Note from Jim: It all started as a simple PBEM question on the Dragonsfoot forum - you've been warned...

As I mentioned to Dave, I get a bit confused as to who is saying what (I'm a lurker...) in the posts, just because of the "layout" (wrong wording there...) of the posts. I'm still getting used to the way it's "told". I was expecting something like:

Email from Tom (insert character name here) - "I'm going to pick the lock".

I email back after rolling the dice - "ok, the chest opens up and you get a face full of dust" <GM rolls/Tom saves vs dust...>

Email from Tom: "What do I see?"

etc... assuming each email is per day or so.

Another note from Jim: There's some more Q&A about how to do PBEM, and then i get a bit silly...

PROLOGUE
p.s. Email from Matt (insert character name here) - "While Toms rolling around screaming from the dust on his shirt (he's an elf), I'm going to grab the halfling muser and load my bow and fire at the elf...., "Shaddap you stupid elf! We're only at the post office! Check yer mail more often!"
"Elves......" <shakes head slowly, sighs, loads bow again.....>

CHAPTER 1
"Darn fireball was a dud!" the 0.5 orc exclaimed as he reloads his bow from his quiver of many hobbits.
"Thats the problem with halfling musers nowadays, their casting time is slower than my rate of fire!".

He checks the color coded clothing of his next furry headed missle, noting it's red and with an approving nod, he sights up the thrashing elf on the post office floor and smiles quietly to himself...

CHAPTER 2
Suddenly, the postmaster's ugly old crone of a wife, with a cry of "Go POSTAL!" leaps over the counter scattering huge, already half toppled stacks of letters and boxes of old smelly cheese all over the floor, irritating the customers and small rodents underfoot.

Um... oh yes,...

She lands on the 0.5 orcs back and begins thrashing him soundly with her shawl of many colors.....
after a few minutes of this the elf finally gets up off the floor, still dusty and with bits of cheesy smelling cardboard & letters and the odd rodent now stuck to his jerkin and asks the postmaster to please remove his wife from the 0.5 orc who seems to be getting a bit irritated by the whole affair.

CHAPTER 3
Meanwhile, back on the bow,...

The hobbit muser, tired of waiting for the 0.5 orc to stop squeezing his feet (already sore from being squished into the too small sandals glued to the bowstring), wrestles himself out of the 0.5 orcs grip, and with a firm grasp on the bow, quickly points his behind towards the 0.5 orc and with a ever so cute and tiny hobbit-like wave of his middle finger, lights the fart he so ever gently released into the 0.5 orcs face and runs like heck out the front door....

The 0.5 orc, already hardly distracted by the postmasters ugly wife on his back, stood in shocked amazement as his fairy elf friend finally got over his tirade on the floor with all that dust business (hard to get a bead on a thrashing elf). "Why, he set a new record for self-composure! And in public too!" he thought to himself....

Then the 0.5 orc and the postmasters ugly wife were engulfed in flames....
EMAIL FROM LOTHAR:
Notice: Half orcs are now .4999999 orcs.

(Little EQ humor there.)

The version you first envisioned could work I'm sure, the more narrative version is just what I prefer.

I can see how the keeping some stuff from previous e-mails on there might be a little confusing, but you do get used to it, and you're right it's not necessary, but again just a preference.

I'm enjoying your party's adventure in the post office though! Maybe they'll find a +2 letter opener to help combat that Postmaster's Wife!

CHAPTER 4
Outside the post office....

"EEK!" squeeled a little old lady as a grinning halfling ran (well, limped rather quickly, due to his sore feet) between her legs and into an alleyway.

"Rotten little fuzzy barefoot bugger!" she yelled after the fleeting form.
Mumbling curses about two footed rodents to herself, she slowly turned towards the front of the postoffice to admire the cute little postage stamps listed at a fair price in the window with images of gaily dancing elfs spinning wonderful....

*WHOMP!*

Suddenly, the little old lady was besides herself with rage! And suddenly on fire too as the 0.5 orc inside the post office had reached around to the suddenly hobbit fart enflamed old hag melting into his back, grabber her by her shawl of now black & on fire, and proceeded to (and with great care and accuracy I might add...) toss her butt through the post office window!

Yes, the little old lady out in the street was met with herself, or rather, her twin sister who married that good for nothing....

Anyway, while the little old lady was attempting put out the flames on her <sadly> old <and now quite black and crusty> crushed and glass and elf stamp embedded form of her twin sister....
We find ourselves (why i don't know...) back inside the now flame engulfed post office (cheese normally doesn't burn as such, but here - it makes for good ratings...).

Our characters -
The 0.5 orc (now roughly around 0.49, give or take...) with his non-magical bow called "halflinger".

He's trailing along with his buddy the elf, doing the everyday errands that elf's do - laundry, grocery shopping, getting the mail.... sewing fine lace to underwear for resale at an exorbitant price to minors.... no, sorry, those are drow.... or are they dwarves? I can never get them sorted out! Oh well, that's what receipts are for!
Anyway, back to our story....

CHAPTER 5
The elf, looking a bit sad and desperately in need of dry cleaning viewed the surroundings and, with a slight 'come hither so we can whisper amidst the roaring flames' type of nod to his 0.5 orc friend that only some of us could only hope to not ever imagine, whispered, "I think we need to leave..."

The 0.5 orc, now not so quite 0.5 anymore, stared dumbly at his elven cheese and letter/rodent covered companion and thought "He's finally gone off his rocker! We're standing in a government installation and he's shaking his head like he actually likes this situation!?!"
A feeling of overwhelming pride and not quite brotherly love and admiration filled the 0. not quite 5 orcs black heart!

"Death to the warmongering demons!" He cried for no apparent reason, and began to flail his halfling bow around his head.

The elf, sensing, through some magical means unknown to the normal mundane type folks hereabouts, that flames were starting to creep up around them as if it were a living breathing thing trying desparately to wrench the small bits of life from their surrounding...

What? Oh, too much there? ok, back to the players.... oh well,....

CHAPTER 6
The elf, knowing that his 0. not quite 5 orc friend has gone off his rocker again (the last old homes day comes to mind - fireworks in a orc enclave - doesn't quite work the way it looks on paper.... all those poor orc eggs, all popping from the heat! Lotsa scrambled eggs for breakfast the next day tho'! What a party!!! WOOHOO!!)

um... it was the gnome rum i think, way too much for my constitution....

You know how hard it is to chase a gnome down, I can't run that far,
or that fast, low constitution...... but the little squeeking sounds they make when you SQUEEZE the rum out of them!

What a headache I had the next day!
uh,...
The elf, knowing their very lives depended upon his next bit of quick thinking for which he was know throughout his household and somewhat a bit farther by a few feet, grabbed his friend and with a great grunt of effort and masculine elvish strength, nearly bursting his heart with such a great effort,

slapped some sense into the 0. not quite 5 orc and said over the roaring flames and falling timbers of the 'now, not quite a post office anymore, but a ruined hulk of burning mess (I kan't spel debrise), but it's still on a nice foundation that some evil clerical sect may wish to build their new temple upon at some future date...'
Um, ex-postoffice....
and yelled over the aforementioned stuff,... "Mom's baking some muffins!"
Wherein the orc who at this point is not quite 0.5 anymore and probably getting smaller due to the massive damage attained from standing amidst (I love that word!) all the flammable material raining down upon his head and the rest of the upright portions, decried, "MUFFINS!"
and grabbed the elf in a grip of steel by the throat and proceeded to leap through the front window of the post office and into the clear blue and smoke filled light of day.

CHAPTER 7
Now at this point we leave our intrepid friends to take a look around the edifice that was once the local GOVERNMENT owned postoffice.

In one corner we see a dark looking fellow dressed in a red cloak (no, not the hobbit with sore feet... silly person!) lurking (albeit very badly due to the fact that it's midday) in a not-dark corner of a rather brightly lit alleyway due to the fact that the alleyway is rather quite wide and gets a lot of sun this time of day, what with all the gaily colored flowerbeds adorning the edges of the walkways leading to the rather insipid shanty huts along the way filled with fat, blotchy red lantern types that happen to live here and only come out at night to spread their illicit wares to unsuspecting travelers who would always wind up the next morning with strange warts and itchy skin conditions that the local herbalists would look at only from a distance and sadly shake their heads in sorrow and annoyance and still demand the usual fee for doing absolutely nothing to alleviate the pain when you urinate.....

um,....

CHAPTER 8 "Good grief, isn't this over with yet????" exclaimed the writer....
"and grabbed the elf in a grip of steel by the throat and proceeded to leap through the front window of the post office and into the clear blue and smoke filled light of day."

*CRUNCH!*

Went the little old lady's neck of the twin sister who was married to the now black & crusty bits of the postmaster left buried under the ruins of the postoffice, as the not quite point 5 orc's lead filled heel, steel toed mountain climbing boots with that spiky ice pick thingy on the end from last years failed attempt to climb some unknown (and very short) mountain during another failed attempt at a vacation with the stupid "how was I supposed to know elves don't like the cold?" elf. <sheesh!>

As she was attempting to give mouth to mouth (even though it crumbled - her - the sisters - mouth) to her dead (quite obvious and somewhat disconcerting to the passersby) sister, who at this time is really a mess but no one had the heart to mention this to her and, really, thought this would make a quite funny tale at the local tavern later on, not to mention around the dinner table with the kids, or at church the next holy day....

CHAPTER 9
And he sped off to mom's for some muffins....
Leaving behind some very upset people,
Not to mention the elf, who, having very little air left in his lungs, flailed and beat upon his comrade for almost a mile before the not nearly a 0.5 orc anymore, let go of his throat and fell to the ground panting - the 0.49 something and dropping rapidly - orc - fell....

The elf, gasping, on the other hand, immediately got up and started berating his almost still a friend and less than a half orc person....

