"Though I fear that there's not much to see in our book", Sunna adds with a shrug. "What about yours?"

Jacob shrugs.

"Haven't got it.  The proctor's scribes are pouring over it and making a copy or two," he says nonchalantly.  "That is going to take a donkey's year.  We won't know for sure if Grandmother has any new stories or not until Genessa reads it over."

"Thats a shame. New stories are always good to hear. One of the things I am looking forward to when Scott can talk again." Turning to Genessa, Holly adds, "Perhaps when we are back again we can enquire about the progress, and hear something of its content. We will be back at some point I am sure."

Taking the opportunity to bring up the subject when there is only a few people around, Holly asks Genessa, "Can you tell me of Gremlins? I heard they were a problem to some people, but have never come across them myself. I know about the goblins of the south and their new god, but simple hidden things like Gremlins have never bothered to appear for me. What can you tell me about them?"

The discussion turns to Gremlins.  It's agree upon that the general populace of Rankor Heights is split between three groups.  The largest are those who think gremlins are superstitious nonsense.  The next largest group are those who believe in superstitious nonsense, and the smallest are gremlin eye witnesses.  While it turns out that only one of the Harpers, Addison, has ever encountered a gremlin the harpers seem to be a bunch of believers.  There are simply too many credible reports for it to be hallucinations or hysteria.

The last few guest arrive and the meal is served.  There are small servings of minty roast goat, large bowls of noodles in a bland white sauce, and of course lots of bread.  Let's not forget the wine.  Conversation is still strong once the eating commences.  There's some further discussion of gremlins.  It has been said that they come from "a crack in the earth" though no such crack has been found.  They don't seem to be very harmful, only up to mischief and not true evil nor harm.  There's some debate about whether gremlins are little demons or not.

"A journeyman harper met two demons on the road carrying a chest and enquired about the contents," says Bethaline with a delightful smirk.  There are some soft snickers from the other harpers as they realize the evening's jokes have begun.  "'Heart, Lungs...  the usual stuff.' answered the demons."

The joke is well received with amused laughter and the ball is rolling.

Mord quickly chimes in with one of his own.

"Adus and Fergus Triplefang were out hunting this one day, see, and they come around the corner and see this built-ahem, fetching nymph.   And boy was she looking bare of garment, and with an eager look in her eye, if ye know what I mean.  Say no more."

The bawdy stuff goes over well with this crowd and the wine.

"The nymph asked them what they were doing. The two boys tripped over their tongues and said they was hunting. The nymph smiled and suggested that if they were interested in a little... 'activity' she was game.  So they shot her."

The joke is met with a few playful gasp and laughs.

Other slip jokes in here and there, but it's not long before conversation is a thing of the past and the night is overtaken by a constant stream of jokes.  Adiel and Sunna soon get into the act.

"What do you call a goblin brave enough to attack a sorceress?  Ash," offers up Adiel.

"Two Triplefang women were talking about their garden. One of them complained over too many snails on her cabbages. 'I usually gather them and throw them into the woods', the younger woman said.  The other one looked at her in dismay and said (very slowly) 'I tried...  But every time...  I bowed down...  whoooosh  they were gone.'"  Sunna told.

Samuel tries out his joke for the group.

"A group of raiders walked into a pub, weapons drawn.  The bartender asked them why they had their weapons out.  'Mimics' they said.  The bartender laughed.  The other patrons laughed.  The raiders laughed.  Even the table laughed."

The harpers laughed.

And Mord tells another joke, saving his best for last.

"Two ogres are yelling at each other across a mighty chasm.  'How you get to other side?' says the first ogre.  'What you mean?' calls back the second ogre, 'You ON other side.'"

But Mord never gets to tell his favorite joke.  Somehow Jacob beats him to it!

"A dashing young swashbuckler named Tulong The Traveller heard tale of a beautiful maiden princess held captive in the impregnable Tower of Cagliostro in a land far far away.  He journey for two years across perilous stormy seas, treacherous barren deserts, and tall forbidding mountains to reach the small, nearly unknown country nestled in the hidden hills.  For another two years he scoured the inns, pubs, and town markets of the land for whispers of the tower's secrets and the evil count who kept the princess prisoner.  Finally he crafted a long drawn out plan to battle through the castle's defenses to reach the tower.  It took him another two years to fight his way past swarms of monsters and minions before he finally, triumphantly reached the room high in the tower where the princess was held."

