[AD&D] The Village of Hommlet session 6 summary

Note: only a partial summary this time as I had to leave before the session came to its (no doubt) thrilling conclusion!

From the notes of Alric Brethencourt of Veluna

Moonday turning Godsday, 18th day of the Readying, inside the strongroom of the ruined moathouse

To stay or to depart. Our fellowship cannot make up its mind. Despite the exhortations of our prisoner March to seek safety, I find it unwise to give up the advantage we have gained here today. Leaving these formidable defenses in the hands of the enemy once again would prove foolhardy, no doubt. Next time we might not be so fortunate as to take the ruins without the loss of life on our side. No, we must make camp here for the night; I fear not the wrath of Lareth. But before we make ourselves too comfortable, we must make sure the remainder of the moathouse is cleared of any potential threats. Who knows where the Blackhand agents might be waiting, hidden, hoping for an opportune moment to catch us unaware.

While Ellaria, Weebrian and Spugnoir searched the room where Hal escaped by means of a secret exit, and Madrak, Wilstan and Chryseis guarded the stairs leading deeper down, as from the bowels of the moathouse mysterious noises had been heard, Kazireh and I investigated the rooms on the other end of the landing. The floors here were caked with dirt and some doors were almost inaccessible, due to the large amounts of rubble from the crumbling ceiling which had accumulated over the years. We discovered a room repurposed for skinning game; though none of the pelts lying about were of such fine quality as those we found in the giant's possession. Behind a second door a small bedroom was revealed, which showed signs of faded splendour, as well as those of a more recent habitation. A large set of double doors, locked, barred the entrance to a larger room, but before attempting to break them down, we deemed it wise to be thorough and to explore the last room left unchecked. Here we found a small kitchen, rife with the stench of mildew; but there was some other odour as well, and I had the feeling something here was definitely amiss. Went in to check the cupboards for their contents, and at this point came under attack by a creature, which later I learned was some sort of giant tick. It nimbly jumped from the top of the pantry onto my back, and sunk its mouthparts deep into my neck. Luckily my companions reacted quickly, but alas, not very competently. The druid Tuffnell had joined the fray by then, and together with Kazireh they tried to burn the tick off, but as their attempts failed, I threw myself to the ground, hoping to crush the creature beneath me, but again to no avail. The last thing I remember a burning torch was shoved straight into my neck, slipping between breastplate and gorget, and I blacked out from the excruciating pain. My companions told me later that Tuffnell quickly healed the wounds using his magical clay, but I remember very little of what transpired next that night...

[Carcosa] Party in the Transparent Wastes session summary

Call me Stan. Some call me Sly, others call me the Caveman. Call me whatever you like, it really don't matter to Stan the Man, friends. Now, seeing as I've got hold of your attention, let me tell you about a great bender I had a few weeks ago, a really splendid couple of days that were. It started off in some little pissant village in the middle of nowhere, as I strode confidently into the local watering hole. I remember buying the locals quite a few rounds, and admittedly after that things get kind of blurry, and next thing I remember it's three days later, and I wake up in the desert, on the edge of the transparent wastes, wearing nothing but a panther cub pelt (now if you don't know Stan the Man I should point out at this point I'm only 1 foot tall, but big in all the right places boys and girls). The only other item in my possession seemed to be some sort of stick, which I decided to keep with me, as you never know when you'll have to do a bit of clubbing, which in my case, is pretty much all the time. I'd call it a vocational hazard, but really "professional fun" does it more justice. Anyhow, Lizzy had followed me in my drunken stupour, as the good girl always does; Lizzy being my trusty riding lizard, mind you. As I had nothing better to do after I had grown bored of watching the weird swirly things underneath the transparent ground for a few hours, I decided to mount her and take her for a ride. After that little bit of fun was over, I saddled her up and rode off into the sunset, or sunrise, or maybe it was noon. Anyway, off we were in the general direction of the sun, the point where it was hanging in the sky at that precise moment in time is of little consequence to the rest of the story, really, of no consequence at all, just imagine that sun hanging wherever you think it would be the most poetically appropriate for the start of this tale.

