"Well, the Olman are packing up, so we might as well get going. Don't want to get in the way of the vultures." Altai looks over the other party members. "What do you think? Piltdown Mansion or the Olman village first?"
<Stig packs up, without washing the bulette blood off. He slings some bulette plates on his back. He will no doubt become progressively more rank as the hot tropical day goes on.>
I rule.
I rule.
Kill Godzilla size stuff....
"What do you think? Piltdown Mansion or the Olman village first?"
Hummmmmm?
"Oh, someone wiser than me should make that decision - I'm not fussed. Coin toss?"
"The village will have beer, maize beer after heart meat is what I want. Your mansion can wait for a few drinks. We deserve to celebrate our great victory against the Legendary Beast. There will be feasting, drinking and dancing girls. The drums will beat long into the night."
"You've sold me my friend," says Beldan, standing and stretching. "Village it is!"
"Sounds good to me too!"
Elgan turns, his face lighting up.
"Dancing girls,,.?" He asks with a grin, tugging on Oso's sleeve.
"Big and fit, they will dance until the moon sleeps and the stars listen to our happy joy."
Everybody's loaded up; Ottar and his buddies got fresh horses and head out with their wagon after another jack from Stiggy.
A nation of vultures converges on the giant corpse when the party's done butchering a percentage of the beast.
The group of Olmans is off in a trail like leafcutter ants, carrying bulette bundled in leaves; the party in tow. They lead off of the road, and into the jungle.
"Not too far now...." the shaman on the magic carpet periodically says for about two hours.
Finally, the group of fifty enters a misty area, through which a good sized stream runs. As you enter the mist, a village inexplicably appears. One second you're in the mist, then it clears and you're in the village. Good 25 goodly sized, squared buildings, painted green, with large outer porches, on poles.
A clutch of three young hunters, tattooed copiously, greets the group from the bulette harvesting foray.
They proudly show the massive boar they speared this afternoon; their proud smiles turning to awestruck when they see the bits and pieces of the gargantuan landshark parade past.
The party is led to the shaman's place; brought fresh clothing, some Olman ladies come carrying pants and vests and offer to wash the blood-spattered stuff of the group. Rum, banana beer, coconut wine are brought around.
A massive boucan is set up and a fire started, and the bullette begins to smoke slowly on the makeshift grillwork in front of the gaily painted, exquisitely carved House of the Olman Medicine Man.
Pip wanders about, doing juggling tricks for the locals. He searches out any musicians and offers to trade songs with them.
One big kid, maybe 12, tries to get bad with Pip; thinks he's a littler kid or something. Asks him if he wants to fight.
Pip hears an old guy with a Pan flute...
Altai does coin tricks, pulls things out of the ears of kids and similar minor magics while sipping banana beer. "You know," he says to nobody in particular, "I think I could get used to this."
One of the village elder guys, probably about 37, comes up to Altai;
"so, you guys, hear you fight pretty good. What you been up ta?"
Elgan grins, and joins in the dancing with wild, wild-elf abandon!
The drums and flutes come out; the fire cracks and sends sparks up into the sky. It's clear, and it's black now, and there's no stars, no moon.
A few ladies join in with Elgan; one of them asks him what all he can turn into. One of the younger guys kinda looks at the elf mean. He's kinda standing there, sulkily, with his arms crossed in front of his chest.
One of the village elder guys, probably about 37, comes up to Altai;
"so, you guys, hear you fight pretty good. What you been up ta?"
"Well, we were hired as anti-pirate operatives by the Saltmarsh city council. So we spent some time hunting pirates out on the Azure Ocean and in Jeklea Bay. Not a bad life, but we're land-dwellers by heart, so we docked in Sasserine and stayed on land. Now we hunt the guy who is murdering people and taking their hearts. We hear he may be connected to the spider-worshippers underneath Piltdown Manor."
"We fought couplea them....look like him, but black as night, hair white and prickly like old bones.
They hard to fight, but not too too hard. Turn everything all dark.
They're good hunters, but this isn't their land I don't think.
You can't see them at first, but you can smell them a whiles a way.
They paint themselves with something; smells like sick flowers.
Smell them a ways away.
Their arrows make some fall asleep. Poison darts, like we use to take monkeys."
