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"Blimey."

Willie blinked at the orcling like a beached whale, not least because he was ill accustomed to company quite so direct in their speech as she. Old Foxy a crook, a thug and even a bedswerver? How horrid! "This is very serious," he agreed, setting his usually so open face into disapproval.

"You must tell me who has been spreading these vile rumors about the gent! Libel like that should go straight before Magnimar's top bench."

To think some could be so beastly as to propagate nasty gossip such as this. And about a first-rate fellow like Foxglove too! But then that was more than likely just the cause: the man being so exemplary. Envy was the burden of the better classes, and Willie was no stranger to mean hearsay himself. It wasn't too long ago that he had been accused of spanghewing toads into the university classics department during the night, a charge only lifted after much espousal. Granted, he had in fact committed the caper, but the point was that Willie understood how damaging these allegations could be.

"Now, I don't blame you of course," he assured the young woman. "You are of the people and can't understand these things. I've seen these mills churn out their rumors often now, and it's always the 'secret societies' that get people going." He nodded knowingly. "Perfectly benign, I promise you. I'm in three myself! I have an uncle who I'm told frequents some fifteen of the silly little shindigs. Just social clubs don't you know. The old chaps need their milky tea and afternoon naps, and just so they can have them in peace, they call it a 'guild' or whatnot. Worst thing they get up to is the odd exotic luncheon. I think that same uncle took part in eating the very last Irriseni sea cow... Regardless, I'm sure the good Lord's case is no different."

"Oneirology?"

Willie could hardly look more politely confused than had the whole party answered his greeting by growing plumage. What in the world was this all about? He followed the animated discussion with the air of someone walking in on a debate on the merits of cannibalism, which was to say anxiously enthralled yet afraid to join in for fear of being made part of the deviants' agenda - whether as peer or diet.

Dear old Cailyn didn't give him much choice on the matter, however.

"Did you have any dreams last night?"

He started as if asked where his allegiance lay by a cudgel-wielding Asmodean inquisitor. "Me? Never. Don't believe in it, in fact. Plain peculiar for the grey matter to carry on like that without one present, that's what I say. No, I slept like a hall boy last night."

He nearly went on to ask her about her own night as a point of courtesy before catching himself; best not to encourage this rummy talk! The gent was getting more than a little worried about these fine fellows. It was as if they all had gone to sleep as champions and woken up madmen. Dark portents? Destiny? Divine will? This sounded like the flapdoodle nonsense of maniacs at worst and those heroic adventuring types at best, neither of which Willie fancied himself as. This was doubly concerning as a little flutter somewhere round his bean reminded him that perhaps he had hosted some apparition last night.

"Well," he admitted, eyebrows wiggling in thought, "there may have been some passing fancy flitting about the dark hours. Something about a cat I think?" Yes, that sounded about right.

No dream quest handed him from beyond the spheres, certainly. And a good thing too given how Willie was loath to join in on this mania. But best as he was about to suggest everyone calm down with a nice tipple from the inimitable Ms Kaijitsu, the group decided to march on the temple. The young man looked very torn indeed, his eyes darting from the band he wasn't sure he wanted any part in to the inn keeper's warm pies he was quite sure he wanted part of him. As ever, a stern voice directed him in the end, specifically the imagined outcry of Cailyn's parents no doubt due him if they learned he'd left his cousin to trounce about on some imaginary heavenly mandate. A reluctant Willie followed.

Probably for the best, really, he considered in ankling behind. This flighty lot needed a down-to-earth sort of chap like himself at hand when they came crashing back down into said dirt! He was just about to gently query whether they hadn't dreamt the whole thing (forgetting that dreams were the order of the day) when the orcoid said something more unseemly still.

"He didn't like the looks of that creepy toff who paid for the drinks last night--and good reason to..."

"Steady on now," he countered, surprised that this morning's madness could extend to besmirching as smashing a character as the Lord. "Old Foxy is a topper, a corker and I dare say as superlative a gentleman as was ever bred. Why, you could fling gold pieces by the half hour in Magnimar's busiest street without hitting one chap willing to insult him!"

Appreciate it! Although I should clarify that no, it wasn't for myself, sadly. Day went well, though!

Apologies for going a bit quiet; prepping a 50th wedding anniversary. Will be another day before I'm back, with or without vengeance.

Had that blanket always been there? No, Willie was quite sure it hadn't; he wasn't in the habit of diving under duvets with strange women. Yet such was the nature of dreams that there is was, covering the two of them and seeing them share heat in ways not entirely appropriate without a pastor's blessing. Surely there was a step or two they'd leapt over in this whole affair? The young man might be averse to all amortary entanglements, but a few preliminary skirmishes over sago pudding and stewed rhubarb were customary before all this. He hadn't even met her parents!

The old lemon was throbbing in thought, trying to find some way to extricate himself from the situation. More surprised was he then when 'Kitty' apparently had no designs more indulgent than sleep. "Oh! Yes. Yes, of course. Er, good night."

These were deep waters, an awkward Willie lamented, feeling like a plank of wood swaddled by an affectionate cat. Even so, foreign as the sensation of dozing off in pairs was to him, he couldn't deny it was pretty dashed comfortable, and so found himself gradually relaxing. She wasn't wrong either, was she, this Ekaterina? He did deserve his rest. He'd been something of a hero today. That was the old Whyte and/or Vetillus blood in him, no doubt! Yes, he deserved all his heart desired, a small voice - a new voice - assured him. My, this couch really was very agreeable.

Willie let out the softest of snores, the comforting smoke covering the two of them as surely as the blanket. What a rummy thing it was, going to sleep in a dream.

"Mmm," she purrs. "Oh my name? I am Ekaterina Strahdinov, but most of my friends call me Kat. You may call me Kitty."

"Oh, well, what-ho, Kitty," Willie smiled more than a little awkwardly, not entirely convinced he should be encouraging the vivacious dream-woman. Still, the real test of good manners was as ever one's ability to put up with bad manners.

Rummy name, though, he considered. Sounded a bit Riverfolky. Why in the world the young man would be dreaming of names he'd never heard from parts of the globe he'd never seen didn't enter his mind.

Thanks, Conrad. I'm liking the gentle not-so-giant thing you've got going on.

Like a tea pot being deprived of its protective cozy, that was how Willie felt, so hot burned his cheeks when the strange strumpet lifted the nightcap from his eyes. And curse said treacherous peepers, they couldn't help but look when she invited him to take in her new garments. Or rather, garment in the singular. He averted his gaze only after realizing too late how it had lingered about the hips outlined in the thin nightgown. How the devil she had even managed this quick wardrobe change puzzled the gent. She wasn't in league with that one stage magician he'd seen once, was she? Oh right, this was all just a dream. As if her forwardness didn't imply as much, Willie supposed that a dream such as she didn't obey many rules.

"Is this more to your liking?"

"Yes, well, er, rather like going from tumblers of whiskey to sherry cobblers," the young man wavered, grinning awkwardly. "The kick might be softer, but it still only leads one way, what?"

That being the loss of all sense, something Willie could ill afford at the moment, especially given how he had so precious little already. In backing away from the woman, he tumbled into a comfortable couch only for her to leap at the opportunity, curling up to him like an affectionate cat. Somehow, despite being fully covered, both of them wearing nightwear only made the bally situation feel all the more intimate.

That she then only wanted to hear about his day surprised him. "How was my day?" he repeated, almost flattered. "It was... well, frightful as it happens. The whole town was beset by gibbering little hooligans, burning and maiming and engaging in general barbarity. And their singing was beastly too! In fact, I believe some number of people were killed... Jo, the dear old thing, nearly joined the choir invisible herself actually. Just about expired right in front of me..."

A shudder went through him, genuine and slow. Willie knew perfectly well he wasn't the deepest of thinkers. The greatest depth he'd ever plumbed was fishing an errant sugar lump from a tea saucer. Even so, he still possessed something approximating a soul, and he supposed it was more shaken by the day's events than he cared to admit.

"Honestly, I wonder whether she'd still be among us if not for this brave chap I met earlier, Collin I think his name is. Spiffing fellow. Actually, they're all a splendid band of lads - and lasses! - these fellows I've met here. There's my cousin Cailyn - I don't suppose you know Cailyn? No, you wouldn't, she's usually up to her gills in books. Anyway, she really impressed me today. And there's this devil-blooded - no, sorry, demon-blooded - girl who - you won't believe this - is an ordained paladin! Properly inspiring, isn't it? Even the orcoid stepped up to the plate, although violence is of course in their blood. Still, no arguing with results, what? And then there's young Scrapeknee with his curatives. Now, don't judge him too harshly by the name, you know how these provincial types are... Personally I find it quite charming!"

Within the minute Willie found himself simply making conversation with this strange apparition, his earlier discomfiture not so much forgotten as set aside by his social need to chatter about everything and nothing. Having such an attractive partner lending an ear certainly helped as well.

"Oh, but forgive me," he said suddenly, rousing from his own gabbing. "You clearly know me, but I still haven't asked your name."

Did dream people have names?

"Not in any decent state of dress, certainly!" Willie fired back in what he hoped was an approximation of stern headmaster, that tone of voice being familiar to him. As might be expected, the bleating that escaped him sounded more at home from a flustered schoolboy which was what he in actuality felt like. Being unable to even look at the sultry subject in question didn't help the solicitous spirit.

Of course, the gent was old enough to give someone the glad eye. Willie had oft found much to admire in the fairer sex, soul and chassis, despite admittedly not always understanding their ways. Even so, he had managed to avoid - willfully so! - all amortary entanglements for his near quarter on this mortal coil. It was just... Well, it all seemed such awful work! All the pursuing and wooing and will-she-or-won't-she and laying oneself bare in more sense than one. Terribly burdensome stuff. He'd seen that madness take hold of far too many a chap. No thank you, said he. Willie was a simple man; he liked rising at noon, taking tea for however many hours he pleased, an invigorating game of tiddlywinks at the club followed by drinks with friends new and old. Courtship, he figured, was more than likely to cut into his precious free time.

Besides, being of better society, he was also expected to marry which only exacerbated the issue. The amount of times his aunts had tried to set him up with some young thing with a lineage longer than the winner of the Magnimar derby... No, it simply wasn't for him, Willie had decided.

And yet that resolve faltered at the bass player's sibilant whispers teasing their way through his burning ears. Heavens help him, she was even employing her shapes as one traitorous glance told him. Despite his venerable name(s), Wilberforce's blood was merely red, and he was susceptible to the same charms as most any other red-blooded young man. He pulled his nightcap down over his eyes.

"Now see here, madam," he tried again. "I understand that you're one of these modern women, chockful to the brim with fizz and ginger, and that's all well and fine! But I fear you have the wrong man. 'Wise to the ways of the world'? Canny to the customs of cabarets perhaps, but no more than that."

A near stumble followed, a blind Willie trying to keep a respectful distance from the unknown woman. "Don't let it be said that I cannot admire a display of the ol' espieglerie, of course. And I'm sure you're a smashing girl!" he added, not wanting to disappoint the poor thing. "It's just that I was hoping to catch ten hours of the dreamless, if you understand. A fellow needs his rest, what? Especially after the day I've had, a frightful affair actually. So if it's not too much trouble, I was hoping you could do whatever you're here for, part ways with a handshake and let me, em, get back to it."

He really hoped he wasn't being rude. Willie wasn't familiar with dream etiquette.

He says "Why rush finding out what you want to do with your life? Maybe you were meant to be some adventurer. You and your owl certainly were amazing tonight at saving people."

"That was you?" Willie interjected, gawking at his cousin with all the surprise of the frog in the saucepan. "I thought that was some celestial thingamabob conjured by the vicar." The eyes that beheld the woman were as admiring as the grin below was delighted. "Good heavens, you house more hidden talents than a slum side music revue."

Bookish Cailyn was proving herself not at all the bore he'd thought her to be, and Willie couldn't be happier for it. Clearly drink and goblin attacks were doing her good! Young Scrapeknee's query left him pondering, however. Treating womenfolk? The gent's own drink hadn't reached his ears yet by any means, and he was quite sure he'd heard him right.

"Treat them?" he repeated, forehead creasing in deep thought. "Well, that would depend on what has befallen the lady in question. Should she have suffered a tumble on a stroll, I would think a stable arm and some gentle pressure on the left side will set her right." Willie smiled reassuringly. "For anything more serious than that, I'd fetch a bishop or other chappie who can work curatives. Like yourself!"

----------

It was a sign of a universe in harmony that after every good evening came a good night - if not a good morning, hangovers being what they were. Still, Wilberforce wasn't such a mean gentleman that he couldn't take a bit of bad with a whole lot of good, so after inquiring that the Deverins were indeed hale and hearty post goblin invasion (and perhaps exaggerating his own role in repelling said invasion just a teensy bit), he retired for the night. Sleep claimed the young man before his head could so much as dent the pillow; Willie slept as blissfully as only the innocent and foolish can.

