Gaming: After many moons, Al got to run his Ptolus game
again. This was the musical comedy episode: a drunk stage director hired
the PCs (minus Ayse's character Erika, who had all the skills and
contacts we needed for the adventure) to keep an eye on the star of his
soon-to-open show because he thought he overheard some gangsters talking
about whacking him on opening night. The kid turned out to be a scion of
the local Crime & Evil Family, Inc, mixed up in some sort of internal
family politics, and the plot to kill him turned out to be real (if
somewhat mysterious). However, no obstacle was too much for our heroes to
overcome in protecting this kid, not even Ken's character Johann (the elven
martial artist) having to go on stage in drag before an audience of
dozens!
The promised percentage of the gate was not very much, because this
was the theater for the lower class, but later a C&EFI representative
delivered a more substantial reward.
There was some investigation into Karl's mysterious box, but it
remains extremely mysterious.
Raul the mechanic went to the temple of the Rat God to investigate a
horrible cyborg monster they had found, but couldn't do anything with it
and didn't want the Rat God to have a working cyborg monster anyway.
Later he ratted them out to his contacts in the secret technology
underground.
Tavern rumor had it that steam-powered automata were stalking a
particular street, so Raul dragged everyone out to help him look for it.
While hanging around the bad part of town in the middle of the night, they
saw some blue gnolls (also mentioned in rumors), but the gnolls did not see
them. As advertised, a steam robot in the shape of a dwarf climbed out of a
well and started trundling along looking for "abominations", at which point
the two blue gnolls came running back and axed it.
Karl's ancestors protected the PCs during the ensuing fight. That's
his story, and no one has a better explanation for how the two fiendish
gnolls landed a total of one hit during the ensuing fight. Despite their
near-immunity to normal weapons, they were brought down and their heads
taken as trophies.
Raul's contacts in the secret technology underground copped to
building steam robots to fight against cyborg monsters, although that
one was a prototype and shouldn't have gotten loose. Then they swore him
to secrecy.
Level UP! 3.5 levelling seems so complicated and annoying compared to
4th edition levelling.
Vacation: Oh no! Ayse has become sick with the
hideous plague of doom and must be quarantined in the upstairs library.
Hopefully she has not infected all of Roseville by having made mashed
potatoes yesterday.
Since Ayse and Ken weren't going anywhere, I got a ride back to
Mountain View with Marith. We didn't get back until almost 2 in the
morning, but finally I was back in my own parasitelair! Yay!
Food: Left-overs. It is the way of our country.
Cats:
Marmalade: "Yay! You're home! YAY!"
Ghirardelli: "Oh, it's you."
Aspen: "What?! I thought we got rid of you!"
Twelve paws!
Writing: VACATION.