Jacob held the full attention of the harpers.  Most had stopped eating to listen closer to the well crafted tale of a joke.  Mord could barely believe that Jacob was telling *his* best joke.  Granted, he was telling it with more style than the version Mord had heard.  Jacob was really very good at telling jokes, but still...  Of all the rotten luck!

"When at long last he freed the lovely princess and safely escaped the tower with her, he asked for her hand in marriage.  The princess looked at the hero as if he were mad.  'With how long you're gone from home, are you kidding?'"

Jacob gets the best laughter of the evening from Genessa with that joke.

But have no fear!  Mord still wins the Triplefang Joke Contest and the bonus CHR point.  :-)

Holy mulls over the information on the Gremlins, and waits to discuss it further with her cousins. When the jokes are told, Holly finds out her sense of humour is a little different from others, but is content when Mord's efforts, all of which she had heard before as he had practiced them on their travels here, met with such a good responce.

Staying off the wine, Holly enjoyed the meal and the company, glad they had met Jacob in such a safe location.

Mord's frustration -indignation even- was plain upon his features at Jacob stealing MORD's joke... but the barbarian warrior, shrugged, toasted a drink to the better telling of it, even as he remembered a number of the nuances to help tell it better in the future.

Besides, Mord smiled as he envisioned a test of combat between the smooth-talker and anything in Mord's hands.
Probably heard it from Mord's tellings, spread across the land.

He toasted the jest again.

Adiel laughs and claps, glad to be among the harpers, amused by Jacob's apparent ability to upstage everyone. He drinks lightly, enjoying the liquor but not interested in getting drunk.

As the joke contest draws to an end, he catches Sunna's eye. "When should we present that book?" he asks her softly.

We're looking for Sunna to respond about the book.  She also had a song she wanted to perform.  I'm not sure if that was meant for this dinner or another time.

Sunna listens to the other jokes and is surprised that Mord seems to be angry at Jacob for telling that joke. Was this Mords best one, too? She smiles at the big warrior.

"How about right now?" Sunna replies to Adiel. She searches for the book in her pack and carefully puts it into her lap.

Given that I don't want to slow down things further right now and the little time I have for posting right now, I think it'll be better to try out the song another time.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:13, Mon 17 Oct 2016.

I'm unsure exactly which book you're giving Genessa, but I'm going to assume it's the epic fiction.  If not, I'll rewrite this piece of history a little.

As dinner's wrapping up.  Sunna casually, but publicly presents the book to the master harper.

"Genessa, my cousins and I would like you to have this story we found in the Tower of Sowell."

Genessa accepts the book, looking at the covers and opening it and smiling.

"I think you'll like the way the heroine's arc collides with the hero's.  The ending is exciting too."

"Thank you," she says to Sunna, also nodding to the rest of the party. "It will make an excellent addition to the harpers' library, but not until I through reading it."


The sun has just finished setting when the dinner breaks up.  What's your next move?  Gremlin hunting?  Shadow Jacob?  Discuss puppet show ideas with Samuel?  Call it a night and skip ahead to Scottfard's curse removal ritual?  Something else?

When it comes to discussing the next events for the group, Holly recommends taking a look at the Gremlins. As they are not directly involved in the ritual for Scotthard, she does not believe being slightly tired is going to be a problem, and going out hunting gremlins might mean the group doesn't spend as much money as they had done the night before. Holly also considers trying to track Jacob in his home town would be pretty useless.

Holly is overall content to spend a quiet evening if needed. She just knows her cousins are a curious lot, and expects they might be up for a little walk in the night.

Sunna is curious about the Gremlins, too. Maybe they really have something to do with why the book rejects Glumr and she wants to find out.

Unless Glumr feels up to the task to shadow Jacob, Sunna thinks along tye same lines as Holly regarding that move.

What's the plan for Gremlin hunting?  Anything more elaborate than wandering the streets at night?

Since so little is known about them, Sunna has no better plan than to take a look at the place where Glumr saw them - and possibly some other, similar, places if they can't find them at the first place. "Is it possible to catch one of them, what do you think? Do they even talk our tongue? Oh, maybe we could set one of them up to follow Jacob around. That might be fun." She grins mischievously.

"Good question," says Adiel. "I'm curious what we'll discover, if anything. Perhaps we should explore areas near the mines, as well as where Glumr wandered last night." He glances upwards automatically, scanning the tops of nearby buildings for anything suspicious.

"Glumr, are you up for an evening stroll? Perhaps we can find a little corner of the city to sit and watch over. These Gremlins intrigue me, although I suspect we have enough potential adventures to get on with. If they prove as resilient to magic as you remember, then I think we need to be aware of how we can resist them, in case they have nasty plans for the city." Holly says, wondering what the night might bring.

