LL at Paul's: You can't keep a good man down...

Papaloosa!

Here we are once more, as I spin out the skein of another Labyrinth Lord game as hosted by my buddy Paul.

When last we left our heroes, they were holed up in the city of Bridgefair, recovering after having busted another evil cult dwelling in the basements of that fair principality.

Thus when morning came we set about various orders of business that had been put off by the prior night's hate filled cloud of brawling. Poor Hearth was still down with a broken nose, so the Deacon set about fixing him up first. It worked, but now there's a barely audible whistling noise when the poor fella breathes. Chalk it up to elves and their hollow bones...

Next task was retrieving Tinhelm from the cellar we'd left him tied up in for the night. We eventually decided not to turn him over to the Haberdashers to get made into a hat, instead letting him off with a stern warning of severe beatings that would ensue if we ever saw him and his shiny helmet ever again.

That turned out not to be a problem, as we sidled up to the abandoned gnomish jewelers and sent Half Klint inside to check in on him while we feigned talking about business. (There were a lot of pedestrians about, and we didn't want to arouse suspicion by breaking into an abandoned jewel shop.) Well, it was good that nobody was paying too close attention, 'cos the little guy failed his move silently rolls spectacularly and knocked over an entire cabinet of china accompanied by loud curses.

I suppose I've gotten off the point, which was that Tinhelm was nowhere to be found, just a little bit of frayed rope marked where he'd lay. We tossed a coin and it came up "Not our problem anymore." (I'm sure that's the way it will be too. No future problems at all... Nope...) So we went off to run more errands.

Our third stop took us to Adric the sage, in his ramshackle "Hoarders" episode of an office, where we found him talking to a young mage of very professional aspect who expressed an interest in joining our group after hearing something of our exploits from the aged sage.

This was fine with us. It didn't hurt to have another mage in the group, and our recent acquisition Marklov had somehow failed to show up back at the inn after a night of carousing.

Once again, I'm sure he's fine, and will show up eventually someday...

(I'm afraid our new magic man's name escapes me right now, as is often the case with new player characters. The real haps was that Marklov's player had decided that a mage was more apropos for him vis a vis the group's play style, and so he decided to shelve the burly thief for a magic user.)

We did a fair bit of business with Adric. We contracted him to identify the magic chainmail and mace that we'd recovered from the underground cult leader. We also hired him on as a go between to sell the ancient ilmorian armor that Frog, Marklov, and Half Klint liberated from the crypts where the cult was having their little soiree. He'd assured us that a collector would be willing to fork over about 100 gp per suit (which in Paul's houseruled money adds up to 10 times that amount.) So we were all for it.

Once that was done we had our appointment with the clerics of Palinthor, whom we'd promised to lead to the cult's lair for them to check it out. There was some dissention among the group about whether we should do this now or later after we'd had a chance to loot the place, but it all turned out okay 'cos when the elderly priest found out the place hadn't been 100% cleared of nastiness he demurred going down. I guess I, for one, had imagined a squad of paladins would follow us down, but in truth those guys had left the city to face this whole invading army business so it was just the old priest and a couple acolytes who'd be with us.

So we bid them good day and set out for the old abandoned house where Half Klint had discovered the entrance.

We went down and started mapping out the underground complex, noting rooms and connecting halls. There were a lot of crypts. Some of the skeletal denizens of the alcoves got up to complain about all the noise we were making, but now that the Deacon is 5th. level skeletons ain't no big thing, as I get an automatic T when turning 1 HD undead. So I sent 'em back to bed with a few strums of my silver stringed mandolin.

There was one pretty funny battle where we ran the skeletons off and Kashim still insisted on charging 'em, so the rest of us held back and watched in bemusement as he kept glancing over his shoulder, wondering if we were planning on helping him in his epic battle. You wanna roll them bones, big man? You just go right ahead. He smashed 'em without too much trouble.

The situation underground got VERY interesting when we came upon a footbridge crossing an underground river fork, which in turn led to a small, ruined town in a large subterranean chamber. Wowsers!