The substantially not quite 0.5 orc lay curled in a fetal position like a kraken out of water and newly introduced to a dry sauna. Lips curled back in a grimace of pain and constipation with no water or suppositories in site. His inside were so out of shape they were forming the alphabet trying to get relief!

After about a few minutes of berating the quite less than full orc but more than whatever his (flip a coin people, make a decision here!) parent was, the elf finally gave up and lifted a rock and smashed it into his friends head.
"Finally I can get some rest! Finally I can breath! Finally I can start washing the crud off my jerkin!" The elf exclaimed....

CHAPTER 10
"You idiot!" exclaimed the elf (who has no name if you haven't noticed and is played by Clint Eastwood... but a lot shorter and not so intimidating in real life nor on this browser either....)
"Mom's is the other way! Now we'll have to go back through the town!".

For some reason it never occurred to either of them to just walk around the town to go to mom's house....

Let's go back to the town, shall we?

CHAPTER 11
Well, our two adventurers turned around and started back towards town (also with no name and played by C.E. and yes, the whole town is painted red for some reason and there's a painted wagon too.... If you don't get that, you don't know Clint!)

As they approach the boundries of the town (somehow they cannot manage to stay on the road but happen to meander through the wheat fields (and also thereby crushing this years crop in most places, unknowningly upsetting the local lords future plans to leavy huge unrealistic taxes upon the lowly peasants and thereby causing a massive revolt in which the lord and his family will suffer the utmost blah, blah, blah, etc.... you get the idea, but either way SOMEONE will pay for it all, no matter how far they have to be hunted down....) As I was saying, they head towards town,
and are met with a representative group who have been charged with presenting them with a formal complaint due to their actions.

"Ahem! Pardon me if you will...." says a blubbery sloven but well dressed beared man of amazing girth.

"Ye GODS!" says the elf, "But thou art of amazing girth and of slovenly covenance!"

The not quite 0.5 orc and getting to be of a lower numerical value by the moment, but with hopes of stuffing himself with muffins from not quite far away says, "Swipe!" and then again, "Swish!"

The elf looks askanse (?) at him and asks "Swipe?" .... "Swish?"
"What da heck do you mean by that?"

The orc thats not quite up to a half snuff says, "Look...."

And where a normal paladin type facing uncountable odds would have heroically done some really fad-type "knocked them down with a single blow" thingy, our orc who's around 0.3ish or so,...

Took his bow of halflinger and proceeded to use it's very blunt edge as one would a sharp sword in the proper hands, and attempted to, with a cry of "SWIPE!" and a yell of "SWISH!" to decapitate the foul despoilers of the path to muffins!

After the rest of the un-combat like townsfolk retreated into the distance, the elf asked the almost and thinning orc like fellow next to him if he was done "Whacking the puddle" in the road.....

"You really need something a bit sharper for that kind of stuff you know..."

CHAPTER 12
"Muffins..." was the weak reply.....

CHAPTER 13
and he fell over into the "puddle" in the road....

CHAPTER 14
Meanwhile, in the quiver of quivering hobbit musers that has suddenly become loose around the slowly shrinking form of the 'used to be an orc of some almost whole point equivalent'....

"Hey, Dave, whaddaya think we blow this joint?"
"I don't know Rob, has the hair grown back on yer feet yet?"
"Ya dude, I'm copacetic!"
"Right on bro"! Let's blow this joint!"

And sadly the two remaining hobbit musers blew the joint.....

But they left a letter as most magic user are not wont to do...
And it was in a runic script....

But sadly, neither elves nor almost some kind of orcish offspring can read such things as written by twisted hobbitish musers....

But they took that into consideration.... the musers I mean....
Just break the wax seal on the scroll and all will be well known.....
Good thing the elf hasn't done his dry cleaning yet....

CHAPTER 15
Well, our friends have a delima (or however it's spelt, it doesn't cost much so they can afford to have bad grammar... and body odor...)
As our elf stares at the orc (who is not quite at this point, but still butt ugly nontheless) facedown in a puddle of townsfolk guts, reddish bubbles occasionally appearing around his cheeks causing the entrails of his former foes to undulate like Illithid mouthpieces at some long forgotten new years eve party where they couldn't afford those cool little paper thingys that stretch out when you blow into them,
Um,...
A shadowy figure (Dude, it's broad daylight!) who can APPEAR to be in shadows, slinks towards them as if by magic, um, from the um, shadows, um, in the middle of the road.... during summer, uh, just before, uh, it's time, for, uh that kind of , summer, stuff....
The red cloaked figure approaches silently as if gliding upon air. Cloak billowing out behind him in a slow motion matrix kind of way.....
The red cloaked figure steps down off his 'back to the future' styled hoverboard and turns off the battery powered fan that was pointed towards him causing his cape to billow away from him in that slow motion matrix kind of way....

"Fedex delivery...., will you accept the package? Please sign here".

And the brightly lit but somehow still shadowy-if-you-squint-figure holds out a tightly wrapped package seemingly of HUMAN SKIN! But no, it's not, just the typical wrapping of a well abused package that everyones used to getting no matter how much insurance you pay beforehand.... no wonder the postoffice went up! No sprinklers!!!!

CHAPTER 16
As the heroes decide whether to accept the "package" or not, we scroll sideways (that's the way they went, don't blame me...) to where our last two remaining hobbit musers, Dave and Rob, recently escaped from the 'kinda looks like an orc's' quivering quiver....
and dived behind a large outcropping of rock awaiting the "reading" of their "letter" they so kindly left for our heroes.

After a few minutes....
Dave: "Dude, whats that smell?"
Rob: "I don't know man, and you know me, if it was me, I'd be letting the world know! Hallaluyah world! Rob's in town! You know, that kinda thing?"
"Ya, I know". Dave replied.
"Dude, we're hiding behind a large rock outcropping along side the road right?" Rob asked.
"Ya" Said Dave.
"It's not raining, is it?" Inquired Rob.
"Um, no, it hasn't rained for a few days,.... why?
"Dude, I'm sitting in a puddle...."
"Uh, why so am I as a matter of fact!" exclaimed Dave.
"Odd color for a puddle, especially with no rain..."
"Ya..."
"Do you think we ran far enough?"
"Probably so..."
"We did the circle bit again huh?"
"Ya, ... never could draw a straight line, nor walk one let alone run...."

And before Dave could stop him, Rob, with the uncanny inquisitiveness of a halfling, reached into the small cave atop the actually very small "outcropping" of rock amidst the not quite water colored puddle that he just discovered, and with the deftness of his kind pulled out the letter they left and somehow forgot about and began to read...

CHAPTER 17
The elf, slowly reached for the clipboard,...
He took the offered quill,...
He dunked the quill in the attached clipboard ,...
The sun beat down,....
The ink on the quill dried up,....
He looked at the shadowy figure in his red robes and cloak noting the sweat forming a large puddle at his feet,....
The red robed and cloaked figure moved suddenly with a deftness unbecoming a normal Fedex employee,...
There was a click!
There was a whirr,...
The fan blew,...
The cloaked figure heaved a sigh of relief,...
The elf, with a careful eye upon the Fedex stranger, slowly crept his slightly trembling hand towards the inkwell, ever closer....
He dipped the quill,...
Ready for the slightest movement of betrayal from the red cloaked figure,...
He signed his name,....
"Hallalluya!" screamed the shadowy figure as he threw his arms up and wide.
The elf, already sensing and ready for this act of betrayal, whipped out his sword of fine cutlery edging and swiped at the evil scions neck intending to sever his neck at the neck (where else?) and therefore from the body intending it to bounce along the poorly trodden path of those who would defile the sacred path of those who would sigh their names to stuff!

His sword, magnificently alight with the rays of the sun, shore a path across the place where his fearsome opponents cervical disks would normally have been (roughly C4-5) but for the fact that the poor sod was overcome with heat frustration (kids, ask your parents what that means in the privacy of your own home, this is a public forum!) he was already overjoyed with the fact the the stupid B******D finally got around to signing his name and could stay upright from the heat of the day no longer.

The shadowy figure's um, figure, crumpled to the ground. Mumbles of "water, water,..." came from his way too-heavily dressed form for this time of year.

Bubbly mumbles of "muffins,..." came from the badly smelling puddle the shadowy figure tried heavily to ignore throughout this whole episode.

"Ooh I think I pulled a muscle!" came from the elf,.... as he spun in ever widening circles from his great swipe of his sword,...

"Hey, this is from me!", exclaimed the really stupid hobbit muser as he broke the seal on the scroll and recognized his signature.......

CHAPTER 18
"I have no life, someone please kill me...." exclaimed the writer who needs sleep...
But no, the characters somehow still live. If a bit on the painful side....

The adventures of 0.5 Orc and Elf boy,... A Quinn-Martin production....

Tonights episode,... "A View To Asleep"

*BAKAROONEEWHUUMMPPHH*

Back at the town wall, a few guardsmen happen to see a bit of light a bit more brighter than the bits their normally used to seeing this time of day out beyond the fields...
"Hmm" says cannon fodder guard #42. "See that there?" He asks.
"Yep" says CFG#24 "Must be them darn two footed fuzzy rodents agin'... "
"I guess we otah be putin' more o' them furry headed rodent traps out around the gates if'n they be gitin' that close t'the walls n' such..." "Yep".....

CHAPTER 19
"Hey Clem, ya don't mind me calling ya Clem do ya #42?" asked CFG#24

"Notchatall" responded #42. " Kin' I's call ya some unpronouncable fantasy name there #24?" asked #42.
"Depends on how long it takes ya to say it, I might wander off before ya git done callin' my name and you's wud sound right stupid talking to yerself if there was no-one around to look back atcha when's you were done!" responded #24

Time ticks by........ the silence becomes bored and leaves to find something to do.....

