Pierre is Out of Time

Pierre entered the turtle ship. It was fascinating how someone made a ship into the shape of an animal. What sort of culture did this? Is the turtle a sacred animal? Questions rebounded inside his brain as he entered the ship and found an empty cargo bay, some living quarters, and a room with a chair bolted to the floor...

In front of the chair was what appeared to be a game board. Pierre was familiar with Chess and Cripple Mister Onion, but he'd never seen anything like the yellow board covered in black and white stones before.

He could see out the two tiny portholes on either side of the room. It was getting dark, and through the twilight he noticed Lamont traipsing around the woods. He looked back down at the chair and suddenly felt overwhelmed. What was he doing here? What was the point of all of this? It was bad enough that they were on a wild goose chase across Mainland to what, kill a king? Is that what they were doing? He was confused. He needed to sit down for a bit and clear his head.

He sat in the chair and tried to relax, tried to clear his mind by staring at the stones, trying to discern a pattern in them. He'd heard of other cultures using such stones for divination - perhaps he could just relax, look at the stones, and see if some sort of pattern might emerge...

The Island of the Turtle

How do you know when the very fabric of reality itself is breaking down? How can you possibly begin to detect it?

Lamont circled the turtle ship with a vague sense of unease. How did this thing get here, and why is it being shown to us? He watched as Elizabeth and Pierre followed the strange lizardman priest up the mound of earth that cradled the front half of the ship. As they clambered up it with enthusiasm, Lamont kept his distance, and instead chose to explore the area around the ship. There were the torches, of course, set up at regular intervals in order to illuminate the ship at night. He wondered if Theophile lit them every night, and for how long he'd been doing it. He said he'd been at it for the last 40 years, but could the lizardman be trusted?

For that matter, why hasn't anyone made more of an issue of meeting a lizardman?

Lamont shook his head and pinched his nose with his fingers. This whole thing was giving him a headache. He continued circumnavigating the mound, stepping over fallen logs and ducking under moss-covered creepers that hung between trees like spiderwebs. This whole island gave him the heebie-jeebies, and he hoped they wouldn't be here long. There were rather large mosquitoes.

"Why did you bring us here?" Pierre was climbing onto the ship behind Elizabeth. Theophile was following behind.

"It has been foretold! The line of the priests and priestesses who came before me is long! Your coming has been the subject of much hope and speculation!"

"Hope for what?" said Elizabeth, standing awkwardly on the ship's listing deck.

"Hope to save the world," Theophile hissed conspiratorially.

Time is the Fire in Which We Burn

Chris pulled the pizza out of the oven and set it on the counter to cool. He checked the mushrooms to make sure none of them had migrated across the equator. He wasn't sure of everyone's feelings towards the fungi - and after last session, he didn't want any incidents. He wondered if it was wise to be serving mushrooms today - in fact, he wondered why he chose tonight to try the Price Chopper pizza for the first time - and why mushroom? In hindsight it was odd behavior, in the very least. Had he some foresight, however, he would've ditched the pizza entirely and ran screaming out of the room... 

Everyone was still in a somber mood when Brother Flaedgate arrived. He softly begged pardon for interrupting Themuseleh's friends, but he wanted to know if anyone had dined on the mushrooms earlier in the day.

"I did," declared Old Crow. His stomach reflexively rumbled. "Why do you ask?"

Brother Flaedgate bustled up to him and looked him up and down. "Have you had any symptoms? Feel funny?" He put the back of a hand to Old Crow's cheek, his forehead. "See anything unusual?" Brother Flaedgate's rheumy eyes stared straight into eyes. "Anyone unusual?"

Old Crow paled. "Yes. A man. A mushroom man." Brother Flaedgate's hand dropped back to his side. He explained that some of the mushrooms he had been growing of late had become rather mischievous and were moving around in their garden beds in order to cause trouble. Old Crow started to laugh at just how ridiculous this sounded, before realizing that Brother Flaedgate had pretty much already known he'd seen a mushroom man without being told about it. He decided he just better listen.

