Guards Extraordinaire

Back at the Shadowlands Keep we went in to the Free Adventurers' Guild.

"Time for you lot to train," squealed Winstone.

So he sent us to various individuals in the Keep, and after more zen-like training ("hold this spoon for two hours while standing on one leg", "place your boobs into this vise", "copy this phrase 374 times", etc) we all emerged as "Level One".

Me, Whizz [DM] and Peg Groups [Ian] went to the potion merchant and asked to see his "random stock". He commented that the risk is all ours as none of it had been identified. We took our Axminster-prescribed colours (green, blue and black) and drank them. My one increased Charisma, Whizz's increased his Strength and Peg Groups' increased his Speed.

On the FAG notice boards there were a collection of jobs for would-be adventurers such as us. Ranging from the sublime "guards wanted" to the ridiculous "volunteers required for magical experiments". We chose one that looked promising "Adventurers required for helping trainers".

The job was to help some adventurer trainers train a group of level four adventurers up to level five. These level four guys were to guard a small red box, the size of a shoe box, and would hide in a long-abandoned derelict house. We would try to storm it. We would have a referee with us and they would have one too. And everyone would use padded weapons and padded armour. Lethal magic was to be done with phrases without casting spells, and the refs would decide the effect.

We snuck up to the target house after the exercise had started. It was a two-storey wreck, with great big holes in the roof, and had a similarly dilapidated adjoining barn. Light Touch [Jeff], with our referee in discrete tow, snuck around to reconnoitre while the rest of us waited nearby. He spotted an elf ranger in the woods, and shot her. Our ref said "you're dead" and so she had to withdraw from the exercise. He also spotted another guard high in the damaged roof.

We skulked into the barn and searched a little. John Wayne [Shane] and Light Touch went to explore more outside, leaving the rest of us in the barn, but our ref stayed inside. With this tip-off, John and Light Touch returned and we decided to concentrate our efforts in the barn, when ... all hell broke loose. Three of their party, and their ref, were hiding in the barn behind an illusionary wall. They managed to drop several of us, but we had superior numbers and got them all. And the box. Game over for them.

The next exercise was the same thing reversed. The level four party would attack us, and we would hide the red box inside the house.

While we were discussing what to do, and before the exercise had begun, there was suddenly an enormous BANG. Something had landed in the abandoned library of the house. We peered through the door. There was a new hole in the ceiling, in a perfect circle, and the whole room was freezing cold, frost everywhere. Both Whizz and I sensed evil, but it was fast dissipating. The ref scratched his head and went back to town to speak with the other ref. They also summoned some magical support from the Keep: the head priest and a mage. These two duly arrived and inspected the phenomenon.

"We are only tenth level," they muttered. "This is outside our experience."

So they took some samples in specimen jars and headed off.

Both refs shrugged and the exercise was on again, though the library was declared out-of-bounds.

We hid the red box under the steps to the front door. And then waited.

Late into the night, the other party arrived in various manners.

Their wizard tried to levitate into the hole in the roof, but he stuffed up and ended up tangled in ropes. "You're dead" snapped our ref.

Their thief arrived the same route but we spotted and got him. "You're dead"

The rest of their group snuck in invisible and silent, and the battle was met.

I "killed" one with my crossbow. But was then "killed" back.
Whizz "killed" their tank, but was slept and "killed". Peg Groups was "killed" too.
John Wayne damaged one, but then was "killed". Light Touch "killed" this one, but that broke his cover and he was soon "killed" himself.

This left only Yeti  [Darryl]and their fighter. In an extraordinary feat of luck, Yeti managed to drop the guy with his glaive, much to everyone's surprise.

To be honest, several of the referee calls went in our favour in this battle. The ref didn't know what one of the fire spells did cast by their mage (it would have dropped two of us), and several of our hits on their fighters would have only been flesh wounds rather than death calls.

But this didn't stop us gloating the hell out of them.

"Two nil! Two nil!" sang Yeti in his thin reedy voice.

We returned to the Keep triumphant, Whizz and I leading the marching song:

Onward Grism's soldiers, marching as to war,

with the sword of Vull going on before.

Vull, the royal master, leads against the foe;

forward into battle see his banners go!

At the sign of triump Deidra's host doth flee;

on then, Grism's soldiers, on to victory!

Zaahl's foundations quiver at the shout we raise;

sisters, lift your voices, loud Illana's praise.

