"Give Us The Ogre!"

by Polly Ester
Tuesday 10th June

Smorgus Bord - Male Halfling Thief - Ian Luxton
Ulotta Puck-off - Female Shield Maiden Parry-Fighter - Edwin Muir
Arzie Vandit - Male Halfling Thief - Adrian McKinnon
Polly Ester - Female Human Bard - Andrew Earl
Siofra - Female Halfling Thief - Matt Carr
Hanky Chiff - Gnome Illusionist - Peter Fairbrother

The house was still surrounded by the angry crowd.
A la Carte, the elfin ogre, was still unconscious.
Arzie too.
And Smorgus.
Ulotta and Finn were off doing something in town.
That left just me and the marmalading Siofra.

"Give us the ogre!" howled the crowd.
But none of the multitude were brave enough to enter the place:
The place where death knelt behind the doors, where psis braved the windows,
where magic stalked the walls. Death incarnate. Death most hideous. Death
most foul. Fowl.

Eileen kept nagging to me "What are you going to do with the twenty-two
guard bodies?!"
I (Polly Ester) just shrugged. "Your house, your problem."
She screamed: "You are responsible for them!"
I shrugged again: "No, Vicki did it. We just baited them."

Suddenly, Siofra stirred and sat up, her oversize halfling breasts flopped
out of her halfling bodice. She had been thoroughly cleavage-read while
comatose.

"I'll tell the crowd," volunteered Siofra, lacing herself up again. "To come
and carry away their dead loved-ones."
"Better take this," I said, handing her a large white flag (with a target
painted on it).
"But watch out for the wizards on the roof back there. They don't like
moving targets."
She looked ashen.
"Maybe Elaine could cast some protection spells on you," I said, scraping my
memory for suitable spells. "Like Protection from Lightning or Protection
From Normal Missiles."
Elaine sulked: "You will go further into debt with me, if I cast those
spells."
I rebuked: "YOU are the one who wants the dead bodies gone." Adding
thoughtfully and with stylish flair "bitch".

"Give us the ogre!" howled the crowd.

Elaine relented and cast some spells on Siofra, who, clutching the flag,
walked out into the sunlight.
"One's coming out!" someone in the crowd yelled.
There was a mighty blam! The air exploded around little Siofra, and the
acrid smell of ozone wafted indoors.
Siofra came limping back in again, quietly. Elaine's spell had protected her
from all electrical damage, but not from looking like a frizzled twat.

"Shall I bait them again?" I retorted. "This crowd needs some more baiting.
You can never do too much baiting." Adding with a nonchalant yell over my
shoulder towards the door "Us Psis will pop you all!"

"Give us the psis!" howled the crowd.

"Shut up!" screamed Elaine. "And get rid of these bodies..."
"...that Vicki slaughtered..." I prompted.
"That Vicki slau..." started Elaine before she cut herself off with an ugly
frown.
She sniffed, and tried to look imperious and majestic.
Considering Elaine's mighty wizardly soul was stuck in a lowly whore's
huge-breasted and very lascivious body (a long story), this look didn't
really work.

Siofra shouted to the crowd: "Get rid of those wizards, and *then* I'll come
out."

There was some noise. When we next peeked outside there were no longer
wizards on the roofs.

Siofra went out again. And actually got to some of the crowd's ring-leaders
(deflecting some well-aimed rocks, bottles and iron bars enroute). She
ushered a few men back indoors, while me, Elaine, Vicky and the unconscious
boys hid upstairs so as not to alarm them.

One by one the twenty two militia bodies were removed.
One big fellow tarried, peering around after all the bodies were gone.
"Raaarrrr!" I growled at the top of the stairs unseen.
He squealed like a girl and ran off.

Now that the parley had finished, the crowd went back to their tricks.

"Give us the ogre!" they howled.

Siofra, still brave, tried to calm the situation. She arranged to leave
Spine and go to nearby village Mortville, the place for retired adventurers,
and bring back a priestess of REAL. The crowd would agree to such a noble
lady fixing this standoff, so claimed the ring-leaders.

So Siofra took off. And I spent the rest of the night and the next day
baiting the crowd.

They were not in very good spirits when Siofra returned with Mary-Anne Lightbringer,
priestess of REAL, her syphlike form lovingly enshrined in REAL's sacred and
life-giving light. She brought with her a paladin, Hugo Bromide, also bathed in the
glories.

It only took a few words out of Mary-Anne's lovely mouth and the crowd calmed
considerably.
She sailed into Elaine's manse and had a few words to our host.
She healed A la Carte, Smorgus and Arzie. Then she questioned Fergus under
Detect Lie
to get our side of the story.