It didn't take long before I spotted a queer threesome off in the distance, wandering the wastes just like yours truly. Now it ain't easy seeing very far when you're a foot tall, but keep in mind that everything for miles around was transparent, and that one of the three travellers turned out to be about 20 feet tall, I kid you not. In case you haven't heard, Stan the Man has a few tricks up his sleeve, one of them being I can turn light away from any place I want, which can be used to turn things dark or invisible to the naked eye. I used this little trick to ride up to the strange company and check them out, as is my wont, before I decide to rob them or join them if they seem like a fun crew. Well they were a strange lot I tell you. One of them was an ugly old orange bird, must have been at least 70, though she acted sprightly enough, in a flashy pink jumpsuit with some nice bling around her neck. The tall feller I mentioned before was a lumbering red giant, carrying a giant skull around. I immediately noticed it were a feller, as one could judge from the massive bulging going on in his thong, being the only thing he wore. Really, his nutsack alone was so big I could've hollowed it out and made a nice little vacation home out of it. If you wonder why I spend so much time discussing his balls, it will become hilariously relevant later in the story, so bear with me. The third one, whose name I can't recall now, was an average human looking type, which I learned was the giant's catamite. As I observed them for a while I got the distinct impression they were a decent bunch for the Man to hang out with, they weren't into none of that racially fueled murder and mayhem that's so rampant these days, but just good honest killing to rob a man of his stuff, and sometimes for a bit of fun instead, nothing more, nothing less. That's the way it should be if you ask Stan the Man, and really, you should always ask Stan the Man about everything, friends.

So this wrinkled old tart's name was Fanta, and the red giant was called Latifo, soon-to-be Latifa. They told me they were going to some kind of swamp in the middle of the wastes, for a variety of reasons: namely Latifo wanted to wrestle a dinosaur to the ground and break it in as a mount, and Fanta said there was some kind of space alien bunker thereabouts, to which she had the key. They said it was going to be a really great party, and well, really great parties are a bit of a weakness of Stan. So I decided to tag along and hoped for the best, seeing as there was nothing else to do anyway.

So we walked for a few hours, Latifo being so big and fast I rode on his shoulders for the most part - I should mention here as well he had some weird tentacle thing going on, not something Stan's into all that much but it can be fun if the atmosphere's right, and that old bird was looking more appetizing by the minute - and eventually we saw some kind of river in the distance. Also some dinosaurs were roaring, which is never a good sign, especially as they have some kind of weird fascination with Stan the Man, even more than the boys and girls do. I mention this here as it will once again become relevant later on in this story, and up until now the story's been a bit of a drag I admit, but we're getting to the juicy parts real soon, I promise. So we walk to this river and hereabouts things are starting to become non-transparent again, that is, rather opaque, and not at all see-through. As we came closer we eventually noticed three pillars, with a person tied to each of them: one being a rather bloodied looking purple man - someone really went to town on that one - , a horrid bone woman with green splotches on her skin, and a rather attractive white skinned girl tied to the middle one. She seemed to be in the best condition, so I mosied on over to her on Lizzy, all the while using my invisibility trick, and started chatting her up. Now before it could go anywhere and Stan could put the moves on her, I suddenly hear the sound of some sort of big dinosaur in heat, making a lot of noise and definitely heading this way. Now me being a foot tall and this an-kee-lo-saur beasty undoubtedly taking dumps bigger than yours truly, I split the scene as fast as I could, and after some acrobatics ended up in the river together with Lizzy. The dinosaur did not seem to enjoy that and took out its frustrations on that purple guy I told you about, and he sort of just exploded in gory chunks after getting hit by that big-ass tail the dinosaur had. Then things get a bit confused as I was swimming for my dear life, but this is sort of what went down next: Latifo cautiously approached the an-kee-lo-saur and started some sort of primal bonding/wrestling ritual to subdue the creature, while Fanta went to check on those other prisoners and ran into unexpected company. Some strange looking bird with a gold belly-chain suddenly ran out from behind a wall and started unchaining that nice looking white chick, and Fanta being a bit of a lesbo clearly did not want to share. So she started using this fancy looking chicken roaster she has, which she called tek-no-lo-jay, and gave the other bird an unnatural crisp tan. Then suddenly about four naked fellers joined the roast, as well as some other guys with swords and a nasty looking dude with some sort of sound system hooked up to his face, giving him quite the booming voice I assure you, the kind of internal-organ-rupture boom.

