Random Conversations
-----Gimplefwick then turns around, his eyes open wide in suspicion at the customer that asked him about the name of his bird. His hands reach upwards to covetously protect the parrot, "You mean my preciousss? It wasss a birthday gift. You can't have it." It is obvious the parrot is a stuffed bird.
-----Gimplefwick reaches up and soothingly begins to stroke his colorful bird, "My preciousss...shan't let the dirty nassty elfsess have you...no...preciousss."
-----The halfling baker stares slack jawed at Gimplefwick with a look of shocked disbelief on his face.
-----At the mention of his parrot by the male half elf, Gimplefwick retorts, "Arghhh, now you be leavin me preciousss alone. It's twice the bird that you'll ever be."
-----Gimplefwick looks suspiciously at Seth, "Shiver me timbers, what do ye mean about me clothes? I think the rest of ye are all dressed oddly. Me clothes are the latest in pirate garb. The height of fashion among swashbucklers and buccaneers." Gimplefwick flicks a piece of potato off of his garish silk vest and continues eating. "Arrr, be there any rum?"
-----Gimplefwick nods at Seth's suggestion, "Aye, a good sea chanty wouldn't be amiss, now would it? Unfortunately, me good pirate name has been impugned by yon landlubbers. I could never look me parrot in the eye again if I didn't keelhaul at least one of those scurvy dogs. No one laughs at The Dread Pirate Gimplefwick and gets away with it. Well, at least not very often."
-----Gimplefwick looks at the other two thieves, "Avast there maties, we've forgotten about the long lost art of extortion. It's a thing of beauty. To be treasured forever. The gift that keeps on giving. The only serious problem would be the eventual degradation of our economy as other regions catch on to the funny money. Merchants would become more tight fisted and eventually move away or go out of business. Counterfeiting is a tricky art. What do the two of you say? Should we brace one of the counterfeiters and try to hold them up for a percentage? Ahem, for the guild of course."
-----Gimplefwick peers curiously at the sword that Seth has handed him. He then swings it over his head and whirls it about several times in the air. He takes a few practice lunges and strikes several martial looking poses with the blade. He then lightly hacks at the wooden table with the sword and closely inspects the damage. After peering at the splintered table, he then runs his tongue along the flat of the blade and dons a thoughtful countenance. Handing the sword back to Seth, he remarks, "I think it's a sword, but you might want to consult a professional."
-----Gimplefwick continues to grumble as the wagon heads through Hearthorn, "I still think we shoulda offed that old geezer. I just don't like the idea of leavin a live enemy layin about. Who knows but he might recover and have some means of escaping. I have a pretty good idea who he'd be angry with and want revenge on too. Ah well, our part is over fer now anyway. I think Wain should open up a bottle of his best swill and we should all celebrate until we grow hair where hair isn't supposed to grow." The Dread Pirate then waves his furry little feet in the air and says, "Look. I've already started."
-----The Dread Pirate smiles broadly at the orc leader's bellow, "Arrrr, did ye hear that? He said 'humans die.' I guess things'll work out fer me pretty good. Sorry bout you guys and all, but he seems to have somethin against humans. Must figure halflings are alright." The Dread Pirate sticks his cutlass in the ground in front of him, for easy access, hurls a couple daggers, then snatches his cutlass back up.
-----The Dread Pirate leans out the window, peering at the gathered, soiled masses. He then hold his sides and laughs maniacally, eventually sitting down and wiping his watering eyes. "That almost made the whole trip worthwhile. I wish we could do it again. Do ye think they have any other high priestesses we could chuck out the window at 'em? Arrr, probably none of the explodin' variety anywise."
-----The Dread Pirate makes a disgusted face, "Arrr, her tongue was missing also? That's disgusting. I wonder what happened to 'em? And why would they be removed anyway, fer that matter? So there's a set of eyeballs and a tongue from a High priestess of magic floatin around somewheres. I'd better not be findin 'em in me pack, that's all I have to say. I can just imagine reachin in there fer a pie, and grabbin a big squishy eyeball. I'd never be able to eat pie again. At least not fer a week or so."
-----The Dread pirate nods at Seth, "Aye, we should be gettin back to our inn. But maybe ye can heal up poor old Krord there. That witch hit him a good one. And everybody else that needs healin. Then we'll rest up fer awhile and then off to Visp."
-----He then adds, "I don't know if there's a reward or not. There should be. Above and beyond the call of duty and all that. Maybe some hazardous duty pay. It's not every town we fight a coven of evil wizards and then have to fight an explodin super-zombie."
-----Just as Gimplefwick emerges into the next room, he sees the ogre that Kazel had stabbed lying in a pool of its own blood. It weakly pulls itself away from the opening as if making for the nearest dark corner. As it looks at the halfling pirate, it snarls and sweeps its arm at him as if to wave him away. Though defiant, the huge humanoid looks near death.
-----The Dread Pirate looks at the ogre and sighs, "Kinda sad isn't it? Poor old thing. One minute enjoying a nice little snooze, then suddenly a swarm of tiny little adventurers charge in and beat you and your other ogre buddies to a bloody pulp. One minute yer the lord of yer kingdom...well, lord of a dank, nasty pit anyway. Havin a good time with yer little ogre friends. Just waitin fer a tasty meal o' raw sheep guts. Then, with no warnin at all....WHAM! Ye suddenly find some scrawny little adventurer has gone and stuck a knife in yer back. And I think ye'd have to ask yerself at this point. Do I know these adventurers? What'd I ever do to these guys? It's all so sordid and depressin."
