(no subject)

[dragonoflife]

As you may recall, our heroes found themselves stranded in a podunk town, literally on the other side of the world from Guildhome, the city from which they had been dispatched. With time at a premium and all the players at last at the table, the DM rushes back from the bathroom to his chair.

DM: Focus! (promptly trips over a book) Waaaargh!

That's not onomatopoeia, he actually said "waaargh". The players burst into laughter and begin repeating it back and forth at each other. If you add "waaaargh!" into about anything in the rest of this report, it accurately sums up the mood at the table at this point. Iglar, however, is the first to recover and haul the players back in character to discuss what plans they shall form.

Iglar: "First thing we do is sit down and talk abut our feelings!"
Ralth: "Yeah, that isn't going to happen."

The players are faced with two choices: Go to the halfling lands to use the teleport chamber they may have so as to travel back to Guildhome, or travel south in hopes of catching a ship back to the southern continent. Electing the latter, they realize they need a guide, and consult with the townsfolk to try to find a guide -- though Khoraine isn't happy about how they're describing her.

Khoraine: So now I'm a fluffy, flying thing?
Iglar: (to the local sheriff) "Maybe you have someone who lost everything to the orcs and their farm burned down and now they've turned to walking the woods seeking vengeance?"
DM: "Er... no?"

But a local farmer has a boy who might be able to escort them south! They track the farmer down and offer him silver, which, naturally, he accepts without a moment's hesitation. Iglar attempts to pay him in leather armor and short swords.

Iglar: "You can use them in case the orcs come back!"
DM: "We don't know how to use swords and armor! We could use pitchforks. Swords require years of training!"
Ralth: It makes sense, that's what they'd be best with...
Iglar: "I see these farmers have no interest in weapons. Iglar loses all respect for them."

Dian attempts to buy rations or supplies or something, we never found out what because the town doesn't have a general store. He fumes about this while the others share a chuckle about taking the farmer's teenage boy Elwood off his hands.

Khoraine: "I bet you'll be glad to have him off your trouble."
DM: "Elwood don't give me no trouble. I run a tight ship around here."
Dian: "Ship? I don't understand. You said you HAD no ships around here."
DM: "That's a metaphor, which is where one takes a situation and describes in terms of another situation so that the listener can understand the situation in analogy."
Ralth: Damn, these farmers are smart.
Dian: "And yet you don't even have a general store."
DM: "...Why would we need one?"
Dian: "It's a metaphor."

The party sets off into the forest, grimly marking rations off their character sheets.

Sargassas: Iglar, you oughtta be marking two off.
Iglar: A well-operating warrior requires 4500 calories per day!

Iglar immediately begins overly attempting to turn Elwood into a ranger. Trudging on, the party diligently makes camp for the night while the DM checks for random encounters. Sargassas promptly is assailed on his watch by three wolves.

Iglar: "FOOD!"

The wolves attempt to maul Sargassas but fail, owing to the lizardman's ludicrously high AC. The other PCs awaken to join the fray. Ralth circles around to the side and is promptly jumped by the remaining four wolves of the pack, who he had failed to hear waiting in the underbrush for just such an occasion. The plucky halfling is promptly mauled (and tripped, owing to the wolves' free-trip-attempt-on-a-bite ability) to negative health, but the other PCs slay several wolves and force the remaining ones to retreat before they can haul his body all the way into the undergrowth.

After some healing is dispensed, the PCs travel on with better luck on their listen checks, avoiding other encounters as they head further south into increasingly more wild terrain. The next random encounter has the miserable luck of targeting Ralth again, as this time a dire wolf emerges from the forest to consume him during his watch. Said dire wolf manages to bowl over even Enlarged Iglar, but is finally slain by said enlarged warrior's 4d6-damage-dealing axe. Ralth survives this fight by virtue of scaring the wolf with a thunderstone.

Ralth: "And yet it's still better than going home."

At last, the party reaches the river, now deep in the heart of jungle-class territory.

Ralth: Caulk the wagon, let's ford this bastard!
Dian: Now what, dire crocodiles?!
DM: Hey, you guys have been avoiding most of the random encounters! You avoided the boar... you avoid the dire badgers... I was gonna give you points for common sense! Seriously, you've reached the river with no further problems.
Ralth: No further problems except for the ELDER ELK OF THE FOREST who's come for a drink!
DM: Uh, okay, he's peaceable, he's an elk.
Dian: Elk are very unpredictable.
Sargassus: The chaotic elder elk of the forest!
DM: He charges you with his antlers bared! He's a hundred-and-nine-point buck and every one has the vorpal quality!

Traveling down the river, the PCs are surprised to see a battered raft with a chest on top of it tied to a rock in the bank of the river. Immediately suspicious, they send forward the rogue to deal with it. He discovers and disarms the poison needle trap on the chest, and opens it to find it empty.

Ralth: It WAS a trap!
Iglar: I'm going to go into the forest and see if I can find who set the trap.
Sargassas: No, don't do that. What are you going to do even if you find them, anyway?
Dian: "Here's your needles back!" (mimes throwing)

Ralth debates on whether disabling the safety on the poison needles is a good act -- then, having rolled quite well on Disable Device, elects to replace the needles with a thunderstone. No sooner do the PCs round the bend then they hear the thunderstone detonate, and return to find two bandits writhing on the ground clutching their ears.

After a pair of encounters that further came to nothing (except mystery and anger on the players' part!), the PCs finally reached town...