Chapter Three

## Burning Buildings and Gangrenous Guardtowers

* **After the myriad of events that occurred the previous night, the bois had yet more shenanigans to deal with in the town of Rockwater. Since Terrick had no other tasks to give to the adventurers at the moment, they returned to the shops previously mentioned to spend their hard earned gold.**
* **Aigee and Kaw return to Gyystoph’s shop to demand their robotic limbs. Kaw goes first, laying flat on his back upon a table with his left leg outstretched. Dyrli offers him a potion that would numb his body from the worst of the pain. “Be sure to only drink half,” Dyrli advised him, “that way there’s still some left for your friend--” Too late, the crow guzzles down the whole potion, leaving only a single drop left at the very bottom.**
* **Kaw’s entire body goes limp as Gyystoph approaches with a hacksaw in hand, wearing a wrinkled grin of sadistic joy.**
* **“Woah woah woah,” the crow says to the saw-wielding dark duegar, “Back off, pal. I don’t trust you with that thing.” The duegar frowns. “That leg’s gotta come off somehow, my fine customer,” he says. Gesturing over at Bongo, Kaw croaks, “Let’s get this show on the road already.” The goliath lumbers over, draws his massive scimitar, lifts it over his head and slashes down, lopping off the crow’s leg right above his knee. Blood and feathers go everywhere, but the tengu doesn’t feel a thing thanks to the potion. A mechanical crow-leg is then magically mended to his stump. Kaw jumps off the table and saunters around the room, his metal foot clacking on the floor. Built into one of the toes was a cable-like whip.**
* **Next up is Aigee-Gorg. He slaps his gooey body onto the table, smiling broadly as he imagines himself with a powerful robotic arm. Dyrli lamely hands over the potion, and Gorg sips down the final drop. He feels a brief numbness in his tongue, but that’s all. “You ready, my friend?” Gyystoph asks. Aigee nods and sticks out his gooey left arm, still smiling.**
* **Bongo raises his scimitar and slashes down… but only manages to hack half-way into the Goo Fellow’s arm! Aigee immediately starts panicking as blood spews from his arm, he writhes in agony. James and Gyystoph attempt to hold him down upon the table and he screams in absolute pain. Bongo rips his scimitar free and raises it again. With another chop, Aigee’s arm flops down onto the ground alongside Kaw’s severed leg. The two severed limbs are then devoured by Gyystoph’s massive robotic snake.**
* **“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!” Aigee howls, clutching at his bloody stump. Dyrli swiftly attaches the mechanical arm onto the stump and mends it together with magic. She then jams a “health potion” down Aigee’s throat to stop his screams of pain. After an hour or so, the Goo finally calmed down and inspected his new, gleaming steel arm. Built into it was a mini crossbow. Rapidly, the goo encompassing Aigee’s body squirmed over the arm, fusing together, combining the power of the robotic arm with the slimy texture of the goo. Despite the terrible pain and the unimaginable mental scars he’s suffered, The Goo Fellow is pleased with his new limb.**
* **Now that Kaw and Aigee have received their mechanical appendages (which will surely prove to be useful in combat) the Bois peruse through Gyystoph’s selection of weapons. Kaw purchases a flintlock musket and a long-spear with the rest of his gold. But the rest of the adventurers are looking for weapons that aren’t quite so pricey. “Well, you could head on over to the blacksmith nearby,” the dark duegar suggests. “He might have some cheaper weapons in stock.”**
* **Bongo perks up at the mention of this blacksmith. For a reason he can’t describe to the others, he has a terrible feeling in his gut. “Tell me about this blacksmith,” he says. Gyystoph tells him, “He’s an alright fellow, I suppose. An Orc. Not incredibly bright, nor friendly for that matter. But he forges a fine weapon, and his prices aren’t as high as mine. If you’re looking for reliable, cheap weapons, he’s the bloke you want to talk to.”**
* **Although the goliath still has a bad feeling, he and the others trek over to the blacksmith’s shop and waltz inside. Behind the counter looms a muscular orcish brute, sharpening a blade on a stone. He glares at the newcomers. In a thick accent, he growls, “I’ve ‘eard about you blokes. You’re th’ fools that tried to take down that ol’ Necromancer, but didn’t even put a scratch on ‘em. I’m surprised that Terrick hasn’t executed you lot yet.”**
