Our heroes, the De Facto Explorers, have had a triumphant stay in Fair-Town, Lathar has repeated as jousting champion, Sonny has acquired a "glow suit", and Squiggles has gleefully endured extended sessions of vermiculture.
They now only wait on the completion of Pete's feather cloak, a dream of his since their early days, for the group to return to Riverbend and perhaps, their secret "Pool Room"
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Lathar Bracken: A pure-strain human from River Bend. He's got the muscle, the face, and a mount for most encounters. Lathar's trusty beast of burden, No Name, travels wherever he does. Looking for trouble in all the right places. The two-time champion of the Fair-Town Queen's Joust.
Sneaky Pete: A mutated weasel scout. Pete's telepathy and night vision take a backseat when he whips out his electrical powers. Apparently addicted to his newly uncovered yellow powder found at "The Pool House"
Sonny Helianthus: a nearly 10' tall sentient sunflower artifact examiner with trusted Restorationist ties. Knowledgeable, but not a good one with device repairs or upgrades.
Slitheran Wurmtail (aka Squiggles): a mutated earthworm scout, in impromptu power armor, looking for trouble in all the wrong places, and finding it often. He has been subject to genetic testing and developed super-human strength, a more human body, and a thick coat of shaggy white hair. He may be pregnant... again!
Thunnelda Haycock: A peculiar local woman, who has a penchant for wandering the surrounding territories for particular oddities, but has become the fiancé of Lathar. She just finished second to Lathar in the joust, yet there is an underlying current.
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Leaving Fair-Town
The last day in Fair-Town was finally here for the explorers, as Sneaky Pete was finally able to go to Mistral Stitchweaver's shop to pick up his cloak of red piranha feathers.
They traveled upriver, and encounter a fair share of travel both ways.
Two-thirds of the way back home, they encountered a new sign to the side of the road, in paint, "Pay the invisible toll or else!
Sonny flicks an "invisible domar" near the sign, and a pile of small stones hit his roots.
Sonny couldn't find a source of the thrown rocks, but he and everyone else could hear a disembodied voice snarling, "No freebies! Pay up or face the wrath of the Air Lords."
Pete powered up his telepathy and could feel at least two entities thinking.
"If they can't see us, do we really exist?"
Sonny and Pete had a lengthy conversation with these so-called "Air Lords" outside of Pete's telepathy, no one could detect anything. Even Pete and Squiggles using their scout abilities couldn't find tracks in the area.
The conversations grew louder among their invisible group."How much do we collect for the toll? We should have written it down..."
"We're invisible air lords, how would we be able to read it? Heck, where are half of us? Where's Greg???"
Lathar whispered something into Thunnelda's ear, and she quickly dashed over to the sign.
"Do you have cheese for a toll?? Wait! Do we like cheese? Why won't they pay a toll"
Sonny and Pete counted marching down the road, the recipient of many vocal curses from these invisible "Air Lords."
Meanwhile, Lathar and Squiggles conferred away from the sign and decide to make an offering for the toll. Taking a shovel, they placed some hard tack atop the shovel blade laid it near the sign.
Lathar: "If we did have some cheese, this could be a charcutier board" Like magic, the shovel and food seemed to vanish.
"You may pass, as well as the one poking around our sign, a boon upon your families!!!! Now, somebody find Greg"
Returning back to Riverbend
Lathar received a hero's welcome in Riverbend. For now, Thunnelda returns to her brother's home, as Lathar fights with his mother to let his fiancée to live in their home. The discussion advances to Lathar either showing up or shutting up. The wedding should be planned within the next two months, before the harvests begin.
The Explorers restock their supplies and trek out to the old Toard Jakey research facility that they've renamed, "The Pool House"
The Pool House
The Explorers restock their supplies and trek out to the old Toard Jakey research facility that they've renamed, "The Pool House"
Both Squiggles and Pete trip the ambush senses not once, but twice on their journey to the Pool House. Despite an extensive search, they could find nothing, nor were they eventually ambushed.
The Pool House appeared to be the same as they left things. Bedecked in the glowsuit, Lathar uses leverage and brute strength to drag the statue out of the pool room and out of the facility.
Realizing the best course of action was burying the odd statue, Lathar laughed:
"I really could have used that shovel right now...."
Squiggles refuses to be anywhere near the bird statue, but agrees to dig a hold deep enough for the statue to drop in. With the statue buried, Sonny and Pete when back into the control room, cleaning up a number of large black feathers on the floor.
"What are we going to do with these feathers?" Pete asked.
"Discard them, or we can give them to Greg at that invisible toll booth next time we go downriver," Sonny responded.
GM: I have provided Lather's player with a quest: Set up a bridal registry for Lathar and Thunnelda. I can't wait until it goes live, and I award extra xp.
Next: #96 - Currying the Favor of Inanimate Objects
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