Well, we crossed the bridge, sending Kashim and his Ring of Water Walking across first in case of deadfalls, and proceeded to explore what seemed to be ancient Ilmorian ruins. We came upon a small square with a well, flanked by four buildings at the nearest corner in the triangle formed by the underground streams. The buildings weren't much trouble for us to get into. (I think Half Klint had another of his Halfling Hulk Out's on one of the doors, pulling it off the hinges with a 6 on his open doors roll.)

The interiors weren't much to write home about, mostly ancient bits of furniture that crumbled to the touch. One building held a pair of were-rats, who we quickly overbore and slew without too much worry of catching any lycanthropy off of 'em. (Our front line is pretty sturdy, with Kashim at a 2 AC and Frog at a 1, with the Deacon weighing in at a pretty solid 3.) I don't totally recall the play by play on that fight, but we didn't have too much trouble taking 'em down with all the magical weapons we were slinging. I think I kerploded one's noggin' with my Mojo stick. Good times.

Well, things went very pear shaped in the southernmost building. Pear shaped and black. With eight legs and a red hourglass shape on the belly. And big as a shetland pony.

Yeah, we ran into a bunch of giant black widow spiders in this structure, which was otherwise empty except for a thick haze of webbing. Kashim and Frog charged 'em, and against my better judgement, the Deacon did as well. All through the fight I had a feeling I'd gotten in over my head, and it came true when one of the bastards bit me.

So I had to roll a save vs. Poison, and I had a plus two from the Ring of Protection I was wearing. But it wasn't enough. I rolled a 4. In a few short moments of convulsions and agony, Deacon Django Silver was dead.

Ah well. Bound to happen sometime. I was the last holdout from the initial party, and hadn't suffered a death yet, so I guess my number was up. And it was a 4.

Well, I gotta say I was tremendously heartened by what happened next. The rest of the group went into GO mode and beat a hasty withdrawal. They knocked one of the spiders out with a Sleep spell, and managed to kill one of them too, and then absconded post haste with the Deacon's rapidly cooling corpse.

They headed back to the Temple of Palinthor at a run, and plunked me down on the head priest's doorstep looking for a Raise Dead. Mercifully, the old guy could do the ritual, but they were gonna need a large, valuable gemstone to start with. Also mercifully, we happened to have just such a ruby, that we didn't use when we tried and failed to raise our veteran thief Klint.

Although there was a bit of uncertainty as to WHO had the ruby. I envision a furious patting down of pockets and belt pouches at that point. Thankfully, Paul showed some mercy and let us find it, although we'd lost other valuable things before due to poor record keeping. We resolved to keep better track of our stuff from here on out.

Well, with ruby in hand there was still the matter of paying for an additional Neutralize Poison spell, or else the Deacon would expire from the very poison that killed him seconds after being revived. That also was ponied up, and the old priest set to work.

Hallelujah! The ruby flared like a small sun and vanished, and the Deacon twitched awake. He was feeble and delirious, and wouldn't be functional for a couple weeks to come, but by cracky he was back!

And that's where we left off.

Whew. A real bang up session. I kind of felt like I'd finally gone thru a rite of passage that other players were by now old hands at... the grisly death of a PC. Extremely luckily for both me and The Deacon I had my first experience with the reaper within' the confines of a major city with good Raise Dead facilities and we had the requisite pricey gem at hand to pay for it, so I was dead and back from the beyond within' that all important "golden hour" that medical experts talk about.

As I said, I was also touched by how the team dropped everything and rushed to get my character back. As Frog said "He's our voice of reason. We need him!" So yeah, thanks guys. You're the best bunch of larcenous miscreants I guy could hang out with.

So now, the Deacon rests up, and whatever mischief they get up to in the meantime doesn't need to be mentioned.

Thanks again to Paul for running a gripping session, and to the 10d gamers for picking me up when I was finally down. You guys rock!

LL at Paul's: Madness in the Streets

Heyah!