"Come with me. We need to find which one you took in order to find the antidote."
"Antidote? Have I been poisoned?" There was only the slightest hint of concern in Old Crow's voice.
"Not exactly," said the monk. "Let's just say you're susceptible..."

By the time Alex had arrived, Bernie and Julia were already there and in high spirits. Puffing on her vape pen, Julia was in higher spirits than most. Chris poured Alex a beer. 

"So I may have another date with this girl I've been chatting with," Alex announced with a previously unheard-of calm. A whoop went up in the kitchen. Glasses were raised; toasts were made.

"Another girl? So soon after the last one?" Chris turned to Kaity. "Looks like our boy is growing up!" Alex blushed imperceptibly before going on with his story. He'd been Facebook chatting a girl he'd known since grade school. Things were going well. Looks like he'd be going out with the second girl in as many months. Not bad for a kid who had dropped out of the last D&D game when the game his life had gotten too chaotic.

Brother Flaedgate led Old Crow and the others down to his hut, which sat by the water on the other side of the village. He pointed to a large man-made jetty that jutted out into the lake. It was covered with plants, shrubs and mushrooms. It was also a labyrinth. The path that wove between the flora, and Old Crow took a tentative step into it. He was sure the plants reacted to his presence. He could hear a low, shrill whine. "The mushroom you ingested has an energy. It's flowing through your veins, through your body. When you reach the right group of fungi, they will respond."

Old Crow wasn't entirely sure he like the sound of that, but he turned his eyes back to the winding path ahead of him and resumed his slow, deliberate walk. As he wound his way through the first quadrant of the labyrinth, he heard things, felt things, but nothing happened.

Brother Flaedgate urged him on to the next quadrant. Things continued to be eerie, but nothing dramatic happened. Old Crow was starting to feel a low thrumming vibration through his moccasins when he stepped into the third quadrant...

The thing about DMing a game like this is that it's not the DMs job to determine events: its his job to interpret them. The dice are the medium through which this happens. The dice react to the play, and the play, in turn, reacts to the dice. Chris contemplated this as he picked up three twenties and rolled them.

11. 
1. 
11. 

Somewhere in here out there, the multiverse trembled.

Suddenly, at the center of the labyrinth, strange yellow mushrooms started to bubble and grow as if in some sort of time-lapse film. Brother Flaedgate stepped back in awe. "I don't believe this sort of thing has ever happened before," he quipped. Old Crow froze as the mass grew up, up, up out of the center and started to form a giant, sallow mushroom. By the time it stopped, the 'shroom was almost ten feet tall. A fissure opened up in the face of it. Acid-green light poured out. As the fissure widened, Old Crow cold see inside it, into a space that looked remarkably like the mushroom cave back in the catacombs. He looked back at the stunned monk, then turned and headed inside.

"OK, everybody roll a 20..." This is how Chris started every game. It used to be, back in the olden days right after college, that he would have players roll a number of 20s ahead of time so the players wouldn't know exactly what number was applied to what action. It was an attempt to keep the play flowing in a more natural way. But gamers are gamers, and they all want to feel the weight of each roll, to use their force of will to influence the die, especially at a crucial moment.

But after the last universe broke down campaign, these preliminary rolls came to be more of a weathervane - a way to open up the oracle and determine which way the wind was blowing. Chris learned that it was helpful to know beforehand if things were going to get... dicey.

Julia: "Four!"
David: "Eleven!"
Alex: "Seventeen!"
Chris, to himself: "Shit." 

A half-hour later, every last jug of maple syrup had been recovered from the cave mouth of the catacombs. Lamont and Pierre slapped each other on the back, extremely please at this fortuitous turn of events. Old Crow turned to Themuseleh and said that now was a good time to talk about the next phase of their journey. Jack Tripper was still on the loose, Lady Eris was captures and perhaps dead, and the way to Augustinian had yet to be planned. Themuseleh motioned the party to follow him back to his hut.

