Mits laughs.  "You have an admirer, Joe!  Zap!"

Mits hits a tough spot of the hide, apparently.

Mits 2 raspberries at the monster.  "Nya nya!  Missed me!"

BAMF! The monster clamps its claw-hand at Mitts2, slicing her in half! "Nya. Nya."

Mitts 2 poofs! "....Not. Normal. Why. Poof?"

   "Hunting Diet Mittens is light on calories." Clearly Joe's first shot missed because that was a lame joke.  The second one re-dunks the monster, though.

  He steps closer to the lake in the meantime, for later more effective hiding behind girls and girly men.

OOC: Miss. Action point. Hit, only 11 DMG total, but prone again.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:14, Mon 07 Aug 2017.

Bridget jumps into the air, cocks her palm and then thrusts it downward at the monster! "Kya!" Loud hitting sounds can be heard all over the monster's hide and it shrieks and writhes in the water!

"Ouch!" Mits exclaimed when her doppelganger died.

"It's because I teleported out of your hand!" Mittens 2 explains, reappearing next to the monster.

"And diet Mittens bites back!"

With lightsaber teeth!  NOM!  The ouch will continue if monster ends it's turn next to Bridget!

 50+14
= 64 (additional 5 if he fails to get away from Bridget)

The monster slams its claw-hands to either side of it, simultaneously attacking Bridget and Mittens while causing itself to stand!

Mittens is missed by a couple feet. Bridget dodges such that the monster misses her by an inch!

   Joe takes advantage of 'jump your speed' tricks to both avoid getting his feet wet, and end up on the nearby ledge at the same time.

  He follows up with a relatively boring 'shoot them in the face' attack.

OOC: 26 total DMG. 28 if it was bloodied by then.

Bridget briefly looks scared of Mittens. She rushes off to the west, somehow evading the monster's notice yet again, and hurls a yo-yo at the monster's leg before pulling back!

The monster is flipped AND pulled over to Bridget! SPLASH!

Mits sighs and starts heading back over the river to get closer to Bridget.  "Not that you need it, but can't heal you if you're too far away."

Mittens 2 dons the angelic look from earlier and slashes the monster.  "But if you dare attack, I'll gash you again!"

 109+13
= 122 (another 5 every time monster attacks)

  "I am very glad only the one of you that doesn't bleed ended up exploding.  Even if that can't be pleasant."

"I'm. A. Monster!"

Being such, it attacks one last time! In its thrashings, it pays the penalty of getting the retaliation Mittens promised and goes down, unconscious. When it does, it glows and becomes some old man, a woman, and a little boy. All of them unconscious.

Bridget quickly pulls them out of the river.

"Is it wrong of me to be the most suspicious of the little boy?" Mittens 2 asks, "Let's tie them all up to be safe at least."

Mits goes to check if any of them look like they need healing before making with the ropes. "Thanks, Bridget.  And Joe.  You guys are awesome!"

She starts praising their awesomeness.

  "Only if it turns out you should be more suspicious of the other two instead."

  Joe's player is fortunately the sort of person who actually remembers to buy a blanker, which in mostly freeform terms translates out to multiple blankets for the soaking wet former monsters.

Flash to elsewhere in a different world:

A powerful wizard, at the peak of mortal power has put together a ritual. With wild eyes, his long beard wagging in the wind as a storm plays in the background, the wizard looks to his hunchbacked assistant. "At last, Igor! I have done it! I have enhanced the wish spell! After battling exarchs to find the hidden knowledge, and braving the cursed realm of the ninth hell to get the right components, I have finally done it!"

He speaks ominous phrases and the storm gets wilder! With one final phrase, the ritual kicks off and glows brightly, its symbols standing up and facing the wizard before shooting lasers at him! He laughs maniacally until the ritual finally finishes. The storm subsides.

Igor stands waiting. What will master wish for? The wizard, electricity dancing all over him, eyes glowing, mumbles the words of the wish spell and says, "I wish to be able to cast prestidigitation at-will!"

Igor's eyes go wide! What kind of blasphemy was this?! A god's face began to form from the clouds with anger in its eyes...


Back to Falls River:

Bridget says, "We're not too far from town. We can take them back and dry them off there."

Maybe the epic thing Bridget can get from Jengus will be... prestidigitation! Nah. Too powerful. With that, Bridget could dry people off or something!

Fast forward!

The team makes it back to town without issue and the people of the town see them returning with the missing people! Very shortly, the town doctor tends to them and the concerned families of the missing persons come to the doctor's office to coddle their loved ones.

By then, Mittens will have gotten the story of how those 3 wound up fused into a monster.  She stands with her fists on her hips, grinning proudly!

"Boy did I ever pick the right reward from Jengus!"

"Speaking of rewards, I'd say we're due some for this."

Mittens cannot technically use prestidigitation with this build, but let's say she can for the sake of all the puppet summoning thus far...  *halo*

  "I have the feeling you would have managed just fine to run face first into adventure, Mittens.  But this certainly makes for a much better heads up."