So I finally made it to a session when we had a brief interstice of not snowing.

We catch up to our heroes debating the merits of turning Tinhelm over to the New Haberdashers as revenge. As a lawful character, the Deacon kind of has a problem with this. Sure it was lame that he stole our horses, but I'm not sure I'm comfortable turning a guy over to a bunch of thugs so they can get medieval on him.

The debate got sidelined as a tumult erupted outside the Pikeman tavern where we'd gathered. We looked out side through an unusually dense fog and saw a bunch of guys going at it hammer and tongs in a knock down, drag out fight.

Ketil, our paladin, used his Detect Evil ability, and noted sort a general malaise of evil floating in the fog itself. So we knew something was amiss.

The Deacon cast Protection From Evil on himself and headed over, along with Ketil to try to break the brawl up. One guy had pulled a knife and was shanking one of the other dudes, so we figured we should intervene.

Hearth, our elven wizard, stepped out of the front door and cast Sleep on the crowd. Thankfully, the Deacon was too high level to get caught by it, and Ketil made his save, so all the other brawlers got sent off to dreamland.

Ketil started dragging one of the combatants back toward the inn, while the Deacon decided to head up the street and investigate the fog cloud.

Unfortunately for both of us, the fog apparently contained concentrated essence of crazy, 'cos we both failed our saves and flipped out. Ketil drew his mace and crushed the guy he was trying to rescue's head, while the Deacon started swinging his mojo stick over his head looking for someone to brain with it.

The rest of the party realized the crap that was going down, and drew up plans to retrieve us. Frog tied a rope around his waist and headed into the fog, holding his breath after a deep gulp of air. Marklov rushed inside and grabbed the bellows from the fireplace, filling it with an emergency air supply then rushing out to join our veteran merc. Kashim took a mighty breath, also tied a rope around his waist, and charged after the Deacon into the fog choked street.

Thankfully, Frog managed to disarm Ketil, but still had to face his furious pounding fists as he tried to drag him back to the inn. Kashim took several regrettable blows to the face and head from the Deacon's feather and skull festooned staff (the mummified squirrel lashed to the top probably hurt the worst) but thankfully the cleric was too loopy to remember to fire off the "breeshk" BOOM attack. The desert warrior grappled the wild eyed Deacon and started dragging him back.

Marklov, Frog, and a struggling Hearth managed to pull Ketil back to the inn and into the common room, where the poor elf took a heavy blow to the face that knocked his delicate nose out of joint and laid him out flatter than a mackerel. Tables were smashed, spittoons were emptied in peoples faces, and wrestling moves were attempted, until finally everybody came to their senses.

Meanwhile, Kashim was valiantly trying to drag a wildly stick flailing Deacon back to the inn, when finally his lungs gave out on him and he took a breath of the fog, succumbing to the rage and starting to punch back. So instead of pulling him in, he became kind of like a savagely brawling fishing lure for the Deacon, who chased him and continued whaling on him. When they were within reach of the inn, they got dragged inside, and finally pacified after a few more busted chairs and facefuls of gravel being tossed.

While all this was going on, Half Klint decided to climb to the roof and scope things out. He spotted the fog's epicenter a few blocks away, and in a completely ballsy move that earns him the President of Awesome award for the evening, he followed the evil mist, leaping from rooftop to rooftop until he came to a dilapidated house where the fog was thickest. Taking a breath, he climbed down into one of the upper windows and proceeded to explore the house.

Inside, it was empty, with rickety floors that gave way even under a halfling's weight. He followed the fog down to the basement, where it was streaming up through a grate in the floor. He took a brief pause where he climbed to the roof to get some more air, then went down and in a feat of halfling might ripped the grate up with his bare hands (and an awesome Open Doors roll).

He tied off a rope and climbed down to where he found a bubbling cauldron producing the evil fog of hate. He kicked out the fire, and set to work trying to upend the thing, but it proved too heavy for him (and natural 6's on his Strength check weren't forthcoming). After straining with it for a while, a couple of hooded, robed figures with their faces heavily wrapped came in to investigate, and nearly caught him as he scampered up the rope and got out of there.