Once there, Old Crow, Elizabeth, Pierre and Lamont now sat around a table. The old wizard was circling the table as the group pored over the map that was unfurled upon it. Blue lines painted on parchment told of the quickest route to Augustinian.

"Water?" Old Crow was skeptical it could be so easy.

"The routes from the capital to here are well-known and well-mapped. Trade and commerce have a way of taming the wilderness in record time." He took a puff off his pipe. "You can be there in a matter of days."

"But how?" chimed in Lamont. "It's upstream the whole way. Even with statistically unlikely tailwinds, that trip takes a week at least."

Themuseleh smiled, and gave him a look.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Lamont..." He motioned everyone to follow him out of the hut. He moved quickly for a man of his age, and was soon leading an impromptu parade down a path towards the lake. Elizabeth was the first to see a flat-bottomed boat with a rectangular sail lashed to a dock. A couple young men were moving things off of it. Themuseleh had a word with them, before inviting everyone on board.

"This is it?" said Lamont incredulously. "It doesn't look like it can make its way across the lake, let alone three days upstream..."

Themuseleh shook his head and chuckled softly. "Looks can be deceiving, my friend. And in this case, I assure you its every bit intentional." He led them to the cabin that sat at the back end of the boat. Inside it were a few crates, boxes, a small desk... and a chair.

"What you see here is the latest in watercraft navigation. I call it the Spellpeller. Someone with spellcasting abilities sits in the chair, and they become the ship, in a sense. They use their magical abilities to move the ship across the water. It allows the ship to move at an impressive rate and, with multiple spellcasters, you can move this ship at such speeds for days at a time." Elizabeth smiled. This was the sort of thing that could get you places. Pierre stared at the chair with an inexplicable sense of dread. Old Crow was silent. Lamont stepped forward immediately.

"I'll drive."

By the time Chris returned with a beer and sat down, the party had pretty much decided on a course of action. Lamont (because DTA wasn't there) would sit at the Spellpeller (just in case something went horribly wrong). The rest of the party would take on the guise of humble traders, moving ever so slightly faster than average upstream. They had a full complement of arms and armor (courtesy Holden's secret armory) and all three passwords for the Warp Marble (courtesy Themuseleh), and were looking forward to the journey.

"Alright, everyone roll a 20." Chris picked up three twenties himself. Here was the moment of truth. Things had been leading up to this point for months - cracks in reality had started to develop, whether any of the players had noticed it or not. Now it was time to test the cracks and see if they could be opened any wider. 
  
Julia: "Eighteen!"
David: "Sixteen!"
Alex: "Fourteen!"

The party congratulated themselves on what was surely a propitious omen. They had weapons, a ship, the Warp Marble and a purpose. What could possibly go wrong?

Chris rolled the three twenties.


 

All smiles disappeared. The game was up. Things were about to get weird.

Elizabeth was the first to spot the man in a long cowl standing on the shore of an island in the middle of the river. They had been traveling upstream for a couple hours without incident, and she was beginning to get bored. But the sight of a man beckoning to them perked her up a bit. She pointed him out to Old Crow. They decided to check him out.

"Welcome, travelers!" the man called out. "I have been waiting for you for quite some time!" As Lamont steered the boat to shore, they could see a long, gray-green snout sticking out from the cowl. It looked.... reptilian. Still, the creature's manner exuded calm. He greeted them one by one and seemed to be familiar with each one of them. He was carrying a carven staff, and he leaned on it with every step as he led them into the woods that covered the island.

"Yes, many years, MANY years!" Pierre had asked how long he'd been waiting for them. "I was trained by my mother, the last Watcher-on-the-Isle. She described you to me for the first time thirty years ago, on this very night." The party looked at each other with increasing skepticism. It would seem they'd found a loon.

He led them down a path towards some lights that were coming from a clearing up ahead. A ring of torches circled a giant mound of some sort. They could see a pile of earth, looming up over their heads, and in the middle of it...

