Farrel- Vengeance in the Mushrooms Woods

For in-universe game play. Journey through both familiar and foreign settings, explore lost ruins and forgotten cities, and try to bring light to the darkness of the world... or, you know, blow stuff up. Either way.
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Alberich
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Re: Farrel- Vengeance in the Mushrooms Woods

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Dinner was fresh and delicious, with a hit of Jade's favorite brew. Lingering a little let twilight come to cover her business. Soon she, Khoo, and Anna-Lisa were near the edge of the woods, a good mile away from the place where she'd chased Aden. It should be safe enough.

Udo waved them in among the trees. It would be easier to confer a little ways in, on the off-chance a patrol came by. (The Falkenrohr weren't as assiduous as they let on to Elke about guarding these woods from intruders. But they would still be trouble these adventurers didn't need.) Picking their way through the undergrowth they soon came to a clearing Udo had found, and he lit a little kindling he'd piled up while waiting. Now the four could see each other clearly. Khoo was checking specimen jars that would allow him to collect a variety of mushrooms, which could be tested for suspicious hallucinogens. Anna-Lisa, showing a practical side, was primly drawing out three sopping wet heavy bandanas--hopefully protection against any Totenaugäpfel spores that might trouble them tonight.

Udo accepted his gratefully, and as he tied it on, asked "Jasmine" what the mission was. She explained succinctly that he was to gather some of those dangerous black puffy fungus growths that'd put her out the other day, so that she could test her new protective equipment. He took one look at the doglike mask and was enthralled.

"Oh boy!" he said. "A wolf girl! Hey, if it works, can I have one? I want to be an elephant god. And Khoo wants to be a manticore. And Anna-Lisa wants to be a kobold!" Now if that wasn't worth its own illustrated series, he didn't know what was!

"?" responded the other two Tsuirakuans.

"Oh, come on!" said Udo. "Everybody wants to be a kobold! And hey, I just got a great idea! Khoo could wear his manticore mask, and take his shirt off, and Anna-Lisa could paint him up with kobold virility paint!"

"??" came the response.

Udo launched into an explanation of how the female kobolds of the Southern Continent, after an exceptional night of lovemaking, would proudly paint their lovers' torsos with symbolic accolades to their amorous prowess, which also served as signs of their worthiness as warriors, and so to affright their adversaries. Focus was being lost here.

[OOC: Well, it was almost a Halloween adventure. And Graybeard asked me not to get everyone into too much trouble while he was away...]
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Jack Rothwell
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Re: Farrel- Vengeance in the Mushrooms Woods

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'Jasmine' listened to Udo's account of the kobold's species sexual rituals with a barely repressed shudder before turning to the party at large and offering a strained smile.

"Okay compadres. Hopefully this'll be a quick in-and-out operation. Just follow me up that furrow-" She indicated a barely discernible path leading into the woodland. "-and keep me covered. once we get a sample we can turnabout and head back. The real heavy lifting should be tomoroow night."

The blacksmith drew her revolver and started up the path.

"Oh, and if any crazy wizard-looking individuals should leap out of the undergrowth; blast them. Blast them good."
Alberich
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Re: Farrel- Vengeance in the Mushrooms Woods

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The wet-masked mages in this strange band of four could provide enough magelight to move them along through the dark, without too much stumbling or tripping in the undergrowth. Khoo spotted and gathered a couple of the mushrooms that seemed interesting from his research. (They would not, in fact, prove to be the solution to the mystery he'd come to solve. But he was drawing nearer to that solution with every step.) Anna-Lisa, with equally sharp eyes but different priorities, discreetly snagged a few specimens of another mushroom species. Its purported effects were variously classified as "delectable," "aphrodisiac," "slapstick," or some combination of the three. Only practical experimentation would reveal the truth, and maybe Anna-Lisa was just the investigator to settle the matter once and for all. If she could find the right guinea pig amorous adventurer.

[OOC: Open season on that one for you, Gray.]