"Wuz you gonna say something or were we just gonna call each other names?" asked #42.
"Well, you remember that there brit lite we'z'z saw a bit before we started this whole name thing?"
"Yep"...
"Well, jus' about before we'z'z been done talking an before that there silent part that wuz somewhat uncomfortable between us, I happens ta'see something come round this here way and stick into the outside wall just below where we're happenin' to be standin'..."
"Hmm,..."
"Maybe we'z'z shuda call someone 'bout this?"
"Yep"...
They both stare at each other, look around, and after awhile,...
Shuffle their feet....
"Well,..."
"Yep"
"Seems that it's time fer lunch!" and they both go to lunch.
Outside the wall, a sad and broken elfish figure finally lets go of the wall impailed sword and drops 20 or so feet to the hard packed earth....

CHAPTER 20
Out beyond the wall a tired, burnt and quite disgruntled "almost orc" sits up from the now dried puddle, looks around, sees what appears to be long burnt sausages in front of him and starts to eat....

A lone hobbit muser type, badly mussed & burnt, but who managed to get around to the "other side" of the "rock" slowly and with great pain, slips away from the eating giant and wanders towards the town.

The hoverboard, blown far and away by the blast managed to finally come to rest in a tree in a faraway forest, sadly the tree was a treant, the oldest and wisest in the forest. There it stood, presiding over a counsel of other old and wise treants and just as they were about to decide (after many months I might add) on the proper decorations for that coming xmas party...

BLAM! The poor B*****D was nearly cut in two! Man, what a show! One minute peace and calm winds, the next, BOOM! SAWDUST!
HA! Boy I bet they, uh, are, um, quite,.....
upset...

Sad, that,....

Somewhere in a secret underground GOVERNMENT office, shadowy figures in ill fitting garb discuss the recent circumstances surrounding the dissapearance of the postoffice and wonder where can they now go to get their paycheck. What will they tell their wives!?!

SOMEONE MUST PAY!!!!
*****EMAIL FROM LOTHAR: This is priceless, I wish I could come up with humurous stuff like that off the top of my head. Going to have to charge you royalties for my NPC's tho.

CHAPTER 21
Somewhere in that secret underground GOVERNMENT office....
*bump* "Where's the darn door?".
*crash* "Where's the light switch?".
"WHO'S HAND IS THAT!?!".
"Sorry...."
Suddenly a small flame flickers into life, revealing a dark evil smelling countenance.
"Lord Xerd!" Exclaimed a voice from the mostly dark confines of the cramped root cellar...
"I see <shhh> all is as it <shhh> should be... <shhh>" Xerd said in his best Vaderish type voice used for just these type of occasions.
"Lord Xerd!" Came another voice filled with reverence and awe.
"Have you <shhh> determined <shhh> who is responsible <shhh> for this outrage <shhh>?". He asked as he fumbled with his inhailer.
"Lord Xerd!" Came another voice in the dark. "Your finely manicured and eloquently trimmed goatee is on fire!".
Unfortunately Lord Xerd was sitting a bit too close to the candle when it was lit...
Ignoring the minor and inconsequential irrational babblings of his lessers, Lord Xerd continued....
"We have a <shhh> schedule to keep <shhh>, the city must not fall <shhh>, before we have <shhh> had the chance <shhh> to <shh> collect <shh> our <sh> pay... <>...."
And he fell right over.... and more than his beard was on fire....

"Pay what?"
"What was he going to say?"
"We're lost!"
"Who will lead us?"

And the cramped but still secret GOVERNMENT office that was about the size and texture of a root cellar slowly filled with an acrid stenchy type of stench that didn't smell at all well.....
"Calm down everyone! We can figure a way out of this without our wives knowing!"
"Yes, we can do something!"
And with rousing chants of "YES! YES!" They proceeded to dance in an ever smaller growing circle around the burning body of their former leader...

After most of the bodys slumped to the floor from asfixiation and terrible bodily harm from the ever increasing flames that had spread to the surrounding root systems and the various hanging plants and pictures of wonderful places they'll never get to see adorning the walls,
One could be heard amidst the coughing and retching of his comrades....

"Why? Why? Why us? We only wanted the best for our people, our land, our children, it's not like we were in a religious conquest to gain followers you know...."

And his expiration date expired....

Above ground, the smoke from the roaring flames below drifted up through the secret GOVERNMENT hatchway, billowed through the short tunnel to the secret service entrance at the back and otherwise arched high into the sky and could be seen for miles around. Sadly due to the smoking flame engulfed ruins of the postoffice above them, it didn't really matter in the least as no one had a clue where the secret GOVERNMENT office was.....

CHAPTER 22
Later that evening as the ruins of the postoffice cooled and settled unconvincingly, small lithe forms darted about the ruins completely ignoring the yellow warning tape put up later that day to keep those who had no clue about what they were about to step into from stepping into it...
Occasionally a small "Yelp!" could be heard as something that was still a bit warmer than room temperate was picked up and dropped quickly.
"I think I see something!" Said one to the other that was there with him...
A hole, roughly the size of a secret tunnel led down through the darkness, uncovered earlier by the settling of the heated timbers.
They crawled through and into the remains of the root cellar. "Hmmm, this would've made a great secret fort!" Said one.
"Yep..." Said the other.
"Hey here's a chain!" Said one as he noticed something that looked like a chain, mostly buried under a still smoking timber that had crashed through the roof and settled askance along a wall.
"It seems to be stuck!" he said and attempted to pull the chain free.
As the as yet untouched inhailer which was on a nice filigreed chain around the now crispy neck of the former Lord Xerd broke through the cervical disks 4-5, it was slowly edged closer and closer to the not quite cooled off timber.
"It's coming!" Said the one who's grip on the sparkly chain grew evermore tighter as such things are wont to do....
*WABOOM* Went the inhailer as it came into contact with the formerly mostly whole smoking timber.
Some people walking by on their way to the taverns for a good stiff drink to celebrate the fact that their bills won't be coming in the mail anytime soon, noticed a small upheaval of the ruins which quickly settled down a bit further than they were before...

But what they didn't notice was the small wisp of ethereal like smoke, somewhat remenicient of a dark visaged man they couldn't ever quite place because none of them had ever seen him before anyway so they just kept walking by in anticipation of all the parties they were going to because of the bill situation....
Where was I??? Oh yes,...

The Lich was free from his long imprisonment in that wretched container hung on his foes neck from that great battle that happened long ago that we won't get into at this moment because it was a really long draw out thing and i'm not at all interested in going on about stuff that you would find boring anyway nor, and this is the important part, am I interested in boosting my posting rating like some people I know....

CHAPTER 23
The wraithlike figure drifted off into the night and settled upon a rooftop right next to a dark red cloaked figure who was busily scribbling down notes for a floorplan to fit the exact spot where the postoffice used to be.

The wraithlike figure looked over the cloaked figures shoulder at the notes and scribbled plans with a nod of approval.... and ever so gently put a suggestion into his mind about how a certain altar with certain runes carved into it in a nice bas relief would look really good right about there....

When he was done, the wraith like figure drifted away into the night, but we'll continue to follow him anyway just to see what he's up to....

The WLF (as we'll call him from now on until we can think of an appropriate name at some future point) thought to himself "I must learn who has done this thing, how has my ancient enemy been brought down and secured my release upon the world?".
And with those words he flicked his wrist just so, invoking a mighty spell given to him from extra planar beings he had over for dinner once but never again because of their bad table manners,...

A wraith like TiVo remote appeared in his wraith like bony hand...
"Let us see what has transpired to garner my release..." he wraith like whispered....

and he pressed the rewind button....

CHAPTER 24
Later, at another secret enclave, notes were read, floorplan designs were examined. And a headless body slumped to the floor. Which wasn't really a good thing. Not for the headless body, nor the surrounding wallpaper and fake wood flooring which was now permanently stained and would have to be replaced at an additional cost because the warranty says to IMMEDIATELY clean up any spills and certainly, all this would take some time as the towels were upstairs and he would have to spend quite some time formulating an explanation to the wife.
Saying it was a simple papercut to explain all the laundry would not work again, he was sure of that!

"Oh well." he mumbled with a resignated sigh. Between this and the fact that, yet again, another building contractor wasn't quite up to snuff (but snuffed nontheless) was so irritating.

"Why do they always have to change the plans?"
"I only asked for a simple circular temple with a raised dias and the idiot goes and put in this!"
And he holds up the plans with a recently, but quite unauthorized addition of an altar with carved runes in a nice bas relief...
"Contractors! A pox on them all!"
And with that innocent comment, all the contractors in the land began to itch very badly....

CHAPTER 25
After viewing all that had transpired, the WLF smiled and thought to himself "I must meet this bumbling fool who has ultimately caused my release and give him his proper reward!" and drifted away at amazing speed.
Through the town streets he sped, on through the gates and out into the night.

Without thought he sped, a previously and unmentioned spell he had cast gave him the location of his "savior" and he flew directly towards his goal....

Suddenly another small ghost like figure appeared, standing in the middle of the road looking forlorne.... actually he was looking for Dave, he knows where Lorne is, but Dave was off in a tavern helping to celebrate the untimely demise of the postoffice and washing the pain of his burns and the loss of his friend down with cheap booze...

"Dave? Dave?" cried the sad and lonely ghost like figure.
"Where are..."

*WHUMP* Went the speeding wraith like figure who realized his spell doesn't have any crash protection or road object aversion programming in it's magical code.

Now due to such incredible odds in such a vast mileu as this, occasionally, odd things may happen. Sometimes an idiot will win the lottery and then go blow it on dope in a week instead of putting an addition on a local school or starting an inner city baseball club...
But not always....

