Chapter 1: To seek a Great Perhaps

[Pulpatoon]

Will isn't on the list there but I thought Will was dead and Kurt was barely alive.

I have edited the above post to include the daisy-pushers.

[Wizard Lizard]

"T-This is a bit...Oh, my. Let me help." Vanis whispers, realizing how bad it is for everyone. He tears bits of his shirt and looks for alcohol in his backpack to help desinfect wounds, and looks back to where the voice came every other minute, just in case. His expression is that of a worried brother.

[mb.]

Deet stumbles back into the Putti Rotunda, carrying Schroff's limp body in his arms, and sits down on the floor in the exact center of the room. He strokes Schroff, mumbling, "there's a good boy, yup yup. It'll be okay, won't it?"

He tears up and gives the barricade room door the side-eye, "good brother, yup... yup." His eyes suddenly go wide, "mama's gonna kill me!" With a weary sigh, he lays down, staring up at the baroque ceiling, stroking Schroff lying on his chest, murmuring incoherently to himself.

[mjulius]

Brick rubs the flat of his palms along his trousers.

Out of uniform? Are you kidding? These are from Rorschach & Sons. Off the rack maybe but still some of Bastion's finest.
Pointing to the patterning in the fabric he says, So what do you think you see?

Anyway, listen up Private, then I got to split. These rats aren't your only enemy? I mean, I'm going out on a limb here, but what exactly are you fighting. What are you defending?

When he receives his answer, he'll high tail it out and head back to the group. When he arrives, he'll fill the rest in on what he's learned.

[GreyWolfVT]

Hans still continues to try and help his employer Kurt by binding his wounds and trying to wake him.

[Pulpatoon]

Brick:

Out of uniform? Are you kidding? These are from Rorschach & Sons. Off the rack maybe but still some of Bastion's finest.
Pointing to the patterning in the fabric he says, So what do you think you see?

The soldier, despite his inscrutable painted features and massive-toothed, inexpressive rictus, subtly communicates bemusement through the careful angling of his wooden features. "Oh. That's military issue? I. Um. I didn't recognize the... What did you say your unit was?"

Anyway, listen up Private, then I got to split. These rats aren't your only enemy? I mean, I'm going out on a limb here, but what exactly are you fighting. What are you defending?

"The rats are Enemy enough! Tyrants and usurpers, they have an insatiable hunger for expansion. Holding the rats back, gaining our lost ground, and winning our Princess back from their perfidious claws—these are our orders, our passion, our glory!"

Turning slightly away for you, the wooden soldier raises his arms to his comrades and begins to sing:
They swear they'll invade us, these terrible foes;
They frighten women, children, and beaus,
But should their hairy bottoms in darkness get o'er,
Still Soldiers they'll find to receive them on shore!

Nearby soldiers join in:
We'll still make them fear, and we'll still make them flee,
And drub 'em on floors as we've drubb'd 'em at sea,
Then cheer up my lads, with one hear let us sing,
Our Soldiers, our Wizard, our Princess, our King.

[Pulpatoon]

Everybody Else: I want to give Silring another day to respond. If I haven't heard from him, we'll continue with the Short Rest.

[coil23]

Oh, Stirling. I was going to say: Silring? She's over in Goat's Plum Crossing tending to the herbs.

[Pulpatoon]

I knew it was only a matter of time before I made that mistake.

[Grognardsw]

Gwar! dips his finger in his own blood and traces runes along the face of Butchness of Wrath. He remembers as a child the shamans in his tribe doing such to the injured. The savage warrior rarely prays but does so now.

[Stirling]

apologises for delay, new year festivities and RL


'Shaggy' Beaker will search under the curtain for the urchin Mouse finding feet and pulling him as hard as he can. He will retrieve the bell also and hopefully find that he does not have to toll a mournful ring in remembrance of his street wise pal.

Mouse roll [1d20] = 11

with the impending Voice, looming large he expects a frantic maternal ogress or matronesque nanny. Both sound grisly acquaintances. If he can he will pick up the live body of Mouse and exit the room, seeking refuge among the party, following the route of Vanis and Jake

[Pulpatoon]

For speed, I'll roll for Shaggy's STR to see how he fares with extricating Mouse from the curtain:
Shaggy STR (14) [1d20] = 2
Handily done!

Shaggy Beaker digs through the endless tangle of fallen curtain, retrieving first his beloved bell. As footsteps echo nearer and great unseen lungs cough at the foul smoke, Beaker's curtain-clawing becomes increasingly frantic, his wooly side-burns slick with sweat and tears. But then! He feels a stick-thin ankle under his hand. Hauling with desperate might, he yanks the crumpled body of Mouse from the wreckage, and drags him at all speed from the Audience Chamber, certain he feels the breath of some new enemy hot upon his neck.