Which was to say that he usually did so. Not so this night as he immediately found himself back on his feet wandering a dream. Willie didn't dream much. He acquiesced that the old bean probably didn't have the raw muscle for it, which was only sensible, really. Why shouldn't one's grey matters rest along with the rest of you? Anything else seemed unfair. Regardless, this incapacity made the current vivid dreamscape all the more rummy, especially in how he readily recognized it as such. But then what else could it be? After all, Willie wasn't in the habit of traipsing round dark corridors wreathed in funny smoke in his pajamas.

This bally unreality of the situation made it all easier to dismiss. Right until the music started playing. The contrabass was low and moody, artful and dark as funeral dress, not at all to Willie's taste. Yet he couldn't deny the skill of its player. With nothing else to go on, he followed its weighty notes through the fog, it feeling weightier by the minute as well; the inky tendrils had an almost tactile sensation to them. Not unpleasantly so, mind you. It reminded the young man of cigar smoke, or, less literally, perhaps even the comforting fog that followed a nice drink. He traversed more corridors still, all leading into rooms he could never quite discern through the smoke. But finally he found the bass player.

"Hullo there! I say, hullo there!" he tried with what he hoped was an affable air. The figure was still indistinct, playing to an audience of none in its room. No, not 'it' - 'her'. It was certainly a woman playing, a very attractive woman at that, that much he could tell now. Why did he suddenly feel nervous?

"That's a lovely tune, madam. A touch moody, perhaps. Can't say I recognize it. I don't suppose you know '47 Ginger-Headed Halflings'? It's a jaunty thing! I...!" Willie suddenly went red and averted his eyes, looking up into the ceiling where the smoke wreaths played. "I'm terribly sorry! You, er, aren't decent - you seem to have forgotten your underthings this morning. Perhaps even your everythings."

Willie was of course only too happy to obey the barmaid's directions, allowing himself to be swept away from all this beastly bloodshed to the welcoming bosom of her Dragon. Not that dragons had bosoms, he supposed, but the point remained: only when the doors opened to reveal roisterers romping in rowdy revel did he feel at ease again. Only now did he note the weight of the last hour's horror as it slipped him in stepping inside. This merriment, this jamboree - this was, to borrow a term, his scene. This was where he belonged.

And the free drink certainly didn't hamper things. "Hurrah!" Willie joined in with the cheers lifting the tavern's ceiling at the lord's 'round-the-house. Gosh, what a first-rate fellow this Foxglove was. And so charming! "O waitress! Whiskey please, and if it doesn't go down like a roll of barbed wire, I want none of it! Oh, it's you!" he added with delight in recognizing the halfling serving him the other day. "Still with us, what? Yes, it'll take more than an army of green snotters to unseat us, eh?"

The young master's felicitations weren't limited to said waitress, he soon traversing the crowd to extend many a 'Good show!' and fraternal shoulder pats, congratulating everyone present, known and unknown, on their efforts. "Spiffing work, just spiffing!" he assured a wounded chap he was quite sure he'd never seen in his life. It was hard not to get caught up in the celebratory spirit of it all; there was nothing quite like a near brush with death to make a fellow appreciate life! And on that thought, Willie downed his drink. He had some nerves that needed calming.

He only looked up from the glass as the Foxglove offered them to sit.

"I'd like know what brought all of you to Sandpoint! What do you love about this town?"

"Just limbering the old legs, getting out of the city," Willie lied glibly. "You know how it is, old lad. A metropolis can get dashed stifling!"

The query on what he 'loved' about Sandpoint he misunderstood entirely. "What do I do here? Oh, this and that, hither and yon. Truth be told, the place can be just a bit sleepy when not under goblin attack, but I hear the waters are lovely for fly fishing. Not that I fathom why anyone would want to catch flies. Ahah ha hah!"

Willie had sometimes wondered at those murderer chaps one heard about in stories. They seemed so plentiful there! Whether due to mean profit, whispers from dark ineffables or simply being mad as a wet hen, there was no shortage of reasons a fellow might off another, or so he was told. A frightful place, the world could be! And yet what really occupied the gent was how these blighters managed to keep all together whilst contemplating their next effort. Why, he himself had been a nervous wreck on those few occasions he'd been forced by family to contemplate marriage! Grave as such a sentence was, it still paled in comparison to murder. No, Willie never planned further than the weekend, but took comfort in knowing that no matter what tomorrow might bring, he would never be a murderer. He didn't have the spine for it.

But as the young man righted himself from where he had nearly fallen - over a now very dead goblin - in his awkward charge, he found himself having joined those ignoble ranks. As it turned out, one didn't need a reason to kill at all; one could do so without thought. And Willie had been known to be thoughtless. A murderer was he.

It was a rummmy sensation, he supposed in a daze of his own while the remaining runts tootled off. Goblins were just about the lowest of life forms, pests really, not so much Mother Nature's children as her pus boils, ranking somewhere between a particularly exemplary snail and the dirt it crawled on. And still they represented, undeniably, a life. Willie had taken a life. He hadn't done so alone, either! Just about every member of their jolly party had expedited at least one of the little blighters, and at the time he had felt nothing but relief, maybe even a measure of vindictive cheer, in seeing them do so. Dear old Cailyn had proven herself a proper marksman, mowing them down much to his surprise! So why did he now feel so different in offing one himself, Wilberforce wondered? Aroden's ghost, it had been amply justified! The beastie had stood ready to biff the paladin straight to her goddess's doorstep. The cretins had wrought he didn't know how much havoc on the town already. They deserved nothing less.

And yet.

His shot goes wide and he huffs, then turns and heads back. "I really, really hate goblins now."

"As is only sensible, old lad," Willie replied with a whistle, grateful for conversation to distract himself from the thoughts fogging about his head. Thinking had never been his strong suit, anyway. "Horrid little things. Ripping effort from yourself, though! That curative whatsit of yours? Smashing stuff!" He tried to retrieve his darning needle of a sword and found it stuck. Goblin hide was apparently as thick as their wits!

Some fruitless huffing and puffing later, the gent decided to leave his weapon there. The corpse wasn't likely to go anywhere. Far more important was greeting a fellow stripling of upper society, a peer. And one so well dressed too! The chap had taste! "Lord Foxglove, a pleasure! How do you do?" Willie smiled in offering his hand, a hand he quickly retrieved in noting how it was still smeared in blood. "Wilberforce Whyte-Vetillus. Esquire!" he added. "Please, call me Willie! A frightful turn of events, what?"

Willie admired the fellow's vest. Was chartreuse in season, he wondered in eyeing a jade cufflink. He must find out who his tailor was.

Might go a bit quiet the next two days. Easter is always busy with family stuff.

Perception: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (14) + 1 = 15

Charge attack (with inspire and Arcane Strike): 1d20 + 3 + 2 + 1 + 1 ⇒ (10) + 3 + 2 + 1 + 1 = 17
Damage: 1d6 + 1 + 1 ⇒ (4) + 1 + 1 = 6

When was the last time Willie had been this scared? Not since he'd nearly gotten affianced to that ghastly Mindurian girl, he supposed. When had he last felt this foolish? Probably when that same girl had publicly upbraided her prospective fiancee after he'd been caught snaffling her beloved cat in an otherwise very clever scheme to direct her affections elsewhere. Lor', that had been quite the scene.

And yet the gent thought it hadn't been half as nerve-wracking nor utterly moronic as this moment, him legging it to aid a demon-blooded paladin from a green menace with more teeth than sense. He couldn't even account for what spurred him on, given that bravery, comradery, nobility (hah!) and the other usual suspects were out. None of those applied to him, surely. Perhaps it just was bold old great-granduncle Regulus's crusader blood that demanded it, the Whyte ancestral derring-do. Or had he been a Vetillus?

Or mayhap it was the paladin herself, her example and encouraging words that foolishly, stupidly saw Willie answer them in kind. She'd spoken well of him earlier, the rube. He'd hate to disappoint. Curse these righteous types and their faith in one's fellow man and whatnot.

Whatever brought it on, action met reaction as young Wilberforce barreled sword first into the goblin threatening the wounded tiefling with a battle cry that sounded more like the hesitant thrill of the public bather, caught by a wave far colder than they had anticipated.

Charge with both inspire and Arcane Strike. Free action to keep up performance. Note that my AC is a meagre 11 for the next round... Willie's gonna have to buy himself some armor after this.

I'm a bit unclear on whether we're doing proper rounds, or surprise actions and then proper rounds, but what follows feels about right in either case. Subtract a move or add a readied attack as needed, Salsa.

"Don't worry, mate," says Dare to Willie. "You can be vapid and still fight goblins."

"See," said Willie through the sort of grin one adopted when the alternative was too glum, "that's rather what I fear we're setting out to prove."

Still, cowardly as the 'tuff' may or may not be, he was certainly too cowardly to strike out on his own once the little group got going, and so it was that he soldiered on without further comment. Right up until they ran into yet more green menaces. "Oh jimballs."

Young master Wilberforce listened to what strategizing was offered before engaging the enemy, but knowing that his contributions were limited - and not being eager to charge ahead first - he practiced the virtue that was meekness and let others act.

"It seems to me the first priority has to be keeping the fellow with the nice vest alive."

"It is a nice vest, isn't it? Right then..."

There was no avoiding it. Willie wouldn't have it said that he stood by and did nothing when needed. Aroden's ghost, he had to represent the old blood, didn't he? The thought pulled at his lips, ludicrous as it was. Speaking as much to rally himself as anyone else, he approached the goblins with nary a jitter to his knees.

"Barbarity nips at the heels of fair Civility yet! Once more into the fray, ladies and gents!"

Activating inspire and moving up. That ubiquitous +1 attack/damage is up again. Sword is totally drawn at the start of combat this time!

"I get it now, I thought you were a bit callous at first, but you just use humor to fight your fear and you end up doing what's right anyway, for your kin, and even strangers. Noble in a way. Good man."

"What? No, no!" Willie protested, determined to prove his moral deficiencies if physical ones wouldn't do. "I'm a rotter and a scoundrel, I assure you! Everyone says so!"

The young man felt like he'd stepped into some music hall comedy of errors, one of mistaken identities where the naive townsfolk had confused him for his long-lost twin brother, a paladin of renown here to deliver them from all evil and the only way to save himself from ending up a dragon's dinner was to prove his bad character. Or in this case, some score goblins' morsel and if he had to be eaten, then Willie would frankly prefer being swallowed whole. Others might not think much of his limbs and digits, but the gent was rather attached to them. "If you ask my Aunt Arabella, she will tell you⁠ - in fact, she is quite likely to tell you even if you don’t ask her⁠ - that I am a vapid and irreflective chump. Barely sentient, was the way she once described me and there are days where I wouldn't refute her, in a sort of broad, general sense."

These objections felt feeble as a lamb's bleating, especially when Lita - an actual paladin - expressed some support for him as well. Who was he to argue with anointed champions of the so-and-so? Or the orcoid for that matter, for whom it felt there was no arguing. Willie looked to his cousin, she practically giddy to set off.

"Lead on, dear friends, lead on," he relented with a sort of grim smile.

Piffled, was his conclusion; they were all perfectly piffled - to a one! - to be so eager to hie into danger yet again. Still, the young man couldn't deny a certain nervous vim beyond fright gripping his spirit. Though spoken in jest, it was all true: his Aunt had never expressed much hope for him. Nor had any tutors for that matter. Hearing people convey some modicum of faith in him - this was new to Willie.

"I'm fine... is Jo... Is Jo alive?" she whispered to Wilberforce as the authority figure talked to their local hero.

Although positively haggard, a smile lit up the young man's face at the query in much the same way a Crystalhue pudding might brighten the dismal dining table of the penniless on that festive occasion.

"Cousin, I dare say you'd see me cursing the moon, the stars and every god worth naming like in one of those histrionic plays before flinging myself down the nearest well if that weren't the case. Well, after they fish the goblin out of it, anyway. Yes, dear old Jo is fine. The reverend took her in his tender arms. Mind you, she had a close call. I shudder to think what would have happened if not for that stout chappie lending his strong shoulders!"

He mimed said shudder for added effect.

An all too genuine quake went through the gent's spine the next moment, however, when he recognized a familiar sensation in hearing his name mentioned. Young Scrapeknee, bless his heart, had somehow gotten the erroneous impression that Willie was courageous and capable, chatting up his supposed virtues to the town sheriff. "I say, er..." He raised a finger like a schoolboy begging permission to speak and nearly fell over in his hurry to climb back up on his feet, intent to assert that he was in fact a coward, an imbecile and whatever else his Aunt Arabella declared him in one of her moods. For Wilberforce recognized this feeling, that of being forcefully volunteered to some unpleasant duty, usually by that selfsame aunt.

Dash it all, this was just like that time he'd been tasked with convincing his cousin Gussie not to marry that waitress. Except with even greater risk of being run through with a sharp implement.

"Rotten luck, old boy," Willie ventured, his lemon throbbing to concoct some lie, "You know that if it were a question of volunteers to man the lifeboat, I would spring to the task, but, you see, I fear I've, um, strained my fetlock in all the excitement."