-----The Dread Pirate glares at yet another of Marast's prejudicial opinions, he then glares and replies, "No, this castle was made by halflings, actually. Ye can tell by the mortaring on the cornices. And the iambic pentameter arches. Very significant mark of halfling engineering, those arches. Humans build in quatrains, halflings in iambic pentameter. It's difficult to tell the difference though, I can see why you were confused."
-----The Dread Pirate, obviously liking the imagery of hordes of undead, all in a line, marching efficiently down the dragon's gullet, says, "Well, I'm not much in favor of the undead getting up and walkin about every night. I hear they like to eat brains. O' course if yer potion works then we can just line 'em up all in a row and set off fer the dragon's cave. Maybe we'd get lucky and the dragon would choke to death. I don't know if dragons eat carrion though. I'd imagine it prefers its meat to be somewhat fresh and unstinkin'. I know if it were me, I'd prefer to eat a sheep rather than some weeks dead, stinkin corpse. Fer Joren's sake, how could you possibly eat the armpit area? Disgustin. Blech. And let's face it, most humans have less than perfect hygiene. I'm gettin sick just thinkin about it."
-----The Dread Pirate looks somewhat relieved at Abbar's explanation, then says, "Well, that makes a lot more sense. But frankly, if I'm going to spend fifty gold on a one-shot potion, then I want to be sure that it'll work. Fer all I know ye might be some sort o' confidence man, sellin vials o' cow's milk. Now how would I feel if I stalked into a lair o' vicious, brain-eating zombies, uncorked your potion, swallowed it down and it turned out to be nothin but cow juice. I'd feel like a bloody fool. But probably not fer very long. Since they'd eat me brain and all. But you can be sure that if yer potion doesn't work and I come back as a zombie, that I'll be comin' to crack open yer melon and feast on its squishy contents first. I'd make it a priority. Bein undead and all, I suppose my calendar would clear up quite a bit. I'd be sure to make time fer ye."
-----Gimplefwick then says, "I wonder if there'll be any o' those walkin' skeletons. That'd be a sight. I wonder if we could capture one of 'em. Think about it, we get back to Hearthorn and open up a sort of adventurin museum. We could go get that mummifed ogre we saw a few days back. Maybe this dragon's head. And we could put the animated skeleton in a big glass tube, where it could prance about and scare folk. A nice display of our captured weaponry. Too bad that flyin skull got away. Anyway, we could charge a silver piece fer admittance. I'm sure we could come up with all sorts o' displays from our adventures. People'd come from near and far to see it. We'd be richer than Joren. And we can always go out and get more stuff fer displays. Maybe we could even get one o' those skin-eating Eastern Sawoojian Bugtussle apes that Kazel is always talkin about. O' course we'd have to take its flensing knives away from it."
-----"I don't think there's any way back to the sewers unless Abbar comes back and opens the door," Kazel says as she heads back. "And don't worry about being a zombie. I'll make sure to cut your head off before nightfall and remember you by shrinking it and putting it on my store shelf. In a birdcage if necessary."
-----The Dread Pirate purses his lips thoughtfully at the thought of his head being stored in a birdcage, "Narrr, I don't think I'd really care fer that much either. I'd like me head to be able to roam free across the tundra, livin a life o' careless insouciance and wanton depravity. Insofar that me disembodied head would be livin and all. I'll be sure to let ye know if'n I start havin a hankerin fer nice, fresh, juicy brains though."
-----The Dread Pirate suddenly glances at Kazel's head and licks his lips, then coughs uncomfortably and shuffles from one foot to the other, "Errmmm, maybe we'd better hurry up and get out of here."
-----The Dread Pirate looks in alarm at his blown out torch, then gives a long, flat stare at the surrounding cornfields. He then whispers to Seth and Runik, "Seth, do ye have any fire makin spells? I've kinda got a bad feelin about tryin to just up and take off through the corn. There be somethin out there. Some kinda corn-demon. Probably feelin vengeful about all the ears of corn we've eaten over the years. Apparently it thinks its payback time."
-----The Dread Pirate answers the smith, "Well, ye see, there were these evil wizards in service to the goddess of the night here in town, makin all sorts o' mayhem and generally makin a mess o' things. Each of 'em had one of these swords. So we cut the wizards' heads off and threw 'em into a garbage heap, then confiscated their gear, since they didn't really need it anymore, bein headless as they were and all. So I ended up with a few o' these things and I was just wonderin if they were tainted with evil or not. By the way, do ye have any bows and crossbows?" The Dread Pirate gazes at the smith levelly the whole while through his story about decapitating evil wizards.
-----The Dread Pirate nods his head sagaciously in agreement with Seth's commentary, "Aye, but then we've all probably done things that deserve a good keelhauling or two. I don't think anyone is really innocent enough to avoid such a thing. Besides, it isn't always fatal. Every once in awhile some scurvy dog would pop back up at the stern of the ship with a startled expression on his face, as though he was wondering how he got there. The looks on their faces alone made keelhauling worth it. Then we'd haul the lucky sod back up on deck and we'd all have a hearty laugh about the whole thing over some rum drinks. That's just the life of a pirate fer ye. Keelhauling and rum drinks. Rum drinks and keelhauling. Ahhhh, the good old days."
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