The brave halfling made his way back to the inn where the rest of the group was convalescing with his news, and so we decided we should go and deal with these cultist bastards. We cut down some curtains and wetted them, making impromptu gas masks for ourselves, and set off to check out this wrecked house.

We climbed in thru the first floor window Half Klint had opened for us, and made our way down to the basement, then climbed on down into the room with the cauldron. This we poured out on the floor, careful not to get any on us, and proceeded to explore thru a couple of doors we found down there.

Our way eventually led to a room hung with spare robes, which we took to disguise ourselves. (Even Half Klint, with full expectation of a few "Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?" jokes to try to evade.)

As we were doing this, Ketil found a crack in the floor which looked down into some kind of sepulchre, where a bunch of cultists were busy doing the usual culty stuff.

A brief debate ensued as to whether we should go in guns blazing or GTFO. On one hand, we were out of spells and all pretty battered from our little internecine brawl, on the other, if we left then surely the next day when we showed up with the town guard the place would be an innocent ice cream parlor or something. We decided to split the difference and just scope the place out.

Appropriately berobed, we pressed on, 'til we came to a room with a couple of cult goons standing guard. I'm not sure I remember what set us off, whether they asked for a password or something, but we jumped 'em.

They managed to get a "Help, intruders!" call out before they both went down, but thankfully we were able to bluster our way thru, dressed as we were, when a couple more cult goons poked their head thru the door. Thru some divine providence they bought it and went back downstairs.

So we wedged the two goons' bodies under a spiral staircase leading to a different empty house on the surface, and went downstairs.

When we came trooping down the steps, the two cult goons at the bottom looked at us askance, but seemed accepting enough, until Keitil the paladin opened his big yap and started asking "So remind me again, who do we worship here?" (This was on a par with my paladin Calvert's famous "Meow! Meow, I say!" incident back in the old Thursday night campaign, for those of you out there reading who recall.)

Well, that's when all heck broke loose, and the rest of the cult, which totaled four guards, three acolyte/low level clerics, and one high level cleric came at us and we started fightin'.

The cult boss lead with Animate Dead, and called down a bunch of skeletons from the various biers that lined the walls of this chamber. Meanwhile, we were laying into the door guards pretty well, and had 'em down pretty fast. Frog's player seemed to have pretty hot dice tonight, and was rolling a lot of natural 20's.

Then the cult leader uncorked with Hold Person, which caught Frog and Kashim, freezing them in place. Bad deal. So the Deacon used the last precious Cure Light Wounds spells on his backup scroll to bring 'em back to the land of the moving. One of the lesser priests cast Fear, sending Half Klint scampering away for his life. This was fine, though. He'd already proven himself the King of Nuts & Balls for going alone to the site of the evil fog earlier, so we figured we'd just collect him later if we lived.

Once the crew was back and limber, the Deacon used his 5th. level mojo and turned the cult leader's skeletons with ease. I got gumption, skellies ain't nothin'. Of course, that made the bastard whip up an Enchant Weapon spell on his warhammer and charge us.

He managed to kill poor Ketil with a blow to the head that caved in his face. This enraged Frog, who speared him thru his evil heart. All thru the fight, he was taunting the Deacon about hiding behind warriors. Way I see it, that's their job, and you can ruminate on your bullcrap while they're shoving your face into the belt sander in whatever hell you've been sent to, mister culty, I'm still here with my silver stringed mandolin livin' the good life.

So when the dust had settled we were down a paladin, and up one more cult on our trophy wall. Some of us carried Ketil off to the local temple of Palinthor, while the rest of the group stuck around and looted the sarcophagi in the center of the room, which apparently held a lot of phat lootz.

And that was where we left off.

This was a fun session. The interplayer brawl was hilarious, although painful. Kinda dangerous too, 'cos old school B/X style play doesn't leave a lot of room for striking to stun rather than injure. I was whaling on Kashim a lot, but figured I could patch him up.