He reached down to cradle the supposed injury only to realize too late he wasn't entirely sure where one's fetlock was located.

Again, just Willie being Willie. Don't let this hold us up. He will ultimately follow out of concern for cousin Cailyn if nothing else.

Some might accuse the young master Willie of being chatty. True enough, it took a certain something to strike the gent mute. But springing back to avoid dirtying one's newly shined shoes in blood only to find the source of the crimson trickle being a family friend - that was certainly something.

Willie leapt forward to pale Joanna held aloft in the stout fellow's arms. What he would do in reaching her he had no earthly idea; the old bean was quite paralyzed at the moment, seized as it was with fright. What he did do - somewhat to his own surprise, limbs operating of their own volition - was shakily remove his suit jacket. He was wearing a rather sprightly young check for the festival occasion, to which he happened to be a good deal attached; he fancied it, in fact, more than a little. Some might perhaps call it a bit sudden till you got used to it, but, nevertheless, an extremely valiant effort, which many lads at the club and elsewhere had ogled unrestrainedly.

Some only to know which tailor to avoid, but that was their loss.

This the gentleman pressed against the young woman's leg, trying to stem the blood oozing there. Willie didn't possess the foggiest on how to apply first aid, but blood belonging within one's mortal container seemed as sound an idea as any. His increasingly slick fingers fumbled a knot, making a tourniquet out of one sleeve.

Heal skill: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (17) + 1 = 18

Just to ensure against a cruel GM deciding that every acolyte inside has used their limited healing on other townsfolk. Move up and then standard for first aid. Lingering Performance keeps performances running for another two rounds after ending, so I think the bonus to attack/damage is still up.

Now, Willie was not one to deny a fellow an honest jape. In fact, he dared say there were few as fond of rollicking, ribaldry and an overall good time as he. Even so, there was a limit to these things. And the teensy terrors that were the goblins had overstepped that limit yet again. In addition to arson, battery, hooliganism and general impropriety, they now added another item to their list of crimes, that being low humour!

Clowns and stew? he thought, face scrunched in disapprobation. Gnomes and... No no no, the stressed syllable breaks the metre entirely! That was utter rot!

Worse still than this massacre of poetic conventions was seeing it met with approval. The otherwise so caustic orc-ling seemed to think it humorous, the poor chump! The young gent looked on with serious concern as she bubbled over with merry mirth, he thinking it only right to correct her.

"Snap out of it, dear woman! The miscreants can manage a catchy rhythm, that much I grant you, but that quip wouldn't have earned a titter in a two-copper music hall."

Casting Saving Finale as an immediate action, meaning that Dare gets her turn if she just manages another save. Inspire courage remains for the party due to the Lingering Performance feat. Then two move actions to just get Willie into the action. And no, he is not smart enough to recognize the spell he himself cast just a minute ago.

Unhappiest of happenstances, it turned out that Willie's fears of searching out yet more danger were unfounded. Danger had found them instead. Like an ugly rash - so very ugly - that refused to die down, the little green menaces returned with a vengeance, another wave of the screeching maniacs bounding forth, knives first. And striking at dear old Jo and Tera once again! Did the tiny terrors have it out for the two women or something?!

"Bally blighters...!" Shaking his head half in exasperation, half to clear the fog of fright still about his bean, young Wilberforce ankled forth as quickly as his long legs allowed him. Though he was recitcent to do so alone. "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!" he called, hoping to spur those frankly more capable than himself. The half-remembered quote came to him he know not whence. Was it the Bard? A bard certainly.

Darting six squares straight ahead screaming my head off (read as: revving up inspire courage again). +1 attack/damage!

"Steady on, gents. You don't mean to pursue the little gits, do you?"

A nervous laugh escaped Willie; the laugh was for the madness of such an idea, the nerves for the suspicion that the others were quite serious. "I'm not one to cavil, but really now," he tried with the urgent diplomacy used in talking someone from jumping off a bridge - especially when they were manacled to oneself. "Looking out for one's fellow man and whatnot is all fine and large, but surely this is a job for Sandpoint's Finest now? Why not let the town guard handle matters from here? It's not like we haven't done our share and then some! Nay, say I! Pats to the backs all round! And all the more reason to retire to safety with a clear conscience rather than go tootling off in search of more danger, what?"

Wilberforce didn't consider himself a coward. Perish the thought! In fact, the Whyte blood was noted for its bullish courage. Why, his great-granduncle Regulus served in the Shining Crusade, playing an instrumental role in its success. That, or he'd been a stockbroker. The young man couldn't quite recall. On second thought, he might be thinking of a Vetillus too. Regardless, he was sure the honorable precursor had broken stocks with the best of them. The salient point was that Willie was definitely no coward.

Even so, he would much prefer if this little incidental group of their stuck together. Safety in numbers and all that, you see? And if they were to stick together, finding shelter should be their priority, not actively searching for their deaths at the end of a maniacal goblin's shiv.

Goodness sake, it wasn't as if they were like those rummy adventurer types, were they?

Don't let this hold up the game or anything. Willie will of course follow the group, if nothing else then because he doesn't like his odds going at it alone. This post is solely to reinforce that the guy isn't the likeliest of hero material.

Willie ran his fingers through his hair distractedly, combing it back after young Scrapeknee's sudden torrent doused much of the burning festival grounds, Willie included. He wasn't overly bothered at this, of course, nor did he even register much of the Sandpoint native's hooting and hollering. No, the poor man was quite in a plane of his own, looking about the aftermath of the goblin's malignant merriment with the dazed eyes of a hooked fish. Actually, that was rather how he felt: like a fish fresh from its watery home to an all-new world as hostile as it was foreign to him. Wilberforce wasn't exactly used to violence. The last blood he'd seen had been on the plate of a medium-rare steak. Small wonder then that when the initial rush of danger had run its course in him, shock settled in to replace it.

"Hah?" he gasped at Conrad's query whether everyone was alright, it giving him something to focus on in his bewilderment. Alright? The gent certainly felt anything but, but suspected that giving voice to this wouldn't exactly help. Like speaking aloud an incantation, it would make the matters of the mind manifest.

"Never better!" he therefore insisted with a feeble smile, swallowing his stupor along with whatever remained in his dry mouth. "And I might add that your dispatch of the little fiends was positively inspiring! Smashing display, dear fellow!"

The stout chappie had shown himself adroit at navigating this world so unfamiliar to Willie, biffing and boffing goblins left and right, so much so that the gentleman found his presence almost comforting. Like a guide through the darkest jungles of Garund, he thought it best to stick close to the man, and gave him a fraternal pat on the shoulder. Willie recoiled at finding it wet with brackish blood.

"Hang about! You're related to the merchants, ain't you? The creepy weirdo and the nicer one. Don't suppose you know where they are? My uncle wants me to talk to'em."

Willie's animated eyebrows leapt clear up to his little pompadour at this description. He blinked a few times, gawking at the half-orc like a stranded fish. Privileged as the young man's life had been, he wasn't altogether used to colorful remarks being levied at one's kin. What was the proper procedure in such instances? The fraternal spirit certainly wanted to climb the witness box in defense of the injured party.

"Well, that's an unfair picture of Cailyn I should think," he tried diplomatically. "Opprobrious even. Granted, the old thing is steeped to the gills in books and, er, serious purpose, but she's a smashing girl, really. Not at all 'creepy'. The charge of 'weird' I might concede, but still. Besides, she's no merchant at all! No, you're thinking of Joanna and Tera. They're the two darlings you met in the Dragon the other day. As a matter of fact, I believe I saw them just earlier..."

Nary had the young gent craned his gangly form round to look for the two women before a most... yes, well, one had to reach for the word again... opprobrious song erupted with such shrillness it entirely drowned out the festival gaiety. The screams that followed certainly didn't add to the ol' joie de vivre. "I say!" Aroden's ghost, what was this all about? Willie knew the local provincial sensibilities didn't always align with urbane palates such as his, but this took the giddy biscuit! This katzenjammer was an insult to cats! Admittedly catchy, yes, but a jaunty tune could only go so far.

His blood did not so much freeze as jellify at the first sight of a green floppy ear accompanied by fire. Slowly, only very slowly, did Willie grasp the situation. 'Goblins?' he thought, mouth agape. No, surely not. Attacks by beasties was something that happened to other, simpler folks out there in the boonies, not gentlemen in 200 thread count vests. It took him another moment to realize that he wasn't in jolly Magnimar, that goblins likely didn't care for the quality of his vest, and that this was happening. "Oh lor'." His mouth felt very dry.

So stupefied was he that Dare's no doubt very sensible call quite passed him, simply standing rooted in place. What did reach him, however, was a familiar voice shrieking in pain.

"Joanna?"

Eyes aglow with fright searched the area he thought he'd seen the young women at before, no easy task given the multitude hieing to and fro in a panic. Sure enough, there they were, and not alone. Two goblinoids, grins as sharp as their knives, were advancing upon them. Joanna had already taken some frightful blows and Tera appeared next on the cutting block.

Willie couldn't rightly tell you what spurred him into action because before he could gather any semblance of thought, his legs had already barreled him through the throng over to the two friends.

"Oi, you bally bounder!" he yelled at the offending oik, fear cracking his voice like the driest of tinder. It was all he could do; he couldn't reach them in time. Such was his state that he even forgot the sword hanging by his side, not that it would have been any use. All he had to avail him with were those little hedge wizard tricks he had picked up for a lark. Hopefully they would do. Willie looked into the beady red eyes of the nearest monster.

"Whu, er...
What's green, black and screams like a lyre?
A goblin lighting itself on fire!"

Probably not the most tactically sound maneuver, but I don't think I can justify anything else... Moving two diagonal squares over to Jo and Tera (those cost 3 squares of movement each if I'm reading the rules right), and then casting. Man oh man, hideous laughter was not the right choice for lv.1, though. Should have gone for sleep. At least the gobbo doesn't get the +4 bonus to its saving throw baked into the spell. I checked; goblins are simply humanoids.

Willie, you ol' boffin, he thought. You've gotten yourself in a right nasty jar this time. Willie's little furlough in Sandpoint had been a pleasant enough affair until now, provincial limitations aside. Rising at noon, partaking of the Deverin manor's pantry, entertaining his cousins there with stories of city life ribaldry, and then making merry at any given tavern till morning. Rinse and repeat. A modest existence perhaps, but quite enough for a humble chappie such as he. No more. Now the house's matriarch had taken to rustling him out of bed in the grey dawn to act as her mayoral assistant! No, 'lackey' was more like it. The past few days had been nothing but carrying ledgers, writing minutes, finding references, ankling about town to confirm one meeting or the other delivery - in brief, whatever needed doing to prepare for this blasted festival. She had even insisted on the odd physical labor, as with loading a crate of donated wine from the cellar to a cart! His cuffs weren't even designed to allow for the pulling up of sleeves and so and so!

On reflection, the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back was probably that evening out at the Dragon, not that Willie would ever call dear old Kendra a camel. Well, not within earshot of her, anyway. His recollection of the night was admittedly foggy, though his return to the manor may have involved an armless statue that hadn't been armless before his run-in with it in his disoriented state. That and some vomit.

Of course, the letter from Aunt Arabella presumably hadn't helped. The old gespenst had finally found him, aunt calling to aunt like mastodons bellowing across primeval swamps. The young man wasn't privy to whatever communication had taken place between the women, but he could only assume that one had informed the other of his injudicious tumble with the law in Magnimar, and that he subsequently needed whipping into some shape or another. Said shape had done a number on him, mind you. His back, for example, was contorted like a barrel hoop from leaning into books for hours on end. It was all terribly taxing! Small wonder all those author blokes had bald heads and faces like suffering birds! And this cousin Cailyn did for her own enjoyment? Willie had to wonder.

His middle finger too had developed the most frightful blister from holding a pen all day. Truly, he had never felt more sympathy nor a greater kinship to the working classes than these last few days. Still, the promised festival had at last lumbered into the present, and with it came reprieve. Kendra allowed him the day off, though how a young fellow was supposed to function without his ten hours of the old dreamless was quite beyond him. He wandered the grounds for a while - dressed for the occasion, of course, frankly looking the last word in his grey check suit even if few of the revelers seemed to appreciate fashion. Why, some cheeky blighters even sniggered at him! No matter how resplendent he looked, however, the festival spirit simply wasn't in him, tired and battered as he felt.

That was until the release of the butterflies. "I say." The good father's speech hadn't done much for him, but the kaleidoscope of flittering colors was such that the bleary-eyed gent was set a-gawking. So wondrous a sight was it that he felt quite invigorated! Yes, why shouldn't he make the most of the day? Why indeed when Kendra had promised more duties tomorrow! It was with this in mind that Willie toodled forth, a new pep in his step.

'This festival reminds us of his act and that we can all change for the better,' he considered, humming a tune. A worthy message for all the wastrels of the world!

"Bu-dum di duuum... ba-deeh di deeh... For makin' whoopee..."

