Vrill is waiting in line at Legal Seafoods Express. He’s just behind- hey look, it’s the clay golem again. The golem is taking forever, and Vrill is getting pretty impatient. “You uh, you gonna make up your mind there soon, buddy?” Vrill taps his foot. “Oh screw this, listen. This guy just wants the clams. And can I get an order of the Salty Seaman’s Fish and Chipz? Thanks, thanks ‘Melissa’,” he says to the girl at the counter. The golem takes his tray of clams and goes to sit down, and Vrill comes on back munching on a big piece of fried breaded fish.

“Alright, yeah. Let’s just cough up the cash and take the shuttle,” Vrill agrees. Everyone turns to look at Renwick, who’s just sitting there staring blankly. A little trickle of drool drips down to his chin. “What’s, ah… what’s wrong with your mage?” asks Vrill. “Well, whatever. Let’s see… one, two, three… I guess he counts as a body… there are seven of us. Seven thousand gee-pees. Hmm.” Vrill thinks for a second. Then his eyes light up. “I’ve got an idea…” he says, and stalks off out of the food court.

Not wanting to let this weasel get away from you again, you hurry off after him. He heads back a few terminals to a familiar scene… some lizard men fighting over the carbuncle! Vrill wastes no time and lightning bolts all the combatants.

“Wow!” says the little carbuncle, who ambles on over towards Vrill. “Gee whiz! You must be a powerful wizard!”

Vrill does his best to fake good-natured delight and modesty. “Heh heh, well, I don’t know. Some might say that,” he says, looking sideways at the lot of you.

“Do you want to be my friend?” asks the carbuncle.

“Well, sure little guy. Hey, do you like french fries?”

“Sure I do!”

“Well what do you know? Me too! I’ve got some right here. Would you like a french fry?”

“You bet I would!”

The carbuncle waddles over, and Vrill bends down to feed a fry to it.

While the carbuncle munches away, Vrill says “Hey, you look a little… lonely.”

“Yeah… yeah I guess. I’m the only carbuncle around here.”

“It’s nice to meet you. My name’s Greg.”

“Hi Greg! My name is… um, I guess I don’t have a name?”

“No name? Well no wonder you don’t have any friends, if you can’t introduce yourself and say ‘Hello there Mr. So-and-so, I’m Mr. Such-and-such.”

“Wow, I never thought of that. I guess you’re right. Having a name helps to make friends, huh?”

“It sure does. See, look at me! I’ve got tons of… uh, tons of- friends.” He points in your general direction.

“Those guys look kind of familiar.”

“Huh? Oh no, they’re new down here. Anyway, here’s another fry.”

“Thanks!” Munch munch.

“How about I give you a name? Would you like that?”

“Oh wow! That would be just swell.”

“Okay… hmm. Carbuncle. How about… Carby the Carbuncle.”

“That’s just a great name.”

“Thanks, glad you like it. Would you like to hear a story, Carby?”

“A… a story?! You bet I would!”

“Okay, I’ll tell you a story.” Vrill goes and sits down on a nearby bench, and ‘Carby’ climbs on up onto his lap. Vrill tries to ignore you, thinks for a second, and begins his story.

“Once upon a time- because all great stories start out with ‘once upon a time’- there lived an owlbear. His name was Tony, and he was very sad, because he was the only owlbear in all the wood.”

“I sure know what that’s like!” states Carby.

“Yeah, sure. Anyway, Tony the owlbear was all alone, and one day he decided that he wanted to make some friends. Literally. So he went on a long journey to the heart of the forest where there lived the powerful Wizard of the Woods, uh… the powerful magic-user Rover Gillryg.”

“Rover is a great name! I love it!”

“Thanks. Yeah, the guy’s name is Rover Gillryg. So Tony went to Rover’s hut and pleaded with the wizard to make him a new friend, another owlbear to play with and hunt with and do… do owlbear stuff with.”

“Like claw claw bite?”

“Exactly. Now, while Rover was an extremely powerful, influential, and affluent wizard, and a well-liked member of the forest community, it’s just really damn hard to make owlbears, as it turns out. Only the finest parts of owls and bears will do. You need a giant owl head, with a well-preserved beak, you need a bear’s corpse with perfectly shaped and sized talons, you need…”

“Uh… (gulp)… a bear’s… corpse?!”

“Oh sorry. Well, never mind the details. Just take it from me that it’s pretty hard to make a good owlbear. Especially one that would… you know, play with Tony and stuff. So Rover commanded Tony to bring him the biggest owl and best bear in all the wood. Tony agreed, but when he left the hut, he suddenly felt pretty bad… where would he find the biggest owl and the best bear?”