A ship.

A turtle ship.

Half buried in the clearing.

"Oh my! What a cool ship! I wonder how it got here? Want to explore it? Guys? GUYS?"

Pierre, Old Crow and Lamont stood very still. They stared at the ship in existential awe. None of them had any idea why they were rooted to the spot, frozen for a moment, frozen out of time. But the moment soon passed, and the sound of Elizabeth's trailed off as she turned to them. She looked from one pair of eyes to another, concern clouding her face.

"Are you three alright? You all look as if you'd seen a ghost!"

The three of them turned to one another, and recognizing their own looks on the others' faces, looked back silently towards the ship.

"Perhaps we have," said Old Crow.

Somewhere in the Universe...

Balance is the ruling force of the Universe.

Until it isn't.

Then it is nothing more than a hope, a dream for those looking, wandering, seeking, searching for meaning in the darkest of times.

[Odin:] On a hot summer night, 

would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?

[Girl:] Will he offer me his mouth?

[Odin:] Yes.

[Girl:] Will he offer me his teeth?

[Odin:] Yes.

[Girl:] Will he offer me his jaws?

[Odin:] Yes.

[Girl:] Will he offer me his hunger?

[Odin:] Yes.

[Girl:] Again, will he offer me his hunger?

[Odin:] Yes!

[Girl:] And will he starve without me?

[Odin:] Yes!

[Girl:] And does he love me?

[Odin:] I would not go that far.

[Girl:] Oh.

[Odin:] On a hot summer night, 

would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?

[Girl:] Yes.

[Odin:] I bet you say that to all the gods!

On Holden Pond

Themuseleh pulled some chairs and a couple stools out of his blue hut and motioned to the party. "Sit! You must be tired. I'm having a fire built and some food brought round. Chicken, fish, or vegetables?" Lamont plopped down in the lowest, widest chair on offer, pulled his cap down over his eyes and almost immediately started to snore.

"I'll have the fish," smiled Elizabeth, as she eagerly watched the villagers bring tables, food and drink. She noted that while some were Chinan and some were, like her, British, most of the younger people looked... mixed. She wondered how long this sort of thing has been going on.

"I'll have the chicken," said Pierre. A cute redhead handed him a plate and a tankard of ale. She smiled not-so-demurely. He was made to think that he'd spent the entire summer chasing beaver through the lower reaches of Norgallia, and now just might have a chance at catching one.

"I'll have the mushrooms," said Old Crow. A Chinan woman handed him a plate, and he dug into them with gusto. They must have one heck of a garden, he noted as he nibbled on the fungi array. He had just swallowed one of the more tasty specimens of Cantharellus cibarius he'd ever had when something caught his eye. Tho kids were chasing a puppy down the wide dirt path that led to Themuseleh's hut. They were giggling and scampering after the mutt, and as it ducked between two huts, the kids squealed and followed. That's when Old Crow saw him.

At first he thought it was a man wearing a broad-brimmed hat, but after a second he saw that it was a Mushroom Man.

The Mushroom Man stood partly camouflaged against the weathered wood of the hut, and a pair of doleful eyes stared out from under his cap, and right at Old Crow. He stopped chewing reflexively, at first wondering if he was committing some sort of crime. He looked down at his plate, instinctively looking to see if any of the species matched the man. Spotting none, he looked back up to see the man was now standing in the middle of the path, a mere ten feet away. His eyes were yellowed and rheumy, and Old Crow suddenly heard a voice in his head, a voice damp and whispering, like a musty old log...

"I am the seven and the nine. I am the ace in the hole. Look for me tomorrow night."

Old Crow blinked, and the Mushroom Man was gone. He looked down at his plate, and setting it down on a wood stump, took a seat and tried to wash away the memory of him with a sip of ale. It didn't work.

Themuseleh made his way over to where he, Pierre and Lamont were sitting. He had a concerned look on his face. He crouched down and whispered to them in a low voice.

