I know that one!  That one >>IS<< a meme! 

I'll have you know that the last two dad joke memes I've posted have not been me just saving and re-posting... I actually made 'em myself! 

What a great gif!  Your gif game TRULY is strong.

And that one IS a gif.  Not a meme.  So there!

...the poophole loophole?

Wait.  TOTALLY wrong topic. 

My bad!

This time, everybody gets to weigh in.

Well, 'cept Ch'dau.

It takes several flame tosses, but eventually, the gibbering, giggling ghouls leave the party in silence.  Some time later, the priest who imprisoned you appears, looking very inconvenienced and annoyed. 

"If you choose to make annoyances of yourselves," the man decrees softly, "I will be forced to put an end to the annoyance."  He pauses meaningfully.

"Do you think to force some issue here?" he sneers.  "You have no advantage whatsoever.  I need exert no effort to end your lives; I can simply compel my servants to stay away from you, and you will perish of thirst in short enough order."

Then, his gaze falls upon the prone form of Ch'dau.  He moves closer to the bars, and his nose wrinkles at the smell.  "Ah, I see.  Your companion fares poorly."  The priest pauses, seemingly lost in thought.

"You present a quandry here," he states.  "On the one hand, I am inclined to let him seek his own fate with my Master.  If he resists the Devourer with no help, then he has earned his chance at life.  If not... then who am I to mourn the death of an enemy?"

The rhetorical question hangs in the air for several moments.  "And yet," he muses, "if he perishes now, the usefulness of your group to me diminishes greatly."

He stares into space for a moment, seemingly lost in thought.  "Very well," he states, apparently coming to a decision.  "I had planned to allow you to sit for some time more before presenting my offer to you, but it seems that Fate is pressing my hand."

He looks into each cell, making eye contact before continuing.  "I assume that you wonder why I allowed you to live.  After all, replacing my servants is no large task, so losing a few more to end your lives would have been trivial enough, a more than fair trade."

The priest lets his words sink in.  "However, I have a use for you four.  A task that I believe you will not find to be distateful, though I imagine that your own predjudices would prevent you from working with me in other circumstances."  The brown-haired man grins in a particularly smarmy manner.

"Truth be told," he adds, "I had thought to offer my bargain to you when the time of my need was closer to hand... but here we are."

"I will intercede to save your friend's life," he offers after a short pause.  "If I do this, the four of you will swear to perform a task for me.  Upon completion of the task, your freedom will be granted.  I will not discuss my needs with you at this time, save to give you my word that my task will not riun contrary to any vows already sworn by any of you.  Indeed, I believe that you will find that we have a very mutual interest here."

The black-robed priest looks around each cell slowly.  "Do we have an accord?" he asks.
 

Some of you are active on FB, so you've seen these posts.  For those of you who aren't, or who don't love me enough to friend me there, read on (or ignore as you see fit).

You may remember that we had a really scary time with Kalani's pregnancy and birth (she was born February 19th).  Donna had a condition called "placenta percreta", where the placenta basically acts like a tumor.  It grew out of the uterus and into the abdomen.  The doctors were unsure that the baby would even make it to viability (24 weeks); we were so very fortunate, and she got to 32 weeks.  Donna had extensive surgery which resulted in a hysterectomy and loss of almost half her bladder.  Kalani did really  well, all things considered - she spent 19 days in the NICU, went home without ever having to go fully on the ventilator.

While we were there, we met Caitlyn.  Caitlyn had the same condition as my wife, but she started bleeding uncontrollably at a mere 23 weeks, 3 days gestation.  Her baby was large and strong (for his age), so they elected to give him a chance.  Well, he did really, really well - all things considered.  He made it to the step down unit, was on the countdown to go home... then got an infection. 

Baby Oakley is still in the hospital today.  He has come very close to death several times, and has had a tracheotomy to allow for long term ventilator access.  They have been told that it will be after his birthday before they can even consider letting him go home, but the exact timeline is up in the air.

Caitlyn has a two year old and three year old daughter staying at home with her husband; they live 3.5 hours away.  She spends a few days here, then goes home for a few days.  Rinse and repeat. 

Her husband was a U.S. Marine who fell out of a helicopter during a training exercise on deployment.  He broke his back in the fall, lost full use of his body (the injuries are permanent).  His medical discharge disability is what they live off of; Caitlyn (age 23, without a college degree) was working as a waitress until she went into the hospital... she obviously has not worked since then.

Folks, these people are truly destitute; they have NOTHING.  The need is raw, and real, and ugly here.  And it's likely going to stay that way - odds are overwhelming that with the setback and such, baby Oakley is likely going to have moderate to severe developmental and healthcare issues; they just don't know yet.

My wife is organizing a drive to give these people Christmas.  We have gifts for the girls mostly covered now.  She is wanting to do at least a couple of gifts for mom and dad, some cash, grocery gift cards, gas cards, etc.  She's trying to see if we can get a local business to donate/discount a set of tires and brakes for the car.

So, here we are.  I know that there this siteis full of quality human beings, some of which are charitable.  So if you have the capacity, please consider giving here. 