Somewhere deep beneath the pile, Horton Portencium, world-weary librarian and reluctant adventurer, breathes out one last red bubble of life, and is still.

A Short Rest
The party, or what is left of it, reunites and tends for the fallen as best they can.

Everyone is at least a little in awe of the newcomer, Jake, who not only didn't pass out when his leg was ripped off, but walked away from the event. After some quick tourniquet work and some rough stitching, the boy actually seems more vibrant and hale that he was before. Ah, the resilience of youth.

As the hour passes, you hear distant yells and thumps from the dust-choked Audience Chamber, but whatever is moving around in their never seems to approach the exit to the Putti Rotunda. Several times you hear the stamping of marching feet from different directions, but always at a distance.

William, Odric, and Horton are dead. Do you do anything with William and Odric's corpse-bits?

Everyone else's HP is restored to full (and Jake gets his second HD), although your STR is remains depleted until you can take a Long Rest. All characters are conscious and capable of activity.

Jake, with only one functional leg, suffers as follows: All movement is very slow, and DEX saves will be called for quite a lot. Failure on a DEX Save means you have fallen prone and must expend a round getting back up. Once you get a decent peg-leg or what-have-you, this condition will go away.

mjulius: you may narrate whatever Brick wishes to share of his time among the Toy Soldiers.

[mjulius]

Brick rushes across the immense room at a sprint and after being a little startled at how horrible everyone looks, tells the party about the toy soldier bivouac from which he came. He speaks, stops, pants after his long run, raises a finger, then hands upon knees, hacks a little, spits, and begins again.

gimme a minute...

He tells the rest that the rats have captured their princess. The soldiers have secured a rear guard and encampment. The room is huge beyond the door, with shelves like canyon precipices. There is also a king and at least one wizard, judging by their soldier song.

[GreyWolfVT]

Kurt "We should do something for the fallen but what in this place?"

Hans starts taking anything of use from the fallen William "These may prove of more use to those of us that have survived."

[Grognardsw]

"I live!" exclaims Butchness of Wrath.



Gwar! helps her up and gives the woman a hug.

"The gods would have me live and slay and fuck still!" she adds lustily.

"Whose idea was it to separate the party?" she asks harshly of the group. "Are you amateurs who would see us killed in our first hours here?! This must not happen again!"

"That's right!" Gwar! grunts in agreement.

[Urson]

Jake will use his maul as a cane for the time being, and will keep a sharp eye out for something he can use as a peg leg. He actually smiles a bit. Jasmine will see how heroic I am from this wound. If I can recover some treasure, she's sure to marry me!

[mb.]

Schroff sits on the floor, whimpering slightly and licking his wounds, while Deet tearfully tries to gather what's left of Odric. He eventually gives up and covers the pieces with a throw taken from the furniture barricade, and hangs his brother's sword from his own belt.

He returns to the Putti Rotunda, sits on the floor and strokes Schroff. Deet looks around at the others, exhaustion plain in his slack features, "what now?"

[Pulpatoon]

Options before the party:

1. Through the Barricaded Hall, the door marked "THE WISE MAY BE INSTRUCTED BY A FOOL." (To the Soldier's Bivouac)
2. Through the Barricaded Hall, the wooden stairs to a balcony. (Where the rats went)
3. Through the Putti Rotunda, back into the Audience Chamber. (Smooshed babies)
4. Through the Putti Rotunda, the unopened door that smells of blood and woodsmoke. (you are pretty sure this is the direction the sound of marching footsteps have come from)
5. Through the Great Hall, down to the Foggy Mineshaft.
6. Through the Great Hall, back to the village of Ballyjack to rest and recoup.
7. Stay in the Barricaded Hall, maybe make forts out of the furniture?

Mouse, Kurt, and Butchness are still basically at death's door, although mobile and active. Deet and GWAR! are injured, but not badly. Jake has an unfortunate tendency to fall over. Langston, Brick, Hans and Vanis are fit as fiddles.

[Pulpatoon]

From across the Barricaded Hall, the recovering adventurers notice a lone figure has been making its way towards them. It is one of the Wooden Soldiers. Its movements are a little hesitant and unsure, unlike the disciplined marching you observed before.

It is already within hailing distance.

[coil23]

Though the curtain fell on my last act, it seems to have not been my final one. He attempts a wry smile at this minor wit but the wooden rictus ensures wooden acting as well. Now I suppose I feel as old and stiff in body as I already did in mind. From librarian to soldier- a step down if ever there was one. 'Tis Horton, for whatever that's worth. I see some of us still survive.....for now.