What happened was this:
Due to the (insert your favorite metaphysical gobbledy gook terminology here), that caused the underlying framework of the (insert more big words here) to cause both the wraith like and ghost like figures to be thrown sideways and quite fully, into our universe....

The now non-WLF who is now quite a substantial, but still boney and skeletal figure was tossed, head over heels, through the air and then he came to rest at the foot of our intrepid adventuring 0.5 orc who was filling out quite nicely at this point from all the (mistakenly) crispy sausages left over from the days earlier events.

"AH GOOD!" Said the almost 0.5 orc, and he snapped off a boney finger of the formerly wraith like lich at his feet and proceeded to use the finger to pick the crusty bits out of his teeth.

Feeling much better than he had in a day, the 0.5 or so orc looked around and spying one of his hobbit arrows lying in a heap on the ground nearby, walked over and picked it up. With a terrible eye for such things, he determined that the hobbit arrow was worthless and tossed it aside whereupon it landed at the feet of the still quite upset about his finger being used as a toothpick formerly wraith like figure.

And the hobbit arrow went off.....
CHAPTER 26
"Well, that didn't last long..." Thought the now yet again wraith like figure with only 9 wraith like fingers.....

"Your telling me!" said the now yet again smaller ghost like figure standing next to him as they both watched from their crater in the middle of the road, the lone, now quite up to 0.5 - orc contentedly walking back towards town in search of his elf friend and looking forward to having some muffins....

"Whats this?" said the small inquisitive ghost like figure as he attempted to reach down and pick up a badly burnt and somewhat crushed Fedex package at his feet.
Sadly due to the ghostlike situation he was in, his deft little fingers could only pass through the parcel.

The wraith like figure bent over and tried to read the badly burnt label.
"To Junior from Mom...." He muttered...
"Hmm, smells like muffins....."

CHAPTER 27
Back on the town wall we see two guardsmen...
"Hey Clem? Didja'all see that there bit o'light over yonder down th'road?"
"Yep..."
"I guess'n them there traps a'been keepin' them thar fuzzy footed varmits away..."
"Yep..."
"We're about ready t'have anuth'r bit o'that awkward silence agin huh...?"
"Yep..."

....

"Say Clem! Let's us have a peek o'or the wall an see if'n that there fella is still stuck!"
"Yep, maybe we'z'z can pitch rocks at'm...."
"I'm fer spittin'!"
"Alrighty then!"
And they looked over the wall, cheeks bloated with spittle, lips pursed in readiness, but sadly (and there's a lot of sadness in this world but it's in such small quantities that no-one really notices....)
the body was gone.

But in it's place, and just recently finished building it's nest on the wall embedded sword, was one of those flying type creatures with scales that don't get along much with others....
It looked up to see the two guardsmen about ready to unload upon it with their 'breath weapons' and responded in kind because it has a better than 50% chance to surprise any attackers....

CHAPTER 28
Back in the crater...
"Hey, did you see that light from the town wall?" Asked the wraith like figure to the ghost like figure.
"Yep..."
And then they were over-run by an angry mob of druids and rangers who were already upset that they had to run that far as the forest they originally lived in was quite a distance away and no-one thought they would ever need horses as horses leave squishy things in the forest that, quite frankly, they got tired of stepping in as they walked around the forest doing the things they do....

"OW! OW! OW!" Exclaimed the small ghost like figure as he thrashed upon the ground from being trampled to not quite death by the horde of horseless and sweaty tree huggers....
"What, may I ask, are you doing...?" Asked the wraith like figure to his new companion thrashing upon the ground.
"I, uh, well,..." And being quite embarrased by all this, he got up, picked a direction away from the town, and started walking....

The wraith like figure stared at him for a moment, then looked back at the town and the lone 0.5 orc in the distance and the ravening horde of tree huggers that were gaining rapidly upon him, looked back at the retreating ghost like figure, turned and began to follow him into the darkness....

*****EMAIL FROM ROB:
Ha! Who needs TV, or gaming, this is where the REAL entertainment is at! Hey castlewalls, are you sure you don't want to join in on my PbeM campaign? Anyway, back to the story!

CHAPTER 29
"We've been walking for hours! do you have a clue where we're going?" Asked the wraith like figure to the ghost like figure.
"Well, no." Came the reply...
"Hey LOOK!" Came an additional reply right on the heels of the last reply.
"A town! We've come to another town!" He didn't reply, but began a whole new exclamatory sentence with....
And he fell into a hole....
A very familiar hole.... a very familiar crater in fact...
"Sorry, I'm not very good with straight lines...." Came a new even shorter sentence from within the crater...
With a huff of indignation, the wraith like figure turned and stalked into town determined that SOMEONE is going to PAY! For what, he was too upset to worry about at that particular moment. But just being evil was enough reason for most and he was no exception....

He'll spend some time later on feeling bad for all the bad things he was about to do.
His mother taught him that much...

CHAPTER 30
As our intrepid 0.5 orc made his way back towards the town, oblivious to the ravening horde of tired and sweaty flower pickers gaining rapidly upon him. He comes across the broken and battered body of his elf friend slowly crawling away from the wall, bits of toasty guardsmen, dirt and gooey scaly birdish-like excrement adorning his once fine jerkin.

The 0.5 orc wipes away the few remaining bits of former guardsmen from his face that are still raining down around the area and asks...

"Are we still going to mom's for muffins?"

CHAPTER 31
Unable to get an immediate response, he picks up his friend and slings him over his back and walks through the town gates as they slowly close just in time for curfew.
"You made it just in time, it's cufew ya know" Said the guard to the 0.5 orc looking a bit put out by the elf over the 0.5 orcs shoulder.
"Been out hunting I see, that should fill your larder for a month!"
And he began to laugh at his own little stupid joke.

The 0.5 orc took a minute to absorb this bit of humor and decided that it was at the expense of his badly hurt friend.
So he decided to laugh as well.

As the gates were closing, the horde of ravening bluebell sniffers, tired and worn out from their long run to avenge the death of their favorite treant from their homeland forest, collapsed in a gasping heap outside the gates just as they closed, getting several fingers and a nose or two stuck in the doorjamb.

The 0.5 orc decided a good tank of ale would round out the day and headed in the direction of the loudest party...

The not so ravening horde, now just a bit over a moaning heap, decided to rethink their opinions of horses and thought they just might have enough left in their expense account to afford a full time 'sanitation engineer' to clean their woodland paths.....

CHAPTER 32
"Turn here." Said a faint voice from the dark ill lit main street behind the 0.5 orc.
Surprised at the sound, he swung around and down low assuming a defensive position, whipping his halflinger bow off his shoulder, which came free after a bit of a tug having no choice due to his massive strength, to block any potential attack....

There was nothing there, but almost immediately from behind there was another sound like some fell creature's deep throated growl, or someone spitting out dirt and he leaped up high on a rear spinning heel kick to assail the newest attack from the rear that never came the first time.

He landed, sure footed like a cat with 9.5 lives, which, frankly, surprised him quite a bit until suddenly, an almost heavy weight came down upon his shoulder.
He immediately grabbed his assailant and, flipping the wretched creature of unknown but surely evil origins very harshly upon the ground in front of him, he raised his bow to strike!

"I said, <ow...> turn here... <cough>..." and a slightly bent and thoroughly filthy elfen finger rose up from the crumpled heap it was attached to and pointed to a side street where there stood a sign all aglow with faire fire that said.

Chow Ming's Dry Cleaning....

CHAPTER 33
"Tonights Episode: Picking Up or Dropping Dead..."

The bell above the door chimed in a polite manner and then broke loose as the 0.5 orc tried to squeeze himself through the doorway. Eventually figuring out he could get through easier without the bundle of elf under his arm, he decided to toss the the elf in first.
The heap on the floor in front of the counter moaned softly so he figured the elf was ok and followed the comet like trail of gently floating dust and dirt the elf left behind as he non too gentle described an arch through the doorway before landing with, at least to the elf, a very abrupt and painful stop at the foot of the counter. As his eyes were closed from the pain, he didn't realize he was at the foot of the counter and probably wouldn't care for at least a few days....

"Plicking up or dlopping off?" said a little sunflower colored person who's head appeared out of nowhere but really from behind the counter...
"EEK! Mice!" yelled the 0.5 orc and leapt upon the nearest high spot he could find, which abruptly moaned and sank a bit further to the floor.
"Slorry?" asked the little sunflower colored person behind the counter, and, pulling out a milkcrate, stood up a bit more behind the counter to get a better look at whatever the heck had just walked into his shop.
"Are yloo plicking up or dlopping off?"
"Um..." Said the 0.5 orc looking down at his friend.
"Dlopping off?" He spittled, attempting to master this new language and to not cause a fuss.
"Hloky dloky!" smiled the funny little person and proceeded to write down the order.
"Len you plick up?" asked the little sunspot...
"Wha?"
"Len you plick up?" insisted the little annoying person...
"Huh?"
"Len you plick up! Len you PLICK UP! LEN YOU PLICK UP!" screamed the now red faced man as he stomped his feet and ripped the hair out of his bald splot, uh, I mean spot....
"I uh,..." and was cut off in mid sentence as the old mans wife came into the room screaming.
"You worthless piece of slime! I found more of my missing towels! And you claim to be a cleaner! Why these towels are filthy! Papercuts my orafice!!! Do you know how many towels I've had to buy to replace the ones you keep LOOSING!... why I.." And amid all the screaming, the 0.5 orc gently nudged his companion out the door with his boot, which wasn't hard as the elf was rolled up into a fetal ball anyway, and then quietly slipped out after him....

