The laughter from beyond the wall drops into echoes that fade away, to be replaced by the hissing of the cold breeze which has, thankfully, stopped insulting the cats who stand before the gate.

Mister Pig shudders, and turns away.  Then he stops, and purrs loudly, "Our friends have found us!"

Sure enough, Bones, Mephistopheles, and Miss Cuddles are walking along the iron road towards them.

The cats are reunited...

Miss Cuddles begins to purr as she sees her friends.  When they are back together she goes up to each one, in turn, and touches her nose to theirs in greeting.

"How has your search gone?"  She asked any and all of them.  There was much to tell on both sides, she thought, but this may not be the time for full disclosure.

Bones Fleabag traipsed in, and laid down close to his friends.

"I would certainly like to hear about it! Our journey was eventful," he said, smilingly.
This message was last edited by the player at 08:44, Sun 17 Jan 2021.

Midnight doesn't say anything because he seems to have forgotten what he was looking for.

"We saw the King of the Cats!" Mister Pig responds excitedly, "And he told us of a place where I can change my name.  A well, somewhere in the North, where I can get a new name, and it won't matter that the Boggins know my old one."

"But first we have to get past this gate, and the thing that lives beyond it.  We... "

A gust of wind interrupts him, seeming to laugh, and then whisper, "Youuuu're all going to diiie."

Dreamcatcher hisses, "Oh, go away, stupid wind!" and then he continues with his previous topic of conversation, "As I was saying, we need to get past the gate, but there is a chain holding it closed, and we hadn't yet thought of a way to open it."

Midnight turns his behind to the door, raised his tail and then brings his tail down against the lock.
13:19, Today: P-P rolled 1 evens using 6d6 with the Advantage system with rolls of 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 1.  Tail 4 + reputation (Trickster) 2 open that door.

[13 blank lines suppressed]

I am coming to the conclusion that the dice dislike PP

Sunny turns to see the missing cats returning and nods a polite greeting, "Well, this door has us stymied for the moment. Please, regale us. As for us, yes, we met the King or Cats. A rather unpleasant Queen of Owls, some mice that looked awfully crunchy, a madman chasing reindeer, some chatty crows, a dubious crocodile, and this rather annoying wind." It lacked a lot of details, but it was rather accurate. Sunny then watched the failed attempt to unlock the door. "Perhaps, it is a puzzle rather than an obstacle?" That was about as good as he got though. Sunny was rather bad with puzzles.

"Did you send Alice?" Bones purred as he regarded his friend cats.

"We saw nothing so grand as the King, I'm afraid.  We saw a creature who purported to be a witch, and we disrupted her schemes.  We fixed the river, and killed a Boggin in the process."  Mephistopheles explained, while he studied the gate carefully.

"We also met a small fisherman, a helpful bird, and some giant metal spiders in a city of glass.  All pretty normal, for the Dream."

"And some evil, non-human monks, as well."  Miss Cuddles added to the list that Mephistopheles recited.

"Yes, the spiders! I made a friend, by the name of Ch'chrrr'rk'rk." Bones Fleabag contributed to the recap, quite meaningfully he thought.

Sunny eyed the other three suspiciously, "A helpful bird?" His tone dripped with incredulity. The idea that a bird might be helpful in a genuine and non-suspicious way was foreign to Sunny's thinking. He looked over each of the returning trio and then sniffed. "Well, you are usually quite sensible cats, so I'll believe you. This time. A helpful bird. Phah! And next we'll speak of undelicious milk or uncrunchable mice."

He turned his face toward the great door and Regarded it for a time, "well, this door is being incredibly unhelpful. Any thoughts? Oh, and beware the mad god behind it. The dubious crocodile warned us of it. Hardly need to be TOLD to beware mad gods, but, well, there it is."

Mister Pig considers the problem, and finally says, "One of my Human once asked me a riddle, which might be useful here.  I don't know why he asked me, because I couldn't speak to him, and he already knew the answer - even told me straight away.  But then he acts strangely sometimes, always asking me to help him with things that I know nothing about.  What is a clutch anyway?  Or a differential?  And how would I know the best thing to say to a Human girl to impress her?  Or whether a recipe for hot sauce is a good one?"

"Where was I?  Oh yes, the riddle.  Let me see if I can remember it."  He closes his eyes briefly, and then, "Ah yes...  When is a door not a door?  When it's a bottle.  I think that was it."

The gate, meanwhile, shows no sign of turning into a bottle...

Mephistopheles sighed, "It's jar.  Not bottle.  When is a door not a door?  When it's ajar.  Not that it helps us."

He sat down and stared up at the chain.  "While I'm not sure why anybody would want to go in there, it seems that we must."  His tail thrashed furiously from side to side, stirring up the dust.

"Oh, I'm sure it's positively wonderful in there, Dancer." Bones Fleabag trotted ahead of the others toward the door, peeking inside.

Bones moves close to the double gate, and peers into the crack between the two halves. 

Above him, there is a loud *click* and the padlock springs open.  One end of the chain slips clear of the shackle, and as the two ends swing freely, the weight of the lock causes the chain to slide a couple of links to that side.

But it still hangs, albeit loosely, across the brackets on the twin gates...
This message was last edited by the player at 19:50, Wed 20 Jan 2021.