Onward then, ye people, Grism leads the throng,
blend with ours your voices in Illana's song.
Glory, laud, and honour until Vull the King,
this through countless ages men and half-elves sing.

Tucker's Kobolds

Note: The term "Tucker's Kobolds" has become part of D&D lore. It comes from an article in Dragon Magazine #127 (1987) where, in a game run by a DM named Tucker, an ordinary tribe of kobolds used traps, ambushes and local knowledge to significantly challenge a high-level party, going against the stereotype of kobolds posing no threat. With that in mind ...

Down in the lower level of the tomb was a pool of water. Light Touch happened to be sloshing through this water and he noticed his foot didn't actually get wet. So we had a closer look and sure enough, the water was illusionary. It covered a trap door. Down below was a small room with a bier and a corpse of a gnome on it. Light Touch was lowered in on a rope. As soon as he passed into the room, the whole place turned into a palatial room, with gold trappings and beautiful furnishings. The gnome of the beir was still a corpse, but was robed in splendour. Light Touch touched the floor and ... **BANG**.

We pulled the charred smoking piece of meat back up. I emptied my curing power into him, and got him healthy again. It takes me eight hours of solid sleep to recharge my power. During this time, John Wayne risked going down himself. Luckily, there were no further traps. After the fire, there was not much left of the gnome corpse. But it did have a golden gnome g-string, totally untouched by the flames; obviously magic. John risked putting it on. He is a stout gnome fellow, with a bulging ale-gut and glutes like there is no tomorrow, but when he wore the g-string, and despite all this, and despite it vanishing into the pasty folds of his gnome butt-crevass, it actually made him look better! Ironically, the magic of the G-string increased his charisma; it only worked when he wore nothing but the G-string from the waist down.

Further on in was another secret door, followed by a long thin passage that terminated in another small door. Whizz gave it a mighty shove and it sprung open - into a cavern. A large cavern with stream and natural caves. However, there were kobolds here, ten, maybe twenty. They all started to shriek in their little raspy kobold voices and rushed at us. We managed to fire a few desultory cross-bow quarrels and battle was joined. It was about now we realized we were totally unmatched for kobold melee, so we bid a brave and hasty retreat. Two kobolds wiggled past the door before Whizz managed to jam it closed, and these two wretches dropped John Wayne and Peg Groups before we killed them. I cured them with Illana's power, but it drained me and we were forced to rest.

During my resting recharging time, the sneaky kobolds skulked around the to the front entrance of the tomb and attacked. They had magic support from their shaman ("sha-kobold"?). It was touch and go, but we managed to force them out again. The remaining kobolds took positions on top of the tomb tower and in the surrounding trees. Any attempt we made to leave, they would shoot. Light Touch found out the hard way; and was shot through the head with a magnificent shot, entering his eye socket, skewering the brain, and coming to rest lodged in his half-elven pineal gland. Again, I had to use all my power to restore him.

Running out of options, we decided to risk returning to the original cave. Sure enough, the kobolds were all gone, except that there were a bunch of kobold women and children. Whizz detected them as evil, so he and the boys waded in and slaughtered them all. I can safely say I don't have the blood of any innocents on my conscience, but it was a nasty brutal mess.

Leaving out through the cave entrance, we emerged in the woods, and found the remaining kobolds in their positions of ambush. It was our turn to be the ambushers, and a short while later, all kobolds were dead. The only notable thing from this battle was that Light Touch fumbled his bow shot and skewered me with an arrow through my liver. I still wonder how he did this considering  I was behind a tree and he was pointing away from me.

After resting and healing and resting, we headed back to the Lizardman mound in the centre of the swamp and summoned the lizardman shaman. He thanked us for our good work (recall, we had identified why his braves got corrupted by that evil item in the tower), and gave us an item and his best wishes.

So we headed back to the Keep.

The Feather Duster

We arrived at the lizardman trading post. A lizardman shaman (sha-lizard?) arrived, with his entourage, and after a bit of sybilant small-talk, informed us that some braves from his tribe had been corrupted by some foulness from a tower near the swamp. This has been happening for the last few months, so the lizardmen have noticed. He wished us to go and investigate it.

Half a day later, we left the swamp and entered the surrounding forest. Sure enough, there was a old stone tower here; about four storeys tall, and over a hundred years old. There was a hole smashed in the side of the tower allowing access to the bottom storey. By the vegetation on the stones, we guessed this hole was about a year old.