“I don’t know… um, maybe, maybe at a shoe store?”

“What? No, look, it was a rhetorical question. In the story, Tony is asking himself where to go. So Tony heads back home, and goes down to the Deep Blue Pond, which is his best thinking spot. And he sits, and he sits, and he thinks, and he thinks. And it grows late, so he goes home to his owlbear nest… owlbears build nests like owls, but in caves like bears. Did you know that?”

“Nope! I don’t even know what an owlbear is!”

“What the hell? How can you not know… well, it’s like a big-ass bear with the head of an owl. Plus it has feathers, and… See, it’s created by a powerful mage, and sometimes the mage can make it cast spells, or give it iron talons, you can customize your owlbear if you’re good and know what you’re doing.”

Carby’s eyes begin to glaze over again, and he nods stupidly in agreement with Vrill.

“Well, it’s just like the name says. Part owl, part bear, okay? So Tony went to his nest and went to sleep. And while he was asleep, he had an amazing dream, of being at the circus, and dancing under the bigtop with three large friendly bears, while all the people, all the children and their happy little fucking families looked on and clapped. In the morning, then, when Tony woke up, he had a great idea. A dance contest! For all the forest creatures!”

“Yay!”

Vrill looks down at the carbuncle. “Hey, by the way, that’s a really great gem. I’ve been meaning to tell you, I think it just looks fantastic. What is that, opal?”

“Thanks Mr. Greg! Nope, it’s a ruby!”

“I bet you just had it polished, because it’s sparkling all nice like.”

“Nope again! It’s just naturally sparkly!”

“That’s super. Back to the story. So Tony makes some fliers and crap like that and advertises his super dance party all around the forest. Long story short, all the animals come and dance and have a great time. Tony goes around making sure everyone’s having fun, and sizes up a few bears who showed up. One of them is just freaking huge, though, and so Tony… Well, Tony… Do you know what Xanax is, Carby?”

“Nope, is that like another wizard? It sounds like a wizard’s name!”

“Uh, yeah. It’s a wizard. Tony knew this other guy who’s a wizard, the wizard Xanax, and Xanax made the big bear get all sleepy. Then Tony dragged him off to Rover’s hut, and said ‘Hey there Master Gillryg! I got the bear for you!’ ‘Nice job,’ said Rover, ‘one down, now you just need the owl.’ The thing is, though, is that owls don’t dance, so none of them showed up to the party. Tony had to come up with another idea.”

“Why didn’t he just telepathically communicate with an owl and tell it what a great gem he had?”

Vrill stops for a second. “Uh, right. Right. Okay. You know what?” Vrill looks at his watch. “Yeah, that’s exactly what he did. Tony the owlbear telepathically broadcasted to all the owls in the forest what an amazing red ruby… you know, just like yours… what a great gem he had.”
“Yay!”

“Have another fry, little guy. Well, you know what? I’m not sure if it was exactly like yours. It was pretty nice though.”

“My gem is pretty nice too! It’s worth at least 1000 gps, maybe 5000!”

“Oh really? But Tony’s had a great little thing, it came to a point in the bottom. So you could… you could spin it like a top.”

“My gem’s… um… I don’t know Mr. Greg. I’ve never seen the bottom of my gem.”

“Well why not Carby?”

“Ha ha! Because it’s in my forehead silly!”

“Right you are. Too bad we can’t take a look at the bottom, and find out if Tony’s gem and your gem… are the same gem. Piece of fish?”

“(Munch munch.) Well… if you can keep a secret… I guess I could pop it out for a second.”

“Really? Well that would be just great. Just for a second. For the story.”

“Well okay Mr. Greg. You’re a nice guy and a great wizard! I trust you.”

“Well, we’re friends, aren’t we Carby? Me and you?”

“Sure we are! Okay, here I go!”

Carby squints real hard and sure enough, out pops the carbuncle’s jewel. Vrill grabs it greedily, looks at it, and the carbuncle looks very surprised. Gemless, ‘Carby’ falls over dead. Vrill watches the gem for a second, but it doesn’t disintegrate. He stands up, wipes his greasy hands on his pants, puts the gem in his backpack, and walks back over to you guys.

“Okay, heh heh. What a turd. Let’s get on that shuttle.”

Vrill heads back to the black market under the food court, casts Friends, and pawns Carby’s jewel for passage for all of you on the shuttle tomorrow night. “Look, I’m gonna get some shut-eye and re-memorize my spells. Whatever you do, just be here tomorrow night.” Vrill heads over to a corner stall and closes the door.

You’re free to do whatever for the next 24 hrs. After that though, comes the next post. If no one's done anything by Wednesday, I'll just automatically advance the plot.