You immediately focus your mind on other things, like say, the blue thing currently staring at you. Before you react, it starts making happy noises, and begins to snuggle under your chin. "Well, would ya look at that," Rucks says. "He made a new friend." He looks you straight in the eye. "Now this squirt is loyal to you, 'cause he sense something good about you. Treat him well,and you'll see he'll protect ya with all his might." The squirt seems happy about this, as it does 360 spins for some reason.

bump

The purring blue thing has your entire attention while you wait for the world to stabilize enough for you to move on. It seems amorphous as it snuggles, purrs, and spins. After awhile you stagger to your feet (with Rucks' assistance) and consider moving on into the marketplace. Somewhere in all the recent kerfluffles you acquired a pile of cash. Hmm... maybe that duck did find you money when you got hurt.

The first shop you encounter sells books, and some of them are very interesting indeed. There's a blue book explaining how the dimensional wormholes work and a green book that promises you the ability to summon necessary items wherever you may be, especially cheese. The shopkeeper allows you to read one book quickly on site, but then you must buy something. Both books are pricey, with gemstones on the covers (clearly they were the property of an established wizard.) You can only afford one. So - which one do you skim and try to remember? Which one will you buy? Can the blue Shmoo help in any way?

Suddenly everything around you stop, What? what is happening?

Even then your own thoughts and action are becoming slower and slower, then finally freeze in stasis.

A spell had been cast on you and your adventure.

It is called GOG DRM free summer sales

It is clear from the book you have read that you will not be getting much sleep in the near future. The only spell worse in that regard is called something about an Insomnia sale..

Is the Shmoo responsible for all this? You give it a suspicious glare, but it just purrs and blinks at you cutely

You venture forward through the market with your trusty new companion shmoo.


You couldn't afford any of the books on offer at the last stall as you have nothing in your inventory except an excreted rusty dagger and a cheeseless void so you must to move on keeping in mind possible purchases for later if you encounter any kind of currency or tradeable items.

The further you venture the more esoteric the stands become, even the style of them shifts from modern day corrugated steel topped stalls with plywood tables to exotic coloured silk and Kashmir drapes with deep mahogony and Silmarian rosewood tables.

The wares evolve from the mundane into the fantastical, you see a stall selling various exotic pets, there are one legged hopping mites from the blagadusian continent and thrice cutefied furry pinkelbies from the Amazonian realm, you also see three stands selling various weapons made of mithril, adamantuim and meteorite ore from all four corners of the known world.

You grimly traipse along knowing you cannot afford any of this, until you chance upon a humble looking merchant peddling exotic food...

In front of you are several different varieties of interesting cheeses, the merchant is a wizened old man who has the knowledge of ages in his eyes and a mysterious aura of power emanating from him...

"I sense you have the dagger of ultimate nullification in your possession boy/girl......"

He stares at you and you can feel him examining your very soul with his permeating gaze

"In exchange for said dagger I offer you only one of these legendary cheeses, The cheese of permeating pong, the cheese of perpetual putrescence, or the cheese of possible parkinsons."

Before your eyes awaits the most difficult decision you have made in your life, do you chose one of these legendary cheeses or contemplate the power of the artefact you already have in your possession?

Shmoo coo's knowingly as you contemplate your conundrum.....

You go for the cheese of permeating pong... Well, you would, if not for your second thoughts, which helpfully remind you to never trust wizard merchants. You politely decline the exchange. "Good," the wizard says. "That was a test, and you passed! Only a fool would give up a weapon so powerful for a foodstuff so stupid. My name is gandalf, and I'm an expert in the dimensional arts. I sensed you were not from this world, and I wanted to make sure by testing your intelligence; a man of this world would have given the sword, but a man of common sense is rare in these parts. Let me help you with your travels!"

Congratulations! You have gained your second travelling companion :)

You are now a party of three including Shmoo and Gandalf, you all go to the nearest Inn to discuss your options on what quests to pursue.

You enter "Ye Angry Olde Beaver" . It is a small cosy alehouse just past the market square. The outside of the inn looks slightly Tudor in design except the timbers are less orderly and gnarled into each other like the roots of a tree instead of overlapped in a traditionally carpentered fashion.