Jade and Udo had gone a while without spotting the tiny black balls they sought...then ahead they saw a clearing with what appeared to be a fairy ring of diverse mushrooms. Boldly the four adventurers stepped forward--and heard ominous clacking and rustling sounds all around.

Udo got a bubble-shield up around the group, Khoo brightened the lights, and the adventurers could see what they were facing. The laughing dead--eight skeletons, each with its full complement of bones this time, each intertwined, pervaded, and animated by weirdly glowing dead-looking vines. And they were armed with an assortment of weapons, including swords and halberds, none looking new--Jade's expertise told her that not all belonged to this country or this century. And none belonged to her. And the eyes of each skull held black Totenaugäpfel puffballs, suggesting that Jade would soon be field-testing her protective hound's visage. The exanimate forms had the adventurers surrounded but couldn't advance yet, not through Udo''s shield they couldn't, yet showed no signs of retreating. And on one side of the clearing emerged their commander.

Again Jade saw, and for the first time the others saw, the unkempt, shaggy, strange mage of the woods and vines. Around him they could spot a hint of translucent greenish glow--a shield of his own, but from a magic that "smelled" different from the healthy kinds allowed in Tsuiraku. He might not be invincible, but even if Udo dropped his own shield, the wild-bearded woodland wizard wasn't going down to a quick blast or bullet. He spoke or rather ranted:

"So you return!" he cried. "In masks you seek the forbidden-craft-secrets of which to seek is death! The Laughing Dead shall laugh and you shall join them to laugh! Great folly was it to seek this laughter! Meddlesome youth reinforcements shall not forestall your fate!"

His green-eyed fanatic's face was confident, as that of a man who knew just what he was planning. Within Udo's protective shield, Jade had plenty of time to get her mask on if it wasn't already, and to speak or act as she saw fit.
Last edited by Alberich on November 18th, 2017, 3:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Jack Rothwell
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Re: Farrel- Vengeance in the Mushrooms Woods

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At the sight of the ragged wizard the blacksmith hurriedly pulled on the protective mask she'd made; reasoning that the filter at the end of the 'mouth' may or may not be effective against the spores but at least it was better than no protection at all. She crossed her arms outstretched in front of her the way her guild master Rufus had shown. Her revolver in one hand and her hunting knife in the other.

"Don't get close to the mushrooms." She quietly cautioned her companions, and then: "All I want is my father's sword, old coot. My comrades have enough magic to blast through that barrier and end your life. So be a gentleman, return what doesn't belong to you and we'll leave you to your business."
Alberich
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Re: Farrel- Vengeance in the Mushrooms Woods

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"All I want is my father's sword, old coot. My comrades have enough magic to blast through that barrier and end your life. So be a gentleman, return what doesn't belong to you and we'll leave you to your business."

The strange mage's mouth twisted in a snarly grin. "You will wield it when you are one of these." He waved a gnarled hand at the Laughing dead. "Now you walk with the proud--soon you laugh with the dead!" And he held up one finger and twirled it. For a moment Jade thought it might be an obscene gesture from a bygone era...but then Udo cried out "Yagghh!" A dead-looking vine with tiny black flowers and an eerie green glow had emerged from the earth beside his feet and wrapped itself around his staff. Its magic was suppressed and his barrier went down.

In the moment of confusion, and with a speed the adventurers wouldn't have expected, the wizard had stepped behind a large tree and started to leave. It wouldn't be hard to follow his tracks--but first there were these vine-entwined skeletons to deal with. All eight lurched to the attack.
Last edited by Alberich on November 18th, 2017, 3:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Jack Rothwell
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Re: Farrel- Vengeance in the Mushrooms Woods

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At the wizard's sudden 'vine attack' on Udo Jade wheeled out of grabbing range and unloaded two bullets into the vegetation that was clutching his leg. Whether or not the spores would release and render the burly knight protector unconscious was a matter for the birds. The blacksmith completed her roll by firing another pair of bullets into the arm of a skeleton with a nice, long ranged, wide bladed halberd which she caught by sheathing her knife as it fell from the lopsided creature's body.

She grabbed the weapon and swept it into the waist of its previous owner, cutting it neatly in half.