* **Anger flares within each party member. Skimp, James, Aigee, and Kaw start to argue loudly with the Orcish Brute, but Bongo quiets his comrades then says to the Orc amiably, “I hear you’ve got weapons for sale.” The Orc snarls, “‘Course I do, you daft git! I’m a gods damn blacksmith! Now hurry up an’ buy somethin’, before I throw all you out!” “Oh, I’d like to see ya try, buddy,” Kaw hisses. The Orc swells with rage, his green face deepening to bright red. From behind the counter he draws a massive ax. “Out. All of you,” he rumbles. “‘Fore I lose my temper.”**
* **Seeing that this situation is getting way out of hand, Bongo sighs, “Come on, Bois. It’s clear we’re not welcome here. Let’s go get a drink.” The party starts heading for the door, when the goliath turns back to The Orc and grabs his trusty stone hilt from his bindle. “How much gold for this stone hilt?” he asked. The Orc was flabbergasted. “Gold?!” he roared. “GOLD?! For an ol’ stone hilt?! I couldn’t cut butter with that thing! I wouldn’t give you a single piece of copper for that!”**
* **Bongo, usually the level-headed leader of the party, finally SNAPS.**
* **The rest of the Bois watch in horror as the goliath stomps back to the counter, slams the stone hilt down, and screams into the Orc’s red face, “BUY THIS!!!!”**
* **“Never!” the Orc roars back. Bongo slams his fist on the counter, splintering the wood. “ONE HUNDRED GOLD COINS!” he shouted. The Orc cried, “I’ll die before I fork over any gold for that useless hilt!” Bongo slammed his fist down again and bellowed, “TWO HUNDRED GOLD COINS! THAT’S MY FINAL OFFER!!!”**
* **“Get out of my shop! And take that damn hilt with you! I’m warnin’ you, goliath.” The Orc raised his ax threateningly.**
* **“THREE HUNDRED GOLD!!!!!!!!” Bongo demands, slamming down his fist so hard that the counter shatters into a heap of broken boards. “That’s it! You asked fer it!!” The Orc swings his ax, burying the blade right into Bongo’s chest. Bongo doesn’t even flinch. Retrieving his stone hilt, he throws it on the floor and screams, “KEEP IT! FREE OF CHARGE!” Then he marched out of the shop with the rest of the Bois.**
* **… A few seconds later, the wounded goliath returned, picked up his stone hilt, stashed it back in his bindle, and told the Orc, “This isn’t over!”**
* **After that little trouble, they finally head back to the tavern to share a drink whilst the townspeople sing great songs of the Bois’ bravery.**
* **At nightfall, each one of our heroes settles down, exhausted from the daily grind of hero’s work except for Kawcrookitar, who decides it is pleasant enough to go for another midnight jaunt on the roof. The peaceful night was suddenly broken by eerie screams coming from the other side of town, along with a sinister orange glow. The flames grew high into the night and caught Kaw with his pants down so to speak, and he uttered a mighty screech to wake up his posse.**
* **They run outside to find the flames encroaching. The Bois rush to find Terrick, for surely he must be doing something about this fire, to help. They sprint as fast as possible (having to help the slow Skimp along) and beeline straight to the guard tower.**
* **Upon arriving they run into an old friend, Gyystoph, who then explains that the guardsmen have set fire to the city and possessed many of the guards. Just as he finishes his monologue, the group is jumped by some city guard who are not in their right mind. Gyystoph makes a show of how superior he is at combat and makes sure that the spotlight is on him.**
* **After the innocent guards who just so happened to be possessed were brutally murdered by our heroes, they went through the door in their usual fashion.**
* **They found a room with a large fountain in the middle, columns holding the ceiling aloft, and a stairway leading up. In the fountain lay the slain bodies of Rockwater citizens and Kaw goes in for a mouthful of flesh and finds the bodies rotten to the core and, as he later finds out, he contracts the bubonic plague right then and there. From upstairs, voices could be heard and the Bois devised a wicked plan. Using Gyystoph’s bombs, they would take out the columns of the room, collapsing the floor above and rendering the owners of the voices helpless on the floor below.**
* **Everything goes according to plan and the floor crumbles down to where the Bois were waiting, weapons drawn.**
* **It turns out that the voices upstairs belonged to a handful of guardsman and a wizard. While most of the group is fighting head on, Aigee decides to hide behind a desk and cast spells while the real men do all the work. After slaying these wicked foes, the Bois (along with Gyystoph) race upstairs. Inside what appears to be a training room, the party encounters a few young bois practicing their archery skills.**
