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Noticing everyone staying back, a prturbed cleric belts out, "IF YOU MOTHERF#<KERS WANT YOUR WOUNDS HEALED ANYTIME THIS MILLENIUM, SOMEBODY BETTER GODSDAMMIT!!" "And don't step on my $#|+!"
Backpedaling furiously, the Blue Light Special-- emboldened by his success-- stops in his tracks and lunges at Franklin!
BONK!
This time Franklin takes it right on the nose, and the crunching noise is... probably not good.
Joe (-3)
Blue Light Special (-1, -21NL)
Franklin (-9)
Nessie (-5)
Docta G, fatigued
The Marvins (both at -4)
Faith-in-the-Rain (-3)
?????? the Cat
Bibi the Fox (-4)
The Party is Up! Need a Fort Save from Franklin, some form of escape from Joe.
Brother Joe continues to struggle to rid himself of the goblin hangers-on.
Joe manages to grab one by the neck and toss it off of him, and with his shoulder now freed, makes short work of scattering the rest of the goblins, who start scattering into the woods.
Joe has a Move action remaining!
"And f#<k OFF!" The cleric exclaims as the last goblin is thrown into the woods.
By chance, Brother Joe notices Franklin's head snap back from Blue Light Special's attack.
"FRANKIE!!" The caydentite rushes to help his young acolyte defeat the Blue Meanie.
"Hey Blue Balls!" Joe shouted at the super-goblin.
"RESPECT THE BLUE LIGHT!!" hollers the magical gob in furious response.
"HEY! If you want your alcohol to taste like warm goat pi$$ for the rest of your miserable life, you'll scram right now! I'm a cleric of Cayden Cailean! Messing with me and my crew is the fastest way to have your ale taste like halfling diarrhea! Now GIT!"
Franklin's eyes finally started working again in time for the young man to get walloped upside the head. His head started ringing, but he managed to keep his feet, if he was a bit wobbly doing so. Hearing the raging Caydenite rumbling towards the fray and feeling a bit pissed at this point, the normally mild-mannered accountant lashed out, taking his time and doling out one better-aimed blow as he continued to follow the Blue Light backwards.
Faith tried to bonk the flashing Goblin again, and hoped that she would never need to think that phrase again.
Franklin aims low, and Faith aims... well, it's kind of middle for her at her height, isn't it?
The accountant feels his knuckles glance off of a magical barrier that hardens at his touch, and Faith feels that same armor slide her blade out of place for a connecting blow.
"Ha-ha!" laughs the goblin, in what sounds alarmingly like that half-elf kid from The Simpsons.
The gobbo takes another swing-- this time at the barman!
Joe interrupts the swing with his knee, though, and it doesn't reach anything fragile.
He threatens the little gobbo with the nastiest cocktail he's ever heard of.
The gobbo is shooketh!
Joe (-3)
Blue Light Special (-20NL, Shaken 3 rounds)
Franklin (-9)
Nessie (-5)
Docta G, fatigued
The Marvins (both at -4)
Faith-in-the-Rain (-3)
?????? the Cat
Bibi the Fox (-4)
Docta G, Faith-in-the-Rain, and Franklin are up! If Nessie and the Marvins return to us, they're up as well!
Technically speaking, the fox and the cat are also up, but they seem content to watch.
Head clearing up from the surprising clobbering he had taken from the resilient goblin, Franklin continued making his way to the enemy's side so that the creature couldn't wander off. Overthinking things, he snapped off a couple of off-balance jabs.
"Stop moving! And flashing! And smelling weird!" Faith tried to smack the Goblin once more.
The Blue Light Special is many things.
He is flashing.
He smells weird.
He is short, and green, and hairy.
He is dressed in what can best be described as a sailor suit made from K-Mart decor.
But what he is not, at this point, is conscious.
As Faith opens up a gash across his chest, with a horrible sound as she rends his magical armor, he falls to the forest floor.
What will the Last Call do at this point, I wonder, as the remaining conscious goblins scatter, and the fox and cat nod their approval?
Happy his admonishment of the Blue Light goblin may have led to his downfall, but now, too tired to care, Brother Joe mumbles tiredly at the tiefling, "Nice one."
The caydenite walks back over to where the goblins emptied his pockets and starts to grabbing his items. With a heavy sigh, the cleric bellows, "Injured!? Form a line, please."
"A few bumps and scraps is all. It hurt more getting some of my piercings." Faith turned to the cat and the fox. "I don't suppose you two would like to explain what you're doing here or anything? I appreciate the help and all, but I'm really confused about what happened here." She glanced over at the fire, too, to make sure that wasn't going to be a problem.
The cat looks around at the damage done as the fire smolders down to embers, surrounded by snow and wet grass.
She heaves a disappointed sigh before her fox companion scrambles up her armor and gives her a few licks on her furry cheek, and she has no choice but to giggle.