Longwinded post saying that Willie walks the grounds.

A hoot of laughter escaped the layabout lordling as Cailyn stipulated their rules of engagement. Hosiery? She wanted his hosiery?

"Do you know, you're great fun with a tipple in you, cousin. Socks it is!"

Oblivious to the young woman's social well slowly running dry, Willie was delighted to engage his otherwise so subdued kin in some good old fashioned tomfoolery. A marvelous thing, just a measure of the hard stuff was! Perhaps those Caydenites were onto something. However, his grin evaporated like dew before the morning sun best as he reached for his wallet. A realization struck him. His hand went from fishing for coppers to straining about his ankles, awkwardly bending down in his seat to confirm his fear.

"No, steady on," he cried. "These are my deer wool socks! 100% emperor stag thread I had imported from Taldor, the genuine article! These are what the Grand Prince wears! Cailyn, they only harvest a halfling's fist of the stuff from each deer per year!"

The poor gent's distress was evidently great. All the more admirable then when he collected himself with visible effort. No, no one would be able to say that a Whyte, nor indeed a Vetillus, went back on his word! "... Socks it is," he repeated, a dogged smirk on the lips and a competitive gleam in the eye.

Wilberforce took his position at one end of the table with all the ceremony of the professional athlete, even going so far as to stretch beforehand, an effort only made more ridiculous by his gawky limbs. He looked like nothing less than his trust fund was on the line. Bending forward to rest his chin on the table and concentrating furiously, he swished and swooshed his chosen copper back and forth, testing the waters. It slid comfortably on the polished wood. Well, in for a penny, as they said.

The most magnificent play ever seen in the history of shove ha'penny: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (20) + 3 = 23

If Heaven could not provide a sensation so relieving, so triumphant as what he felt when that coin slid to a halt, then Willie frankly wanted no part in it. Like Cayden before him, it seemed that fortune truly favored the bold and slightly inebriated, as when launched the copper piece glided forward with all the ease of a shadow over ice. It came to a halt perfectly - he dared say it again, perfectly - in the middle of the circle. None were more surprised than the young man himself, of course, though he endeavored to look every bit the champion he now felt like.

"Yes, well," he said, looking to Caylin when he had recovered, "my side of the family were always the athletes, what?" Willie tried to stay the self-satisfaction from his beaming face, he really did. He failed spectacularly.

"Hear, hear," Willie chorused to young Scrapeknee's wish. He too hoped for the evening to be a happy one. Nay, not 'hope', he corrected himself. The Magnimar exile took pleasure in making every evening a convivial affair. And that meant chasing away such unpleasant topics as this Late Unpleasantness - whatever that was all about - or work. Of course, work was a subject he had but a theoretical grasp of, like governance or seagulls: these were concepts the gent readily accepted, but had no first-hand experience with. Still, he was given to understand most jobs weren't altogether jolly. Hewing the wood, drawing the old wet stuff and so forth? Good heavens, no, that didn't sound at all agreeable with him.

What good fortune then that he was born into moolah! The world had a funny way of sorting its tenants like that. "A resourceful girl like yourself will manage, Miss Lita," he said in sympathy, as empty a platitude as it was earnest.

What was it he had been thinking about? Oh yes, livening up the evening! Willie was a poor substitute for one of those Saracen genies, but he'd try fulfilling the likeable local's wish his own way regardless.

"O waitress!" he called to a passing halfling scuttling about the tavern as quickly as her stumpy legs allowed for. "The highest-proof hooch you serve, please, the sort of stuff that'll see me married to a lamppost in the morning and not live to see the honeymoon."

Before the table could grow too worried that the already half-seas over gent intended to go fully overboard, Wilberforce gave them real cause for concern. Turning his earlier emptied glass over, he reached forward to place it roughly midway on the slab, resting one finger on its raised bottom.

"Company, humor and drink
And yet I'm in want of ink."

The incantation was so far from proper, recognized wizardry that few discerned it for what it was; Willie was working magic. All knew, however, when the glass flashed a gaudy pink as if an especially flamboyant firecracker had been lit under it. It faded away without a sound, gone as quick as it had come. The young man lifted the tumbler theatrically like a proud chef uncovering his piece de resistance from under a cloche. Except there was nothing beneath the glassware, as anyone should be able to predict what with it being transparent - nothing expect a new perfectly pink circle adorning the table matching the rim of the glass.

Casting Prestidigitation, specifically the coloring application.

"Anyone for a game of shove ha'penny?" Willie asked with the enthusiasm of a schoolboy in recess. He momentarily turned to gratefully accept his ordered drink of clear-as-water devilry from the waitress. "Right on time! Thank you kindly!" But instead of drinking the stuff, he dabbed his handkerchief in it and set to scrubbing at the table, treating the drink as rubbing alcohol. "First step to shove ha'penny: preparing the game table. A clean surface ensures the coppers glide smoothly, don't you know.

Realizing that he'd lost at least a few present during all this, he went on, "Oh, come now, this noble pastime must have adherents outside jolly Magnimar? The rules are simple! Flick a copper piece across the surface of the table into the circle. And, yes, well, that's just about all there is to it. Ah! But there's a wrinkle, see." It was obvious to all that the gent was enjoying this greatly and the game hadn't even started yet. "It is tradition for participants to wager with one another. Nothing crude, just practical jokes and whatnot."

He looked to the Shoanti. "But then I hear you don't back down from a dare, Scrapeknee my fellow." Willie's grin was positively indecent.

Conversation seemed to be dying down. Pub game! Sleight of Hand? Maybe.

Cailyn, can you give me a Fort Save, DC 10 + however strong that drink is on a scale of 1 to 10 according to Willie's player.

Uh-oh. I feel like I should try that save too in solidarity, especially given how I just wrote Willie draining his own glass. Still, the guy really isn't a drunkard and the save shouldn't be too...

Fort: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (5) + 1 = 6 Never mind.

Well, this wasn't like him. Willie was losing track of the conversation - conversations? - and he wasn't sure whether this was due to its number of participants, its rapid twists and turns, or the comforting warmth settling onto his brain like a big, friendly dog. Oh dear. Was he drunk? It was a state not unfamiliar to the young man, and so he put it to the test. Craning his long neck about, he regarded the tavern. The sun shone in through the window; birds twittered in the treetops outside; everyone inside happened to be his best friend; and, generally speaking, the world seemed alive and hopeful. At least one of these observations was contradicted by the fact that it was in actuality late evening, leading Willie to conclude that, yes, he was a mite whiffled.

Still, he retained enough presence of mind to find encouragement in Cailyn and the orcish one resolving their differences - whatever those had been. Clearly his cousin wasn't the lost cause he'd feared! But best as Wilberforce strained his drink hampered grey matter to follow the table discourse, more voices joined in. Far from adding another wrinkle to his beleaguered bean, however, the realization of who said voices belonged to just about shocked him sober.

"Tera Flinders and Josephina Whitehall?" he grinned, mouth agape in an expression of surprise and delight no greater than had the two come bearing the resurrected form of his childhood pet turtle, Wentworth. "Why, I'm dashed! Come, sit, you dear old things! You must tell us whatever you're doing here in Sandpoint, I am agog."

"Cousins!"

Were they? Willie was distracted once more by this consideration, one he dismissed quickly; he'd long ago abandoned any attempt at keeping track of what was less a family tree than a thicket. Besides, he trusted Cailyn to know these things better than him. He trusted Cailyn to know most things better than him, really.

Only now, coming down from this thought, did the gent notice whom the conversation had veered towards, the others exchanging greetings with a woman he had entirely missed in the hubbub.

"Oh lor'. Is that some sort of hell spawn?"

The query was addressed to no one in particular. In truth, he hadn't entirely meant to forward it to anyone's address at all, it just slipping Willie at the sudden sight of Lita's singular appearance. Drunkards and children knew naught but honesty, and young Wilberforce was a bit drunk and more than a bit immature. "Sorry, I don't think I meant to say that out loud."

" I fell from the roof of Deverin Manor, tallest building in Sandpoint. I should by rights be dead." He actually manages to look both a bit sheepish and yet proud.

"Nooo!" Willie exclaimed in a sort of surprised hoot some poor unsuspecting owl a mile off mistook for a mating call.

"You mean to tell me... Why, those are the very rafters I sleep under now! Whatever possessed you, dear fellow?" Wilberforce appreciated a rousing round of rowdiness as much as the next inebriated young man, but this was the sort of stunt he, frankly, didn't have the stomach for, no matter how much drink lined said organ. What an admirable creature this Scrapeknee was!

"Well, I applaud you, old chap! Would that we all could cast off the yoke of common sense! Cailyn, did you know about a- oh."

He stopped short at seeing the half-elf now in conversation with a rather roughshod character of dubious parentage. Happy days, had her Midnight Blitzer already worked its magic?! Willie was much heartened in seeing his cousin make friends not bound in leather, feeling more than a little proud of himself in helping her bloom. He slung back his own well earned drink in satisfaction. It spilled out of the corners of his goofy grin.

"Ooh, steady on," he chortled at the spillage, quickly retrieving an embroidered handkerchief to dab at himself. "I say, I didn't get any on you, did I?" Willie looked to the broad-shouldered fellow next to him at the table.

What sort of activity constituted 'making whoopee', anyway? Willie wasn't entirely sure and wasn't about to ask now. The young man knew all too well his grey matter was more akin a hue of swan egg white in terms of general knowledge, but that was no reason to air one's faults. 'Open your mouth and be thought a fool,' or however the saying went. All he knew was that people found the phrase worthy of a chortle when sung, and that was enough for him.

As was one minstrel per party. Upon the northern raiders' yodeling drowning out his own tintinnabulation, Wilberforce retired from the Rusty Dragon's piano, satisfied that they would maintain the requisite festive atmosphere. Drink in hand, he ambled from the eighty-eights to nowhere-in-particular, just taking in the now buzzing inn and wandering the crowd to dole out smiles and witticisms among the patrons like a scoutmaster doled out marshmallows. This was where he was at his best, he thought. To nourish a merry gathering and be nourished by it in turn - why, if not for that bally sun insisting on rising over a new day of chores, work and sensibility (all things Willie was mercifully exempt from), he sometimes wondered whether he couldn't keep it all going into infinity!

And on the topic of sensibility, there sat his cousin Cailyn. The gent's smile only widened upon spotting the young woman. While she was a frightful nib, Willie held no real ill will towards her. He just wasn't one for books and, er... books and... sailing? Willie pondered for a moment, an exercise he wasn't used to. Was this an apt description of the half-elf? It struck him that he really didn't know his cousin all that well. Never mind that, his point was that they simply didn't have much in common. Not much beyond blood, however thin. But then blood counted for a great deal among the better classes.

"What-ho, Cailyn, my old top!" Wilberforce plopped into a chair at her table, smile broader than his lanky frame. "You look crisp as a candied apple and not half as sweet this evening. How are you?"

He wasn't drunk yet, not quite. Truth be told, Willie was usually rather good at pacing himself, utilizing spirits as the social lubricant they were often touted as. Good company was the end; drink was merely the means!

"Are you going to introduce me to your friend?" The blue eyes fell on the young fellow in the funny dress accompanying Cailyn. Willie liked meeting new people.

The Rusty Dragon Inn some evening I know not when

"No, no, just hold my legs up, old bean, and don't forget that they're attached to me! This is how it's done! Yes, there we go! Splendid! Now just let me get to fingering..."

It wasn't the most dignified of positions, but then that was rather the point; Willie had found that dignity had a way of obstructing one's fun. He was currently lying flat on his back, one half of him supported by a barstool and the other by a helpful young chap who was lifting his gleaming white spatterdashes higher than their maker had presumably ever intended. All the better for the gentleman's audience to see him. And what a sight he made.

"Now let me just reach up..." A discordant note belched its way through the Rusty Dragon as Willie reached for the piano he lay in front of. "That's a rummy place to put a D1! Let's try that again..."

Those inn patrons who had cared to gather about him weren't best accustomed to seeing what was clearly some example of that strangest of breeds, aristocrats, engaged in a bit of hokey-pokey. The nobility was known for many things, but levity was not among them. And yet young Wilberforce had had few qualms engaging other guests at the Rusty Dragon this evening, whether with chatter or drink, both of them spirited. It was in talk that he had let slip a little party trick of his - namely playing the piano upside down - and when predictably challenged, had gamely doffed his fine coat to find himself in his current position.

Perform (keyboard): 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (17) + 7 = 24

None were more pleased than Willie himself when he actually managed to coax something recognizable as a tune from the keys, even situated below them as he was. Truth be told, he hadn't practiced this routine very often - fewer still in any state to remember doing so.

"What did I tell you?" he said in returning to the world of the perpendicular with some help. "Ballyhoo, I told you I could do it. I believe someone owes me a drink!"

No small order considering how the young man didn't consider anything with fewer than seven ingredients a proper drink. Still, most would agree that he had earned it, especially as he had proven himself rather generous with his own gold so far.