CHAPTER 34
Later that night, alone and lying on the cold kitchen floor and nothing but a tattered rug to keep him warm because his wife was really B******T at him about the towel thing,
The new head of an as yet un-named evil clerical sect (even tho' he just made the bare minimum height requirements per the regulations) vowed silently to himself to get revenge upon the huge mishappen creature masquerading as a dry cleaning customer!
"Slomeone will play floor liss loutlage!" he vowed to the darkness, and the cold, and the hard stone flooring instead of the nice fake wood he saw at the local Hlome Dleepo down on the corner....
"SLOMEONE WILL PLAY!!" He shouted!
"Shaddap you idiot!" Came his wifes dulcet tones from above in the heated and cozy bedroom....

CHAPTER 35
"Well I don't know about me, but YOU need a bath!" said the 0.5 orc with a twitch of his not so straight wart that had 2 small breathing holes inset near the bottom and somewhat evenly spaced apart and just below his eyes where a nose would be on a much better looking fellow.

And he looked around for a bit, mumbled to himself and, spying a familiar looking shape, scooping up his still somewhat twitching friend, proceeded a bit further down the street.

"Yes", he thought a bit dimly to himself. There he stopped and looked up at a familiar looking "Y" shaped rune above a glass paned double door with a heavy chain and padlock around the handles.

"Good thing they put the heavy chain and padlock on these doors," he thought again, but with increasing difficulty.
"Wouldn't want anyone to see through these doors at night... safety first I always say!"

And with his elfen friend in tow, or rather, held firmly in front of him in a not so subtle shield-like balled up way, proceeded to enter the building, totally ignoring the heavy chain and padlock that, briefly, held the doors shut.

The heavy chain and padlock heaved a sigh of relief as the elf preceeded the 0.5 orc through the glass portion of the rightmost door.
The doorbell chime from the dry cleaners, previously stuck in the 0.5 orc's tousled hair, finally managed to work itself free of all the unmentionable sticky stuff and leaped to the top of the doorway and spent the rest of the evening ringing it's bell in anger at the receeded 0.5 orc.

The 0.5 orc shook himself off, and with his friend balled up in front of him, receeded into the dark hallway....

CHAPTER 36
"Good thing your leading the way!" said the 0.5 orc as he occasionally bumped into the walls of the dimly lit and mostly black filled hallway.
The occasional faint groan from the ball shaped elf held tightly in front of the 0.5 orc drifted up into the shadows, keeping perfect time with the collisions....

Suddenly the 0.5 orc stopped, stepped back a few paces and peered into an open doorway. Somewhere in the back of his mind, way back in fact and striving desparately to come forward a few inches where it would have some room the stretch it's legs a bit, was an old dusty memory from his childhood.....

The ball shaped elf, held in an ever tightening grip as the 0.5 orc strived valiantly to remember, and with much sweat running down the sides of his face from the strain, opened a swollen and crust encaked eye to see what all the fuss was about and if there was a nice soft place nearby to have a bit of a rest.

"Oh no...." said the bloodshot eyeball....
"Please no...." pleaded the ever tightening elven sphincter... "Hmm...." thought the thought that finally came to the forefront of the 0.5 orcs brain....
And the the thought remembered two words....
*SWISH*
and
*DUNK*

And although most of the lines were down, the thoughts email went through to the rest of the brain on it's old 300 baud modem. Old unused synapses clicked together and the brain, having nothing better to do...

*REMEMBERED*

"AHA!" cried the 0.5 orc and he started to relive one of his favorite childhood sports from a much better and happier time.....

CHAPTER 37
"What's that noise?" asked the lithe and quite naked form of a nubile acolye as she gracefully floated in the olympic sized pool in front of the head of her local order.

"Hmm?" said the head of her order, also in the olympic sized pool.
He was also naked and having a very hard time understanding her as his head was underwater greatly admiring the figure in front of him....

She gently removed his hands from around her waist and, grabbing the few strands left on his balding and aged head, pulled him to the surface.

Sputtering, the head of her order came to the surface, praising his god for he was actually drowning and his feeble grip on the nun was the only thing keeping him from sinking to the bottom....

"Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all.." he thought to himself as he managed to gulp a few breaths of air, further holding death at bay for a few more minutes.

"Well? I thought you said we'd be alone here? And what have you been doing under there all this time! I've been pawed better than that by puppies! Why you act more like an old man whos drowning than someone who promised me the night of my life!"

Well, the old man who WAS pawing at her to keep from drowning managed to pull himself over to the edge of the pool and attempted to heave himself up and over the edge....

And the young nubile nun grabbed a loose fold of wet leathery skin on his backside and pulled him back and continued to berate him, totally forgetting the noise from somewhere else which is not surprising as her hair color was almost diametrically opposed to black... I said almost....
I meant opposite.... that's what Diametric... oh, forget it....

CHAPTER 38
After a bit, the 0.5 orc and his now squishy friend who doesn't bounce as well as he did at the start of the game, thought about how thirsty and hungry he was.

His friend could probably use a bit of refreshment too.
And a bath...
So he picked up his saggy wet elven friend and went back into the hall.
After passing a few doorways which were dark, and the doors were closed too so that didn't help much with the light business, the 0.5 orc noticed an open doorway ahead with the soft glow of candlelight coming from within.

The 0.5 orc stood in front of the doorway and saw an amazing site!
A vast rectangular pool of water surrounded with candles of all different shapes and colors, large naked female figures danced along one wall doing, what he thought, we're the typical intricate intertwinings of worship he's always heard about on the street, but were in reality, porno films being projected on the wall by the head of the order to help get hinself in the mood for tonights "festivities...

"A church", he whispered to himself in awe and reverence.
"The kind with actual people in it..." he surmised by the fact that there were people here....
"Maybe they can heal my friend..." he thought to himself as his heart filled with thanks to the god of the holy water pool.

"HEY YOU! CAN YOU HELP MY FRIEND!" He yelled, and tossed the elf into the pool....

CHAPTER 39,
Well, let me tell you! The last thing the floatin' nudies needed or expected right then and there was was more waves...
Well, at least the old guy...

The girl, taken somewhat aback by the sudden inclusion of another body, especially one as round and already sodden due in no part by the addition of the pool water screamed...

The old man screamed, but for entirely different reasons...

The elf, in a cloud of suddenly loosened dirt and other nasty crusty stuff, unfurled and drifted in slow motion to the bottom of the pool much the same way jaws did after getting his head blown off at the end of the movie....

The old mans scream turned into a bubble infested blurb, that thankfull cannot be translated, but rest assured, contained many foul epithets about how old men shouldn't waste their time on young nubile girls who would probably give them a heart attack anyway but was still a much more preferable way to die than this, especially after the mornings paper came out with all the pictures on the cover...
.
He too drifted slowly to the bottom of the pool and as he died a watery death, his insides let go and the already murky water that the custodian will refuse to clean the next morning, turned a lighter shade of brown...

The young nun fairly leapt out of the water, grabbed her nunish habits and leaving a trail of yellow footprints in her wake, sped off into the darkness...

As the floor around the pool consisted of very expensive inlaid tiling, the girl didn't quite make the turn towards the doorway she was original;ly aiming for and with a small THUD after a short wet slide on her wet bare feet, slowly slid down the wall that she didn't want to get to know so well and was unable to ignore....

CHAPTER 40
At the bottom of the pool, the elfs eyes popped wide open as the urine from the holy father settled around him with a faint yellowish glow.
The glow faded and the quickly dissapating peepee then went straight into the filtration system.....

Feeling quite well but beginning to drown nontheless, he began his ascent towards the surface.
He broke through the thin but still crusty layer of filth that he put there in the first place that adorned the surrounding area of the pools water and began to climb out.

"Your HEALED!" yelled his 0.5 orc friend.
"We must tell everyone we can find that this place can heal the wretched and the sick!" and he grabbed his friend and was about to make his way back towards the front door..... when he noticed the chocolate bar that was somehow stuck on his friends back from the pool.

"Oh well" he thought, and grabbed the semi-squishy sausage like thing and popped it into his mouth.
"Ah, a nut bar!" he squeeled with delight!
"Yummy!"

And THEN he grabbed his friend and went to the first place that came to mind.....
CHAPTER 41
Well, as parties go, this one was a blast until all the wives started showing up looking for their husbands who still had to get up early the next morning to go to work, what being the middle of the week and all....

So as the doors to the local police department started to close, a great 0.5 orcish hand grabbed the hand that was trying to close the door except for the fact that there was a great 0.5 orcish hand somehow keeping the door from closing.

"Sorry, fella," said the last officer on duty and thereby stuck with cleaning up the mess and with very bad breath that the 0.5 orc didn't notice to begin with....

"The parties over and my wifes waiting in the back..." he said sadly, eyeing the still half empty (he was a pessimist...;>) bottle of cheap booze that had gone flat some time ago from all the arm swinging and table leaping that had gone on.
And with that, the officer pulled up his stained underwear, turned and walked with no small amount of stumbling, out the back door.....

CHAPTER 42
As there was nothing else to do, and the door was not quite closed, the 0.5 orc went inside and looked around having never been in a place like this before. At least not concious.... or on this side of the cell bars....
He looked around at the mess for any leftover food or drink and spied a large lampshade in the corner not at all attached to the lamp it came with. It had gaily colored pictures of faraway lands badly embroidered on it that had small curly haired feet....

"???" he thought.

"Lampshades with feet... now there's something you don't see everyday..." and he lifted the shade.

Meanwhile, still outside in the dark, the elf, who really wanted to be home hours ago, waits impatiently for the hell he knows is going to break loose at any moment for no other reason than that's just the way this days been going so far. And with that thought, decides to move off a bit to get out of the way of whatever he knows is coming....

Back at the pool....

Well, actually much later at the pool and just before the ravening horde of tabloid trash newspaper reporters arrive after getting the news that hasn't actually gotten out yet about the head of the church peeing in the pool of the local "Y", not to mention how thats going to disrupt the days schedule of having all the poor kids in town getting their swimming lessons canceled....