As you enter the rustic old building there are lots of old horse brasses, crossed swords on shields, and regional heraldry hanging from the walls. You pull up a seat and A surly man of portly stature makes his way to your table to take your drinks order.

This being the first sit down you have had in a very long time and after much stress and weirdness you decide to get loaded and order a gallon of khaal'darusian deathwine. Gandalf orders a quart of honeymead and shmoo purrs but you believe he is asking for a thimble full of stagnant water so you translate his order for the innkeeper.

You plan your next move! Gandalf suggests that you go to Draak the mad, an artifice and legendary weapons expert in the craftsmans district in order to confirm the identity of your dagger. Shmoo wants to venture out into the wilderness outside town and look for some edible lichen. You want to get as wasted as possible and see what happens.

What do you do next you ponder?.....

Bump (sorry never bumped a thread before but this one is my favorite)

you suddenly hear a "bump" from behind you.

You decide to rest for a moment, and have your drinks. You ask a nearby waitress if there's any lichen out back, to which she says yes, goes to the back and gives you handful of the vegetation. Shmoo is pleased with the combination of the lichen and his drink; Gandalf seems equally content with his. However, yours made you feel like the inside of a volcano for a moment, but that soon passes. Gandalf pays the bill, and you go out to find Draak.

You venture forth out of the inn with your party..

You see a sign for the craftsman's district but you cant read it as it appears all blurred so you stumble towards it, falling over twice, Gandalf gives an impatient sigh as Shmoo is hopping away from your clumsy footing avoiding getting squished.

On the sign you see a round blurred blob, then a some writing you cant make out. Then you vomit on your own feet and collapse in a dishevelled heap against the sign.

You loose 3 intelligence points

You can faintly make out Gandalf performing some kind of alchemy with some equipment he has conveniently stashed in his robes and a couple of minutes later he hands you an elixir which you guzzle down heartily.

Congratulations! you have gained 4 perception from the elixir but those intelligence points have gone forever, you will have to find a way to grind them back somehow but for now you see the sign is directing you north west to the craftmans district so you head forth with your party!

Cleaning yourself off in a rain barrel on a side street (while Gandalf looks on in disgust and the Shmoo plays in the resulting puddle,) you find the money that disappeared from inventory while you pondered over the magic books. It seems it had slipped down from the pocket into your coat lining. (You really should get that pocket repaired soon.) Maybe you should ask the wizard to detour back for one of those before facing Draak ?

Draak has quite a fierce reputation. You could tell that from the way the rest of the tavern edged away from your party the first time Gandalf mentioned his name. Another concern is why Gandalf wants you and Shmoo in his company in the first place. What does he need you (or your new Shmoo) to do?

Luckily, the wizard knows a sewing-spell, and fixes your pocket. Feeling nervous about why you and Shmoo are going with him, you ask for his reason. "He, too, knows of the many dimensions one can go to; he once did the same type of journey as you, but intentionally so. He wanted to be an expert on all sorts of weaponry throughout the cosmos, so he dabbled in a forbidden form of sorcery to create portals through time and space in order to go anywhere and everywhere. It wasn't enough for him; he needed more. He found a way to use the portals to travel to alternate universes, some of which are incomprehensible to a normal person. He carried on, constantly studying every dagger, sword, cannon, everything. It affected his mind; the obsession to know all there is to know about tools of war destroyed his sense of morality, and the trips through the portals changed his body's makeup. He left our world a sane, slightly irresponsible, knowledgeble man, and returned an incoherent, violent, shriveled, insane man. And yet, I feel there is still some good left in him. I know that he would not want the same thing to happen to you, and that is why you're coming."

You stand there with your mouth open at the sad story of this person, but then another question comes up.

"Why is Shmoo coming?"

"Oh,' Gandalf says, "forgot to mention: he likes the Shmoo species; thinks they're funny."

You make your way to Draak, half afraid, and half curious as to why anyone, especially this particular man, would like the Shmoos; all they do is purr at things!