The only blood we actually had on our hands was that dirty hedge-wizard whom
me, Arzie and Fergus had dealt to a few nights before on the roof-tops. This
was pure self-defence, and he had attacked us first. (Admittedly, I had
decaptitated him, shaved him and used his head to draw lightning shots, but
that was another matter.)
All the other deaths were Vicki slaughtering the Militia.

Then Gloria sent word to Furndeck to tell the central authorities of the
Theocracy that the militia of Spine was no more.

They dispatched a company of soldiers to Spine immediately.

The jackbooted, grey-uniformed soldiers soon arrived in Spine, and with
billy club, long baton and sword, effectivety dispersed the crowd and
regained law and order.

We met Major Hogger outside Elaine's.
"How come you're a Major yet you only command a company?" I asked him
innocently.
He just ignored me and asked "Do you have an ogre?"
"Oh yes," I admitted proudly. "He is part of our carnival act. The main star
of our show."
"Put him in the cage," he barked, gesturing to the cage on our wagon on
Elaine's front lawn.
A la Carte, showing strong signs of Marmalade, climbed into the cage and I
locked the door.
Major Hogger then got his pet wizard and pet psionicist to seal the cage.
"He won't get out now," sneered the handsome Major.
"Raarrr," roared A la Carte, yanking at the bars.

Try as we might, this was true. The Furndeck soldiers, in all their glorious
power and totalitarian authority, had wasted powerful protection spells and
powerful psionics on our cage to keep a bunny 1st-level ogre trapped therein
forever. We tried acid and brute force to break him out with no effect.
Elaine could have cast some spells to free him, but she was worried that her
name would be tarnished should she do so.
"And it is not tarnished already?!" Arzie blurted out, astonished.
"Twenty-two militia soliders *slaughtered* under YOUR roof by YOUR house
guest. And you worry about a tarnished name?"

Her suggestion was none too kind neither.
"Kill the ogre and I'll reincarnate him again," she murmured.

"Well, he'll have to be chopped into small enough pieces to get the body out
through between the bars," I said, logically. "You want me to get some
meat-saws, cleaver and a mincer?"
A la Carte, even in advanced state of Marmalade, went pale.

But she would only do this if we went further into debt to her.
"I WANT a book from this library far away," she began, like a spoiled child.
"And I WANT this magical cauldron from this shop in town," she demanded.
"Call yourself Lawful Good?" I said.

"Why don't you just fly to the mountain to get the book yourself? You're so
powerful," said Smorgus.
But she wasn't *even* prepared to cast Fly spell on us to allow us to get
there faster.
"So we have to traipse overland, through the Haunted Woods, over the Plains
of Death through the Mountains of Doom, to the Cave of The Necromancer to
steal a The Book of Power for you, and you won't even help speed the trip
up, nor help towards the success of the mission?"
"Yup" snorted Elaine.
We paused, blank-faced.
"We'll do it," interjected Ulotta.

"But first, we should collect Sandy's reward."

So I passed a meat saw, cleaver and a filleting knife through the bars to
miserable A la Carte in his cage: "You start without us. We'll be back later
to finish the last bits."

We wandered off to Sandy's new Headquarters (she was now the ruler of the
town's thieves since all Randy's mob had been killed). As promised, Sandy
gave us 2000gp and two magical items: Staff of Mage NiCad (2 PP storage) and
Staff of Death's Door (49 charges).

Then we had some business with the Militia as penance for our so-called
crimes. We had to some guarding and some square marching. At least we ended
up in some flash Spine Militia uniforms.

Then we returned to Elaine's to do her jobs.

First was the magical Cauldron of Spoils. The "easy" job with not too much
travelling.

In Spine central was an apothecary. According to Elaine's magical scrying,
the Cauldron of Spoils was located in the back.
We scouted the place out, then Arzie, Siofra and Smorgus went in dressed in
their Militia apparel. While Siofra and Smorgus distracted the owner with
girlie demands, Arzie snuck in the back way, pretending to search for "the
escaped ogre that had been spotted in this vicinity".
He triggered some trap and came stumbling out, half blind, in a cloud of
chlorine and phosgene, clutching a ceramic vessel as if it was our prize.
"Does that look like a Cauldron of Spoils to you?" I asked him blankly.
"Well, it was dark," he spluttered. "And there was a trap. And all this
green gas."
He wandered off to the Funken Wagnall temple and they cured the poison. He
paid for it with the vessel which contained valuable smelling salts.
From A la Carte
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