rabarts2

We all woke from nightmares, apparently.

Personally, I didn't notice. It might not be obvious, given my cheery demeanour, but I'm constantly plagued by nightmares. I deal with this by simply appreciating them - call me a horror addict, if you will. For me, sleeping and suffering through nightmares is like several hours of free entertainment every night. Also, the cold sweats I awake with help to work off the sometimes excessive amounts of sugar and butter I tend to indulge in when within walking distance of a good patisserie.

Everyone else, it seems, was a bit shaken. I'll admit, that night's bad dreams were more visceral and haunting than usual, but not to worry. A spit full of rat-ribs fried in herby butter to start the day, and all was well. Not sure why noone else seemed to want any. That's some good free-range cuisine, that is.

Moving deeper into this dungeon, there were no further matters of moral etiquette to attend to; after all, it was the goblins that started it. And to be fair, when they surrender (it's either that or fall beneath our wrath), we do take prisoners.

And we make sure they're well-fed. To do otherwise would be unethical. They don't seem to like my cave-rat stew, though. Odd creatures.

From the diggings (the goblins were digging, unsuccessfully, for some reputed treasure; all they found was the cold steel of Vondal's Vandals in their faces), we moved into the caverns beneath the keep. More rats harrassed us here, annoying creatures, but bigger than the ones we had encountered in the tunnels above. More meat on these ones, so I skewered a string of them together for a bit of a cook-up later on.

Little did I know that there would also be dessert to go with it: Orange Jelly, in fact.

Or, to be more precise, Ochre Jelly.

Type your cut contents here.

It's just wrong that a delicious gelatinous treat should be turned into a horrid monster. I was torn by sorrow that nature should allow this to happen, and with tears in my eyes set about ridding the world of such an atrocity.

Unfortunately, one well-placed Cursebite had the less-well-intentioned result of turning the Ochre Jelly into, yes, two Ochre Jellies.

Double your money, double your fun.

It was looking a bit wobbly there for a minute, but Vondal's Vandals wiped the Jellies up. To my disappoinment (or perhaps relief, if I was to be honest), the jelly didn't taste anything like jelly. Who would add a hint of olive to orange jelly, after all? 

What's next, Puddings that hunt you in the dark for the taste of your flesh? Oh, probably.

Next we chanced upon a door with a message on it, one that was obviously meant for everyone but us. I mean, if a goblin is going to go out of its way to scratch the words "Stay Out - Really" in Common on a big door in the depths of an abandoned cavern, that couldn't possible be intended for us. We're adventurers, damn it!

Accordingly, I hit the door with an Eldritch Blast. It made a hell of a noise and left a bloody great scorch mark, but not much else. So we resorted to the old-fashioned method; we opened the door and went down the stairs.

As soon as you see water in a dungeon, you know it has to be bad.

It was.

Not only Jellies down here, but Slimes too.

Now, a huge blue creature formed entirely of slime would bring a lesser band of questing heroes to their knees in fear. Not us, though. We're not that bright, I guess. So we arranged ourselves in a convenient line, allowing it to spray anesthetic vomit all over us, and then we set about chopping, burning and blasting it into pieces. 

Amazingly, there were no casualties. Even though the Hands of Fate seemed to be tipped against us a lot of the time, we somehow beat the creature. When it went, it went with a bang. All I can say is this: I'm glad we were near a source of water when it happened.

I'll be heading straight to the tailor's for a new set of traveling robes once I get out  of here. You wouldn't believe how much that acid slime can stink, and you just can't get the smell out. That, and the fact that your clothes seem to slowly disintegrate around you, no matter how hard you scrub.

It's rough being a Domestic Warlock in the mucky world of the adventurer.

For all that, we discovered another clue that will inevitably lead us to clash with more monsters; we gathered a paltry sum of treasure (Slimes just don't have any real sense of what's valuable - for crying out loud, they don't even have a kitchen!), and I feel that, somehow, I have unlocked more secrets of the arcane that I can turn against my foes when next I venture out. Sweet.

But before then, I need to find some clean clothes and make a nice hot cup of tea. Oh yes, and roast up these rats. Who'd like to do the skinning and the gutting? Anyone?

Anyone?