GM Woran's Rise of the Runelords

Game Master Woran

Oskar stares at the room's content in disbelief. "Not that much."

He shrugs. "Gotta say, though, of all the awful smells we've found in this joint, htis is the least offensive. So, uh, yay, I guess? Let's go," he says, hefting his crowbar. "Wasn't there one more room we didn't get to before we call it a day...?"

Making your way to the last room you discover.....

another stairs down.

"Great. Friggin' wonderful. OK, if you guys'll help me barricade this one too, then we can go get Miss Shalelu, figure the best way to rest up and guard these doors till we can check downstairs. Sound good?"

"Does... Does anyone here like pickles?"

"Not. any. more. "

He nods and goes along with the plan, eyes drooping.

Dayo yawns.

"What a day this has been."

Vy start to prop open all double doors to make way for the horse to pass through.
"maybe the horse likes pickels, and we can lure him out"

Horses are knowledge nature

"maybe the horse likes pickels, and we can lure him out"

Oskar shrugs. "Hell, pickles are cucumbers, aren't they? That's a vegetable, the horse oughta be fine with that."

"Probably."

Kn (nature, untrained): 1d20 ⇒ 6

"Or the thing associates pickles with goblins who tortured" Justin pauses and looks up him/her and will stomp you flat if it smells them. As much as I adore empirical methods of evidence collection, perhaps i should just get the pound of salt i have sitting on bitey and use that. "

"I still don't think it can hurt to just try. Leave a pickle out, back away, see what he does. How bad could it be? Not like the horse is gonna get all malicious and s#@+, try and sucker-hoof me, is it?"

Bitey will do that but well.. He earned the name.

"I think horses only do that to bad guys, and then only in bard tales of masked men. I should be fine."

Vy scratches his head, tries to remember what his father told him aout horses in his tories
nature: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (3) + 4 = 7
In those stories, horses could fly...

Kn.(nature): 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (5) + 1 = 6

"Maybe it'll eat the thistles for us!"

"Really?!"

Take 10 Nature = 18

"Yeah, horses can eat pickles. Probably like them too, most animals are interested in salty foods. Don't feed him the whole jar though, that's not healthy."

Oskar starts walking back to secure some pickles for the horse. "You're not the boss of him!"

Using the pickles, you lure the horse out of the shed. Not an easy thing, considering the size of the door of the shed (the shed breaks a few more planks).
The food shed also contains grain, which the horse is currently happily munching on.

Out in the open, it looks like the horse suffered a lot of abuse at the hands of the goblins. Its thin and its coat is matted. But he also looks like he did a lot of suffering back, as you see a coat of blood on its hooves.

"Well, looks like we at least rescued someone. I shudder to think how they got him through the thistle maze though. And I wonder why they even bothered to take him captive?"

Vitro ponders for a bit.

"The note we found on the guy in Sandpoint mentioned a shrine at Thistletop but we haven't seen anything like that yet have we? And there's also a bugbear and a would-be-demon girl at large." glancing at Vy "Wonder if they're downstairs?"

Meanwhile, let's also investigate the remaining room.

Oskar nods in agreement. "I figure it's gotta be like that. We'll settle it up after we clear up here, get Shalelu, and rest."

Sorry my bad, the last room that was covered on the map was the pickle room. So you've been to every room upstairs.

Great, then just scratch that first part of the above, and someone go get Tall'n'Creepy.

You signal the all clear at the rope bridge.
Shalelu carefully makes her way over.

"So. How did it go? I see you are all more or less in one piece."

"More or less, yeah." Oskar waves a hand around over his head. "We pretty much cleared this top level, but we got two separate stairwells leadin' down, and we've kind of given it most of what we've got to give right now. We're figurin' we block both doorways. Ropes, pile a buncha crap up against 'em, anything and everything to keep someone from gettin' through without makin' a ruckus. Get some rest, then hit the lower level tomorrow. Sound reasonable?"

Shalelu looks thoughtfull. "Hm.... You're pretty banged up, so a nights rest couldnt hurt. If something is in the basement, it looks like they are pretty much used to the ruckus, otherwise they would have come up and checked by now. Then again, with goblins for upstairs neighbors, you either become used to it, or find somewhere else to live."

"Great. C'mon fellas, let's block some doors."

As I said, my goal is to do as much as possible to make both doors unopenable from the other side without making a hell of a big racket.

Dayo clicks his tongue and the gecko climbs up from underneath the rope bridge.

"Do you know where we can find any large flies?"

"Hell, let him have at the rabbits..."

Stickfoot enthusiastically greets Dayo and proceeds to do more head licking.

Shalelu looks at the horse in the courtyard. "That would explain the drag marks.... but still. What the hell."

You un-barricaded some doors, and that wood can be re-used. Ripnugget's bed could also be re-purposed as a barricade.