Deducting, let's say, 15 gp on drinks for Willie and others at the Rusty Dragon.

"Thank you please, I think I'll have it right here actually," he said in accepting a glass of something almost luminous and seating himself in front of the piano, a tidy little spinet. "What do you say? Have we heard enough tunes? Barmaid!" he called. "May I?"

Within the second, the inn was livened further by one playful ditty after another as the city boy tickled the ivories and tickled them well. He looked as comfortable as a farmer on his field.

"Another bride," he sang, "another loon
Another sunny honeymoon
Another season, another reason
For makin' whoopee

He's washing dishes and baby clothes
He's so ambitious, he even sews
But don't forget, folks
That's what you get, folks, for makin' whoopee."

No one would call Willie's singing quite up to par with his finger work, but the young man had a light, pleasant baritone that accompanied the piano well enough. It helped that his voice carried all the earnestness of his innocent - some would say vacuous - eyes, lending it an endearing charm. Which was coincidentally his own estimation of Sandpoint so far: endearing if a little dull, a bit like a dumb puppy. In terms of shelters to excommunicate oneself to, it really wasn't too bad. And yet there was no denying he missed Magnimar. He missed the nightlife, the fun, the glitz & glamour. Granted, the Rusty Dragon was an unexpected delight, its entertainment venue well stocked with instruments, but still. How long should he avoid his Aunt Arabella, he wondered? He hadn't fled to Sandpoint with much of a plan.

Bah, a worry for another day. For now he had drink, music and passable-to-firm company. Someone cheered on his music. Willie was quite good at making friends. Well, friends for an evening, anyway.

"In search o' maidens, go knights so bold
Caught by dragons, hoarded like gold
That's why it won't be, you'll never catch me
In makin' whoopee..."

@Cailyn: Woo, third cousins.

@Salsa: Perfectly fine with me. Are you just asking in advance for some future plans, or do you intend to have these be present in Sandpoint for whatever reason?

And it seems like we have a fair coverage of skills as is, although - as you say - we shouldn't be overly concerned about this. The faults of a party are often every bit as fun as their strengths. Love the Art (woodburning) by the way, Dare. Very fitting.

Alright, I think I've fiddled with this character enough for me to throw his very fashionable hat into the ring. Enter Wilberforce "Willie" Whyte-Vetillus, Esq., Magnimarian contender for upper class twit of the year and currently vacationing in Sandpoint in order to hide from his aunt over a minor scandal (honestly, it wasn't his fault).

** spoiler omitted **

** spoiler omitted **...

It was brought to my attention (thanks!) that my application was missing some RP samples. I was hoping the character vignette would do, but for completion's sake here is a diabolist out to take over the world and a cartographer kid just looking for his place in said world.

Alright, I think I've fiddled with this character enough for me to throw his very fashionable hat into the ring. Enter Wilberforce "Willie" Whyte-Vetillus, Esq., Magnimarian contender for upper class twit of the year and currently vacationing in Sandpoint in order to hide from his aunt over a minor scandal (honestly, it wasn't his fault).

If you made it through all those spoiler boxes, thanks for reading. Another thanks to DM Salsa for what has to be one of the most exhaustive and exacting recruitments I've ever seen. It speaks well of you as a game master. Hope there isn't anything I've missed here, but please just ask if so.

I should perhaps add that the character sheet is probably missing some equipment, and that I'm more than willing (fully intend on it, in fact) to move some skills around to account for other party members should I be so lucky to get into the game.

So many gun-toting desperados. So few melee meatshields for them to hide behind. Let's fix that.

So. If you got through the spoiler box above, thanks for reading. Another thanks to the GM for hosting a game. It's appreciated, no matter if I end up joining it in the end. Now here comes the tough part...

Behold, good people of the recruitment board. Behold this fool about to try to convince a GM to allow his character to start with not one, but two items worth 6,400 gp each. May Gorum have mercy upon my soul.

You want the GM to let you play a lv.1 character with 13,000 gp in equipment? 13,000 gp over every other PC in the game? How high are you, pray tell, and where I can I get some of that dank kush?

Madams, sirs, I am sober as the grave and the items in question are these: clockwork prostheses, one arm and one leg to be exact. For my wish is to play a monk. A cyborg monk.

A novel idea perhaps, but no sensible GM is about to shatter the recommended wealth-by-level table simply for the sake of novelty. Nor should any GM, sensible or otherwise, show such gross favoritism as to shower riches onto only one player among many.

Ah, but it is here I argue that the value of these two items, in the grand scheme of things, is effectively nil. Consider, what advantages do these clockwork limbs offer this character that flesh and blood cannot? Lethal damage via unarmed attacks? Nay, the PC in question is a Monk; she already has that capability. Situational bonuses to CMD? Houserule them away, I don't care for them. Likewise with the extra carrying capacity.

But the enchantment option, you charlatan. The prosthesis can be enchanted much like a weapon, thereby bypassing the traditional Monk's need for the ubiquitous and costly Amulet of Mighty Fists. Not only are you sneakily tricking the goodly GM into allowing you cheaper weapon enchantments down the line, you are freeing up the prized neck slot for an Amulet of Natural Armor, an item the Monk is otherwise locked out from. You are exploiting the system. Shame! Shame!

You do me a great injustice. For you see, while it is true that the Amulet of Mighty Fists is twice as costly as other weapon enchants (4000 vs 2000 gp), it is not out of a dearth of other options that the typical Monk gravitates towards it. The Unchained Monk uses the Amulet of Mighty Fists because this item, contrary to its name, enhances any body part capable of striking the enemy. This is crucial for the Unchained Monk, for this class's so called style strikes specify specific body parts. The Flying Kick style strike, for example, requires that the attack "must be a kick." Note that my proposed character is missing both an arm and a leg. Hence, I will have to enchant both of her prostheses. Two plus two equaling four, I posit that my character's equipment will be just as expensive as the average Monk's, and that I am in no way cheating the system. If anything, factoring in the price of masterworks and special materials, it will be even more expensive...

Aha, you have revealed yourself, villain! Special materials by which to bypass damage reduction, such as cold iron or silver, cannot be applied to the oft mentioned Amulet and is thusly something otherwise unavailable to the unarmed Monk. Your clockwork limbs allow you to employ these tools, giving you a minor but significant advantage. You are undone, min/maxing scum.

There was a time you would have been correct. That time has passed. I bring your attention to the obscure handwraps, a 'weapon' released at the tail end of the edition's life cycle and designed for unarmed characters. These have all the same capabilities as the proposed prostheses, including the option to incorporate special materials. Again, I hold that the prostheses offer me no advantage whatsoever.

If this is true and your PC really is no more powerful than any other lv.1 Monk, despite the extra 13,000 gps, then why do this? Why all this trouble?

Because a Monk with a literal iron fist is effin' rad. I rest my case.

Thank you for all your submissions, I didn't expect so many to sign up!

Not about to make the choice any easier for you, I'm afraid. This is Red Heat applying with the human barbarian Hashna, I think best read in this order.

So, firstly, if you managed to get through the three boxes above, thanks for reading. Secondly, apologies: one to select other applicants (great applications for the game overall!) for mine being kinda similar in concept to theirs, i.e. big bad tribal barbarian. Another apology to the GM for soundly ignoring the tech theme that drew them to Iron Gods in the first place. No gun here, just a mean beat stick. Sorry, but I find the image of Conan vs. robots too funny/awesome not to go for it.

Hope Hashna here doesn’t come off as too dour. 25 point buy implies a pretty extreme character in my head so I wrote her as such: in stat spread, stature and ambition. The intent is absolutely to play her with a healthy mix of existential angst and 'dumb brute funny'. Thanks for your consideration, thanks for hosting a game, and everything relevant should be in the profile.

Like one of the great bellows of the forge, the perfectly straight nose drew in a deep breath. The tang of smoke, ash and sweat, peppered by cinders, assailed the nostrils and Novox smiled. Smelled like industry. It was a smell otherwise absent from Dekarium, stagnant and complacent as it was, happy to see no growth beyond the trees its people venerated. Not so here. Here every acrid fume, every pained shriek spoke to tangible progress, to products finished and released to advance a hundred other industries, bolstering an economy at its weakest. It was enterprise such as this that represented the beating heart of a nation if not its spirit, pumping tools, work and sine qua non for other ventures to its citizens. And this the townspeople scorned? Savages. Simpleminded fern fondling savages. Thirus Undershale was arguably the most admirable soul the wizard had met in this self-content backwater.

Such a shame that he was a dwarf. But then that followed. The practical vocation followed the practical mind that in turn was the outcome of the practical condition that was being a dwarf. This was very literally what the man had been born to do, the organic end result of heeding the innate dwarven potential. Eagles soared, badgers dug and dwarves produced. It was as natural as it was admirable.

Which was to say only nominally so. Did one heap praise onto the dam building beaver for following its inherent instincts? Of course not. The inevitable was not cause for commendation just as a sprocket could not be admired for its choice of track; these were external factors beyond the subject in question. And this was where humans differed. For it was humanity's lot, uniquely so, to choose its destiny. Elves, dwarves, even the half-men, these were adapted and preordained a specific purpose in life, purposes that they fulfilled well - to their credit - and with relative ease. Not so with humans. When a human devoted itself to a vocation, a craft, an art, they did so with the knowledge that they could have entered a thousand other disciplines now foregone. When a human mastered its calling they did so through self-control and force, not latent instinct; not by being a sprocket following its track. In this humanity stood alone. Humanity had infinite potential and the choice that came with it. This was why no one else compared. This was why they would conquer the multiverse. Because no one else, least of all the rigidly defined outsiders, could define their own constraints.

Fortunately Novox's Cheliax was a practical realm with room for those lesser races that could makes themselves useful. And Undershale should certainly be counted among those happy few. So it was that the diabolist looked down to the dwarf - this lesser creature that had earned his goodwill, if not his respect - with an affable little smile to reply: "Why yes." The expertly maintained eyebrows showed every sign of polite bemusement that anyone could think their owner cornered. "I am if anything spoiled for choice. I have, if you will, 'learned the shape of the rock' and found it quite adequate to smash in Dekarium's gates. The approach I have chosen, however, is more akin to smelting that rock into a key. More demanding, to be sure. But ultimately more rewarding."

No hill giant in a country fair arm wrestling competition had ever looked more confident, and this despite the fact that Undershale's begrudging aid - perhaps appropriately - rather threw a spanner into his plans; the smith's utility was greater than expected, to be point of hastening Novox's scheme. So. The time had come, eh? Today was the day he bound his first outsider. An ember lit behind the dark eyes like the glowing cinders in one of the facility's soot stained furnaces, ready to spark a bellowing fire. Despite being prepared for the occasion, Novox had not anticipated this to be the day he graduated from the theoretical to the practical, the day he finalized his training as a diabolist: the day he subjugated an immortal to his will. It was the final test for any practitioner of the school, much like craftsmen such as the dwarf had to prove their skill via a masterpiece before being accepted by a guild, and while a prodigy and genius of Narsus Novox's caliber was already acknowledged among those ranks - as he should be, far superior to many seniors as he was! - he hadn't actually finished his final exam as it were: he was yet to bind a devil.

The raven that was not a raven looked to its master, beak almost touching cheek. No, of course the imp didn't count. A diabolist's imp, 'gifted' by Hell as it was, was little more than a glorified monitoring device, a means by which the Pit could keep track of and stay in contact with those who siphoned its power, a beartrap in disguise. It bore as much resemblance to devil binding as a bank loan did a profit margin. The familiar let out a wounded coo, theatrical and sad. Novox ignored it. True diabolism lay not in accepting the Archfiend's scraps, but in raiding his pantry. This was the occasion hastened by the smith's skill - and what an impressive skill it was, to replicate arcane theory through sheer worldly craftsmanship - awaiting him now. And it was undeniably exciting.

"I wonder, Mr Undershale," he solicited, pausing patiently to let a pained scream pass, "whether you would indulge me in another little request?"

----------

The epic undertaking that was enslaving an immortal champion of the great beyond began with housework. Broom in hand, Novox was sweeping the floor and fastidiously at that. While perhaps an amusing sight to some who knew his dignified self, it was such deceptively important work for what was to come that he did not dare leave it to anyone else. And for that matter, he had not hesitated to jump into water to battle a giant sea serpent; he wasn't going to balk at wielding a broom. Narsus Novox was not afraid of getting his hands dirty.

Beyond the cleanliness, the space provided by the dwarf was nearly ideal. The storage facility with all its metal, worked ingots and raw ore both, was neither too large nor too small. It was underground which warded against errant tremors, potentially devastating no matter how small. And it was private, sturdy and lockable, all desirable features. The reason all of this mattered was because devil binding was notoriously finicky work. The summoning circle for instance was, while ideally imbued with so much power as to render even the right hand of a god helpless, so fragile that an errant gust could render it inert. A foot stepping over a sigil, a leaf falling onto a barrier, even the intervention of a mouse would set free the outsider. Or indeed the aforementioned tremor. And given that said outsider would have recently been yanked across realities to serve at the behest of a mere mortal, they would in all likelihood be - perhaps justifiably so - a mite peeved. Hence the broom. A clean canvas for the arcane etchings was imperative. On that same note:

"Imp," the supremely focused housekeeper demanded.

