [sic] had already told Jax: "Don't do it!"
That's only fair: the "Trollstone Caverns" scenario in my rule book clearly shows that multiple castings of the spell might reveal further information.
Certainly.
But that's not important. What's important is that Jax has given me a slim chance to impress that vivacious and bountiful Chereva!
Not to worry. My post wasn't in quotes, nor prefaced with "Jay mutters" or some other some-such, so take it as either as an OOC comment, or Jay thinking silently to himself. Either fits.
Come on, I need your help!
It can't be done, and you're better off without his aid anyway. Jay finds it extremely difficult to say pleasant things about people without sounding sarcastic, and any assistance you'd be looking for would backfire. Better for Jay to just sit over in the corner nursing a beer until his nipple gets too cold.
I'll give you your boots back! :)
Appreciate the offer, but he got a new set of clothes at the end of the last adventure anyway. Keep 'em.
Picking himself up off the hard wooden floor of the Blue Frog Tavern, Olvarin fusses over himself, patting dust away and smoothing away wrinkles in his clothing. Chereva, the beautiful, lovely, desirable Centauress, stands so close that his heart skips a beat. Chereva is conversing with Jax Dracon. In the meantime, Olvarin screws up his courage, knowing there may never be another chance like this!
"Lady Chereva... will you marry me?" he gasps.
Chereva turns her head and lowers her chin to meet the Elf's gaze with her own still uncharacteristically demure expression, which seems to threaten a transformation into the Smirk of Doom that Olvarin surely expects. Indeed, she has just the reply for the Elf; it's one of a host of responses to drunken suitors---responses that she occasionally dreams up during the mid-morning doldrums at the Blue Frog.
But the Centaur balks at her own intended cruelty. This Elf, whose bravery the Dracon brother so vociferously lauded before she dropped him on his ass in the street, is clearly no inebriated barfly. His large puppy dog eyes cry out to her with an earnestness that rends the shroud of pessimism that has been waxing over her lately due to her decidedly routine job, to her failed crush on Captain Krandor (which drove her to take a leave from delving in the first place), and to her less than desirable existence in Khazan. Has her job really jaded her to the point that she doesn't recognize the first glimpse of hope since her adventure in Goblin country before she snuffs it out?
She whips the black tresses of her hybrid mane over her tanned muscular shoulder, and leans on her oxtongue to lower her (very) human torso down to the Elf's level. "Olvarin, is it? May I call you Ollie?" She sighs heavily, and the Elf nearly faints from anticipation of rejection (or so she thinks). She quickly continues, "I'm an old-fashioned Centaur, Ollie, accustomed to more substantial lead-in time before the big question. Might I suggest you ask me to dinner tonight? You can pick me up here." She smiles genuinely and adds, "I'd love to hear more about your adventure."
Before the stunned Elf can stammer a reply, Chereva rises to her full height and shouts at the bartender. "Hey Lucky! Taking the night off."
"Crap."
To be continued, but not necessarily in this adventure!
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