The loss of Ketil was bittersweet, but an appropriate end because his player is going to be leaving us to move to the West Coast, and so it was a pleasure for Paul to kill his character one more time. Paul gave him a hand bound copy of my game reports from this very blog, which is pretty cool (and very flattering to me as well, if I may indulge my overinflated ego a bit. Hey, it's my damn blog!)

Once again I gotta tip my hat to Half Klint's player for bravery above and beyond the call of duty for checking out the source of the fog all by his l'il lonesome. That was a very ballsy move, and I was on the edge of my seat watching it play out. (While we were all playing Fight Club back at the inn.) So I give you the first ever Saturday Night Sandbox Damn Manly Slacks Award for bravery.

Thanks again to Paul, for running this show, and to the 10d gamers for making it fun as usual.

Happy trails and good luck to Ketil/Jantz/Yøgund's player. See you at GenCon, buddy!

LL at Paul's: More special guest stars.

Howdy.

This week's game report is gonna be a little the same. As in once again I couldn't make it, and I'm posting my fellow players' accounts of the action.

I tried. Lord knows, I tried to get there, but we've just had a hellacious bout of weather (of a piece with everybody's hellacious weather here in the U.S. of A.)

I was in a hurry to leave for the game, and I dropped my garage door opener down between the porch and a four foot snow drift. Thankfully I fished it out, but it wasn't working, so I had to operate the garage manually. Then I got on the road and everywhere I wanted to go there was a crawling line of traffic. I spent an hour in my car and never made it out my town. And to top it off my "Check Tire Pressure" light came on.

So I cut my losses and went home and spent the night in.

But this is a gaming blog, and cathartic as it is to rant about you don't wanna read about my transit problems. So here's the report on this week's session, as written by Frog's player.

The party met up before the supper hour, and after Froggie briefed
everyone on the leads on Tinhelm's location that he had scared up, it
was decided that Ketil, Marklove and Klint would enter the Golden
Goose under the guise of regular customers, whilst the rest of the
party would wait outside the tavern in a nearby alley. That trio was
chosen because Tinhelm because they were not with the party when
Tinhelm was under our employ. After getting a brief from the rest of
the party about Tinhelm's appearance ('he's an elf who wears a shiny
metal hat'), the party proceeded to the Golden Goose. The trio
entered and were immediately seated at a table at the back of the
tavern, near the bar and under the stairs that lead to the
establishment's guest rooms. After a failed attempt to mingle with
the rest of the patrons in the dining hall, Klint asked the serving
maiden if she knew of Tinhelm, explaining that the trio were some old
friends of the elf who wanted to surprise him. She said that yes,
that she knew of him, that he often dined at the GG and in fact, the
trio had just missed him, for he had finished dinner some hours prior
to their arrival at the inn and he had gone out on some pressing
business. The trio decided to wait at the inn for him, and ordered a
rather sumptuous meal. As they chowed down on their vittles, they
concocted this story to try to lure Tinhelm into accompanying them to
a place where the party could shanghai him: the trio were
well-connected adventurers who had been able to arrange exit from
Bridgefaire, and they needed a guide who could take them to Green
Wilde. They would pay said guide very well for such work.

Whilst they were in the middle of suffering meat sweats from their
entree of a large slab of roast beef, they noticed a man with elfin
features who wore a tall metal helm with a peacock feather jutting
ostentatiously said helm enter the GG with a rather slatternly-looking
waif of a girl on his arm. It was our erstwhile henchman, Tinhelm.
One of the serving maidens met Tinhelm as he proceeded to the stairs,
and, using his nimble hearing skills, Klint was able to glean that the
maiden was in the process of telling Tinhelm that some folks had been
in GG earlier looking for him and that our trio was also in the tavern
hoping to meet Tinhelm. In an effort to prevent Tinhelm from
rabbiting, Ketil got up, drink in hand, to take an ostensible
post-meal constitutional and 'accidentally' bumped into Tinhelm,
spilling his drink on the former henchman. Apologizing profusely for
his misstep, Ketil insisted on buying the elf a drink and after some
initial protestations on his part (and some deft maneuvering by the
trio to surreptitiously surround him), Tinhelm agreed to sit down for
one drink. Ketil ordered the most expensive wine in the
establishment, and quartet sat down to have their drinks.