"I've just gotten word that three soldiers have entered town," he said, obviously worried. "They're from the local garrison in Elsinore and are asking questions." He gestured them all to get up and draw back between the two huts. "They're looking for their missing captain and are doing a hut-to-hut search."

"Is this in and of itself a bad thing?" asked Old Crow.

"Potentially," he replied. "We have a couple ventures going on in and around Holden. We're currently breeding horses by magical means. We've discovered a way to get a mare to foal twice in one year. We now have almost 4,000 head tucked away here and there across the valley." Old Crow raised an eyebrow. "We also have an armory hidden within the village. We're a local hub for the Maineland resistance. We can't let them find out what we have going on here."

"SO WE STRING THEM UP THEN?" Lamont being Lamont.

"If three soldiers disappear, thirty will turn up looking for them," Themuseleh scolded. He looked past Lamont's ear to see Elizabeth, who appeared to be having difficulty with her fish. Her hands were clutching at her throat. Her face was a peculiar shade of mauve. As she started to slump to the ground, Old Crow caught her and not-so-gently slapped her on the back. A piece of fish dislodged itself from her throat and she coughed and hacked herself back to life.

"The log," she mumbled wetly. "I jumped the log. Mostly."

Old Crow helped her back up to her chair, and as he did, he looked up. Three soldiers on horseback were making their way down the path, door by door.

"Where is the armory?" asked Pierre.

"Its in one of the middle huts. I'm having Foxtail take them the long way round, until we can come up with a plan."

"I have one." Elizabeth was standing up now, backing up between the two huts. She was chanting in a low whisper, and while everybody watched, her features blurred for a second, then morphed into those of a mostly naked man. Pierre was the first to recognize him. It was the captain from the sacrificial table on Spooky Mountain.

"YOU'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIIIIIIVE!" he screamed as he leapt forth to where the soldiers could see him. One of them froze mid-knock at the door of a hut. "Captain!" With glee he started towards the transformed Elizabeth, but she chose that moment to dart madly down the path that led towards the lake. "Wait! Captain! We're here for you!" The three soldiers immediately leapt upon their horses and followed the path as it headed towards the lake and out of town. Themuseleh looked after the soldiers in awe.

"I hope she's thought of what she's going to do next."

"I'll go see if I can find out." Pierre headed down the path after them. He had just disappeared around the bend when there was a scream.

Everything was as if in a dream. Old Crow looked around the cabin. There were signs of a struggle. A lantern tipped over. Books on the floor. A black cat cowering in the corner. Tarot cards lay everywhere around a small, overturned table. They were all face down - all except one. One card lay face up in the pale, lifeless hand of a woman - presumably the resident of this particular hut. Old Crow knew she wouldn't be making any more readings in here, however. From what he could tell, she'd been ripped open from hips to neck. Her heart had been removed. Old Crow kneeled down to look at the card. As he reached out and touched it, everything shimmered and he was suddenly somewhere else, far, far away. An old man wearing a golden circlet was leaning over a bed, struggling with something or someone. A foot kicked out and hit the old man's arm, and a cry rang out from his victim. The old man pounced back down onto the bed, choking out the cry. Old Crow tried to move, tried to cry out himself in order to help. He barely managed a croak, but it was enough to make the man turn and face him. A wrinkled, papery face plastered with rage stared right at him. His hands were around the throat of a young, blonde girl. Spittle escaped her bluing lips. 

And then he was back. Standing there amidst the chaos in the hut, people were chattering wildly, some people were crying. Old Crow heard Lamont swear under his breath, heard the word "Jack." He noticed something in his hand. He looked down and saw he'd somehow managed to stand up with the card from the poor woman's hand. He flipped it over, and when he saw the painstakingly hand-painted artwork on the face, he couldn't help but shudder at not only what was lost, but at what was still yet to come.