Inside were the dessicated corpses of three adventurers, slumped against the far wall.

Whiss did a scan with his affected head-ache stance and barked "I sense EEEEVVILLL".

Just then there was a loud bang and a bright flash of light, outside in the clearing. A wizard fellow in a velour stars & moons outfit, pointy hat, grey-beard and all, appeared.

"I am Axminster," he said in a rich and full baritone. "I have come to help you! My price will be a favour from each of you when you are more experienced."

Since he showed no sign of evil, Me, Whizz [ NPC ] and Peg Groups [ Ian ] agreed. Yeti [ Darryl ], John Wayne [ Shane ] and Light Touch [ Jeff ] refused.

We signed a demonically enforced contract, and Axminster intoned: "Don't go up. What you seek is below the tower. But search first for three indentations in the ceiling."

"And," added Axminster eerily. "Since you trusted me so, when you are back in Shadowlands Keep, you three go to the local potion merchant and ask to see his 'random stock'. You, Carla, take the green potion, you, Whizz, take the blue one, and you, Peg Groups, take the black one. Drink this, all of you, in remembrance of me."

With that, he vanished in a puff of greasy black smoke.

We sent Light Touch in and he did a brief search of the single room, and found nothing at first, though a thorough check of the corpses (three humans; on tea-leaf and two fighters) revealed that one was wearing an excessively evil gauntlet. We buried this foul thing in a hole, deep as we could dig, outside. The bodies appeared to have been killed about a year ago by some trap that they had set off by a loose brick on the walls - some kind of gas. Sure enough, there were several other similar bricks on the walls. Also in the room near the bodies was some relatively fresh lizardman blood, gleaming greenly on the floor. (Lizardmen have green blood - the haem iron in their blood is a different allotrope). We suspect that maybe the lizardmen braves who went mad, entered here and that they touched the cursed gauntlet.

The ceiling of the room was plastered, and through this could be seen three indentations. Under the plaster near these bumps was a recessed pulley. Directly below the pulley, under the plaster of the floor, was a large plug, like a bathtub plug, ring and all, made out of stone. So, we tied some adventurers' rope to the ring, passed it through the ceiling pulley, and then most of us hung from it. Sure enough, the plug lifted revealing a hole.

Down in the dark was a small passage. Light Touch spotted a trapped pit which spanned the width of the passage. It was only a small jump across, so he did ... and triggered an identical pit trap on the far side. Luckily, he was well-harnessed with rope, so ended up dangling over some spears. But beyond that trap was a sturdy floor. However, it was also trapped - darts fired from holes in the wall. After that, a blank wall.

Thorough searching ensued. On the wall of the base of the pit was a small door and through it another short passage. On the ceiling this time, there was a trap door. And exploring it lead to another passage which opened into a room.

There was a statue of a gnome here, wearing a tiara and holding a feather duster and a staff with a glowing end. His name "Hellian" was emblazoned on the stand of the statue, and sure enough, deeper into the room, in an alcove, was an obsidian beir on which was his dessicated body - also holding a staff, feather duster and tiara.

Light Touch skulked into the room, but failed to notice a trip wire on one of the steps. A fireball exploded near him, burning him a little - which I healed. John Wayne, foolishly thinking that the fireball trap was the only one, rushed over to the beir... and triggered another fireball trap. This almost killed him, but again Illana's curing magic saved him from death's dark door. The heat was so intense that it melted the tiara, burned the staff and almost destroyed the gnome corpse. The feather duster, however, was unharmed. Light Touch grabbed it and then felt the unmistakable urge to clean clean clean. And boy, did it clean! He spent the next few minutes satisfyingly dusting away all soot from the fireballs and burnt gnome meat (John Wayne and the corpse).

Now out of power, I suggested we withdraw somewhere safe for me to recharge and rest. We found a spot in the tomb.

The Free Adventurers' Guild

Further on into the wilds we met a fellow called Bent Root-sucker who had a mountain lion pet called Binky. He was a druid, and knew a lot about the surrounding area. He kept offering to"level us up", but apparently that required submitting to being bent over a tree root and taken hard from behind. Needless to say, no one volunteered.