Donna has a facebook event set up for this - let me know if you'd like an invite.  We're running donations through my paypal - [email protected].  If you donate that way, please choose to give to friends/family so as to save the fees.  If you have any creative ideas on how to help, please let me know.

Literally ANYTHING is appreciated.  Sure, we'll take those C notes... but $5 at a time adds up, especially to a family that again has NOTHING.

If you'd like to discuss further - but don't want to do it on the list - hit me up directly. [email protected] or 205.876.4145.

Thank you for your consideration, folks.

Good post.

I'll give Raven a chance to post tonight, let Reralae do her thing... I'll post tomorrow. 

I'm ready to move things forward.  However, I'm not sure if Raven is planning to post... and Bromern is cooking up escape plan ideas, so I want to give him a chance to act if desired.

If you're not following the Inn's facebook group, you missed the awesome sloth rider meme I shared today.

Poor you.

I mean, for a killer DM, there have been very few deaths here.  **cough cough** the woods **cough cough**

Then again, if I slowly kill you all in prison, maybe I earn some of that reputation back?

Really, it's a P.R. thing.  Alacrity is just better at that than I am. 

You guys think I'm evil?  Try playing a knight wearing plate mail who takes stupid damage from a single arrow.  You know, that had a glyph of explosiveness etched on it, and was piercing... so it bypasses the armor, embeds itself inside, explodes, deals extra damage for barbequing me inside said armor (because the flames couldn't expand to escape the armor, amirite).  You know, enchanted armor?  Carrying a shield with something silly like +4 vs missiles?

Didn't matter one bit.

But sure, >>I<< do a little tortue, and >>I<< am the evil, killer DM.

sniff

As a Panthers fan... 29-3 loss - AT HOME - to the lowly FALCONS???  lololololololol

How on Earth does Ron Riversa keep a job?

And for those who wanted to yell about how great Kyle Allen was, despite being at the bottom of almost every statistical category in the NFL...  how the Panthers needed to move on from Cam Newton, because look how well the team has played under Allen, while they were 0-2 this year with (a horribly injured) Newton?

lololololololol 

If you honestly think any of this, remind me to never give a moment's consideration to your opinions, as you don't understand the first thing about football.

What a dumpster fire.

First off, Brom's obvious brown nosing was funny.

Raven's underhanded insult was even funnier!

Not healthy for Cedric, but laughs are always appreciated.

The 22nd is Monday.  My latest post bumps the game to Monday morning.

As always, feel free to backpost to your heart's content.

The yield is roughly six quarts,  give or take,  depending on how much you simmer it (the link says so).  

I can see you halving this.

Cannot possibly be worse than last week.... right?

Panthers
Bills
Cowboys
Vikings
Ravens
Colts
Saints
Redskins
49ers
Raiders
Patriots
Rams
Chiefs

He'll likely die in battle.  Heroically, or at least ferociously.  Or maybe just vaporized.

I was sure I mailed that map...

His life is in peril, yes.  The ghouls are gathering like vultures, yes.

But I wouldn't kill him THAT anticlimactically.

In case I have miscommunicted... Ch'dau is unconscious, feverish.  The infection is bad, but he is not yet dead.  

Stone cells with doors made of iron bars.

Desipte all the discussions about how to best work to undermine the psyche of their captors, the party soon discovers that there is no torture immediately forthcoming.  No one comes to question them.  In fact, aside from the odd ghoul wandering around the dark, stinking hallway, no one comes to visit at all.

The minutes stretch into hours, then days.  From time to time, a ghoul will bear a bowl filled with water of questionable cleanliness, or of thin, cold, smelly gruel... but other than that, all they do is occasionally stand in the hallway, leering and giggling at the prisoners.

Those without the ability to magically heal their wounds find themselves to be sore, stiff.  Aranwen seems to have avoided serious issues.  Ch'dau, however - with the large wound on his back that he cannot properly reach, let alone clean - does not fare so well. 

On the third day, the scent of infection hangs heavy in his cell.  The big Kazari finds himself weak, feverish.  By the fourth day. he finds it difficult to stay awake.  By the fifth, the warrior loses that battle, slipping into senselessness.

Once that occurs,the ghouls seem to come by more often.  They largely ignore the other party members, but seem keenly interested in the Kazari's deteriorating condition.  More often than not, one or two will stand at his gate, leering and giggling, licking their lips in anticipation. 

Ghouls are known to prefer dead flesh.  Their interest in Ch'dau's cell is morbidly obvious.

It is indeed Monday Alpha shift. 

It's dark, anyway.  And you just saw a companion torn to pieces in front of you... I feel like there are more important subjects to worry about right now. 

I expect the only eyebrows it would raise would belong to Cedric, who Raven has established as being the opposite of worldly.  His cell is diagonal to Ara's, so he CAN see in with effort, but who knows if he did.

Aside, if anyone asks:

Aranwen     Ch'dau
Gib              Cedric

Is the cell layout.  i.e. Ara is across the hall from Ch'dau, next door to Gib.  Cedric is next door to Ch'dau.

Keep on, Bree.  Adding more blisterstick encounters is easy.  Maybe Davena can get REALLY creative.

You just put that song in my head, Reralae. 

I don't know if I should add more ghouls or make them weaker in response.

I'll try to have a post up today.  The end, it is near...