"Present and awaiting your orders, Master," came the dutiful chirp from the little fiend, sitting cross-legged on a shelf and looking devilishly amused. "Waiting and frankly admiring you at work. You really should consider shedding some layers more often, sir. You have an admirable physique, so slim and fit. Such a svelte middle too. Do you know, you have a touch of the maidenly over you that's quite attrac..."

"Shut up and listen." The imp did just that. "Canvas the area for pests. Rats, insects, anything at all that could disturb the ritual. Kill them."

"Oh my. Carte blanche to vanquish any poor unfortunate blight I find? This really is just like home."

"Stop saying that." The level command was delivered without looking up from his work. "Your predecessor said the same and it was as untrue then as it is now. The hells are nothing like a forge. A forge produces, a forge achieves. It builds upon successes and works towards a purpose. It elevates. That is not the Pit. You are a function without purpose, and that function is pain. You manufacture only your own intake, that being misery. Yours is a wheel spinning in place, serving no purpose beyond pain begetting pain. And of all your many sins, that is your worst: that you are useless." Now a gaze loaded with quiet loathing peered out from beneath the noble brow. "Never pretend otherwise."

If this invective had any effect on the fiend, it did not show. "How wise you are, my master!" This said, she hopped down from the shelf. What landed on soundless paws was no imp, however. "Then I shall attend my function." The midnight-purple panther slinked off to find its prey.

The wizard too continued his work. Once prepared (and liberated from any inconvenient ingots via Hax's strong shoulders), the summoning circle could be drawn. And the warding circle. And the imprisoning circle. By the diabolist's patient hand three geometric diagrams were drawn - one by chalk, the other by salt and the last by powered silver - that came together to form a staggeringly complex mural like something seen in a kaleidoscope. The process took hours, a full quadrant of a day in which he crawled - stooped, bent and furiously focused - about the floor carefully drawing and redrawing exact angles, chthonic symbols and eldritch patterns according to some impossible ideal housed within that inimitable mind. Tirelessly he worked with ruler, notes, compass and stranger instruments to ensure that his creation was perfect, a dizzyingly intricate abstract the like of which an unfamiliar viewer could only take in in pieces; to try to comprehend every corner of the multifarious circle hurt the eye of the uninitiated along with their head. And yet to Novox this effort represented the bare minimum effort required. A wise diabolist spent literal months researching their subject and the conjuration and wards necessary to call and entrap it, not to mention preparing the physical summoning space with additional fail safes such as locks, guards and more. Novox did not have that long. But then he was the smartest man in the nation. This would do.

It was evening before the craftsmen and slaves of the forge knew that something was amiss. There was a sulfuric stink in the air unlike any to have assailed a smithy. Furnaces were erratic, flaring and spewing fire and cinders at the unsuspecting. All those chained felt their iron bindings grow ever heavier. And most curious of all, there was a voice, laden and distorted, in the chimneys and on the air. It was just indecipherable enough to be dismissed as the wind. But below, only just beneath the forge, nothing could be denied.

Novox was standing in hellfire, shouting into a hurricane. And he'd never felt more powerful. The ritual was well underway, explosively so. The humble storage chamber was now very literally more than the sum of its own dimensions, having intersected with Hell itself. Bright red fire - some intangible, some more so - lashed out at all present with a malevolence and will not possessed by its earthly counterpart. It was all that lit up the all-encompassing darkness that now shrouded the room, a darkness so thick and heavy it was only found at the metaphysical bottom of the multiverse. And the screams. Oh, the screams. Leaking out of this intersection between worlds was the tortured wailing of an infinity in pain, the force of their verbal agony being akin to a storm. This was the pandemonium Novox bellowed into, his charge to command through word and gesture. He was succeeding.

"Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul, Ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul!"

The painfully rigorous language that was Infernal, all exact barks and eloquent verse and the squeal of slate & steel, rang out through his lips. Much as in that blighted space as spoken by the Hellish Dukes, the cacophonous inferno was bending to his will. He was doing it. He was compelling the raw matter of Hell. Like a predator sensing weakness he pressed on, delivering his arcane invectives in a devastating sermon the like of which shook the chamber. Only to end: "Enslaver, be chained! I call upon thee, o spirit of warfare, spirit of blood and fire: show thyself! Come forth, devil! I call to thee as thou callest thyself, by thy unholy name and in my might bind thee: BARBAZU, appear!"

It was like watching a thunder cloud swallow itself. In an instant the fire, the darkness, the pain coalesced upon itself, collapsing into a singular entity. The room was silent. Novox, Hax and Beloreth had been joined by someone.

"Do you know the first rule of summoning, Hax? the wizard suddenly queried, almost rhetorically into that silence, voice worn. "Do not call up that which you cannot put down. Keep your sword at hand."

"Lor-Sinn, is she alright?"

"O-on it!" Sam said again, none of his nervous anxiety leaving him even as the monstrosity's last shrieking breath left it. They still had allies at death's door, after all, no matter the decapus's demise. Turning on his heel and fumbling through his bag of spell components, he fished out a vial of black ichor, a substance not entirely unlike the dark blood flowing from their now fallen foe, as it happened. Dabbing a small blot of the stuff onto a finger, he touched it to the unconscious paladin and invoked his magic. Immediately the mangled flesh began stitching itself back together, not in the instantaneous miracle available to the devout, but more slowly, as if the natural healing process was simply massively sped up. Difficult as the young man found it to even look at the heavily wounded Lor-Sinn, he nevertheless let out a sigh of relief. They had managed to avoid losing anyone. Wow.

Using Infernal Healing on a paladin... Somewhere high above Erastil is looking down on Sam in disapproval. But Lor-Sinn recovers 10 HP over the next minute which, coupled with Signe's earlier CLW, should be juuust enough to reach positive HP again I think.

It was only in that wave of relief that the strained mind registered the flying horror's last words. "Wait... Pazuzu?"

Know (religion): 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (13) + 10 = 23

"That Pazuzu?" The demon lord? One of the most infamous of that unholy pantheon? 'Father'? Well, surely that couldn't be right. Frightful as the thought that the group had just dispatched a literal demigod was, the wizard's rational mind protested at this. The decapus couldn't literally be the son of the demon lord, could it? Surely this was just the overly fanciful language of the devoted, or even some delusion of its. Well, regardless of any such parentage, the creature had apparently been some kind of devout follower. Perhaps that accounted for its unnatural power.

"Oh," he said as the still heavily wounded paladin showed some signs of life. "Uh, w-welcome back, Ms Imass." Awkward as the greeting was, Samton was very genuninly glad to have the tiefling back among them. Seeing someone so lively unconscious just felt strange, for one. "Ms Kaijitsu? Is Ms Narukami alright?"

Spell penetration?! At level 4?! Egads.

Spell penetration: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (19) + 4 = 23

Thank you, dice gods.

"Huh. Almost sounds like a, uh... whatchamacallit? A decapus?"

Samton scratched at his brown hair in thinking. It was a bit difficult to parse naked fact from embellished detail in Signe's description of the beast, bards and storytellers being so fanciful in their narration. Still, he wasn't sure what else it could be. "A decapus is a sort of ten-armed octopus-like monstrosity," he explained to whomever would listen. "Get it? 'Cause 'octo' means, uh, eight? And octopuses have eight arms, I mean, um, tentacles? A-and 'octo-' is a, uh, numeral prefix meaning eight? From, like, Ancient Azlanti? I think? And so... so this octopus-like monster gets called decapus. 'Cause it has ten ar... tentacles. And 'deca-' is another prefix meaning ten. I think. From Azlanti. So 'octopus' turns into 'decapus'. It's, uh... clever."

Never mind. Whatever the faults of bards and storytellers, they were a heck of a lot better at explaining things than him. "A-anyway, they're nothing like any mere squid," the wizard went on, trying to salvage his little lecture. "They live on land, for one. Supposedly great climbers; trees, cave ceilings - they like ambushing prey like that. They're also pretty intelligent. Can talk and everything, though they typically don't speak our Common. Can even use some magic, mostly illusions. S-so be aware if you see something out of place. Oh yeah, they can't just talk, they're said to be really good at mimicking voices too. Real sneaky like that. I think they use that to lure people."

He looked to the Ulfen apologetically. "Right. Decapuses... They, um, eat people. C-condolences for your friends."

New daily spell list.

Was it possible to be roused from the dead by sheer foul language? Samton wouldn't have thought so, and yet that was all his newly revivified and thoroughly confused mind could conclude as he woke up one cheek squashed against the stone floor. Sensitive ears still burning, he threw a swimming gaze around. Well, he was alive. This was good. But so was Zaiobe, which was less good. Another errant arrow landed inches from his nose and he jumped. No, not good at all. It was only when Ruka's foot came into his view in evading the harpy's missiles that inspiration struck him, however.

Reaching for his spell pouch, lying on the floor where he'd dropped it, he began intoning the last bit of magic he could manage for the day. Then he brushed the woman's heel.

"Give her hell, Ms Kaijitsu..." the wizard mumbled as Ruka suddenly grew to reach the room's ceiling, and Zaiobe with it.

Wonderful as books were ('boy, are they!'), Samton had joined the caravan largely out of a desire to learn from experience. There was so much reading couldn't teach one - or so he was told - that only lived experience could impart. Theory, they said, was only worth what you could practice. Well, the young man now conceded in looking at the feathered shaft sticking out of his chest, books certainly couldn't teach you the feeling of your lung collapsing around an arrowhead, but this was an awfully harsh lesson.

His legs cruelly deciding not to support him anymore, the wizard collapsed to the floor. There he was mostly occupied with trying - and failing - to breathe before the rapidly expanding darkness before his eyes consumed him. And yet where the body was failing, the mind soldiered on. And being an awfully adroit mind, it lingered on the image of the harpy as she had shot him. Betrayal. That was what her silent stare had conveyed. Betrayal. Docile creature that he was, this thought lit a fire in the dying village boy. It was an outrage born of the only thing that could truly insult such a proponent of rationalism: a logical fallacy. The harpy was a hypocrite.

Hoping against hope that some vestige of their telepathic link remained, Sam began thinking, hard, even as his vision faded. He needed her to know. He needed her to see.

You were betrayed. Only to yourself betray... he voiced within his own fleeting mind. The harpy had so hated the oni for his betrayal of her. And yet as soon as she rejoined the very group she had sent out to avenge her, she had betrayed them. It was surely the height of hypocrisy, and, as Lor-Sinn voiced above the wizard - though he could no longer hear - she was at least as bad as her ex-lover. You suck, Ms Zaiobe.

There. Dying was a pretty confusing experience, but at least that was one wrong righted in the world. Or was it? Samton couldn't tell anymore. His head couldn't manage thought anymore. He really hoped he wasn't really dying. He didn't want to make Parooh and Gandethus back home sad. And with that it was lights out, and he slipped into oblivion.

Although that strange warmth right there at the end was quite nice. And fiddles were pretty cool, he guessed.

Ooh, still at -1 unfortunately. Not dying though, so that's good.

"Hælador? Is that you?"

It was a solemn night in the graveyard of Roderic's Cove, solemn as only a moonlit graveyard can be, though not without a severe beauty all its own. The elven woman navigating the headstones with practiced ease was the dutiful sort, after all; she tended the graves entrusted to her with all due fervor. And yet she wondered whether allowing the creature she came upon now to stay in the cemetery represented a dereliction of that duty. Audrahni wanted to believe him harmless. But as with all mad things, she couldn't be sure.

"Good evening, Hal." The crouched figure twitched at the greeting. "Oh, hello Audrey!" it responded with the happy innocence of a child. "How are you, my dear? Well, I hope?" Hælador Færvel rose up from his great arched stoop. And what a difference it made. Reed-thin and freakishly tall, the elven man gave one the impression of a mantis given mortal form. He would have stood even taller still if not for his abysmal, almost misshapen, posture, bending forward so that his back nearly reached higher than his head. Said head now looked to her with its usual mild smile. "Can I help you with anything?"

Audrahni looked to the man's - the priest's - feet. "What are you building this time, Hal?" Obscured by his ill-fitting vestments, she could see the elf's latest project now that he had risen from his crouch. The small stones, big as a fist, were quite pretty, all polished white and smooth as they were. They were especially attractive now, at night. They looked like they belonged under moonlight. Which was probably exactly the case; she had found Hælador's discarded stone-cutting tools elsewhere. "Oh, you know me. Don't rightly know," he replied offhandedly. "When do I ever? Just one of those things that struck me." Yes, the grave keeper knew that the impulsive elf, however well-meaning, was prone to follow whatever idea came to him. Which, given that he was quite mad and a supposed servant of the Harbinger of the End Times, was a bit concerning.