While the giant wrestled the dinosaur and not doing a very excellent job at that, Fanta used her chicken roaster on all these lads who suddenly appeared, determined not to let anyone take our chick before we had our bit of fun. Now the party started to get a bit rough and people were getting crisped left and right, but that rave master guy I told you about started using his boombox on people and the wrinkled old hag suddenly bit the dust, I imagine after some serious internal bleeding or some such. In the meantime I had snuck up on that other woman, making a perfect jump off of Lizzy to clobber her right in the head, but still she persevered. When another dude joined our little private party things got too hot for Stan the Man, despite him being into the boys as much as the girls mind you, but three's a crowd and they didn't look like a chill group to get one's rocks off with. So I flipped invisible for a bit, and noticed Fanta had let her tek-no-lo-jay fall to the ground as the naked guys started dragging her off for a bit of fun, so I went over there and decided to turn the tables on those sports. I crisped that gal I told you about and some of her friends, which enraged sir boombox to no end, and the profanities he shouted proved to be the end of the remainder of his gang. He persevered as well however, and dragged Fanta off around the bend, and if there's one thing the Man don't tolerate it's people stealing his birds. So I rode after them and blasted that freak, stole his fancy stuff and felt pretty good about the whole thing. Fanta however was not feeling so good about the whole thing, what with the internal bleeding and all, so the Man had to work his magic to get her up and running again, that is to say, to practice some sexual healing. Now as it turned out she was as wrinkled and dried up down there as she was in the facial region, making for a not every appetizing sight I assure you, so I thought it was the best thing to do to turn her over and give her the old in-out-in-out through the backdoor so to say. Now despite her claiming to be a lezzer Stan the Man has never seen anyone as invigorated after a bit of rumpypumpy, so by the time the Man had finished the old bird was up and about again as if she were fifty years younger. By that time Latifo had recovered from being trumped by that an-kee-lo-saur, and he walked in on us like nobody's business. Now I'm glad he didn't join in, truth be told, what with his gigantic manhood and all. Anyway together we nicked some more stuff of those dead guys, dumped the bodies in the river and explored the rest of those ruins a bit more. There was a nice cosy little nook where some jale men had been staying, one of them being crushed during the dinosaur-Latifo wrestling match, as I was told later when that red giant decided to roast the guy's corpse, which we all agreed was incredibly foul and disgusting, but he was about to get his come-uppance real soon, you'll see. Anyhow, while Fanta and I got wasted on some wine we found and enjoyed a bit of roast turkey, Latifo went off to fell a tree to use as firewood for his horrid feeding habits. Now I must admit I did not see it happen in person unfortunately, but I can relate to you the hilarious tale of what happened next. Because as we all know trees are mean bastards and should not be screwed with under any circumstance, a well known fact which Latifo-soon-to-be-Latifa ignored, he went up to it and tried to uproot that tree I mentioned a sentence ago. Now this tree being the mean bastard it was, took not kindly to that at all, but suddenly snuck a root into Latifo's tigerprint thong and before you could say "themosthilariousthingtohappenatapartyever", it yanked off Latifo's balls. Now you can imagine how hilarious that must have been, but really, you had to be there to really savour the full extent of hilarity that the situation entailed. Anyway after that Latifa chopped down the tree and stored her nutsack in that skull she kept carrying around, the skull incidentally having belonged to her brother, and I think it's in poor taste to stuff your balls down your brother's mouth, even if it is the stuff good pranks are made of. So Fanta and I partied through the night, while Latifa kept whining and complaining about the bloody gash between her legs, like a woman at that bad time of the month. At a certain point Fanta started smelling real good, and I think the Man converted her because before I knew what was what we were at it again. After that I suddenly developed a strong attachment to my right hand, but for the life of me I couldn't tell you why.

So the next morning we rob the place a bit more, discovering a chest filled with gold, silver, firesticks and some sort of alien poppers and mind-expanding potions among other things. Now there was also a set of stairs leading down, and yes my friends, it proved indeed as promising as it sounds. So this curious bling that Fanta wore around her neck started playing some real classy music as she slid it in the lock of the heavy steel door at the bottom of the stairs, and voila, we were in. We walked through the long, dark corridor, being greeted by a deep, rumbling bass, and eventually emerged in a large dome, filled with some very odd looking space aliens which were dancing around a pulsating pillar in the center of the room. So what was a fun crew like us to do? Well I slipped out of my panther skin and announced the coming of the Man to those funky aliens. Naturally they were all pretty pleased and excited, and us being the good bunch we are, we passed around those poppers and potions and partied for days on end with those excellent spacemen. To be honest I don't really recall much of what happened during that time, but I can assure you there was plenty of probing to mutual satisfaction. So there you have it, the story of how the Man met his crew and they all got a bit of good killy-looty-humpy-party fun. Next time you're in town and looking for some fun, just ask for yours truly, Stan the Man.