After a bit of travel, we came to the village called Pind. It was just a collection of wattle and daub huts, and had seen better times. In fact, there were many many ruined buildings. Across the river was a large ruined temple to the god Elric. We asked Bent who Elric was, and he said Elric was "one of the nine" about two generations ago, but had somehow fallen and was not one of the nine today.

"Well, which god replaced him?"

This only got a blank stare.

"There are nine gods now, and Elric isn't one of them, right?"

"Yes, that's right."

"Fifty years ago there were nine gods and Elric was one of them, right?"

"Yes."

"But Elric is not one of the nine gods today, is he?"

"No"

"So which god replaced him?"

"Oh, what's that shiny thing over there?"

"List for me the nine gods before Elric fell." I said.

"Why of course: Vull, Illana, Grism, Norman, Loki, Hale, Fotherington, Zaahl, and Dierdra."

"But Elric isn't in that list."

"Of course he is."

"Then why isn't Elric's name in that list?"

"I don't understand the question. He is."
...

This same conversation, or similar, occurs with anyone, scholared or not, intellectual or not, priest or not. There is some global cognitive dissonance affecting everyone in the world in that they acknowledge Elric is no longer one of the nine, but have no idea which of the nine replaced him, and if you ask for the list before the Fall, his name will not be in it.

We travelled next to the river Aldure upstream for a day, and arrived at the Shadowlands Keep. From here, Lord Loofah and his Bahn mercenaries rule the surrounding lands. In fact, they claim all the land from here to the big upstream city Cleophany (one week away). Being so near to the portal through to Earth, the Keep has recently grown very rich on the wealth brought through.

The Keep is divided into two areas, the castle area (where normal folk are forbidden), and the town area, which contains a collection of inns, tavern, some shops and various useful buildings. One of which is the Free Adventurer's Guild establishment. Having no where else to stay, we went in.

We were greeted by Winstone, the hobbit proprietor and owner of the place. He explained how the Free Adventurers' Guild works: its a world-wide franchise that supplies free accommodation for adventurers, a simple equipment store, a centralized bank (allowing magical money transfers between branches), and training to allow members to "level up" (which doesn't involve anal sex). The cost of the training is a debt put onto your FAG account. You then pay the debt off by adventuring, and the FAG takes half of your gross adventure income to pay off your debt. They charge a nominal interest rate on the debt, which depends on class, but is about 12% annual. When your debt is cleared, you can still use FAG to train, but the becomes fee-simple. The contract signed is enforced demonically to stop welshers and thieves.

So we all signed up.

We also found out that you must never use your true name in this world. If someone discovers your true name, they can have power over you. This explains, to some extent, all the half-arsed names of all the people we encountered. So we adopted a common name each: I (Carmilla) became "Carla", Howie (Ian) became "Peg Groups", Sean (Shane) became "John Wayne", Martin (Darryl) became "Yeti", Nathan (Jeff) became "Light Touch". Whiss became "Whizz". These "safe" names will be used from now on, to protect the innocent.

After five weeks of extensive and zen-like training, we were all declared to be "level zero". The FAG then supplied us with our first few adventures to get us to "level one".

We were assigned a mission: Half a day's travel down the road, we were told, there was a group of bandits who were attacking supply caravans destined for the Shadowlands Keep. We were told to find them and reconnoitre: "No need to attack. Just collect information".

So we equipped up and headed out, walking up the road, following the large river (think unbraided Waimak) to our left, and forested hills to the right.

By now, we were well-used to our new "0th level" bodies. I, Carmilla/Carla was a half-elf priestess of Illana, with infravision no less, and a set of Illana "gifts" (Heal, Blessing, Comfort & Succour, Protection from Evil, Cure Disease, Cure Serious Poison, Godly Might - increases stats, Neutral - improves the attitude of attackers towards me), Howie/Peg was an elf ranger with corresponding tracking skills and a massive double-handed sword. Sean/John was a gnome wizard, Martin/Yeti was a human wizard, Nathan/Light Touch a half-elf thief. Whiss/Whizz a human paladin of Grism wielding a mighty battle-axe.

After a few hours of walking, Peg's keen tracking skills spotted scrape marks over the road that disappeared into the woods to our right. We melted into the forest and Light Touch took off to check. He soon came back and reported a group of two soldiers, one thief, and one wizard all lead by an evil priest of Fotherington.

Light Touch and Peg spied on them for a few hours. Every so often, one of the men-at-arms would walk down to the road and scan each way, obviously looking for ripe caravans to plunder.