"Why a circle?" she queried. The white stones she had come across in the graveyard had been regularly spaced, but undeniably formed an enormous circle spanning the entire garden. "Circle?" Hal blew a strand of unkempt pale hair out of his mouth. "Oh yes, I suppose they do make a circle, huh? Maybe..." He looked up to the night sky above. "Maybe I meant for old Groetus to see them from high above. Maybe that's what I meant to do. My, what a silly idea. He doesn't give a toss, after all." He let out a light melodious laughter, like pearls falling down a stairwell. "And how fortunate we are that he doesn't. Wouldn't want the End to arrive too soon, would we? So much life left to live! So many things to see. But not to worry. The Harbinger doesn't know about us, our world, our corner of the universe, perhaps not even our reality! Doesn't care! We are wonderfully insignificant, Audrey! Insignificant and perfectly safe! Safe and..."

"Why are there names on them, Hal?" She held up a stone. A name was indeed carved on it. An elven name. The cleric appeared confused. "Why indeed? I don't know, my friend. I'm a teensy bit loony as you recall. I don't know why I do these things. Besides, I don't recognize that name." Audrahni held out another stone. "Hal, they all have names on them." The bone-white stone did indeed have another name on it, this one also elven. They all did. She'd checked. Holding it in her pale hand, the carved little rock almost looked like the moon above them. But then from another angle, they could also have been little skulls. "Are these your family members, Hal?"

Nothing in the black orbs that were the man's eyes showed that he had even heard the question. They remained bright, shiny and free of any pain. Blissful. But she didn't let up. Maybe she could reach him this time. Maybe she could finally help him. "Are they?" Hælador smiled. "Audrey, honestly now. I'm humbled that you would think of me like this, but of course not. Why would I carve my family's names anywhere? They're gone. All gone. And I remain, wonderfully free! It took me time, but their deaths in the goblin mines are well behind..."

"Those were the dwarves, Hal. That was today. Remember? Kiley, Henric, Renae, Stryn and you saved those dwarves from a tribe of goblins."

A tinge of doubt crossed the elf's smooth features. He pushed his thin hair out of his face. "Yes... yes, of course," he smiled. "My confusion, you must forgive me. The boggards, that's what I meant. The boggard warband, they are who took my family..."

The grave keeper shook her head gently. "No, Hal. No. That's what happened to my family. That's how my parents died. Do you recall? I told you that in confidence."

The smile faded. It hadn't done so often in the short month she had known the mad priest, light hearted and perpetually amused by life's smallest minutia as he was. But this was the first time the woman saw something beneath that veneer: a sorrow total and complete, like the silence after song, threatening to overwhelm him. "Do you know," he started, "I think I must leave Roderic's Cove." Audrahni protested. "No no, I must. I am first and foremost a priest after all. I want to help people. And the good citizens of this town, well... they haven't been overly receptive to my gospel of joyous oblivion, wonderful futility, and the ecstatic insignificance of our every action. Can't imagine why. Probably not explaining myself well enough. It's time I move on."

But what of Kiley and Henric? "Oh, they need me least of all!" The smile returned. "It is my mission to help people be happy, and Henric, he's clever. He'll find his way. As for Kiley, she... well, she knows her demons. Knowing is half the battle. She's strong. That'll do for the other half. She'll be fine. They'll be fine. Say goodbye to them for me?"

Hælador Færvel departed Roderic's Cove that same night. Audrahni did not attempt to stop him as she realized that mad as he was, his gospel held at least one truth: happiness mattered. And the only thing keeping the priest happy were his own delusions. She was not so cruel as to take them away from him.

"Oh! Good idea."

Huh. Apparently seeing the harpy hadn't been such a good idea after all. Samton was properly distraught at the sudden and unprovoked attack from what he had thought to be the group's one ally in this madhouse of a castle. Even as the flying form of the woman descended onto them, his astonished mind demanding to know why, an unpleasant sensation settled within the pit of his belly. It wasn't a feeling familiar to the young man, inexperienced in the ways of the world as he was. But he recognized the heavy lead eroding his stomach lining quickly enough: it was betrayal. And betrayal, as he learned, sucked.

"M-Ms Zaiobe, why?! Kikonu is dead, you're not in any danger from him, so why would you...?"

Fleet thoughts quick to provide an answer, however unpleasant, Sam had to wonder: had this all been a ploy? Had the harpy merely played them, lied to him, in an effort to remove the oni so that she might take his position as master of Brinewall? This was... despicable! And really, really disheartening. It wasn't nice seeing evil where you had expected decency.

Maybe no monsters could be trusted? And with that new shard of black cynicism embedding itself into his pink heart, Samton grabbed another vial of purging fire and flung it.

Alchemist's Fire, attack: 1d20 + 3 + 1 - 1 ⇒ (16) + 3 + 1 - 1 = 19
Fire damage: 1d6 + 1 ⇒ (3) + 1 = 4

Zaiobe takes another d6 of fire damage on her own turn.

Alchemist's Fire. Neat! The young man really should know better, but boyish excitement superseded sense in this instance as he studied one of the hefty flasks the group had just come across in walking. His masters would be very disappointed in him should he trip over an errant rock and blow himself up. Though possessing no real expertise in the field, Sam found all things alchemical fascinating, strange off-branch of the arcane as they were. He wondered if he could ever...

"LOUD OGRE NONSESNE!"

Nope, that would have to wait. The towering mass of muscle and pale flesh rather demanded their attention. And the ogre was pretty concerning too. Samton stopped in his tracks, nearly dropping the fire bomb, as the party wandered headfirst into what appeared to be some sort of jail cell housing an unusual pair. 'Our' lucky day? his spooked mind nevertheless managed to wonder at the apparent prisoner's words. Lady, you're the one in the cage.

But faced with a giant who apparently intended to put them all in said cage - sure to be an uncomfortable fit - he simply looked to the flask, gave a shrug, and chucked the darn thing.

Alchemist's Fire, touch: 1d20 + 3 + 1 - 4 ⇒ (18) + 3 + 1 - 4 = 18
Fire damage: 1d6 + 1 ⇒ (6) + 1 = 7

The fiery explosion that followed lit up the dungeon chamber in every shade of red and orange. Large as he was, the ogre made for a big pyre too. Had it been his imagination, or had Sam seen the projectile... carried slightly through the air before smashing onto the giant, as if buoyed by the strange woman's song? Weird. Pretty good song, though.

The ogre takes another d6 of fire damage on its turn.

Ruka, I think you just managed that one failed Fort save with the +2 from PfE.

Fort save: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (8) + 2 = 10
Fort save: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (5) + 2 = 7
Fort save: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (6) + 2 = 8
Fort save: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (20) + 2 = 22

Galloping goblins and roving rakshasas, what was that stench?! Nothing more than the dank oils excreted from the cave dwellers' hides coupled with decaying bits of molted skin Sam realized, though knowing so didn't make the smell any less unpleasant as he instinctively clutched his nose and gagged. Thank the stars that his bugbear shape had run out. Had he still possessed that much keener snout, the stink would probably have been knocked him cold!

Still, awful as the reek was, it was just something the group would have to deal with, himself included, so with this mindset Samton soldiered on, walking up to Lor-Sinn and touching a finger to the paladin's armored shoulder.

Moving further in and giving Lor-Sinn +2 Dex for the next round.

The cleric only noticed the newest entrant into the foray upon Renae bringing attention to it, throwing off the malignant spell from the snake-like creature. When he did swivel his unnaturally long and upsettingly thin neck towards it, however, his reaction was not what one might expect at seeing another deadly enemy.

"Oh no," he said in small, chocked voice, stifled by only barely restrained laugther. "Oh no. Look at it. It's a snake with the head of a goblin. Look at its head. Oh no, why does it have a goblin head, ah ha ha ha hah! Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait! How did...? How did this even...? Can you imagine - *SNORT* Oh gods, imagine the congress that led to this creature! AH HA HA HAH! Oh, bless your stupid lovesick goblin parent that approached a snake! Oh, the imagery! HA HA HA HA HARH!"

Tears of sheer amusement had to be wiped away from the enormous black orbs that were the elf's eyes as Hal was near hysterical at the sight of what he believed to be the goblin-snake hybrid. But while his thin form shook with laughter, his hands and feet remained strangely focused, staggering the cleric forward in heaving fits of giggles until he was face to face with the creature, only to then lash out lightning-quick with his dagger.

Attack, dagger: 1d20 + 4 + 1 ⇒ (19) + 4 + 1 = 24 Crit?
Crit confirm: 1d20 + 4 + 1 ⇒ (10) + 4 + 1 = 15 Eh. Probably not.
Damage: 1d4 + 1 ⇒ (1) + 1 = 2
Damage (if crit): 2d4 + 1 ⇒ (4, 3) + 1 = 8

"You are the funniest thing I've seen in my life, and I'm two hundred years old."

Hoping to deny the snake any more magic by going melee with it. Also, I feel I should remind everyone that they have +1 attack via Bless.

"Uh, sure thing, Mr Vhiski," said a doubtful Samton, trying and failing to conceal his unease at the task handed to him. Feed and secure the horses? It wasn't that he disliked animals or anything or the sort. Sam liked animals just fine. It was just that they didn't seem to hold any particular affection for him. Still, determined to help however possible, the young man tackled the work as best he could. Which was to say that he used magic. Transmuting himself to the size of a giant caused a bit of a stir in the caravan, but it did make quick work of lugging about bundles of horse feed, especially in conjunction with the ability to enhance his own strength further.

Handle Animal: 1d20 + 0 ⇒ (3) + 0 = 3
First making the high-level bard and wizard cartographer passengers and then assigning the latter to animal care. Why do you do these things, Sandru?

Animals having a keen nose for confidence, however, (and little love of 12 ft. strangers) the horses were predictably skittish and uncooperative with him.

"Whoa, boy, whoa. Calm down, boy. Girl. Whatever you are. I don't... Actually, hold on, this should help." Acknowledging his own ineptitude at soothing the beasts, the wizard opted for the more direct approach: in this case, blasting the very concept of fear clean out of their minds. Muttering the incantation to the fear dispelling magic his patron had inked into his spell book, Samton was left with horses so placid they would have accepted him as one of their own even if he had fur and six-inch canines. Thusly the next few days passed, with him earnestly taking on varieties of practical work utterly beyond his expertise and cheating his way through it via magic. It was a learning experience to be sure, with the lesson mainly being that there really was no tool like magic.

Expect on the third day. On the third day the young man feigned illness and stayed within a covered wagon the entire day. He recognized this part of the Lost Coast Road. He had seen it before.
This was where his parents had died.

Lake Ember and the profile of the Fogscar Mountains confirmed it. Even seeing them from afar, the mere presence of these landmarks picked at a decade old wound long since scabbed over, healed, and scarred; there was no doubt. Sam had been barely seven when he, along with his parents, had emigrated from Galduria to Magnimar, traveling the Lost Coast Road only to be ambushed by goblins. He couldn't remember much of the attack. This was probably a mercy, or so he told himself, anyway. He preferred those few memories he had of his parents alive unsullied by the incident. What he could remember, what he could never forget, was her: Shalelu Andosana. Goblin hunter extraordinaire doing what she did best, she had saved his life. She was the only reason he was alive today. The feelings he now harbored for the ranger had only fully blossomed in his puberty, of course, but the cartographer recognized that this was where it had all begun - that he had loved her ever since. But it wasn't revisiting the memories of her that saw the young man hiding within the wagon the entire day, eyes closed tight for fear of catching even a glimpse of the scenery. It was the unknown that scared him. If he were to revisit the place, what would he feel? Would he be overcome with emotion, would some hidden abscess of grief burst open to overwhelm him, to break him? Or would he feel nothing at all? Both answers scared him terribly. And so he took the coward's way out, pulling the covers over his head until the danger, and the caravan, passed.

----------

Knowledge (local): 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (10) + 8 = 18

By the time the caravan ground to a halt in Galduria, Samton had mysteriously recovered from his sudden illness. The town was familiar to him, of course, in the way most anything was familiar to him: through reading. His mentor Gandethus had expected him to attend the Twilight Academy, before the young man had inexplicably mastered magic on his own without the need of any training. Sam's own interest in Galduria owed more to curiosity surrounding his own origin, but this was not to say that the school didn't intrigue him. If only they were stopping for more than a measly two hours; visiting the academy would certainly have 'floated his boat' as Sandru put it. Oh well.

"I'm going to refesh my stock of magic components," he told anyone who cared to listen. "Miss Kaijitsu, do you need anything?" he asked the elder sister, knowing that she too might appreciate filling her spell pouch. Any settlement home to such a prestigious academy was sure to have a few respectable storefronts catering to the magically inclined. Maybe he would even find a spell store or library where he could add something to his own magical repertoire. Exciting!

Sam will buy however many scrolls he can find to add to his spellbook. Or just pay a willing caster to copy from their own book if possible, as this would be cheaper. Not sure how much I can manage in two hours, but let's start with the spell first in my alphabetized list of spells-I-want...