"Not the headboard! Its beautiful! "

Justin will pile bitey full of small rocks, and take 10 for 18 craft stonework to pile them up in a semblance of order in front of the door

At some point he'll try to pull Shalelu aside "The three goblin females in dresses, did they make it out or...." and looks suspiciously at some of the thicker foliage where a goblin sized body might disappear.

"Goblins in...dresses? No? Just a goblin with a bag of pickles."

"Not the headboard! Its beautiful!"

Oskar stares incredulously at Justin. "There's actually enough magic in the world to make you okay with the previous owner? Really? Fine..."

Oskar sighs, and with some grunting and much effort, turns the bed so that the headboard is away from the door. "Anything happens past that, too damn bad. Okay?"

"No, but there's more than enough magic in marketing so that we don't tell the next owner about the previous one. Remember how much the LAST piece of ugly art I had my eye on went for? " he adjusts his tiara "No, the other one "

"In your mind, exactly how is this thing getting off this rock and back to Sandpoint?"

Justin pauses for a second

" In my head? You holding it over your head in front, dayo holding it behind and me on top with an umbrella sipping drinks to get it off the island. For the longer haul,my pony with a travois or sled."

"So you want me to carry this thing over a freaking rope bridge 70 feet up from the water, with no hands to hold on? Two words: Floa. Ting. Dis. K!"

"I'll cast ant haul on you you'll be able to carry it one handed. Besides, whats the worst that can happen if you land in the water? "

"Besides, whats the worst that can happen if you land in the water?"

"The gecko might lick him dry."

"You wanna take a jump and find out? I bet the rocks under that water are like big fluffy pillows. Go really great with your headboard."

"And Dayo I swear by all the gods if that thing licks me, EVER, I'mma strangle it and maybe you, too."

Dayo freezes up.

Then he opens his mouth.

Then he closes it.

Then he starts to shed a tear.

Then he takes the gecko to see if it likes rabbit.

"I don't think Dayo had enough older sisters to get him used to that kind of threat, or how to go limp and pass out properly when strangled. Go easy on him "

Stickfoot licks the tear from Dayo's face.
When offered a rabbit, the gecko breaks the rabbits back with a quick shake of the head, then swallows it whole.

Justin finishes his rock walls, hangs his clothes on a hook, prestidigitates the place with extreme prejudice, lays out his blanket, calls bitey over, and falls over.

The larger rat nudges justin off the blanket, grooms his ears a little , hisses at the assembled menagerie, and eventually falls asleep as well.

"I don't think Dayo had enough older sisters to get him used to that kind of threat, or how to go limp and pass out properly when strangled. Go easy on him "

A childhood memory arises unbidden. Oskar had been teasing his sister. Their cousin Uhlka hadn't liked that, and "corrected" Oskar. The feeling of being hung out the window while she calmly said, "Say my name," was as vivid as if it had happened last week.

S’too bad. Everyone should have a cousin like her, Oskar thinks to himself as he goes over to Dayo.

"I ain’t stranglin’ anyone, Dayo. That was just uh, exaggeration. Sorry about that, didn’t mean to fly off the handle at ya. But I really don’t think all that lickin’ is a good idea."

Waiting through a long silence from Dayo, Oskar then says, "I uh, I saw a nice brown and white guy in there that he might like..."

Dayo sniffles.

"I don't think he'd lick your hairy head anyways. Unless he found giant lice hiding in there."

Given the long pause before his next words you're not entirely sure how he meant that to come across...

"Thank you. I didn't think you'd actually suffocate me. I guess this whole war has us all emotional. I hate having to be here. I'll be happy again when it's over."

Dayo wipes some fur away from the gecko's mouth.

"Would you help me name him? I think it's a him. Males are usually more colorful. I was thinking 'Licker', because then people might be warned not to get too close. But it's not really a special name. Any suggestions?"

"Yeah, Licker don't work. Uh, lick, lips, mouth, tongue... tongue... Sorry man, I got nothin'."

Dayo inwardly gasps while his face brightens!

"Oh, that's perfect! 'Tongue Tongue'! Thank you so much, Oskar!"

Dayo smiles at the gecko and gives him a good long scratch on the neck.

"What do YOU think, Tongue Tongue?"

Vitro seemed a bit lost in his own reverie, thinking back to his own childhood with "younger siblings" who quickly outgrew him, but then snaps back into it.

"What about Long Tong?"

The gecko licks its right eyeball in response to Dayo.

With Shalelu's help, you barricade both stairwells. With the goblin corpses shoved off the edge of the island, you barricade yourselves in the throneroom.

You set up a rotating guard. During the first third of the night, you think you hear something, but otherwise nothing happens.

The night passes quietly otherwise, altough most of you sleep less deep then ususal.

"Oh, that's perfect! 'Tongue Tongue'! Thank you so much, Oskar!"

Oskar's face flashes a panicked look, as if he had accidentally started an avalanche.

"No, I... yeah, sure. Happy to help."

Safe to assume I can give myself back the 3hp I get from eight hours of rest?

"If I promise to shrink you so you can ride him tommorow, can you resist the urge to ride him when i shrink you today?"