Bay 12 Games Forum

Also I keep meaning to re-read the rules so I can see what actual things beyond ineffectual shooting and shouting my character can do.

But they don't work on my antiquated phone.

”Oh, crappants. Feck.”

Drop gracefully and disappointingly materially 20 feet to the ground!

”Arse.”

Pick self up with style, point to the giant golden swede on my head, and shout:

”Oi! Shadowytrollgit 2! How’d yer friend like my arse-freezing fancypants business, eh? Yeah! He liked it so hard he imploded, the eejit! Have some more, you stinking gobshites! I am Father Jao, Priest of… the er... Priest of fecking Happy Times! Ughh.”

Wonder to self if being “Good” requires politeness.

”Duck, you… you Anders type person! In the name of… being all happy… and stuff…”

Aim an Immobilise-ing joke at the surviving shadowtrollgit.

”So… Er. What do you ca-… no. No. How about – do you understand mr and mrs jokes where you’re from? I’m not trying to be racist but I genuinely don’t know a great deal about the culture of you shadoweejits, so it’s possible I’m wasting this one on you. Like the time I thought I was reciting my latest poem to a golem and it turned out it was a stone plinth. Anyway – Mr and Mrs Tullwarts, and their daughter… Jenny… Have it, you fiend!”

"Errr. I might get seduced? For a block of cheese? And if I've tried to tell jokes I get to spend eternity with a beautiful halfling girl?"

Jao's heart was all a quiver, indeed his soul was too, but there was a nagging doubt. He didn't mind selling his soul for cheese and, indeed and/or love, but this cheese could turn out to be maggot-ridden if... if he turned out actually not to be all that funny.... Bugger. And how was he going to get gold and obey the law? It certainly had never really happened so far and it wasn't an infinite supply of ethereal cheese that was likely to change that. On the other hand, the image of the beautiful halflingette - let's call her Alice, for convenience - tore at him so, and seemed to suggest something. He'd exiled himself from polite, and indeed, shapely, company for much of his life to prove everyone wrong - that he would become a great poet and performing artist (and of course thereby de-exile himself from shapely company). But it had not quite worked out, for various reasons. Once, Jao had even thought he was going to make it - have his big break - upwards of three people once applauded a performance of his in a particularly boisterous bar, but then he slipped in some beer and broke his finger, which prevented him from performing for several weeks, and then the wave of the zeitgeist was gone, and his chance of fame perhaps forever with it.

So.

A Priest of Garl. That sounded... better than a wretched bum on the streets, at least. And gods noticing him? Well, better than no one, eh?

And anyway, what actually stuck more in the back of the throat of his soul was Garl's promise that everyone got what they deserved.

Oh feck.

Jao had worked tirelessly for the joy of others all his life, but he couldn't deny that one time he kicked an oprhan in the ear for throwing a rotten swede into his busking hat. And he was often mercilessly miserable to everyone.

He was going to need help turning all that around.

"Er. So. Gold, jokes, and being good, and obeying the good laws. Or an eternity of damnation and probably having rotting vegetables thrown at me. Mr Garl, sir, I accept. And if a totem of your goodness I shall wear upon my head, please let it be in the form of a rotting swede, to remind me of my worstest moment, that I might never again descend so low. If you please. Sir."

Well crap. That was it then. Jao - no, Father Jao - was going to have to learn some jokes.

What was the human expression? Balls. On reflection there was no reason to have supposed anything they'd tried would have worked, and it greatly irritated Aubrey that they should have been rushed - or just stupid - enough to try it. She much preferred a plan based on observation. But that wasn't all that she didn't like about this bloody mess. At least if they fought their way through the damned station they'd know what's what. No, that would be as stupid.

"We have to go, don't we. If you two secure the prisoners in the cupboard, I'll see if I can get the access code for his ship. Okay? Clarke - please inform me where is the access code for station access to docked ships? I would prefer not to ask the Cain to request this data from you."

Zee could find one for ours, so I'm sure we can get one for his, right? Acquire an access code. If not forthcoming from the computer, acquire it from Clarke. Then try to jam shut the doors around the reception area, except the one we need to take to Varkonius's ship. Obviously though time is of the essence, so don't do it if it'll take too long.

"Wait. Clarke? Did you see the man with the panther? Did you see him actually board the shuttle to the surface?"

The horrible thought that Varkonius was still on his ship, waiting for them, began to surface. It would be the obvious thing to do, in fact.

”What is your name, O shining beautiful Halflingette? I, Jao Jankins, Bandit of the Hedgerows, will come for you should I die an amusing death, and we shall walk together through yon Big Doors! Yes. But now I must leave. Let me taste one more time your exquisite cheeseboard. By the gods your hair is enthralling.”

Ask, and then float back up to Garl’s party.

”O, Garl – who truthfully be exceedingly Glamourous – I am terribly afraid of being chased from your beautiful party dimension by the celestial badgerfiends and suchlike, and back in my own dimension there appear to be shadowgits intent on ripping me limb from limb. I don’t want to go back there, unless of course I can defeat the shadowgits, but I am but a poor half-Halfling, and what I lack in weakness of heart I very much make up for in weakness of swordarm. Yea. So, like, what I wanted to know, I suppose, was how I can stay here. Or how I can return at will. You know, become, like, Jao the Ethereal Poet of Glamourous Gloom. Actually I can see how occasionally becoming ethereal at will could be an abusable trait – muchly useful in playing innocent pranks on the unexpecting, stealing their stuff, gorging oneself on the cheeseboard of the afterlife, that kind of thing.

Well, in that case, I’d better go and face my fate, and see what I can do about these shadowfeckers molesting my comrades. For now I have found a second reason to live – not just to become the greatest unwanted poet ever, but also to do that and then die amusingly and meet the fair shining Halflingette. Unless of course she’s going to the bad afterlife – do you know anything about that? I only want to go with her if she’s like, going to a pleasant afterlife. Although I could certainly try to rescue her, I suppose.

Oh hey – “ to the passing cheeseboardbearer – ”Could I have another cube of that one, please?”

Speak thus to Garl, and then presuming he can’t aid me, float back to the desperate combat against the Shadowgits.

So, comrades... shall we search the room or the ship? We don't have long.

I can't remember if the target item was a heavy piece of metal or not?


But... toiletries for the panther?

I'd rather not have to search his ship too!