After two hours, a caravan was indeed spotted, so the evil party began preparing an attack. Our cunning plan was to ambush them right on the moment of their ambush, but we weren't quite quiet enough, and they spotted us;  the battle was had!

To cut off a long story square, we wiped the five out in quick order. But Yeti suffered massive trauma when one of the men-at-arms skewered his gut, John Wayne was badly chopped up, Whizz almost lost his leg, and Peg Groups, in an act of extraordinary panache, tossed his double-handed sword majestically into the air and caught it with his head, point-first, carefully missing any protection from his helmet, neatly impaling his brain. Luckily, I was on hand and, by the healing power of Illana's gift, cured most of it.

The caravan arrived soon after - a merchant, homely daughter and two guards - and they were most pleased not to be robbed, raped and killed. We guarded them for the night, and then escorted them to the Keep in the morning.

The Free Adventurers' Guild was pleased with our success. We gave Winstone the FAG tokens off the evil party (all FAG members carry ID tokens), and used half of the spoils to pay down some of our debt, and got a big tick in the "1st adventure completed" box.

The next adventure was to take on some Lizardmen in the swamp. Lizardmen are tough, but normally they are peaceful and benevolent. However, some recent event is changing the way they react. Our mission is to go investigate.

to be continued

Across the Portal

Back in Christchurch, two weeks passed. Howie and Martin's wounds healed

Wizz Crelan and Sean (Shane) and Carmilla (me) decided to go on another trip back to Jackson Bay to satisfy that nerd craving, and we managed to convince Nathan (Jeff) and Howie (Ian). Martin (Darryl) was harder to convince. He was firmly under the belief that the whole thing was a setup by Wizz & Sean, with paid actors, animatronics and stage makeup, and that somehow they had changed his shotgun shells to blanks. "... and then those LARP bastards actually hit ME with real weapons!"

Sean hired a boat (with outboard) and trailer, and we went off for another trip to Jackson Bay.
We went better equipped this time with packs and tents and useful gear. Plus I bought a .308 rifle, Howie bought a shotgun, and Martin had his shotgun. Wizz had a crossbow. Plus we had the re-enactment sword and two axes from last time.

We launched the boat off the beach at Jackson Bay jetty and then sailed around the point to Smoothwater bay, and then tramped through the thick bush for a few hours (2km) to get to the same track where we met the zombies last time.




We marched on up the path and could smell a revolting stench. Wizz, now really into it, did his LARP paladin's Detect Evil (affected stance and all: left hand on forehead, palm out, as if swooning, right arm extended), and pointed. Then was promptly sick. Off to one side, was one of the zombies we had "killed" last time (the one that wasn't hit in the head). Its rotting head, a bit of shoulder and an arm was tied to a tree. And it was frantically pulling on a length of string which disappeared into the bush - an alarm.

Strangely enough, Howie and Nathan suddenly had the Nerd-glow and could feel the same euphoric affect as me, Sean and Wizz. Martin was still cynical, skeptical and disbelieving (despite the reek and stench and this half-alive thing, which he could see up close). Howie blew it apart with his shotgun at close range.

Then up the path, two more zombies. These were quickly dispatched by me (308) and Howie (shotgun). But by then an alarm could be heard through the trees - like a burglar alarm siren. So we advanced quickly. The track T-ed into a sealed drive, to the left went to Jackson bay village and to the right we could see the same group of buildings that me, Sean and Wizz saw last time trip. There were three buildings, an old car hulk, and some bits of rubbish. Behind the car were two guys in medieval re-enactment armour with heavy crossbows, a guy with a 303 who seemed to be in charge, a huge hulking thing, 8 feet tall and wide which we recognized as an ogre ("clever animatronics" said Martin), and three more zombies. The zombies were shuffling up the track, so I took them both out and the leader ordered the last one back, but I shot it too (all lovely head shots).

Martin, the skeptic, was by now gibbering and wailing: "You shot those guys in the head!! You killed them!". The soft-nose 308 bullets certainly utterly destroy the heads.

The leader had a walkie-talkie and was using it. So Nathan went down the road towards the bay, and quickly returned: He had seen a group of twenty soldiers in camo gear, flak-jackets and guns, approaching and they would be here in 5 minutes.