"We'll need to go down into their holes, so they'll be fighting on their home turf. Still, I can't imagine that any of them are as tough as Stig or Gittik." He nods at the dwarf and the halfling. "Or Oso... Hell, they are all hardcases."
"We'll need to go down into their holes, so they'll be fighting on their home turf. Still, I can't imagine that any of them are as tough as Stig or Gittik." He nods at the dwarf and the halfling. "Or Oso... Hell, they are all hardcases."
"Yeah, we're bad ass," says Beldan, snagging a fruit drink with a little umbrella fashioned from a palm leaf sticking out of it from a passing local.
"We'll need to go down into their holes, so they'll be fighting on their home turf. Still, I can't imagine that any of them are as tough as Stig or Gittik." He nods at the dwarf and the halfling. "Or Oso... Hell, they are all hardcases."
"Hee hee! That good to know.
Them caves under there, they do on for miles.Say that is one of the ways to reach XIBALBA. Underworld. Land of the dead."
Another elder comes up; joins in.
He says,
"the two smallfolk with you.....they twins? They look a lot alike."
The first one;
"heh heh.....like the twin warriors, going down to Xibalba? Cheat the Lords of the Dead? Them two play PELOTA?"
The new old guy laughs....
"We'll need to go down into their holes, so they'll be fighting on their home turf. Still, I can't imagine that any of them are as tough as Stig or Gittik." He nods at the dwarf and the halfling. "Or Oso... Hell, they are all hardcases.""Yeah, we're bad ass," says Beldan, snagging a fruit drink with a little umbrella fashioned from a palm leaf sticking out of it from a passing local.
Another guy sidles up to Beldan with a pungent.....cigar, massive Rasta spliff of a thing; "smoke diss?"
“Ah yeah ... we noticed that when Pip showed up. But once you get to know them, they’re not much alike. You forget that they look sort of the same.”
The twelve-year-old kid puffs out his chest at Pip; pretends like he's going to swing but whips his hand up and brushes through his hair, trying to see if he can make Pip flinch.
Another guy sidles up to Beldan with a pungent.....cigar, massive Rasta spliff of a thing; "smoke diss?""We'll need to go down into their holes, so they'll be fighting on their home turf. Still, I can't imagine that any of them are as tough as Stig or Gittik." He nods at the dwarf and the halfling. "Or Oso... Hell, they are all hardcases.""Yeah, we're bad ass," says Beldan, snagging a fruit drink with a little umbrella fashioned from a palm leaf sticking out of it from a passing local.
“Sure ... what’s in it?” Beldan takes the ‘cigar’ and sniffs at it gingerly. “Altai, keep an eye on me if I start acting funny, or pass out or something.”
“Sure ... what’s in it?”
He sorta starts snorting and laughing; then gets this serious look on his face; then he looks at the fire, and starts snorting again.
"Hallucinogenics of some sort, I suppose. Perhaps you will re-acquaint yourself with that sprite you met when we boarded the Leg Man? I prefer to stay with the known entities when it comes to recreational drugs. And this is both fruit and beer, so it has the added property of being good for you." He has another sip. "I'll take care of you if it turns out to be overly potent."
Another elder comes up; joins in.
He says,
"the two smallfolk with you.....they twins? They look a lot alike."
"You know - believe it or not, I have never asked them. They certainly grew up apart, but it is not inconceivable that they share an ancestor. Hmmmmm..."
"Hallucinogenics of some sort, I suppose. Perhaps you will re-acquaint yourself with that sprite you met when we boarded the Leg Man? I prefer to stay with the known entities when it comes to recreational drugs. And this is both fruit and beer, so it has the added property of being good for you." He has another sip. "I'll take care of you if it turns out to be overly potent."
Beldan thinks for a moment. “Yeah, that was weird.” Then he shrugs, and takes a drag on the spliff.
Beldan:
One has a severe black bowl cut, one has crazy frizzy hair, and the third is bald.
The first one seems eternally perturbed by the others' antics.
The bald one seems to see a monkey in the tree; points his blowgun up while the frizzy one climbs up on his shoulders to drop a dart down the blowgun. the bald one seems to jolt; pulls the blowgun away from his mouth; the dart is sticking out of his mouth now.
When he lowers the blowgun there's a *thunk* sound like two halves of a coconut being clapped together when the blowgun clocks the first one on the head.