”I’m Braniri,” she says as she walks over, trying to wrestle the fox into her arms instead of shoulders. ”Introduce yourself, bun.”
The fox gives a wary look over at the group and nuzzles into Braniri’s neck.
”You’re absolutely rotten, you know.”
The fox gives a weirdly human shrug and wraps around her like a scarf.
”Fine,” groans the catfolk. ”This is my wife, Bibi. We were enjoying the park when goblins started attacking. We fought our way to the fire, and you know the rest.”
”Speaking of which, I wonder where Seiryu and Braux went?” she asks with a pointed look at her fox wife.
Franklin glanced over at Faith as she put the finishing touches on the irritating, K-mart loving goblin. Should he give her a high five? Congratulate her verbally? Fist Bump? Instead, he just kind of stared of her long enough to get awkward as he thought, before he turned away anxiously and rubbed his head where a rather large lump was forming.
As the cat spoke, the young man cocked his head to the side, looking confused as the felin-ish being talked of its marriage to the fox. At this point the accountant wondered if he was tripping something fierce, but after a bit of self-haggling, decided to just go with it.
"Who are Seiryu and Braux?"
”The rest of our party,” says Braniri, ”have you seen a short tengu and a big tiefling around?”
”Aw shiziet, you fools roll with Tooth and Claw! Tiiiight. Heard bout dem demons you kicked outta the suburbs. Noice. Hold up a sec though, wasn’t Bibi a human, not a fox?”
Braniri grins at being recognized... then casts a look at Bibi.
”You wanna tell ‘em?”
The fox gives what seems like a sigh and drops off of the catfolk’s shoulders, landing on her... feet?
Well, those are new!
A human form grows from the fox and stretches, shaking off its paws as it takes the form of a human blonde with tired eyes, garbed in jeans and a Legend of Zelda tee. A duffel bag hangs from her broad shoulders.
”I’m a kitsune,” she explains, walking toward the gnome. ”Lets me be subtle when the rest of my party... isn’t.”
”Subtlety is boring!” chimes Braniri.
Bibi shrugs, then stops in front of G and holds out the duffel bag.
"Unfortunately, I'm a small tiefling, so not what you're looking for." Which was a shame, since the two ladies seemed...interesting. Beating up demons seemed like fun. "Thank you for the help. We're trying out the whole being a party thing." She didn't look at the mildly baked parts. "It's going pretty well."
Franklin just managed to stare at the adventuring duo, doing his best to keep his mouth closed before he could betray his excitement. Looking around at the carnage in the garden, the accountant wasn't so sure he fully agreed with Faith's assessment. In the end the group had won, though, and Docta G was safely away from the doomed K-Mart goblins. That probably would be a good band name, the young man thought, if he knew anything about music.
Looking around nervously, Franklin's voice cracked slightly as he said, "Hey...do we want to finish this conversation somewhere else? Looks like the fires are taken care of, but someone is gonna be pissed about all of this. I doubt they're gonna accept "It would have been much worse" as an excuse."
"Indeed, young Franklin", Joe said after retrieving the contents of his pockets. "It looks like everyone can walk out of here. I'll heal everyone up at a safer location." Smacking his lips, the caydenite continued. "Woo! Fighting fires and goblins is thirsty work. Let's grab some brews to celebrate our first successful adventure?"
”Hell yeah, Brotha J! I’m for surely down to celebrate gettin’ away from those K-Mart freaks with some drinks. First round’s on me. Least I can do to thank y’all’s for gettin my @$$ outta there.”
Assuming Docta G takes the duffel bag from the kitsune, he finds that all of his gear is safely tucked away inside of it.
"I found this in the trash behind one of the utility houses," she explains. "Tossed a treat in there for you, too."
Rifling through his goodies, the good Docta finds a marvelous purple cape with silver lining.
Tooth and Claw collect your contact information (hopefully not being directed to a personal hygiene hotline), and offer you a smile.
"We'll be in touch!" says Braniri.
Joe waves bye to his new friends and makes his way back to the golf cart. Suddenly, the caydenite is hit with a feeling of inebriatation that quickly rises in intensity, until the cleric feels near black-out drunk. Then suddenly the feeling decreases until it is washed away. Brother Joe staggers for a few moments, then realizes he has gained some new wisdom . With a deep sigh, Joe pulls his holy symbol out of his armor and kisses it once again. "Thanks, boss", the cleric says quietly to his god.
Sighing at the devastation, Faith let her weapon fade away and ignored it at as a giant wasp supplied some...chastisement to the unconscious Goblin horde. They deserved to find out if they needed an epi-pen.
"So, do we report this to the police, or are we fleeing the pile of ashes and unconscious Goblins in the hope that the cops will assume that the Goblins did it all to themselves, by themselves?" Faith seemed to recall the consensus was 'honesty' before, but maybe people had come to there senses.