The young and bruised, naked and cold nun awakes, see's the one chance she had of quickly advancing through the ranks of the church and become the power behind the altar - floating at the bottom of the olympic sized pool who's water, after the few hours she's been unconcious, has quite efficiently been filtered except for the body that's mucking up the bottom intake hole...

She puts on her robes and her large white aerodynamic hat with the vertical fins on the sides, and with a quick and some would say longing look at the last 30-40 minutes of her home movie being projected on the wall, screamed:
"SOMEONE WILL PAY!!!"
and rises off the floor by an unseen and inexplainable wind and flys off, no longer inhibited by slippery floortiles and wrongly placed walls....

\CHAPTER 43
Back at the town gate.... Ha! Thought I forgot, didn't you?
As the last of the no longer but really tired ravening horde of rangers and druids finally freed themselves and their fingers from the doorjamb. They felt a cold wind pass by them as if someone was walking over their grave.
In fact a few of the formerly ravening horde were, in fact, dead.

Some from just being too tired to go on anymore after that long haul that would've been much easier if they had horses, but oh no, they were out voted during the council meetings! Well we'll show them! We'll come back all dead-like and won't that put a stink up their arse! HA!

But as no-one could hear them because they were dead, it didn't really matter...

And the dead ones graves weren't so much walked on either, more like being run-over by a very upset and rather thin boney fellow who kept yelling at them to "Move aside you pile of daisy lickers!" and preceeded to non-too gently, step on those non-ravening anymore hordelike spirits who just wouldn't listen and get out of his way.

And then the wraith like figure passed through the closed gates and dissapeared into the town...
And then he was followed shortly thereafter by another smaller ghost like fellow with hairy feet and armfuls of spiritual items he lifted off the stupid souls milling around the front gates who had nothing better to do and no-one to lead them towards the light....
CHAPTER 44
And the elf waited, and waited...
And he leaned against the wall and waited...
He noticed his sword was missing...
He made a mental note to get it back and he waited...
He looked down at himself and his somewhat wet figure and 'cold wash only - no bleach or chlorine' tagged jerkin...

And with a roar of rage unlike anyone else has ever heard this particular elf make at this time of night because most right thinking people with sensible wifes to order them around are well into bed and fast asleep...
Uh,...
Went into the police department to yell at his friend.

"What do you mean by getting my jerkin all messed up like this!?!" he said as he kicked the door shut in a sissy-fit thereby bruising his big toe.

The 0.5 orc was not there. In fact it was very quiet, a bit messy, but still very quiet. But wait, what was that sound that only the finely tuned ears of a high elf could possibly hope to hear?

As there were no high elves around, he had to content himself with wandering around the room, turning over chairs and uprighting tables and putting out flaming stacks of papers that said who was supposed to be in jail and who wasn't and wondered how tommorrow will be when the hung over police come in and let all the criminals out because no-one wants to deal with the paperwork....

Eventually he came upon what looked to be a large 0.5 orcish shaped lamp, or at least a large 0.5 orc with a badly embroidered lampshade on his head and 2 small fuzzy feet peeking out around the edges at about shoulder height....

Outside a wraithlike figure quickly glided by the closed front door of the local PD and,
if you were dead, could be heard muttering curses into the slowly rising dawn....
CHAPTER 45
As the suns rays slowly crept over the town wall instead of coming in through the front gates like honest rays do in a decent gaming campaign, we find the townsfolk waking to a bright new day with all the possibilities of the future shining brightly before them.

Sadly (and here's one of those small sad parts I was talking about earlier) no one wanted to see the brightly lit sunshine that, on this day, might have possibly changed their lives for the better, as they all had hangovers from the previous night and had barely gotten into their ever so wildly spinning beds before the gayly dancing beams of the sun crept over the walls and hit them full in the face because no one had the sense to shut the curtains....

But, and there's always a "but".... all the hardworking townsfolk had wives with more sense than to go to badly hosted parties where the police, having no dancing girls to dance with, let out all the hookers from thier cells to dance with, they in turn let out all the other non-hooker types, but of equally bad dispositions who immediately started to lit the stacks of paper on fire which the soddenly drunk policemen didn't mind, and with shouts of "HULA PARTY!" began to strip down and leap upon the tables wildy gyrating their already swollen and plump bodys, which at this point in their careers, could never pass the physical test in order to join the force to begin with.

So the wives poked and prodded and otherwise threated to have mother come live with them if they didn't get thier lazy fat arse's out of bed and out to work. Which put an otherwise bit of tension on the beginning of the day no matter how much the sun tried ever harder to shine more brightly down upon them in a vain attempt to make them smile out in the fields of ever increasing dryness, nor, I might add, did it help in the windowless factories with no AC (let alone a negative AC, but I gues if you DON'T have an AC, it must be negative as to cancel itself out, correct?) that had swarms of ill-fed and emaciated children chained to the wheels that turned stuff that, in turn, made other stuff to move somehow and eventually got something done that was sold at a high price which was a shame as the children never saw a dime of it.

um,.... where was I?

So, with a grumble and a curse, people got out of bed and their wives smiled quietly to themselves as they always did on such occassions and also asked them to bring a pint of cherry irish whipped cream home afterwards as they will probably have a headache what with all the stuff they're going to do that day....

CHAPTER 46
Just about keeping pace with the newly rising sun and tired from his long wagon ride from the main office, the courier from publishers clearing house, his wagon loaded with envelopes to all the townsfolk bearing (and unbelievably so) premade ink stamps on them with words like: "your a winner" and "you have won the grand prize", which was actually true for a change...

Stopped and looked at all the milling rangers and druids blocking the main gate and smelling the now steaming remains of the dead ones being slowly walked on as the silly weed pickers didn't have enough sense to pile the bodies to the side before they began to mill around...

He stopped and took a swig from his very dry and long empty waterbag and with a shielded glance at the already overworking sun trying harder than ever to brighten up eveyones day by increasing it's output with a few extra solar flares and a few more rad's...

thought that this was too much and not quite worth his time as he only got paid scale. So he turned his wagon around wishing he had a few horses as they are much better at pulling a wagon than he and decided to go back to the town he passed through last night where they local hookers don't give you anything except a good time,

and let them have all the envelopes instead....

CHAPTER 47
The tired and hungover gate guard slowly opened the gate as that was his sole duty of the day and stared in disbelief at the amount of filthy, smelly people who decided to come into town on such an increasingly hot morning.

"Who da' heck would want to come here!?!" he stared in disbelief....
and then he noticed the mess outside the gate knowing that someone would want someone else to get that cleaned up, and that someone would be him...
He looked up through the steamy morass to see a figure receeding in the distance pulling a wagon load of envelopes.
"Sigh,..." he sighed to himself and began to pile the bodies to the side with every intention of claiming they weren't there and it was obviously someone elses problem as they weren't close enough to the gate to be his problem.

He lifted a grimy, gore covered hand to wipe the sheet of sweat pouring from his brow and noticed an envelope stuck there somehow, from all the goupy stuff he was wading through.
He opened the envelope (as good manners and a clear concience were of little thought to him) and yelled quietly with joy as the envelope said he was a winner and he needed to go to the main office to collect his huge sums of money.

And without a backward glance nor a rough washing of hands before he didn't ever return to work again, sped off to the next town where there never were any problems like they seem to have around here...
"She can get her own flippin' whip cream!" he thought with glee....
And he ran off into the distance towards the next town,
thoughts of riches and of sleeping late for a change coursing through his head...

But sadly, and in a bigger quantity but not really noticed by anyone who matters, the gate guard decided to run off instead of doing the sensible thing and getting a horse, died from heat frustration after a few miles, what with the sun spying him easily out in the open and figuring that it could at least try and brighten up this fellows day a bit seeing's that he must be having a bad morning what with forgetting his horse and all...

CHAPTER 48
The scaly-like bird thing that has no friends because it doesn't get along well with others welcomed the new day and encouraged the sun to continue to warm it's newly made nest atop the sword embedded into the town wall.
Such warmth was a good thing for it's newly laid eggs and would surely speed up the hatching time. It looked around for fresh meat for the babies that would be here soon and they were sure to be very hungry indeed....
The bird watched with interest the activities at the front gate and watched as the gate guard ran off and eventually (because it's eyesight had a +20 bonus to all rolls) spied the distant figure fall over and lay still, the opened contents of the envelope blowing away in the rising wind....

CHAPTER 49
The wraith like figure, not at all bothered by the heat of the suns ever increasing output, but with hopes of getting a badly needed tan, stopped and with a bit of thinking, thought a spell to find his quarry would be a whole lot easier than all this running around, especially since people were starting to fill the streets and he never liked crowds very much nor got along well at parties which is a shame because he probably would've hit it off last night except for the fact that he was dead and all boney-like....

His spell cast, he turned with glee towards the local police department he just recently passed and stepped forward....
And began to curse as the suns rays finally got around to getting over the wall and began to shine fully upon his being, whereupon he began to fade away as such evil, dark and mostly night-type people do when the sun comes out....

CHAPTER 50
After the crying and screaming children were led away that morning from the olympic sized pool that they were going to get their swimming certificates in saving lives for, if it weren't for the fact that after awhile, the bloated thing they thought was an inflatable pool toy ruptured and all that bad gas came out and it sank back to the bottom taking a few clinging children with it...

uh,....

The custodian finally said after the noise died down "I quit..." and walked out leaving the local hung over police officers, tabloid reporters and the few stray parents still hanging around who had a sick interest in such things to decide amongst themselves, who's gonna clean THIS up!
Well, after much debate, the reporters took their pictures and went back to write their stories...