During the convivial sharing of libations, the trio explained that
they were under the employ of some very well-connected interests who
had made arrangements for the trio to leave Bridgefair so that they
could go to Green Wilde. Seeing as neither Ketil, Marklov or Klint
were unfamiliar with the lands between Bridgefair and Green Wilde, the
trio were actively searching for someone who could guide them to the
Green Wilde and that such a guide would be paid handsomely for his
time and efforts. Tinhelm did not bite at this ruse, but he did
mention that he was in the market for some strong arms to accompany
him on an expedition to some ancient ruins, where it was strongly
rumored that many treasures could be found. The trio changed tact,
and said that in addition to themselves, there were other experienced
adventurers in the employ of their bosses and that they could vouch
for 4 men who could potentially help Tinhelm on his quest. This
piqued the elf's interest, and it was agreed that 1 hour after
finishing parting company, Tinhelm would meet the trio at the fountain
in the southern quarter, giving elf enough time for his proverbial
roll in the hay.

BigFella here. This next part was written by Half Klint's player.

When we last left our stalwart band of adventurers, the plan was to track down a certain elf, Tamar Tinhelm, to- ahem- "discuss" a small matter of our missing war horses. Thanks to Froggie's crack investigative skills, we were able to narrow down his whereabouts to a couple of finer establishments in the north side of Bridgefair which he frequents. We decided to just pick the first one- The Golden Goose- and set up a stake out. After a quick huddle, we reckoned that the best way to go about it was to send in the three newbs (Klint, Kettel, and Marklov)- who Tamar didn't know- and have the rest of the veterans post up outside in case shit went down. And down shit went, as we were able to not only corner our prey, but secure a meeting with him at the town fountain later in the evening...

Leaving Half-Klint behind to hide across the street and watch the inn- just in case- the rest of our group hastily made way to the fountain to set up the ambush on the bridge which leads there from the posh side of town. Spells at the ready, the Deacon concealed himself on the bridge, while the rest of the crew took up various positions around the fountain. Like clockwork, about an hour later, Tinhelm emerged with a small entourage of two street toughs and made way to the meeting, Klint following closely behind.

After waiting for what seemed like an eternity for Tinhelm and his small crew to cross the bridge, it was time to strike! The Deacon quickly emerged from his hidey hole and let loose with a hold person on Tinhelm, freezing him in place like a storefront mannequin, which unfortunately left the two hired thugs. As expected, they were none too happy about what had just happened to their employer and decided to rush the Deke. The party being too far away to intervene quickly, Hearth decided to step in with the nuclear option and cast a sleep spell on the two thugs to try to quell the situation. Alas, the Deacon was also caught in the wake, and he and one of the thugs dropped into a sound, dreamless slumber.

All of the commotion must have confused Klint, as with a HIGHLY uncharacteristic display of valor and self sacrifice our tiny rogue decided to rush in and place himself bodily between the Deacon and the remaining thug that was about to lay down a killing strike. Palenthor must've smiled at this selfless act, as Klint was able to smite the ruffian in a single blow!

After a quick pause to catch their breaths, it was time to discuss what to do next. Klint and Frog, being the expedient types, wanted to slay the sleeping henchman. Predictably, Kettel and the Deacon would have none of it. This led to the usual argument about "killing innocent hostages...blah blah blah". Attempting to settle it, the Halfling challenged the obstinate Paladin to detect evil on the slumbering mafioso, which unfortunately turned up a big negative. Hence it was decided to tie him up and leave him in an alley, while- on Marklov's most excellent suggestion- we steal away to the abandoned Gnomish gem shop we had scoped out earlier for some uninterrupted quality time with our Elvish captive. We quickly made our way uptown to the boarded up edifice, and after some work prying open an entrance ended up in a nice, cozy underground basement chamber, with the Kettel and the Deacon keeping watch upstairs.