With Mars as its ruling planet, the Tower is a card about war, a war between the structures of lies and the lightning flash of truth. This is a card about anything we believe to be true, but later learn is false. This realization usually comes as a shock, hence, the violent image.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                

You Gotta Know When to Holden

The Thing swung its arm in a huge arc, swatting the two tiny figures off the rock and to their deaths. There was no emotion to the act, no regret. The Thing was not technically alive. Instead, you could say it was *made of life*, thousands of tiny, armored insects, bound together by the most ancient of magics. They moved as one, thought as one, killed as one. 

And Eris was controlling them all.

Her eyes were glazed over in a thousand yard stare as she directed The Thing this way then that, stomping, swatting, killing. It wasn't before long that the last of the Abenaki Boys lay broken and bleeding of the rocks of Spooky Hill. And when that moment arrived, Eris raised her bony hand out in front of her, made a fist, and then threw her hand, fingers out, at the Thing where it stood. 

It collapsed in a cascade of blood and chitin.

Old Crow crept quietly back to the stone room where Pierre was snoring and Elizabeth had just dosed herself with a sleep spell. He made sure they were both quiet, then hunkered down in the doorway to close his eyes and think. The thing that Eris had conjured didn't surprise him much - he'd seen some things - but it worried him something fierce. How did she do that? he found himself asking. He remembered her reaching into the earth to pull up the strange tree roots... And what was it that Jack had said about this hilltop being hidden?

Bone charm.

That's what he'd said. A magical ward keeping this hilltop hidden from prying eyes... And Eris had undone it in a snap with her... bony... hand. Old Crow jumped up with a start, checked on his two sleeping patients, then headed out into the pre-dawn gloom. He had a couple questions. He was hoping Eris had some answers.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lamont sat on top of a blood-soaked rock, Jacques curled up in his lap. He held the warp marble in his hand and concentrated on it, trying to get an inkling of what the password was.

"Arquebus!" Nothing.
"Aquamarine!" Silence.
"Antiquarian!" The marble remained inert. Lamont went on like this for some time, much to Jacques' annoyance. It had been a busy night, what with the maiming and killing and helping Lamont decorate the hilltop with the heads and bodies of his enemies. Jacques had more than done his part and now, as the rosy fingers of dawn crept through the trees, he really just wanted to sleep.

"Aubergine!" Lamont took this last failure as a personal affront, and gave up. He looked up for what felt like the first time in hours. He too noticed the shy lightening, and slowly moving Jacque to his bedroll, stood up and stretched.

He made his way off the rock and onto the ground, and immediately began scanning the ground all around the hilltop. He moved through the patches of burnt forest, plunged into the woods for a few minutes, and emerged halfway around the hill. He was getting more and more animated in his movements, until he distractedly ran headlong into Old Crow.

"Ah, good morning, Crow. Sleep well?"
"Not at all. I've been talking to Eris and-"
"Do you remember that Jack guy? The one who escaped?"
"Well, uh, yes. Yes I do..."
"Well, have you seen any trace of him? I'm buggered if I can find so much as a bent blade of grass."
"Really? That's strange, but as I was saying, I was just-"
"I mean, I've been tracking my way around these parts for nearly thirty years, and I've never met a man I couldn't track."

Old Crow looked Lamont in the eye. Yes, he had the look of someone who had spent the best years of their life outdoors and in the company of sheep.

"Interesting," said Old Crow. "Let me help you look around. Maybe together we can find som-"

(SCREAMS)

Elizabeth sat straight up, covered in sweat. Her throat was raw from that scream, but quite frankly she was just glad it was intact. She'd just had her still-beating heart ripped from her body by Jack, and was still recovering from the jumbled mass of sensations and emotions. She remembered the sensation of the knife piercing her skin. She could feel the pop. pop, pop of the blade slicing through her ribs. And she could still feel the cold, rough fingers encircling her heart. 

What came next would never, ever be forgotten.

Old Crow and Lamont burst into the room, the looks on their faces revealing that they'd feared the worst. Pierre rolled over, opened his eyes slowly and said "Bonjour, Elizabeth." Elizabeth barely restrained the urge to kick his teeth in. She took a deep breath. She was now fully awake.