The few parents that didn't go with their screaming children were put in chains and led off to some badly needed counseling...
And the last officer on the scene left the building leaving the body in the pool, closed and locked the door, put yellow tape all over the premises that no-one will bother reading anyway but it gave him something to do before going back to the office and cleaning up the mess from the party...

And finally hung a sign on the door that said "CONDEMNED" in the faint hopes that no-one will trip over something...

Readying thoughts in his head for the upcoming arguements with the town council about how it's now THEIR job to deal with this mess, he walked back to the office that he didn't quite get to yet because of the literal stink a few children made because someone crapped in their pool....
"Oh, the paperwork..." he mumbled sadly to himself.....

CHAPTER 51
The dead spirit like rangers and druids milling about the front gate, having no where to go, suddenly saw a great light open up in front of them - just after the living rangers and druid got out of the way from passing through the now open town gates.

"We're saved!" they cried.
"Quickly! Follow the light before someone blows it out!" said another.
"Yes, lets!" said another equally SAT graded individual....
And they entered the town, without, I might add,
getting anything caught in the doorjamb....

CHAPTER 52
The young nubile nun had arrived back at her dorm just before the sun had fully risen, alighted upon her 3rd floor windowsill and was starting to sneak back inside when she was roughly pulled into the room by her roomate who had a bunch of recently awakened elders of her church standing just off to the right and a bit behind her.

"AHA! BUSTED!" said her roomate with a wicked smile crawling all over her countenance and getting tangled in her way too bushy eyebrow that took up most of her forehead and was the real reason no-one invited her to any parties last night...

"Oh crud..." she thought....

And then she thought again, and rather quickly too...

"Uh, so HERE you are! I thought i lost you in the bushes after you left the 'Y'!"
"So why did you and the holy father go swimming last night? You knew he had a bad heart!" she ever so convincingly said with a wringing of hands and a tear in her eye.

"I knew you were up to no good, what with the way your always coming on to him at vespers.." which none of the preists knew was true as they always had a good time with the flying nun out back and stayed as far away from her uni-browed roomate at all costs,
but they were interested in the path this conversation was taking nontheless so didn't interupt...

And she went on and on and on until even she believed her own lies.
"So THERE!" she said with a flourish as she finally came out of the shower with a few priests who managed to stay awake through the whole tirade even though they were up all night at a really cool party.

A few of the older elders that had drifted off awoke with a start yelling, "GUILTY! GUILTY!" probably more from the bad dreams their concience keeps coming up with about their own past deeds moreso than anything going on in the room at the time...
"Yes, GUILTY!" repeated the dripping priest's who were hastily drying themselves off.
And the guards were called and the innocent uni-browed nun was hauled off to be given custom fitted chains and a bit of a shave...

CHAPTER 53
The ghost like figure of the hobbit muser, arms full of ghost like goodies he filtched from those silly twig snappers outside the front gate, wandered around the town trying to think of where to stash his newly aquired stuff before someone spotted him and, in turn, stole it from him.

But, as his typical greedy inclinations and habits insisted, (totally ignoring the fact that he was, indeed, a ghost like figure and no-one could see him anyway which he wouldn't realize until later on when it was much too late) he kept looking for a small damp hole to hide his stuff...

"Hmmm" he said in a closed mouth way, having most of the noise leave through his nose with a slight vibration around the area of his throat.

"Co,.. Co,.. Con,.. Condoms,.. Condiments,... Co,.. OH BLAST IT ALL!" he said in a frustrated tone having never really mastered larger words than 'yep'....

And totally ignoring the yellow tape and the sign that said 'CONDEMNED' walked right through the broken glass panel of the rightmost door looking for a damp place to hide his stuff.

And no, the sun had no effect on him at all as he wasn't really a bad sort like the other wraith like figure,
just a bit misguided...

CHAPTER 54
The elf watched as an 0.5 orcish hand with a half filled bottle of flat booze raise up and pour the remaining contents down through the top of the lampshade.

*gurgle, gurgle, gurgle* went the lampshade...
*hehehehe* <burp> went the curly haired toes sticking out from the bottom edge of the lampshade, and then they went limp...

"Waddayathinkyerdoin'?" screamed the elf but not very loud as they were in a very messy police department and didn't want to attract any attention.
And he kicked the bottom of the lampshade headed 0.5 orc which further bruised his big toe and caused the badly embroidered lampshade to shift slightly.

The body of Dave, the former hobbit muser that recently resided inside the 0.5 orcs quivering quiver of hobbit muser arrows slid partway off the shoulder of the 0.5 orc where they were having a good ol' time reliving the good old days, and out from under the lampshade until his chin got stuck on the inside edge.

With the body of the hobbit muser dangling in front of him, the 0.5 orc said through the lampshade:
"DRINKIN'!" and he fell right over.... and then he let out a *fart*...

The police captain who always managed to get to the office every morning because thats when the donuts were dropped off, came in through the front door.
And with a hangover,
And with lots of paperwork to do....
And he quite surprised the elf who then yelled:

"EEK! COPS!" and jumped up onto the nearest high spot which didn't moan and sag to the floor.

But the high spot did come loose from the lampshade with a bit of a tear from the jagged edges (from cheap manufacturing processes due to child labor no doubt...) that caught on his chin, and both the hobbit and the elf slipped down off the 0.5 orc.

The elf rolled under a table hoping the officer didn't get a good look at him and with a deft kick to the ribs, propelled the unconcious and bloody chinned hobbit into the legs of the officer who was just getting over the realization of how much of a mess there was and will the donuts be here soon, and,.... what was that SMELL!?!
before he was knocked down....

CHAPTER 55
With wide-eyed expectation, the elf saw the hobbit hit the legs,
With ferverent hope, the elf saw the officer fall over,
With maniacle glee, the elf saw the officer crash face first through the lamp that had it's shade taken away the night before and was quite angry about the whole thing and decided to do something about it so it blew a fuse just to get back at someone, and this guy was as good as any...

With thoughts of "No donuts?" and, "Why is the floor coming at me so fast this early at such an oblique angle?" (as he never dipped into the "old smokey '57" before lunch) the officer briefly lit up all sparkly-like as his face met the lamp in a very rude introduction without even saying hello...

"YEAH BABY!" the elf SCREAMED and jumped up high into the air which was cut quite short and extremely painfully due to the fact that the elf was still under the table and which, if he had been paying more attention, would have seen what happened next.

But sadly, he wasn't,
so he missed out on the whole thing....
But not left out....

CHAPTER 56
With nothing better to do and no idea where to go, the milling group of tired and filthy, hungry and thirsty rangers and druids decided to mill about until an idea of what to do and where to go would stand up and come forward.

"I'm hungry." came a voice.
"I'm thirsty." came another.
"I could use a bath myself what with all the dust I've been accumulating and it's really a shame as my wife just bought me this outfit to celebrate our 10th anniversary." said another who quickly shut up as all the others turned as one to glare intently at his irrational outburst and thought how unprofessional he was for
saying such a stupid and obvious thing in public...

"What was that?" asked another who wasn't the one who spoke before as he was still embarrassed and had gone to hide in the back of the group and keep quiet.

And they all thought they heard the fading echoes of "YEAH BABY!" coming from a door nearby...
What they didn't decide to do next would've changed the world for the better and lofted mankind unto the stars...
But as I said, they didn't decide to do it. Instead they went into the police department to see what all the fuss was about and also if there was a bathroom as they just had a long run and there were no trees around for miles and they never learned how to squat or put the lid down as, living in the forest as they do, had no lids to put down and thought it would be a great adventure....

CHAPTER 57
So, as a group and in definite need of going potty now that someone had broached the subject and woken up all their bladders, which, previously had been comfortably unaware,

each attempted to be the first ones through the doorway before they got peed on by the ones in front.

"WWAAAGGHH!!..." went the first one through the doorway who tripped on the sprawled legs of the unconcious officer just within and crashed to the floor,
"WOOWOOWOOO!!" went the ones behind in a rush to be the first ones to the loo,
"OOFOOFOOF!!" went the last one who didn't trip at all, but not wanting to be ostracized any more by his peers, felt obliged to fall over on top of the rest just to save face and not be picked on....

CHAPTER 58
And being the only one in a position to see everything around him especially from the top of the pile, he saw a familiar elf asleep and with a large lump on his head under a table,
A large familiar shape with a lampshade for a head,
and quite a mess.

So having no other course laid out before him and with a few moments where he didn't have to conform to the rules and regulations of the group as a whole,

He pulled the printout the dying treant gave him (he had the highest SAT score) from the new scrying bowl security and information retrieval system they had recently installed at great cost which still had bugs (as most forests do).

It didn't work half as well as just throwing a bird up into the air with a bit of paper tied to it's leg, but it looked impressive and came with a good warranty...

He unfolded the single glossy sided parchment which had a time-lapse photo ID drawing in draft mode upon it showing over and over, a close up of the beings involved with the launching and subsequent landing of the hoverboard which, in turn, killed their friend and xmas party organizer... the treant...

And he compaired the slow motion-time lapse visual images on the single glossy sided parchment to the beings that lay before him.
And after he was satisfied, he got off the rest of his comrades - who by now and with all the additional pressure on their bladders, didn't need to go potty anymore, but could use a good shower and perhaps a dry cleaner...

He had the beginnings of a plan and looked around,
He spied a large round thing that should just do the trick and no, it wasn't the 0.5 orc as was revealed after the lampshade was removed, but a disk that, with a magical word, would hover and carry many....

CHAPTER 59
Both the elf and the 0.5 orc and even the hobbit muser awoke to shouts of,
"Hahahahah!" and "Get along little doggies!" and even "WHACK!", but the *WHACK* had more of a feel to it than the sound of a word...