This is where things got ugly.

While waiting for our dear friend Tamar's paralysis to wear off, Frog and Klint spent some time trying to decide who was going to play "good cop" and who was going to play "bad cop" for the upcoming interrogation. After some deliberation it was decided that Klint would play "bad cop" and Frog would play "worse cop". The questioning did not go well, however, as it turns out that far from being the wealthy catpurse we had assumed, Tinhelm was pretty much just a degenerate bum who was in over his head. It was clear that we were lucky if we could pry a couple of copper from him, much less recoup the cost of the warhorses he had absconded with, and the 50 GP bottle of wine Kettel had ordered at the Goose earlier. In fact, all he had on his person was some hastily scrawled map to Stonehell which he claimed led to- quote- "riches untold". Yeah, right.

While all this was going on Marklov had been searching around the chamber and found a secret door in one of the corners, so at least some good had come out of all this. It was then decided that Frog and Klint would head to Tinhelm's room back at the Goose to attempt to collect on his debt to us from whatever meager belongings he might have, while exploration of the secret door would wait until they returned.

BigFella again. Now the narrative is once again picked up by Frog's player.

Convinced that Tinhelm was still holding out on the party, it was
decided that Froggie and Klint would head back to the Golden Goose,
whilst the rest of the party waited within the ruins of the gem
merchant's establishment. Whilst those two were away, Marklov had a
heart-to-heart with Tinhelm. He expressed his incredulity at the
elf's temerity in stealing the party's horses. Tinhelm's weak reply
was something like 'I thought I'd never see them again!'. It was
reminiscent of the 'What does Marsellus Wallace look like?' scene from
'Pulp Fiction', only cleaner.

Froggie and Klint proceeded to the Golden Goose, and nonchalantly made
their way up to room number 9. They knocked on the door, and they
were surprised to hear a male voice roughly telling them that they had
the wrong room and to go away. Froggie politely apologized for the
mistake and feigned going away, but, with a knowing look to Klint,
waited on a silent five count before kicking down the door. Inside
the room, Tinhelm's lady friend for the evening, Yolanda, sat
nervously in a chair, whilst a burly ruffian tossed the contents of
room haphazardly. Standing watch by the door was another thug, who
was taken by surprise when the room door was busted in. Froggie took
advantage of the moment and made an unsuccessful attempt to brain the
street-tough near the door. Klint hung back, cagily watching for an
opportune moment to sneak into the fray. The two thugs regain their
wits, and proceeded to gang up on Froggie, but their initial attacks
were rebuffed easily by the worldly veteran. Yolanda took the
opportunity to arm herself with a nearby candle holder, but she was
still too fearful to make an attempt to slip away. Froggie focused
his attention on the swarthy hooligan by the door, but the press of
the robbers' attack and the close quarters caused him to make another
awkward swing. Emboldened by the fact that they had superior numbers
on their assailant, the burlier of the two ruffians cuffed Froggie
soundly on the head with his cudgel. Enraged by the painful ringing
in his ears that the blow had caused, Froggie hefted his mace and went
all medieval on his current target's thieving ass, cracking the punk's
skull like Oprah going to town on an Cadbury chocolate egg. The
remaining bandit's shock at the quick turning of the tide of combat
continued as Klint deftly sneaked behind him and skillfully slid his
sword into the tough's gizzard. The halfling coaxed the dying bandit
into the long night with gentle shushes to make sure he didn't make a
noisy death rattle.

