Might as well endear myself to the local populace a little, Waffles decides.
Keep the two cutest sea urchins for myself, and hand out the rest to whoever wants one. Come one, come all, get your sea urchin here!
Name: Waffels
Gender: male
Race: Spider people
Profession: spider-janitor
Stats:
Body: 0
Finesse: 1
Mind: -1
Science: 1
Wounds: 0 (/)
Equipment:
Metal helmet
Fish mask
5 bargain meds
22 smoke bombs
Single shot thermonuclear pistol
tear gas grenade
Toolbox (wrench, hammer, Philips and flathead screwdriver, small crowbar, lots of duct tape, wd-40.)
Armful of Colorful Sea Urchins
Special:
Gained dangerous understanding of Basic Frog Phrases.
Gained a funny understanding of Basic Frog Phrases!
You hold on to two of the most handsome of your sea urchins, their spines gleaming in the afternoon sun as you hold them up to the light. They're absolutely lovely, you think as you strongly consider naming them. One's a lovely metallic golden, with long spines that sort of bend like the attractive abdomen of a miniature female. The other is a bright cyan, with stubby little spikes that make you think it'd be a very nice back massager if you managed to get someone to rub it over your back. You then turn your attention on the Frog People on the dock.
[Finesse: 12+1]
You approach a group of younglings who've barely lost their tails, and present your armful of goods. They croak and squeak with absolute delight as they gather round and gently pick out an urchin or two each, lovingly caressing it before they start navigating their long fingers to poke them in the innards, drawing back painted fingers in a variety of colors. They start with each other, drawing strange-looking symbols and shapes of animals you don't really recognize on each other, chuckling affably as they render themselves uncommonly beautiful on this auspicious day.
Of course, there's only so much they can do with only themselves to work with, and you soon find yourself swarmed with the lovable little scamps, who start painting similar shapes on you, soon turning you into a wonderful tableau of primitive childlike art, your body painted head to multitudinous feet with funny images, the children laughing and climbing over you all the way as you affably bend down to permit them easy access.
What you assume are the parents of all these younglings seem to be watching amusedly as you let yourself be decorated. About five of them for a group of roughly three dozen children, seems about right for Frog People. They seem suitably assured of your good intentions, or at least unable to perceive somebody as garishly painted as you as any kind of plausible threat.
Items Gained: Cute Sea Urchin Body Paint, Golden Long-Spined Urchin, Cyan Blunt-Spined UrchinItems Lost: Armful of Colorful Sea UrchinsName: Bertillious "Bert" Callion
Gender: Male
Race: Spider person
Profession: !Science! Thief
Stats:
Body: -1
Finesse: 1
Mind:1
Science: 1
Wounds:
Equipment:
Plasma Machete
Metal helmet
x2 single shot Thermonuclear pistol
x3 smoke bombs
x2 bargain medicine
Colorful sea urchin
Lost and Found of the Frog Whaler
Distress Signal System Components
Follow Eccentrica, but keep my distance. I'm unsure of the frogs intentions.
[Finesse: 5+2]
They manage to make very rapid progress, and you're barely able to keep up without letting them know you're there, especially among the tight twists and turns of the labyrinthine frog homes, until eventually you reach a shining dome holding within it an icy estate of old, circled by tents wholly incongruous to the otherwise flawless aesthetics of the place.
Of course, you do not get to explore very deeply before a rather fierce-looking Frog Person moves to block your way in, croaking menacingly as Eccentrica is taken to a tent deeper in. If you had to guess, you'd say this is some kind of residential rotunda, and guests are most certainly only permitted in by invitation only.
Name: He Who Sees Beyond
Gender: Male, but has no reproductive organs, due to a tragic accident involving a particle accelerator, a rubber duck, and a chicken.
Race: Iron Shiny Man
Profession: Physicist. Dabbles in mechanics and engineering.
Stats:
Body: -1
Finesse: -1
Mind: 0
Science: 4
Wounds: 0/5
Equipment:
Wild-Grade Power Generator ($199.99)
Your Fortune Read ($0.01)
Stare at my new retainer. Not so much that he runs away in fear, but enough to let him know that I know what he's doing.
Then see if any of the bumps in the surrounding frogs' skins react to attempts to use my metal-empathy on them.
Your new retainer just stares at you with his bulging eyes. This seems to be a way easier job than his regular duties, and he seems plainly thankful for the privilege of doing it. So you decide to complicate things somewhat.
[Body: 2-1]
You go up to a nearby frog sailor and try to feel them up something fierce, looking for any sign of metal objects underneath their clothes. The frog sailor in question, a rather large specimen, does not appreciate this forwardness one bit, and with an errant flick of his powerful leg kicks you straight in the midsection, the force of it more than enough to make your internals shake and knock the breath straight out of you as you fly a short distance toward the railing, smash through it and promptly land in the water, the last thing you see before you're in the drink being the rather surprised look of your assailant and the very mildly concerned expression of your retainer as he watches your less than triumphant arc and the incredible crack of your body against the railing.