Mord spread his arms about shoulder width apart and made gripping hands.  "Head here, feet there - they have feet, right? - and stretch them out.  Then use them to beat the other ones silly.  Practice knocking arrows and rocks from the air."  The warrior grinned broadly, then shrugged.

"I'm not really one to have much concern about gremlins, but that Glumr can't sign it is strange.  He's smarter than I am and able to handle the writing instruments, so something odd is there.  Either in him, between him and the book, or the book itself about him.  Did the folks that sold us the book or, the lore knowledgeable types, or the priest we talked to about it - any of them have better idea on olde magicked tomes?  You want to talk swords, axes, and the like - I'll join, but the rest I haven't had much jawing.

"If there's someone to ask for knowledge, I'd say that first.  If not, then backtrack where Glumr went to see if we can find the problem or the gremlins.  If not, we move on and maybe the problem will wear off like most magicals things.  I mean, If I had a problem with a sword, I'd check the smithies to replace, and if no good, track down the one that sold to beat it out of him, and if no luck I move on with life... and hope I find the bad merchant down some other market."

Even though night has set it's not truly dark in Rankor Heights.  Fires and lanterns blaze everywhere and there's still quite a bit of bustle.  Glumr seems withdrawn and quiet.  he's not his usual self at all.  He gives short, uncertain answers to questions about his travels the night before.  Luckily for you Sunna knows her way around the less travelled parts of the city.  She guides you to a place at the edge of the residential quarter where the buildings run out.

There are not a lot of plants growing inside the gates of Rankor.  You will see a few trees here and there and rare ground cover in occasional open spaces.  But here between the last of the houses and the quarter wall weeds, scrub bushes and small trees grow wild.  With all the overgrowth it's easy to overlook the wall, giving the area a less enclosed feeling, especially with the wide starry sky overhead.  You pass a plot where someone has carved out a small garden.  Sunna leads you past the garden along a path to an archway in the inner wall.

On the other side the ground is rocky and bare, save for dirt, moss, and patchy clover.  This area does look like what Glumr described.  There are 4 rather high stone-walled two story buildings in a line with a few other empty unused building scattered around them.  They are empty shells.  Most of the buildings don't even have doors or shutters.  With no one else around it's much darker here and Glumr draws out his magical torch.

"I think this is the place.  I don't know exactly where I was sitting when..." Glumr says, trailing off.

Past the empty buildings there are piles of lumber and quarried rock.  THere's a good amount of empty space here, but it's smaller than the residential quarter you left behind.  You spend the better part of an hour wandering back and forth peering up at the rooftops hoping to catch a glimpse of movement, but things are still and quiet with a cold, light breeze.  It's sort of peaceful.

Then a male voice breaks the silence unexpectedly.  "What are you doing here?"

The question is casual, not accusative.  You look down at the man.  He reminds you of Farden, carrying a shield with a pack of throwing spears at the ready on his back and armored in metal, but that's about where the similarities end.

Having found the place where Glumr says he has seen gremlins Sunna is disappointed that everything is so quiet, at least for a moment. Then she begins to enjoy the peaceful silence, while still looking for... something.

As the armed man calls at them Sunna stops and nods at him. "Good evening. It's said that there might be gremlins around here and we wanted to see one of them. Do you happen to know if we have any chance of encountering one of these creatures here?"

Adiel eyes the man quietly, aware that their behavior would look suspicious to a guard, and intriguing to a hopeful adventurer. He certainly looks like he can handle himself in combat.

Holly kind of cringed at Sunna's openness, but realised deep down it would probably be for the best, if the man was a guard or similar.

"Most of us are Triplefang, so don't get to see much of city life, and Genessa told such an intriguing story about their presence. We thought we would come out tonight and see if we could see one." Holly said, dropping the Triplefang name to play against clan prejudice, and Genessa's name in the home they might be considered friendly to the city.

After a moment, recognition glimmers in Adiel's eyes. He nods at Holly's words, but adds, "You work for the proctor, don't you?"

The armed man scratches at his jawline with his leather glove.

"Gremlins, huh.  I don't think you'll find any here."



He nods and peers at Adiel.

"Yes.  I'm the Marshall," he says tapping his shield.

"Don't worry, I'm not trying to run you Triplefang visitors off."

"It's a pleasure to meet you. Adiel Triplefang." Adiel looks at the Marshall, thinking. "Where would you expect to see gremlins?"