"What happened?" Old Crow asked empathetically.
"I dreamt that Jack ripped me open with a knife," replied Elizabeth breathlessly.
"Well, at least he seems to have escaped without a trace!" Lamont added not helpfully.

All heads turned to Lamont. "Yeah, it's kind of weird. No idea which way he went. But I have an idea..."

Everyone but Eris followed Lamont out of the room and into a clearing. Eris was already there, staring halfheartedly at the ground. Elizabeth went up to her. "Sweetie, you ok?" Eris looked down at her skeletal hand. "Naw, girl. I'm pretty fuckin' far from ok." She made a fist and orange light showed through her fingers. Elizabeth took one step back, and gulped.

"So I'm going to cast a spell. It should help me find one of the last thoughts Jack had on this hilltop. Maybe from there we can find out where he's gone to." Lamont stood back and closed his eyes. He muttered some words underneath his breath and started to rub his palms together. He stood silently, eyes closed for a minute.

Suddenly, his eyes shot open. "LOOK!" He pointed off to his left, and the party turned to see a little black roiling cloud of blackness, about the size of a fist, bobbing in the still air where the path entered the woods. Lamont hastened towards it, and as it did, it accelerated down the path and into the shadow of the trees. With a whoop, Lamont took off at a full run, and disappeared into the woods.

Old Crow looked at the others. "I guess we better follow him. No telling what he could get himself into." They all nodded in agreement and took off after him.

They had just entered the woods when Pierre noticed movement on the path. He drew his bow and aimed it at a large, dark mass that was undulating in the middle of the path.

"It... looks like a giant spider," Pierre whispered. The thing was about four feet wide, covered in black hair, and had at least four awkward legs jutting off at weird angles. The thing gibbered. The thing hooted. Jacques shimmied up a tree and out onto a branch above the malevolent horror. Pierre tensed as Jacque jumped on top of it. It screamed. It screamed "JACQUES GODS DAMN IT GET OFF!!!!"

Puzzled (and a little disappointed), Jacques hopped of and turned in awe to see Lamont's head sticking out of the damp, furry mass. Everyone gasped and backed up a step. Lamont struggled a bit inside the thing, but with a wet rip managed to loosen what was recognized as the dead llama skin and extract himself. He was covered in gore.

"What. The. Hell?" asked Pierre.

"Well, I found one of Jack's last thoughts. And it wasn't a good one. He's very angry and very bent on getting back at us."

"What makes you say that?" asked Elizabeth.

"I'll kill them! I'll kill them all! I SHALL HAVE MY REVENGE!" Everyone started at Lamont's very convincing impersonation of a maniacal killer. Mouths dropped open and people stood aghast.

"We better get going. If he's heading to the town of Holden, the less head start he has the better."

So the party packed up their things and headed down the other side of the mountain to the town of Holden. It was a quaint, hutty place of about five hundred people. Maplefellers and Chinans were equally represented. And eventually the party found Themuseleh, the town's kindly wizard. He invited them into his blue hut and sat them down for refreshment and council.

The Battle of Spooky Mountain

Eris found it hard to concentrate on the toad, what with it being fake and all. And the rustling,
rustling,,,

Rustling.

They were on the march.

Thousands of them, all marching as one, thinking as one, creeping and crawling across the ground as one...

Eating as one. 



They were hungry.



Something had changed in her since she plunged her hand, her bony hand, into the soil of Spooky Mountain. She had reached into it and found...

Bones.

Things were different now... distant now... fading away into the night like the screams.


Elizabeth screamed as the arrow pierced her chest. She'd relied on her decolletage for most of her adult life, and it had served her well. It just wasn't arrow-proof. She fell backwards onto the ground in between the massive stones of Spooky Mountain. Silhouetted against the sky she saw the outlines of two Abenaki Boys. They whooped in triumph. But even as Old Crow showed up to drag her to safety, Elizabeth had a flash of insight: those two bastards would soon be dead.