Scroll of Alarm availability, 1-75: 1d100 ⇒ 44

"Sorry," Sam mumbled sheepishly as Kajiwara had to save an annoyed Sandru from the former's nervous keynote, 'Why You Should Let Me Join Your Caravan, Pretty Please: a List of Qualifications'. The otherwise quiet young man was not in the habit of agitating anyone, least of all those he wanted something from, but joining the caravan was really very important to him. And for multiple reasons now.

He thought back to the previous night. It had been no drunken delusion; those didn't leave immaculate and original arcane formulas in their wake. Not to his knowledge, anyway. Samton's otherworldly patron had some tie to Minkai. Which was a coincidence of stupidly unfathomable dimensions given the recent swamp excursion and what it had uncovered of the local Kaijitsu clan's past. Which was also why he didn't think it a coincidence at all. It was too perfect. And like a proper practitioner of the arcane, Sam didn't believe that such things came about by chance. There was some intent here, some plot afoot. He just didn't have the faintest idea what. But also like a proper wizard, he had every intention of figuring out this mystery.

This was one reason. There were others, such as the vague worry he couldn't help but feel for the aforementioned Kaijitsus. If the ill defined threats their grandfather wrote of were half as serious as his letter hinted, then the sisters were in for trouble. Competent as Ruka and especially Ameiko were, the cartographer wanted to help if he could. And then there was the valuable experience gained on such a journey; that was as fair a reason as any to join the caravan. And the...

Samton ran a hand through his short hair. He sighed. He was doing it again. He was compartmentalizing, formulating rational reasons to justify what was base and emotional and laying them out in a neat little row for review. He was fooling himself. Truth was that the young man simply wasn't anywhere near as levelheaded as he wished, and he knew it. There was a less than rational sentiment for him wanting to join the caravan, and for once that sentiment did not start with 'S' and end with 'halelu, I want to breathe in the scent of your golden hair'.

There was a... restlessness in him. Sam could feel it in his bones. This was a new feeling for him, studious homebody that he was. Prior to the marsh expedition, he had barely left Sandpoint in his life. Not since the elven ranger had brought him to the village as an orphan, many years ago now, derailed from another life that was not to be. It was an irony, he supposed: a cartography student drawing maps of a world he had never seen for himself. But ever since returning from Brinestump, he was slowly acknowledging this unsettled feeling, a desire to go out and do... something. To achieve something. To become his own person. Whatever that meant. What had changed, he wondered?
He supposed that every orphan felt they were a burden on their surroundings, to some degree or another. Mr Gandethus was not his parent, after all. Mr Parooh was not beholden to him in any way. Both had opened their arms to take in a boy who couldn't by any right be said to be their responsibility, whether by blood, law or good morals. They had done so out of the kindness of their hearts. And Samton felt a deep, indescribably so, gratitude to them for this, to everyone in the village who had ever shown him kindness. But that was exactly it: most anyone born into a community inherently owned a place in it. Parents' love and the community's acceptance were things to be grateful for, to be sure, but hardly unexpected. To an orphan these things were a kindness. He was an imposition, a burden Sandpoint had kindly taken on. And for this young Sam would always feel grateful. But for that same reason, he would always feel indebted. He wondered whether this was a sentiment shared by earnest tiefling Lor-Sinn, even more so of an outsider than himself. But if one wondered why Sam had grown into the dutiful, deferential young man that he was, wonder no more.

Except, this feeling of obligation had, if not completely, then largely vanished over the last 24 hours. And it was due to the swamp expedition, he now realized. He had joined it out of a sense of obligation to Sandpoint, feeling it his duty to repay the village for everything it had done for him. And now, goblin menace eradicated and undead horde vanquished, the wizard felt like he... belonged for the first time. Alright, so he hadn't exactly saved the whole village and whatnot, but still; he had played some small part in the group effort. He had risked his. The scales had been balanced. The debt was paid. He had earned a place in Sandpoint. Curious then that lifting the sensation of obligation had uncovered wanderlust. Oh gods, that what this was, wasn't it? It was wanderlust.

Samton smiled. Parooh the gnome would be insufferable once he found out. Once Sam told him. Aw heck, how was he going to tell his master he wanted to leave town again? For a months long journey, at that? He'd just gotten back! Even knowing it was a mistake, the young man decided to put this uncomfortable task off. There were other things to do, lots of preparations to see to. But first among them should probably be going over the inventory from the swamp. Everyone in the group needed to know what their share looked like before buying supplies, after all. Yeah, and he needed to draw up that map for Sheriff Hemlock. With this in mind, young Sam ran off, happy to have something practical to see to. All this emotional rumination was giving him a headache.

Overly long post serves no purpose beyond saying that Sam spends the day taking 20 on Appraise, Craft (maps), etc, and helping sell all our loot.

It was late, some four pints past midnight. And Sam's trusty old desk chair was wobbling terribly. He had stayed at the Rusty Dragon Inn for a good long while, mostly looking for an opportunity to thank the others for... he didn't even know what. The experience? Saving his life? A good working relationship? Something or other. He couldn't be bothered trying to think at the moment. The ethanol soaked thoughts had a way of slipping out of his grasp right now. But with the welcoming party getting increasingly rowdy - even more so once Parooh the gnome and Gandethus the headmaster, the young man's guardians, caught wind of it and had joined proceedings by opening an aged bottle of brandy - Samton had opted out. He wasn't particularly good at holding his liquor by either habit or nature, so coming up with an excuse in telling Sheriff Hemlock that he was going back to the shop to draw up the map the group had promised him, the cartographer had left.

Left right for his writing desk. Studious that he was, Sam had decided that he might as well get the project started. It wouldn't take him particularly long to finish anyway, with its limited scale and having all the notes on hand. It wouldn't even have to be properly embellished. He'd just pull out his handy-dandy notebook here, and... No, that was his spellbook. Hm. He might be more drunk than he had suspected. Where was...?

*KLUNK*

"Aw no! Hecking *hip* heck, no no no..."

Curse that chair! Treacherously leaning forward, it had caused him to knock an ink vial all over a page of his spell book. An empty page, fortunately, but still; even alcohol impaired, the young man's sensible head took this as a sign that perhaps he should just go to bed.
Two seconds later he was stone-cold sober. For Samton was seeing something that turned his veins, alcohol and all, into ice water. Like perfect black pearls drawing lines in the sand, the ink was moving on the page, forming letters. It was something he had seen before, once: it was how the entity had first contacted him. Sam's otherworldly patron, the one that allowed him to cheat so many of the rules of magic, was still totally unknown to him. After months of beseeching spirits and outsiders for power, it had reached out to him in writing, teaching him things far beyond his otherwise limited grasp. The line between 'gifted' and 'prodigy' was a fine one, and in Sam's came the entity was that difference; it was what had allowed him to excel in magic so quickly. In return it had asked for... nothing at all. It had never demanded compensation. And this worried the wizard, even more so than demands for blood and fire. Was he being manipulated? Had he perhaps caught the attention of a fiend, or something even worse? He hadn't the foggiest, but thoughts that there would be a terrible prize to pay somewhere down the line were hard to avoid.

And yet, it wasn't really the otherworldly contact that set the young man rigid on this occasion. No, it was something he noticed about the entity's writing. The autonomous ink droplets were weaving their way through arcane theory, specifying a new spell, but they weren't doing so in Taldane, not initially. He hadn't been well-read enough to recognize it the first time the entity had contacted him, but its writing shifted from what he had initially thought to be meaningless scribbles into the Taldane alphabet. He now saw that this initial scrawl was far from meaningless; he had seen it before just hours earlier. It was Minkaian. His otherworldly patron was writing in Minkaian.

What the heck did that mean?

Just setting up context for how Sam gets his non-wizard spells, the nature of his patron, and providing more motivation for him to investigate this Kajitsu hullabaloo.

She touched him. She had also called him "Samstan" which he was fairly sure wasn't even a real name, but she touched him. Alright, so he'd seen Poppy handle her ingredients with more passion than the elf had put into the gesture, true. But the thing was that while his rational mind was perfectly capable of seeing this, his heart hadn't gotten the memo; that one was dancing away like a prospector who'd just found gold.

Sam took a deep breath. Nope, no, he'd made a decision and it was the right one; pursuing Shalelu now was as fruitless as it was ludicrous as it was unfair. That's right, the ranger was on such a completely different level, it wouldn't even be fair to pursue her. He wanted what was best for her, and right now, that wasn't him. He had nothing to offer her. Besides, she clearly saw him as little more than a child. Best to justwhat the heck was wrong with Ms Cotton? The wizard was knocked out of his own mindspin at the sight of the decidedly not-gnomish gnome. He stared at the now posh and humanesque chef from across the tavern. What had she done to herself? Why had she done it?

With the young man's head still in a amorous tack, it didn't take him long to realize. He followed the gnome's eyes to their target, roguishly handsome Sandru Vhiski. Oh. Oh!
...
Huh.

There was a parallel to be drawn here, wasn't there? A member of a fantastical race changing her nature to better garner the attention of someone more worldly. It would appear that theirs were curiously mirrored positions, Poppy's and his own. Which was why it distressed Samton when he felt a bit sad for the gnome. He liked the gnome. He thought she was brilliant. He didn't think it right that she should have to change herself to impress anyone. But if this was his take on the chef's efforts, as an outsider looking in, what did this mean for his own efforts towards Shalelu? Was his infatuation with the elf not just fruitless, ludicrous and unfair, but also wrong?

The cartographer's adolescent butt cheeks slumped into a chair. Food. Energy. He needed energy for his battery. He was too tired to think of all this stuff. It was all so over his head. How was it that learning to rearrange the fundamentals of the universe, to manipulate matter on a subatomic level via mere gesture and speech - in seconds, mind you - was so much simpler than base emotions? Sam ate a bowl of something good in silence, hair still ruffled where the elf had run her hand through it.

Of course, Sam is too innocent to consider that Poppy might just be looking for a one-night stand.

Rubbing at the red cheek where the venerable Varisian had pinched him, Samton couldn't help but smile. He liked Ms Mvashti. Hers was that very particular combination of age, kindliness and wisdom that made her immediately lovable as the ideal grandam. Indeed, there were few in Sandpoint who didn't view her as a surrogate, if not literal, nan, acting as the whole town's grandmother. Which was nice when you had grown up an orphan without an actual grandmother. This too went some way in explaining the young man's enduring fondness for the woman; while others might have had actual grannies to turn to, she was the only figure to occupy such a position in Sam's mind.

But alas, curse the folly of youth! For said fondness was rudely showed aside to make way for a wholly different kind of affection within the second, even as the cheek Koya had left so red darkened further: Shalelu Andosana was standing before the wizard. Blood vessels expanded, heart rate tripled, and veins felt like rivers in flood. Such was the elf's effect on him.

Oh, good gods... Never mind your research into human longevity, you poor fool. This woman will be the death of you. Just seeing her coming around a corner is liable to send you into cardiac arrest.

Such was his state that it took Sam another few seconds to register that the ranger wasn't just looking at him (sooo blue...), she was speaking to him. Fresh panic took its hold. Why now, after a two-day walkabout through a swamp?! How did he look? Did he smell alright? Why hadn't he remembered to shave?! Alright, so his beard growth wasn't the greatest, but still; elves preferred smooth chins. Didn't they? It was very rare for male elves to keep beards, after all... No, never mind all that! the flustered boy thought, trying to rein in the tangents of his panicked mind. Shalelu was waiting for him. He had to say something!

"Yeah."

The breathless monosyllable was as vapid as it was lame. And it was this more so than anything that helped Samton regain some hold of himself. What was he doing? Was he really hoping to impress Shalelu? The Shalelu Andosana? It didn't matter what he looked like. It didn't matter what he said. It wouldn't even matter if he had personally dispatched the entire Licktoad tribe himself. He was plain old Samton Verro, a dweeby, white-collar apprentice whose one claim to fame, his magic, he had cheated his way to. And she was... beautiful. And a hero. And dignified. And at least a hundred years older than him.

There was nothing he could say to impress her. There was no way the two would ever be an item. And this thought, depressing as it was, helped ever realistic Sam calm down. There was nothing here for him to mess up.

"I mean, uh, yeah," he smiled awkwardly. "H-had a few close calls to tell the truth. Giant constrictor snakes are no joke. I as an adventurer, however, am. Heh. Wouldn't even be here now if it wasn't for the others. You, um... you trained Ms Imass well. She was a rock out there."

Sam scratched at his brown hair. He didn't know what else to say. He never knew what to say beneath those sky-blue eyes. So he said what he expected the ranger to want to hear. "They're gone. The Licktoads, I mean. Fort in ruins and chief dead. So, uh, that's one less headache for you to worry about. I know you have enough on your plate around Sandpoint."

Huh. This was actually halfway-working. It wasn't much of a conversation, but it was more than the wizard had managed with her for a long time. Who knew that all it would take was giving up all hope? Rational thought won the day again.