  He's glad Bridget got to the whole 'rescue people' thing sooner rather than later, now that they are an adventurer instead of the adventure.

Mittens can check the "Dark Sun" box and gain the wild talent Psionic Image to excuse the sock puppets since Mittens has yet to use any other aspect of Prestidigitation. In return, Joe and Bridget can check the "Dark Sun" box and pick a wild talent power.

The people remained unconscious all the way back to town, so Mittens did not find out how they turned into a monster yet. Hence the fast forward.

Retroactively, Bridget was blushy about Mitts' praise and confessed being scared of Mittens having glowing fire sticks for teeth. But at least now Mittens knows Bridget really is as dangerous as she was in the fight Mitts and Joe had with her demon-possessed self.

Now that the team has a doctor working on the villagers, the woman is the first to return to consciousness. She explains that she encountered a monster in her back yard and it ripped its own chest and belly open to swallow her whole.

When the boy wakes up, he cries and screams and flops onto his mom. He does NOT want to talk about it.

When the old man wakes, he looks upset and also seems unwilling to talk.

Mittens makes an attempt at talking sense to the older gentleman.  "If you know how this monster came to be, it is important that it be made known at least to your rescuers, so we can make sure it does not happen again.  You don't want this sort of thing to become a recurring problem, now do you?"

Mittens 2 assures Bridget that the special effects that go with Mittens' powers in no way mean she's any more dangerous than a martial artist with yo-yos.

  Joe wonders if the old man has a helping of crushing guilt for totally being at fault for the monster or something.  We'll just have to settle for what a passive insight of 22 or so can guesstimate until Joe bothers with more direct questions.

  "Like I said Bridget. You're the one punching stuff while I shoot them from a safer distance."

The old man says, "It won't be a recurring problem. You defeated the monster. Isn't that enough?"

Bridget shrugs at Joe. "Funny how someone's worth can be measured by how much danger they are willing to be in. Yet my mom and I have known worthless scum who were willing to put themselves in danger and, because of that, they wound up labeled heroes. Don't measure by that standard, Joe. Measure by true standards. Namely where your loyalties lie and what you are willing or unwilling to act on."

Mits 2 gives a thumbs-up to Bridget's answer and adds, "I'm rather proud of myself that I showed a great deal of restraint when my hero cred was being called into question for not killing people."

Puppets to the rescue!  Lumberjack boss puppet says, "We're going to need a lot of lumber for that mansion.  JD, go scout out a good grove for us."

JD puppet: "Sure thing boss."

Mittens narrates, "JD enters the woods, believing it safe since the monster is slain.  He comes upon a strange circle of mushrooms..."

JD: "Heh.  No fairies in these woods.  Not that I believe those old wive's tails anyway.   These are medicinal too!"

The puppet grabs a mushroom, args, and begins to mutate!  "Oh nooo!  I'm transforming into a giant monster that devours people whooole!  Because I wasn't warned about how it came to be in the fiiirst plaace!"

"That's just one scenario.  Another could be:"

The puppet turns to stone.  Evil witch puppet arrives.  "He he heee.  Those foolish adventurers slew the only guardian of the portal!  Now I can claim this woods as my own!"

"There's tons of scenarios where slaying the monster isn't enough."

  "Well, while it will be easier to stop measuring my self worth by danger. I get the feeling paying jobs will still keep it in mind." Still, he appreciates the thought from Bridget.

  Joe nods to Mittens's not as outlandish as he wishes it were examples.  "Though if you actually didn't know anything, that would make for less guilt if more problems turn up than if you had."

The old man says, "How's this for a scenario? I tell you and that's how it winds up repeated. Either because you repeat it, thinking yourself better than everyone else and so somehow immune. Or because someone listened in on me or you talking about it. Thanks for your heroics. It's over. What happened will die with me."

Bridget says, "Maybe we could just give them time? All of them have been through quite the ordeal and judging from the kid, I'd say it was rather traumatic."

Mittens 2 smiles and shrugs.  "Speaking of paying jobs, I'm wanting to request that part of our reward be a signed letter of recommendation detailing what happened here.  And a medal.  Or something visual as proof I'm not just making up stories about an unclassified monster that splits open to devour people whole.  Like maybe a cap with a feather in it."

"Mittens purses her lips, unsatisfied that the danger is forever past.  She mutters to her allies that she suspects this might be like with that story of the werewolf who, when confronted with the reality of his occasional transformations, chose not to tell anyone for fear of being riddled with silvered arrows from frightened townsfolk.  Nevertheless, without resorting to threats of openly making a big deal of it and riling up a lynch mob that could wind up slaying the people she rescued, it seems she is forced to drop the matter and hope that some day she doesn't learn that her decision to trust isn't later rewarded with news that the town had been eaten."

She shrugs as well.  "Speaking of eating.  Shall we grab some grub?"

  Old man to blame for problems but also so old he'll be gone soon, got it.  "They did just wake up from being a monster, so hopefully the kid turns out okay."

  He nods to Mittens.  "What is the world coming to when you can mostly slay a monster and nobody believes monsters happen."