The first one looks angry; sticks two of his fingers in the bald ones' eyes.
the guy with the cigar looks in the fire; continues quietly snickering.
The boy painted as an Alloween skeleton walks out of the shaman's house; across the porch.
He looks at the group what's assembled there, each slowly.
He slowly 'morphs into a jaguar.
The jaguar says, "you can create here."
Turns, and lopes off and out of the village into the jungle.
Beldan:
** spoiler omitted **
the guy with the cigar looks in the fire; continues quietly snickering.
“Heheh.”
Beldan looks into the fire and snickers.
One big kid, maybe 12, tries to get bad with Pip; thinks he's a littler kid or something. Asks him if he wants to fight.
<punches kid>
(not to defend Pip, just because he wants a fight)
The boy painted as an Alloween skeleton walks out of the shaman's house; across the porch.
He looks at the group what's assembled there, each slowly.
He slowly 'morphs into a jaguar.The jaguar says, "you can create here."
Turns, and lopes off and out of the village into the jungle.
ELgan stops dancing long enough to observe the transformation, (He either didn't notice, or ignored, the glares from the other youth(s) while he was dancing with the girls) He belatedly bows as the Jag departs.
"Now, DAT wuz cool chere'!" He grins.
"Ah Ain't neveer triahd a JAguwower. Dat's cool." He murmurs (Not quite drunkenly. Yet.) again, turns back to the nearest girl, and begins dancing once more, swinging the girl around in a spin that lifts her feet off of the ground.
One big kid, maybe 12, tries to get bad with Pip; thinks he's a littler kid or something. Asks him if he wants to fight.<punches kid>
(not to defend Pip, just because he wants a fight)
He scurries off; people laugh at the snot. He scurries away about twenty feet, then digs up some mud and flings it, then runs off.
Three other kids still standing there, whilst their erstwhile alpha d!!&~ead has taken off.
The night goes on and on.
A moon too big and too red finally rises in the starless sky, and the party moves into the shaman's parlor.
Adventurers and Olmans tangle into a (demi)human carpet around a brazier, and a pungent bowl of.....soup of some kind is passed around; the shaman smiling gleefully like an impish schoolboy who just dipped the pony tail of the girl seated before him in his inkwell.
One of the hunters speaks up;
"I continued trying after that cat today.....the one that....doesn't belong here. No glimpse today. It eludes me, ceaselessly. I think it may be a ghost.
But what ghost leaves pawprints? So many pawprints? So many it seems as if it is two great cats melded into one?
It took a tapir today, found it's half-eaten corpse. It's big, whatever it is. Or it's mouth is. And it's a cat. Or, at least, like unto a cat..."
Another hunter, or actually seaman, though he hunts whales, recounts a tale of woe, recently back with two other Olman from a whaling mission out of Jeklea Bay and down south further....
says there's a stretch of ocean (on the way to the Isle of Dread)
that's been affected by some form of necromantic poisoning.
They took a whale there. A whale that, though animate, was nonetheless long dead and scavenged by sharks and gulls...and no fish netted in those waters came up dead AND unmoving.
Welcome to the village of Plothook.
Elgan looks troubled, and then disgusted, at the descriptions of the dead, animate whales. He asks a few questions, then turns his attention to the hunter after the strange cat.
"Hm. Dat soun' famil'er chere'. Now where have ah heerd of a cat lahk dat befo'e?",... He muses thoughtfully.
Oso doesn't let the hooks catch him he is too busy dancing and feasting. he makes sure that the nubile young girls get a chance to see how high he can jump and whoop and how long he can keep it up.
As the evening progresses and the beer takes over, Oso gives up his normal city clothes and throws them to one side, dancing wild and free.
When the music is beginning to die and the various girls seem to be giving him the eye, Oso picks the largest one and takes her off to a hut for the rest of the night. He and the giggy girl eventually snore through dawn.
“Heheh … maybe it’s two cats who are real friendly,” says Beldan, then goes back to giggling at the fire. “He poked him in the eyes!”
Any questions?...
"So the ghost cat leaves an unusual amount of footprints? Does it have more than for legs? I know of six-legged felines that are difficult to observe."
"More than six I believe. More than the tentacle cats.
Most strange.....most strange."