Curious, she thought as Old Crow propped her up against a wall. It's like I can see the sand running out of their lives. Screams and cursing rang out in the night air. The battle was on.

Lamont was a man of strange quirks. Sure, he could make perfect rice every time - but did you also know he also slept with a fake gold doubloon in his right boot? That he silently prayed to the earthworm god? That he didn't believe in the moon?

But by far, Lamont Cranston's biggest quirk was the ability to pull himself together in battle. The road from Port Harbor to the Nine Hundred Islands was littered with the bodies of both men and sheep who had taken his soft, addled demeanor for something other than hardened battle-rage. And now that the Abenaki Boys had offered a statement of intent, he became focused like an axe blade slicing through the air on its way to a mad king's neck.

Lamont heard the screams and flipped into Beast Mode. Looking up at two of them, he used his whip to topple one with an axe on the other. Scrambling to the top of the rock, he and Jacques then used their position to advantage, and rained death and a grade 2 meniscus tear down upon two others. Stab, stab. Slice, slice. He whistled to Jacques who was busy degristling one of the Boy's throats when he heard the buzzing. The dark night got a bit darker. The air grew still.

Pierre would not look back on Spooky Mountain as one of his finer moments. He'd accidentally killed a llama named Zubeneschamali. He'd been freaked out by what turned out to be a fake giant toad. And now he had about a dozen angry Chinans surrounding his position on a strange, dark hilltop. If he made it out of this alive, 
he swore, he was going to overhaul this group's tactical planning. 

Pierre looked up just in time to see the arrow fly. He had been circling around between two of the hill's larger rock formations when he came upon two of the Abenaki boys, expertly placed on the top of a rock wall. One had taken aim and fired, and only by the dint of him being really jumpy to begin with did Pierre manage to duck before being killed.

Close shaves always irritated Pierre.

Without a thought - be it selfless or mindless - Pierre charged down the space between the rocks at the two assailants. Before the second one could fire, he unloaded a full complement of throwing knives at them. In his mind's eye, he saw all four knives hitting home, maiming, dislodging and perhaps even killing the Boys in a hail of tempered steel and spite.

Come to find out, his mind's eye had a severe astigmatism.

Gnawbones was relatively new to the Abenaki Boys. Being the fifth son of his father meant his place in his native tribe was one of marginal humiliation. I life spent scraping hides and tending the elderly didn't suit him - he wanted the thrill of battle and the excitement of being part of something. The Boys, when they came through his region, offered just that. Rape, pillage, and more rape - all in the service of chasing the white man off of the lands of his ancestors. The fact that the Boys were led by an Englishman didn't phase him. Jack T. Ripper hated the English as much as he did, or so he said. Gnawbones was just happy to experience the thrill of battle for a valid cause. 

They were in such a battle now. The Boys had captured the captain of the local garrison, and something had gone wrong with his interrogation. Interlopers had shown up, and now they were being dealt with. The boys had them outnumbered and outpositioned, and Gnawbones was assigned to support Hawkclaw and Ravages Goats in the assault. 

He looked up to where they were now, standing atop a jut of rock, firing arrows down at the enemy. He had two bows and about thirty arrows at the ready, and was poised to run them up the slope of rock the second they needed him. He heard screams ring out from the other side of the rock, and smiled knowing the arrows were finding their mark.

Suddenly, a CLANG! rang out as a metal object fell from the sky onto the rock slope right in front of him. As it BLINGed and KRANGed its way down towards him, another, and then a third object came out of nowhere to clatter and twang their way towards him. 

Less concerned about what they were and more concerned about wether there were more of them, Gnawbones looked up into the night sky and there, tumbling towards him against the glittering firmament was a fourth object. It glittered and gleamed with occasional reflected light. As it got closer, he found himself transfixed by its weird beauty. Silvery, seductive, the thing whirred as it neared, heading straight for his face.

"Oh, it's a KNIF-"