* **The younglings definitely had a reason to be practicing because they were absolutely awful with bows. The only hangup the Bois had was when James booshed through the door in the usual way, there was a small spray of green gas that sent her running in fear to the corner. The possessed guards proved to be no match, however, to the wrath of Bongo and the bois. In a fit of rage, Thgil plunges his claws into the final youngling’s chest and SLAMS him through a table onto the floor, slaying him mercilessly.**
* **After investigating the room the bois discover a young Zorendal soldier named Neo who isn’t possessed. He offers to assist in putting out the fires all throughout the city. Reluctantly, the bois allow him to do so. They also learn from Neo that this “infection” stemmed from the local prison warden named Zorith.**
* **Continuing on their holy crusade of ridding the city of the filthy innocent guards who were mindlessly control and had no say in what they were doing but were slaughtered like dogs in the street anyway, the party proceeds up the stairs to the final level**
* **Before entering the room, Gyystoph decides to show off again and after he says something along the lines of, “I’m better than you so you should take the damage while I shoot them all,” he drinks an invisibility potion and disappears from sight (the actions of a coward).**
* **Bongo and the Bois, not afraid to get their hands dirty (unlike their friend Gyystoph) jump into action full of grit and determination to slay all that oppose them! Their opposition consisted of two more guardsmen and a small, old, dirty-man. This individual seemed unassuming at first, rambling like a madman about the power of “The Ithilids”**
* **Before the party could react, this frail old man mutated and grew in size, sprouting arms from his sides, growing thicc, resinous skin all throughout his body, and his face morphing into that of a grotesque gargoyle. The bois were in for an interesting battle.**
* **As the guardsmen close in, Gyystoph, materializing on the wall and hanging like a monkey,  lets loose his first bullet and severely cripples one of them.**
* **Our heroes dispatch the peons quickly and move on to the behemoth. It was a fierce battle with both sides slashing and stabbing to and fro but eventually the mongrel was brought to the brink of death. His grizzled old face stretched through the gaps in his abhorrent flesh. He smiles as the brain jacker inside of his skull decides to peek its ugly mug outside the cracks in the old man’s cranium.**
* **The brain jacker leaps like a wet slug onto the ground and Kaw scurries over, using what little sign language he knows a signs the word “want” and “more” at the jacker. It gleefully leaps up, ecstatic to finally have a friend/father-figure to cuddle with when Aigee viciously rips it off of Daddy’s face, jealous that he will never find a match quite like Kaw and his brain-pal, leaving the brain creature in figurative tears.**
* **Aigee-Gorg cups it in his goo-hands and holds it aloft, similar to how a baboon would dangle a lion cub over a cliff. The jacker, furious that he has been torn from Daddy’s greasy mitts, stings Aigee’s forehead and whispers telepathically something along the lines of, “I shall grant you the power of the Ithilids, you greasy dirt-man” and barely dodges Gyystoph’s bullet**
* **Gyystoph tries again (his pride shattered from his previous miss and now realizes that Skimp is better in every way) and this time the bullet rips the brain jacker from the thing that Gorg calls a face, splattering goo every which way. Aigee is dazed for a moment, but for the time being seems normal (normal by Aigee standards)**
* **From this point on, Aigee-Gorg would forever be stricken with the sickness of the Ithilids. His intelligence had taken a mighty plummet into near non-existence as he feels his very mind being almost eaten away by an unseen force. Every thought, every idea, jumbled around and ripped to pieces as the tortuous process takes hold and the goo-man known as Aigee-Gorg is now past the point of no return.**
* **Strolling out of the tower, the Bois see that Neo has kept his word, and the fires encroaching upon the town have been extinguished. The Bois are rewarded for their bravery by Terrick, who then gives them a few options for their next task. As always, our heroes verbally assault Daddy Terrick until they finally decide to journey over to the site of  a shipwreck and explore, where shenanigans, Naruto running, and joyous Sussery are sure to ensue.**
* **But little did the Bois know that within the shipwreck, one of Soresia’s oldest and deadliest foes was waiting for them… in the form of a dark weapon.**
* **SESSION END!**