So Sean decided plan A: Sean and Wizz rushed into the fray, I backed up with my rifle, and Howie tried to circle for some shotgun blasts. Nathan, with his pocket knife, and skeptical Martin stayed behind me. Using a tree, I braced for a shot where I thought the leader would appear. Sure enough, he popped up with his 303 - and died with a nice head shot. The two crossbow guys fired too. One hit Wizz's shield nearly blowing off his arm. The other missed.
Howie blasted one. Wizz, Sean and Howie bravely/stupidly took on the ogre. Wizz and Howie were hit by its huge hammer crippling them, but it finally went down with Wizz's sword, Sean's rapier, Howie's shotgun and my 308.

The second crossbow man surrendered, called Dolf, so we ushered him along with us. We could feel the Nerd-field stronger from one of the buildings, so we headed there. These were all old mine buildings and one was built over the entrance to tunnels into the rock. We locked and barricaded the door behind us and ventured in deeper. Down one of the tunnels we could see ... daylight. And there was a strange shimmering unnatural disjunction where our Earth tunnel met the other tunnel.

But we didn't have any time to wonder, so rushed headlong through the disjunction and emerged into a short cave and into a temperate forest. This was not New Zealand.

Our nerd-fields were in a state of euphoric overload. We were alive! All the colours, smells, scents seemed somehow better, more real, more tangible. Wizz's voice dropped two octaves. I positively glowed. Martin, however, STILL disbelieved. "It's bloody virtual reality"

Not wanting to hang around in case those other twenty soldiers emerged, we moved away from the cave.

We got Dolf to tell us of this world: gravity, night and day, weather, seasons, sun and moon were the same. The nearest city is Cleophany about a week's travel away. The nearest village is Pund - a little over a day's trekking through bush. The nearest large settlement is the Darklands Keep about 3 days away - ruled by Master Loofah (yes, the bath back-scrubber). Dolf described himself as a Bahn Mercenary in the employ of Master Loofah.

More interesting for me, there are nine gods:

The Three of Virtue & Goodness.
Vull (The Righteous), patron of all who value truth, justice, law and order.
Illana (The Caregiver), patron of the downtrodden and the weak.  Source of all healing.
Grism (The Fist), god of war and righteous force.  He marches with the largest battalions and resides in the hearts of the proud and fierce.
The Three of Life & Balance.
Norman (The Reveller), god of festivals, celebration and joy.
Loki (The Trickster), god of luck, balance and fortune.
Hale (The Nurturer), god of nature and all that grows or runs wild.
The Three of Darkness and Evil.
Fotherington
Zaahl (The Slayer), god of death and master of the hidden paths.  All those who pass to the afterlife must travel through his realm.
Dierdra (The Necromancer), goddess of chaos and evil.  She cares nothing for morality and offers command over dark powers to those who sacrifice the life energy of others to her.

First aid was applied to the horrendous wounds of Wizz and Howie. I had an inkling, so placed my hands on Howie's wounds and said "In the name of Her, Heal", and suddenly I could feel something in me go from me into Howie, and his wound healed in front of our very eyes - good as new. Martin had a bit more trouble to explain that, so he shut up for once. But my new-found healing powers didn't work on Wizz.

During the healing, Dorf ran off. Sean grabbed a crossbow and shot him. Dorf fell over and we got him back, injured, and we put him on a leash. I tried to heal him with my power, but no luck.

Dolf seemed to be okay, and we did some more chatting about his world, when suddenly blood poured from his nose and mouth, and he collapsed and died in front of our eyes. We checked for poison and other foul bane, but nothing was found. Dolf *was* talking about the dark goddess Dierdra's huge tits, so maybe that was it; he had mentioned earlier that one ought not mention her name.

All our modern equipment was melting or disintegrating. Anything plastic, electronic, or with a lot of processing was subject to this effect. So bye bye guns, and most of our stuff.

We wandered a bit, trying to hide deeper in case those soldiers arrived. Sure enough, we heard them, but they passed at some distance and we heard no more.

Something was happening to us, my ears and Howie's ears were growing more pointy and our faces thinner and more fey. Sean had shrunk a bit, a sagittal crest had started to appear on his forehead and his nose had grown. And he started to smell of curry. This seredipitous event was too much for Martin and his skepticism suddenly left him in a nerdish epiphany: "I believe!"

A few hours later Sean spotted a small bipedal creature and befriended it. It was called Gwyffin and was an "elf-goblin" (but then he would happily agree to any species classification, so we still aren't sure).