Bibi waves as the pair walk away. ”Don’t worry about that; we’ll report it ourselves! ...but tell me if you want me to leave you guys out of it.”
Franklin frowned as Faithe brought up a good question. While the goblins' position itself was definitely brought upon them by the group, the general devastation around the area was certainly the responsibility of the degenerates. While the accountant had a certain moral fiber about these things, he didn't fancy sitting in a jail cell until everything was sorted out and as long as the creatures were brought to justice he didn't much care who made the call.
He turned to Bibi, deepening his voice slightly in a take-charge kind of attitude. "Yes, that would be great, actually. You reporting it, that is. We appreciate it." He gave his companions a conspiratorial grin, then started walking quickly for the exit, making sure to help any of the others that might need it.
After starting to drive the golf cart, Joe realizes that driving a golf cart with a few dings and gouges in it and a completely missing roof is going to look very conspicuous.
Whether he decides to take it the rest of the way on foot or not, the walk out is an interesting one. It's clear that there was some fighting around the rest of the area; a few goblins seem to have been incinerated by bombs (given the pattern of scorch marks in the grass), while others appear to have been pitchforked.
In the rare areas of the park where you can see very far ahead of you, you see Bibi and Braniri seem to have found the rest of their group, a tengu with bottles hanging from her jacket and a big tiefling with a ranseur over his back. Mystery solved, then!
You're able to "escape" the park without getting accosted... though you get the feeling that if you hadn't quickened your footsteps, that might not have been the case.
The party has an excellent night partying at Joe's usual haunt, possibly sharing stories of their exploits (they're definitely prodded to by the bartender, at least).
This time, no one gets kidnapped!
Franklin sent out a brief text to the other members of last call before he left for work the next morning.
"Just saw a video on my FB where T&C took complete credit for the Botanical Garden. Looks like we're in the clear on it. Sounds like something bigger brewing, though...let's talk later."
Docta G responds, ”Aye fasho” Followed by the thumbs up, okay, and sunglasses guy emojis, ”Wack that we didn’t get and cred though.” That’s rounded off by the middle finger and the angry face emoji before, ”We gon make it big tho” concluding with the diamond, fire, 100, and gas pump emojis.
"Not how I would have handled it, but no room to complain when they didn't have to do it at all. Might wanna remember they like claiming credit if we work with them in the future." Faith was a little unimpressed with the trick, but couldn't help but agree it was a worthwhile payment. She tapped the angrily buzzing box as she typed, making it buzz even more angrily. Good.
Franklin stared at his phone for long moments, trying to make sense of what the good Docta was getting at with his messages. He slowly processed the gnome's lingo through his square filter, finally arriving at an understanding as Faith's message was sent through. The accountant's brow furrowed...he wanted their newly-fledged group to gain a reputation, but the scene at the Botanical Gardens was unsanctioned and unpaid work that had ultimately caused a lot of devastation to public property. He was kind of glad to not get credit for it.
Still, he replied, "Yeah, they seem to like the limelight and causing a scene. Still, I'm pretty glad they were there. We meeting up later?"
"Can't wait to see Last call again!! I HAVE IMMENSE NEWS!! HUGE THINGS ARE ON THE HORIZON!" :100: :100: :100: :alemug emoji:
"Got a new job for us, or something else fun?" It was a task not not to be a bit of an ass - when the Favoured Sting was prissy her chosen tended to be a little...arsey as well. But asking if he meant the next batch of beer was better than...well, beer.
"Not sure about Joe, but Tooth and Claw gave us a lead on some more goblin shenanigans going on in the area. A goblin with a giraffe companion, believe or not, and a pair called Sears and Roebuck. See you later tonight."
Franklin put down his phone, getting back to concentrating on the complicated figures on the spreadsheet in front of him. His brother had put it together, but had obviously half-assed it, so now the accountant had to reconstruct it correctly. He sighed, counting down the minutes to get off work and go meet up with the others.
It's a few long hours before work wraps up for those with a 9-to-5 or similar, and the sun is just starting to go down by the time Last Call reassembles at Joe's bar .
The bar is well-lit tonight, and a gnome sits in the corner with an acoustic guitar, crooning about how every rose has its thorn.
He's pretty okay at it, even.
Joe is on shift tonight, but that's no reason the rest of the group can't huddle around one end of the bar and have snippets of conversation between serving a gaggle of dwarves spread throughout the rest of the bar and a giggly human couple.
Brother Joe is working the bar, and greets every member of Last Call when they arrive. The human seems overly excited, about ready to burst to tell you something, but he gets called away for cocktails and cleaning.
Franklin arrived at the bar early in the evening, haven't stopped home to take a quick shower and change into some more appropriate attire. A pair of blue jeans and a plain black t-shirt he had purchased in a more rebellious mood would do for the evening, he thought. He'd have to invest in some edgier clothing if he was going to keep hanging out with the group he had taken to.