Sensing that her opportunity had arrived, Yolanda made a move towards
the door but Froggie pointed to her with his brain-stained mace and
told her to stay right where she was. Yolanda expressed her regret at
meeting Tinhelm, and revealed that the two men they had killed were
members of the new Haberdashers. After tossing the room and finding
only a gold piece and 10 silver pieces, Froggie tossed 5 silver pieces
towards Yolanda, and, with a warning to keep her mouth shut, she was
sent on her way. The dead bandits were placed in the room's closet,
and after making sure there no lookie-loos in the tavern's hallway,
Froggie and Klint made their exit from Golden Goose and headed back to
the ruins of the gnome shop.

Upon returning to the rest of the fellowship, Froggie informed Tinhelm
of the events at the Golden Goose. The elf let out a despondent groan
as he revealed that he was in deep with the new Haberdashers. Klint
shrewdly noted that while Tinhelm didn't have a single copper piece to
rub, Tinhelm himself could bring a hefty reward, the size of which was
dependent upon how eager the new Haberdashers wanted to get their
hands on the elf. The party decided to leave the matter for the
moment, as the hour was getting late and there was still the matter of
the inner recesses of the gnomes' secret lair. Leaving Tinhelm to
stew in his despair, the party proceeded through the secret door. In
the first room they entered, they discovered a tripod stand, near
which lay a length of string that attached to the handle of a door.
After some initial investigation that allayed their fears that the
string was part of some elaborate trap, the party opened the door to
which the string was attached. Beyond the door lay a bare room. On
the wall left of the door lay a doorway out of the room. On the wall
opposite the door was a round gap that was clearly made by some
burrowing creature. Cannily deducing that the creature which made the
hole might still be in it, the party proceeded through the doorway.
The party discovered a corridor, and as they proceeded down the
corridor, they could hear the distinct rush of flowing water, such as
can be heard from a river. Some distance into the corridor, the party
discovered a locked door on one wall of the corridor. Eager to earn
his keep, Marklov stepped foward, and after some initial fumbling due
to his reduced depth perception, the one-eyed rogue nimbly worked his
pick into the keyhole and successfully undid the mechanisms of the
lock. Beyond the door was a room bare except for a wooden chest with
a large padlock. In one corner of the room was another rough hewn
hole, similar to the one in the room with the door with the attached
string. His fingers tingling with the thrill of gaining unauthorized
entry to a room that someone had obviously barred from prying eyes,
the wily Marklov, after a cursory check for traps on the chest,
attempted to pick the large padlock. However, the intricacies of the
lock proved too complex for Marklov's skills. Froggie grabbed the
party's crowbar and, with Kashim's help, made an initial unsuccessful
attempt to the pry the chest open. The chest, however, could not
withstand the two fighters' second attempt and the lid was pried away.
Marklov pocketed the intact padlock for further study later. Inside
the chest lay several electrum coins and a scroll tube made of bone.
A later survey of the loot would reveal that there was 600 pieces of
electrum. Whilst the party elatedly gawked at their discovery, they
did not noticed the duo of humanoids with rat-like features, each
armed with short swords, sneak into the room. The creatures set upon
the party, and after an initial moment of surprise, upon which the two
rat-persons could not capitalize, the fight was joined by the party.
A fierce donnybrook ensued, and although the two creatures proved
fierce in spite of their resemblance to cowardly vermin, the party
overwhelmed them and they fell under a fierce barrage of blows from
the party's enchanted weaponry. Upon their deaths, the duo changed
forms to naked men. Realizing that they had just fought men cursed
with rat lycanthropy and not wanting to risk suffering the fate of
their dear departed companion Gentleman Jack, the party grabbed the
chest full of electrum pieces and beat a hasty exit from the secret
compound. They barred the secret door, and with nary a glance at the
trussed-up Tinhelm, they left the ruins of the gem merchant's shop and
returned back to their inn.

BigFella here. Dang. When the Deacon's on autopilot you guys go all Quentin Tarantino.
Sounds like it was a good town based session.

Lookin' forward to gettin' back so I can keep you goons on the straight and narrow.
Thanks to Half Klint and Frog for taking up the reportage this week, thanks to the rest of the 10d gamers, and thanks to Paul for running such an awesome campaign.