They found themselves wrapped in chains that were in turn, tied to a large hovering disk filled with tired and filthy, but much morally improved rangers and druids, all sitting just so,... and evenly spaced too, as to not tip the disk...
They also found themselves not quite within the police department either, but more along the lines of outside the police department, far away in fact.
So far away as to be outside the town walls.
Under the well risen sun.
That can see them just fine, what with it being so bright and sunny outside....

The hobbit muser, realizing that he wasn't actually tied up, but more in a sitting position besides the disks occupants, sat back and enjoyed the ride that hadn't begun yet as,... he was told by one of the rangers,...
he must've been stuck in between all the others in the pile at the foot of the front door when they all got on the disk in such a hurry to get back home for a bath... oh, and they have the ones they were looking for too...

As the captain of the police who was wedged in next to him had no clue how he got there either, they both kept silent and went along for the ride.
The ride, as I said, that hadn't begun yet....

"GIDDYAP!"
And with a poke to thier behinds with a very sharp stick, the 0.5 orc and the elf began to pull the hovering disk across the sands to a distant forest...

CHAPTER 60
The ghost like figure with an armload of spiritual goodies filtched from the leaf blowers outside the gate, made his way ever more carefully down the hallway.

Bypassing doors that were sure to have lots of interesting stuff that he was beginning to realize that he couldn't touch anyway, he continued on towards the damp smell that reminded him of his childhood home.

That and the fact that he long ago learned, that no one who he needed to worry about and, would look for anything of value,... wanted to be anywhere near someplace that was damp and smelly and always bypassed such places in order not to get their clothing all messed up...

With the sun bearing down through the ceilings skylights and the additional fact that after the mornings nastyness had finally been discussed, decided, abandoned and finally left to someone elses department without them knowing,...
Someone forgot to turn off the lights of the pool room....

As that didn't perterb the ghost like hobbit muser in the least, he totally ignored that fact and, seeing the damp place which looked just like one he had as a child but a bit larger,

remembered the puddle of mud that he used to hide his favorite stolen toys from the neighboring hobbit kids in, and, as he could never find the place after it dried up, figured it would be perfect....
If not a bit larger....
So he tossed his armload of spiritual goodies into the pool without a splash and suddenly the water began to glow as it always does when this sort of thing happens....

Now, I won't get into all the technial aspects of what actually happened as I would have to make up stuff that, I'm sure, wouldn't fool you a bit....
lets just say that even though the pools filters filtered out the chunky bits from the nights events, the actual wet parts just went back into the pool as, we all know, that a pools filtration system just recycles the water without actually doing anything to it except distilling the yellow coloring a bit....

So, the pool glowed almost yellow, still having the holy water in it left over from the earlier situation that was totally ignored when someone didn't read the sign that said: "no peeing in the pool",
and from having lots of spiritual items that still have some power just because I said so and don't really want to get technical about it...

The pale and dead figure of the local head of the church, again wedged up against the filtration intake at the bottom of the pool - opened his eyes....
And shook off the few remaining, but very still children that were still clinging to him and made his way to the surface.....

CHAPTER 61
The officers with the higher SAT scores finally came round to the police department having just come from the local donut shop as they were tired of the maple covered ones being all eaten by the time they got into work and looked around at the mess.
The OOD, busily stuffing his mouth with donuts so the others wouldn't get any asked, "Where's the report about the post office fire yesterday?" and was handed the file that amazingly escaped being burnt as it was taken home and retyped by the officer at the scene because he wanted to get in good with the Captain as he was a butt licker and everyone knew it....

The OOD, with a look around at the mess and the few remaining stacks of paper still aglow with burning embers, looked at the report,
and he looked around at the empty cells,
and he looked at the mess from the party,
and he looked at the neatly typed report again and tossed it onto a smoking pile of paperwork as he knew this would really upset the butt licker....
Then he said, "Clean up this mess!" and he went out for more donuts and to beat a few heads in for no other reason than to fill up the jail cells and to score points with the captain when he got back from where ever he was at.

CHAPTER 62
The flying nun, having finally gotten rid of her uni-browed roommate sat back with a satisfied grin and began to rifle through her roommates chest of stuff and thought about how she was going to turn all this to her advantage.
Sadly, she had grasped her roommates spare holy symbol while thinking those thoughts and, the uni-browed deity of the church, having it's fill with all the sordid and evil things that have been going on in it's church, especially having it's most devout and pure of heart follower chained up and dragged away, got fed up and decided to start over....

While the flying nun was inspecting the handful of pilfered goods from her roommates chest, the holy symbol in her hand burst into a cold yellowish flame and instantly engulfed her.
Without even an instant to think to herself about how this was all unfair, mainly because a diety's instant was even more instant than a mere mortals instant,... um
her dead carcase fell to the floor in a heap of ashes.

The flames leapt from the pile of ashes and spread throughout the room as if the deity's hand held a paintbrush or rather a number 2 pencil with a big eraser,
and spread throughout the church conveniently covering all the doors and windows first before heading off down the halls.
Later on after the fire had died down, the only thing left standing, was the uni-browed nun, untouched by the flames, and with a glow upon her that only a deity can bestow upon, uh,... her....

CHAPTER 63
That morning on his inspection rounds, the local head of the farmers guild stared in disbelief at the meandering paths through the wheat fields out in front of the town (HA! Betcha' I forgot about that too!) and, in a fit of rage, stormed off to the local Lord and the PD to file a complaint....

Later on, the local Lord, in a fit of rage over the taxes he won't be getting because the head of the local farmers guild made the little bit of bent wheat out to be something much bigger,
amassed the local militia and in a grandiose array, led huge masses of witless locals with really cool patches on their sleeves out the front gates crushing even more of the wheat fields that put the 2 sets of footprint crushed wheat from before to shame....

The boys at the local PD took the head of the farmers guild's complaint and assured him they would search high and low for any info on the person or person's involved and, after he left, thought how lucky they were that they didn't have any shirts with really cool patches on them, and got back to eating their donuts and stamping out the flaming stacks of paperwork....
CHAPTER 64
Also later that afternoon, the scaly bird like thing all cuddled up in it's nest upon the elf's sword embedded in the wall woke with a start as the horde of witless townsfolk with cool patches on their shirts, burst through the town gates all loud and rude like with no idea where they were going but didn't have the brass to mention this fact to those few in front who were on horses....

Then it's newly hatched and newly fed babies awoke as well just to see if anything interesting was going on as they didn't have anything like video games and tv or computers to muck up their spare time and could go to bed and wake up when they were supposed to....

As the scaly bird like creature didn't get along well with others, especially those who woke up it's babies that it just managed to get to sleep and only wanted a bit of quiet time to itself,...
uh,...

It got very upset and decided to teach those rude humans with patches a lesson about why you should never wake babies "when I just got them to sleep" nor tee off the mommy,
and flew off to teach the lesson....
The babies, without video games, tv or computers, had plenty of room left over in their heads for new and valuable information that would eventually get them through the rough spots in life and lead to successful careers,...
decided to go learn from mommy, and mommy always said "Do as I do...", which for them, was enough.

CHAPTER 65
"Slow down you idiot!!!" yelled the elf as he was being dragged behind and somewhat underneath the swiftly moving floating disk, as he wasn't quite ready to start running the way the 0.5 orc was after being poked in his rumps sweet spot...

"Give me back my pointed stick!!!" Yelled the ranger who poked the 0.5 orc in his rumps sweet spot wherein it stayed firmly ensconced, nestled non too gently between the cheeks....

"WAAAA!!!" yelled the 0.5 orc who wasn't quite 0.5 anymore as the pointed stick totally ignored any armor value the 0.5 orc's sweet spot didn't have and could, for all intents and purposes in this situation, be considered a +6 weapon....

The ranger, in an attempt to grab hold of his wildy swinging back-and-forth pointed stick, took out his dice and rolled.
Not really, but let's just say he made a critical fumble....
And as his face got in the way of the ever wildy swinging stick...
*WHACK* said the flailing butt stick to the face.... and he tumbled right off the floating disk into the dirt...
*UMPH!* said the elf as he hit a ranger shaped speed bump under the hastily moving floating disk...

"YEAAGH!" said the other rangers & druids on the quickly moving floating disk as the scaly bird like creature dived from a great height and began it's lesson.
Now, the baby bird like scaly creatures following their mother, saw what great fun she was having and decided to join in and wondered why she always told them they were not supposed to get along with others as it looked to be great fun...

And with cries of, "STOP!" and "GET AWAY!" and "Please remove yourself from my personage tho' foul scaly bird like beasties!" which got him a quick stare-down from his fellows and made him rethink his choice of accepting this temp job as a druid...

The not quite 0.5 orc stopped.... running that is....
And was hit hard from behind by the quickly moving floating disk at just below the belt line.
The almost a 0.5 orc went down hard into the dirt with a moan,
the floating disk moving at a rate of speed well above the maximum safety rating from the manufacturer, flipped over, scattering the rangers, druids and the few odd scaly bird like creatures who didn't have enough sense to let go because they were never told about that part by their mother...

The elf, seeing an opportunity to escape, crawled over to his companion, which was hard to do being all chained up, and with a moan of "what luck..." that didn't come out with such joy as he had hoped, noticed the key ring lying on the ground next to the flipped over floating disk, which, at this point, was trying very hard to float upside down and also which, was unintentionally grinding and crushing the rangers and druids into a pulpy mess...
And yes, a few of the scaly bird like baby creatures had parts sticking out too which didn't fit in at all well with the plans the mother had for her children that afternoon...

So, with a bit of a sucking sound from the growing puddle of goo, the elf pulled the key chain loose and began to free himself and his friend.....
Completely ignoring the puddle of goo and chunky bits he got on his elbows and knees as the disk went on about it's business with an ever increasing whining and grinding noise....

CHAPTER 66
After the few parents got home from their therapy classes, they were welcomed