As the others gathered in, the accountant leaned in, whispering excitedly. "Not much more to add than what I texted. More opportunity of a condoned nature against more goblins. Possibly a decent chance to make a name for our group and get some contract money flowing in. What do you have, Joe?"
Faith considered a little. Well, if it was a simple job it might not be worth a big name, even if it was weird. "It sounds like an opportunity, yeah. So long as we don't do anything stupid and record it for PR."
All things considered, it was a good chance...in more ways than one. "There aren't any other jobs going, are there?" she asked the others.
”Mo’ gobs? Damn B, I ain’t really lookin’ forwards to it. Maybe I won’t get kidnapped this time though.”
It sure is a normal day at The Tipped Mug!
Faith might remember that there is a bulletin board in this very bar, with some jobs posted on it.
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The smiling barkeep notices all members of Last Call are present and ushers then to one side of the bar, so the cleric can still work and socialize with his adventuring party.
Franklin arrived at the bar early in the evening, haven't stopped home to take a quick shower and change into some more appropriate attire. A pair of blue jeans and a plain black t-shirt he had purchased in a more rebellious mood would do for the evening, he thought. He'd have to invest in some edgier clothing if he was going to keep hanging out with the group he had taken to.
As the others gathered in, the accountant leaned in, whispering excitedly. "Not much more to add than what I texted. More opportunity of a condoned nature against more goblins. Possibly a decent chance to make a name for our group and get some contract money flowing in. What do you have, Joe?"
"I have HUGE news, but first.." The caydenite steps back to admire Franklin's change in attire. Look at him! Brother Joe thinks. He took off the dress shirt and khakis all my himself!! I'm SO PROUD!! "Looking mighty dope there, Franklin. Brother Joe-approved!"
Faith considered a little. Well, if it was a simple job it might not be worth a big name, even if it was weird. "It sounds like an opportunity, yeah. So long as we don't do anything stupid and record it for PR."
All things considered, it was a good chance...in more ways than one. "There aren't any other jobs going, are there?" she asked the others.
The cleric inwardly cringes as the some members of Last Call seem hesitant to embrace the digital medium or live-adventure podcasting. "Well, Little Miss Fun Size, the shelynite job is still on the boards. To me that looks the most enterprising. And then there's a Pathfinder recruitment, but it looks like they're just looking for one. So who knows."
Brother Joe begins to pour the party members generous glasses of wine, while he continues to talk with gravitas. "Well. Yesterday. Just might have been the most amazing day of my life! And that includes that three-way with a changeling and kitsune at a rager during Spirit Week at University of Wisconsin. Sit back!! As I spin a true story any cleric worth his communion wafers would kill for."Aw, guys! You should have seen him! Brewers cap, heelies, and his rapier! SO F#<KING COOL! HE CAME TO VISIT..ME!! We sat on my couch and we shot the figurative 'holy $#|+'. The most awesome god in the universe came to me and tells me I'm in the running to be his Champion in the Delmarva region. ME!! I mean sure. I gotta train up a bit first. But I'm on a very short list of candidates!
At this point, I've devolved into total fangirling! I tell him how much I admire him and all the good works he does. And he gives my a bro-hug! The caydenite lets out a squee of unadulterated joy. "We then chatted about deities a bit. Then he said his goodbyes. And heelied into the sky!
I haven't slept. I don't think. It was the greatest f#<king day of my life!" Joe pants with excitement. "It's inspired me to start a youtube channel, for 1) Telling all the faithful and non-faithful about the visitation, and 2) to get the word out about Last Call, and 3) field any questions the commenters have about caydenite lifestyles and beliefs!!"
"Can you feel it, my flock! CAN YOU FEEL IT?! Our stars are on the rise! A future of badassdom lay before us!" Joe pours himself a generous glass of wine and toasts the adventure party. "To You! To Me! To Cayden! To our badass futures as adventurers! DRINK UP, MUTHERF#<KERS!!"
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Docta G raises his eyebrows, ”Oh snap! You sayin’ that the big CC himself came to you? Hell yeah! All I got was some free wingstop and a dopeass cape. Oh shiziet, I didn’t show y’all the cape!”
He rummages through his bag before producing a glittery purple cape trimmed with faux white tiger fur and puts it on. ”It ain’t meetin’ y’all’s god, but it’s dope.”
Faith grinned - a truly pleasant smiled. "I'm glad you got that experience." It certainly made her much more sure of her choices earlier, that was for sure. It seemed much more...provident than it had before, and it had been a pretty solid choice then.
The Fun Sized comment didn't hurt, either. Well...not her, at least.
"On the plus side, it sounds like doing some good deeds, public ones, would be good for you in that race. And taking down a Goblin on a giraffe would be pretty public."