"Now would be a great time to fight! " She suggested.
Alberich
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Re: Farrel- Vengeance in the Mushrooms Woods

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Jade's precision shots freed Udo's staff from the ground. Its magic was still suppressed but at least he had a weapon. The ex-battlemage blocked a blow from an antique war hammer and was soon wrestling for it with its skeletal owner, hauling its lightweight bony form around to block another attacker with a gysarme. The puffball eyeballs exploded at close range--but Anna-Lisa's wet cloth mask protected him, just as Khoo had hypothesized.

Jade's dogmask also worked like the magic it wasn't--no spores sent her to sleep. Slicing the first of the Laughing Dead at the waist, she saw its top half fall and lie inert, but its legs...still twined with vines...came forward to kick at her, while its skeletal mate swung an antique sabre her way. Animate dead vines were serving as sinews, with the bones giving strength and structure. On they came without mind or mercy.

Khoo and Anna-Lisa were free, wide awake, at full strength, and under attack from two foes apieces. And Jade had just given some excellent advice. But what would they do?
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Graybeard
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Re: Farrel- Vengeance in the Mushrooms Woods

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OOC: OK, I'm back from surgery (which went well, thanks) and should be able to write a bunch of stuff tomorrow. Please don't take things too far with Khoo and Anna-Lisa in the interim. Khoo really isn't a fighter, and Anna-Lisa ... well, things are about to get even weirder than usual with her!
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Jack Rothwell
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Re: Farrel- Vengeance in the Mushrooms Woods

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Jade used the long handle of the halberd to block the errant sword then brought the oversized weapon down on one of the vine-skeleton's kicking legs, shattering it neatly and reducing its owner to a jerking pelvis.

The ring was closing, but the blacksmith's broad sweeps with the halberd would serve as a keep away action to buy her magically inclined companions time to act.

"At least I know my mask works now!" She called in a merriness caused by jangling nerves.

OOC Glad you're back Grey. I'm happy your operation went well! /OOC
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Graybeard
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Re: Farrel- Vengeance in the Mushrooms Woods

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[OOC: Yes, this does relate to what's going on in the woods. Just give me a couple of posts to make the connection...]

Fumiko really, honestly hadn't intended to take her Pocket Dimension along to Rinkaiel in defiance of orders. She hadn't. She'd just been so excited about finally getting to travel to that incredibly, alluringly foreign place that she'd stuffed the outward manifestation into the handbag without even thinking about it, and it hadn't done anything strange when they gated to the still-under-construction gate complex. Nor should it, right? People gated with those things all the time.

She was delighted to find that the building, though barely half completed, did have a rudimentary gift shop. She picked up the cutest little figurine of a Wild West cowboy (never stopping to think that Farrel was actually east of Tsuirakushiti; they did have exotic things like people who rode horses and even shot guns!, though, so if all fit) for papa and mama in the apartment, and then she found another little figurine, of a -- what a crazy thing to find in Rinkaiel! -- a ninja warrior that even had a glowing sword that moved! It didn't occur to her that that little feature would be magical and therefore something she wasn't supposed to carry; it was just another toy, and in this case one that might interest that cute boy named Tetsuji who lived in an apartment -- his very own apartment, from the looks of it! -- on the floor below hers. She knew he was into this exotic thing called "cosplay," and he'd probably like a Rinkaiel statue that looked like one of his outfits. She'd be carrying it when she got back, and he'd express interest, and she'd be able to tell him where she got it and all about being a brave volunteer, and he'd smile, and then -- and then --

Without a conscious decision, she popped it into her Pocket Dimension just as their escorts were rounding them up for the gate home.

There the matter ended; or at least there it would have ended had not Lucas Ravanel's group, including Lucas' own "superpower" for making magic misbehave around him (whether he wanted to or not), also been visiting the gift shop, and thus the gate structure, at that very moment. As it was, however ...

One FzzZZZKRAACK later, thirteen men and women emerged safely at the gate in Tsuirakushiti ...

But fourteen had headed east on the outbound gate.

One went ... somewhere else.
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