[Body: 12-1]
You groan and twist in the water, but even if you didn't know how to swim before you landed, several attempts to get to shore from the capsule when the claustrophobia became unbearable made you learn the hard way, and even with your amazingly bruised waist you manage to stay afloat and swallow a bare minimum of water, looking up bemusedly at the face of your retainer, loyally and silently still watching from above with absolutely no intent to help in any way whatsoever.
Wound Gained: Bruised WaistName: Eccentrica Gallumbits
Gender: All.
Race: Worm Person
Profession: Strip Tease Dancer
Stats
Body: 1
Finesse: 2
Mind: 0
Science: -1
Wounds: None
Equipment:
Incredibly Seductive Spangly Tearaway Outfit
39 Dollars in Singles stuffed in various places of the outfit
For the moment, this was fine. Honestly, she'd had much worse, and things could certainly get much worse if she prodded too actively.
Go with the flow. Observe, listen, be docile and smile prettily back at my rescuers.
You follow along, up the stairs and along a corridor. Take a left, then take a right. The caves go on and on, and despite the lack of any visible fires the place still looks lit, the ice gleaming softly as if the light were conducted flawlessly through it. The paths wind on and on, branching out into the depths of the ice caves, until finally you come to a delicately carved dome of ice, its roof discontinuous with the ground, risen from it with no apparent means of connection. It's not very large, you find, hosting an estate that numbers three decent-sized houses, also carved entirely of ice and looking positively ancient at that. These seem to be entirely untouched - instead the Frog People present, what few there are, seem to have taken up residence in tents arranged circularly around the edge of the dome, the crude driving of their spikes marring the uninterrupted frozen floor in a way that makes your eyes hurt ever so slightly.
A small, but very fierce-looking frog eyes you as your lovely and polite protectors nudge you inside. A moment of suspicion gives way to froggy smiles and nods, and you are nudged very demonstratively by your guides to assuage any concerns as they croak out a series of phrases you do not at all understand. The small frog draws its face and lets you pass, and you are taken to one of the larger tents.
There is still no fire to be seen, but you are struck by how singularly warm it seems to be as you behold a great spike driven into the floor in the center, breaking an elaborate stylized rendition of, near as you can tell, Frog People in strange outfits and wings surrounded by the unmistakable pattern of interlocking snowflakes. And next to this great spike an old frog sits flanked by six or seven younger ones, all of them simultaneously working on strange-looking headdresses as they draw from a pile of unrecognizable junk behind them, very deliberately not looking as they draw what look like broken remnants of electrical parts to fashion elaborate ornaments.
Naturally, all work ceases as they look upon you with surprise and more than a little suspicion, the three frogs accompanying you placing you carefully by the spike in a freer location. They provide a terse-sounding explanation of some kind to the headdress-makers, but they only seem more confused at this. A suggestion of some kind is made by the seeming head of the frogs leading you here, but this is met with the oldest of the headdress-makers throwing a silvery thing that looks a lot like an electromagnet at the frog's head. Your guides retreat quickly afterward, leaving you in place, an entourage of Frog People all staring at you rather awkwardly.
Join Bert in following Eccentrica. While I do so, watch the frog people, and take note of any that seem particularly interesting or suspicious.
You follow Bert to the frog homes, and on the way regard the residents of this place with a curious 8 eyes.
[Mind: 12+1]
The tunnels show little of it, but even from what you do see it's plainly obvious (if only in the contrast of the relatively plain-looking sailors and the garishly robed village folk) that there is very clearly some sort of celebration either underway or very likely to start. Presumably they've been waiting for the whale for some sort of purpose - you see one frog in particular plunge its hand into it and bring out a handful of ichor, which it then pops into its mouth and seems to pronounce very good indeed - from the smell of it you're guessing it's fermented, to say nothing of the copious amounts of maggots in it. You suppose Frog People have good reason to love both those things.
Your bet is some kind of festival. And you also suspect that you are likely to have some role in it - you are hardly unobserved even as you run through tunnels, you notice, at all points at least one frog keeps at least one eye on you a bit too intently to be a mere passing glance or surprised look, following your movements with great care and mostly unobtrusive movements even as some of them palm rather well-hidden knives instinctively. Though you are a curiosity, you get the sense that this is only as long as you do not prove a nuisance, and what would qualify you as such is a somewhat good question, given the well-hidden, but nevertheless palpable tension in these people.
Author
Topic: The Pillared Garden: A Miracle of Rare Device (Read 26114 times)