Gypsie Princess Effie's Logs: Entry Four -- The Definition of "deal with"

This episode finds our intrepid adventurers coming to terms with the meaning of, deal with, and other finer points of running operations for Black Hawk Enterprises.

If you wish to start at the beginning, it is here.

======================================================================

Black Hawk, having now recovered from his gross evil eye magic, consults with his black hawk, Vengeance, and his spymaster, Trilby, to decide the best plan of attack.

Black Hawk asks Effie if she would make a fire at the back door while the rest of the party is to assault the front.

Effie is reluctant to go on her own to the back of the house. Ichigo and Trilby also seem reluctant to go in guns blazing.

The group starts to discuss what specifically they need to do to handle this case. Black Hawk, while believing we need to kill Mad Dog, listens with patience to the others who expressed concerns about killing Mad Dog.

Black Hawk asks Effie, who is handling all the contractual and financial elements of Black Hawk Enterprises, the terms of the contract. Effie then reads off each specific contract to date that the group has taken on, complete with all details. The accounting of such a long list of 3 or 4 tasks, takes some time, and Black Hawk’s legendary patience once again is on display as he waits. Effie must have been doing an excellent job in her reading though, as Black Hawk became red in the face as she read each and every detail. The longer and more Effie read, the more red the Black Hawk became.

When Effie finally reached the current contract, she presented the terms: Deal with Mad Dog Harry.

It was at this point the definition of, deal with, came under much debate by Ichigo, Trilby, and Black Hawk.

Black Hawk announces the plan which the party will follow. The group is to follow a path of measured escalation of violence. Should, at any step, we fail to get what we need, we would escalate, or we would escalate if conditions warranted. The B3 plan of actions, as Effie later coined, was codified. Berate, Beat, and Behead was essential the order or something similar enough that the details are worth fudging for alliteration.

Black Hawk tells Effie that he is unleashing her like a hawk from his wrist and that she is to do what her instinct tells her. This, Effie is sure, means she can do whatever she wants and is certain she can’t get this plan wrong.

Black Hawk pounds on the door, and at the same moment, Ichigo rings the doorbell. Clearly, there was a step prior to Berate, known as Bother, thus bringing the trademark Black Hawk operational model to B4.

A butler for Mad Dog answers the door and Black Hawk demands to see Mad Dog. The butler at first resists our desire to see Mad Dog, but he quickly succumbs to the intense authority that emanates from Black Hawk like the lamp of a lighthouse.

Effie, following the order to do what she thinks is best, decides to ignite the cumberbund of the butler on fire at this moment, much to the chagrin of almost everybody present.

The butler is a bit panicked by his clothes catching fire as Trilby yells for him to do some sort of dance move called the stop, drop, and roll.

The butler, a bit shaken by the experience, hurriedly departs as the group awaits in the foyer of the Mad Dog estate.

After a brief wait, 7 mad dog-headed thugs in the employee of Mad Dog enter the room, looking all mad but not mad in the foaming-of-the-mouth sort of way.

Effie starts to scratch one of the dogs behind the ear, while the rest of the party continues with step B2, berate.

Step B2 is not producing the results that Black Hawk demands. Black Hawk is also insulted by the mad dog-headed men because they rudely do not bring Mad Dog.

Black Hawk orders step escalation and to let the beatings begin. Ichigo breaks one of the many of the often-written unwritten rules by pulling out his sword while the now angry mad dog-headed men draw pistols.

Chaos erupts as the 75% of group escalates to B4. Ichigo in his terrible to behold way kills 2 now dead-and-likely-no-longer-mad dog-headed men before anybody can do much else. Black Hawk calls in black hawks into the house as he leaps forward and stabs a mad dog-headed man. Effie leaps, runs, in an awkward sort of way, through the air from the ground floor up to the second-level balcony.

Trilby shouts for peace and summons 27 rabbits.

Things get even more chaotic as rabbits are stepped on, Black Hawk’s black hawks suffer some casualties, Ichigo is shot in the shoulder, and one rabbit-loving mad dog-headed man chases after some rabbits.

Meanwhile, Effie upstairs now notices Mad Dog Harry walking down the hall towards the fighting and decides the best thing to do is set the upstairs on fire behind Mad Dog Harry.

Mad Dog Harry sees Effie but is quickly distracted by the fire, while down below, Black Hawk has brought the now really mad but beaten dog-headed men to surrender.

Trilby gives first aid to one of the injured while Black Hawk sends another of the mad dog-headed men to go get Mad Dog.

Effie uses her magic to let the fire go out as a beaten dog headed man comes to Mad Dog to tell him they have been beaten. Mad Dog looks a bit surprised but heads towards the Foyer, noticing some black hawks flying in the house and asking Effie if she is OK.

Effie grabs her head and tries to pretend she is a gypsy seer, and the sign drove her to him and that he needs to stop working for Count Bartholemew. Mad Dog explains he is not working for him but is a competitor as he continues to the Foyer.

Mad Dog sees 2 of his men are dead and another injured, as Black Hawk tells Mad Dog that he is to leave alone his client, Elbert, or we will come back. Mad Dog reluctantly agrees. Black Hawk then offers to help Mad Dog if he will pay more than Elbert. Mad Dog is mad at the loss of his men, Rover and Rex, and refuses sternly.

Trilby tries to offer some rabbits, which Mad Dog doesn’t seem interested in either.

Black Hawk then offers services for party entertaining, to which the now really, really mad Mad Dog asks us all to leave in not-so-polite terms. Mad Dog says the Rat King will hear about this, too.

Effie, still trying to act as if she is just caught up in all of this mess, grabs her head again and runs out screaming, in hopes that the guy with the Ornithopter and large estate may ask her out for a date later or something, because there can be little other reason for the ruse.

As Ichigo leaves, he notices some ghosts or something shiny up in the estate, because he forms his hands into a megaphone around his mouth as he yells hello up in the air.

Black Hawk is certain there is a madness field or something around the estate of Mad Dog as the group starts the 5-mile walk to home with the wounded Ichigo. Trilby has her rabbits carry her down the street in some sort of bizarre, living rabbit palanquin. During the walk back, Effie asks if Trilby is some sort of pacifist, because she tried to stop the fighting, but Trilby says she is not but thinks we should avoid killing people if possible.

As the group gets close to the house, there is a terrible screeching to be heard all down Pushing-up Daisy Lane coming from inside the house.

As the group get closer, they also see a large pile of letters in front of the house.

Effie gathers up the letters and starts going through with them as Ichigo deals with the screaming, which turns out to be Uncle Albert and the other ghost in the house, fighting over the ghost princess.

Ichigo sends Uncle Albert to the basement to make some peace between the ghosts. From the fact that everybody heard Uncle Albert, the party discovers that not only can Uncle Albert move objects and but he can be heard by the living.

Ichigo goes to get his shoulder treated, Trilby goes to buy some cheese for her rat-infested room, while Effie reads over the letters.

Black Hawk uses this brief moment of respite to sit on the front lawn in a chair.

Ichigo eventually returns from getting his shoulder attended to and also has a drink for Black Hawk.

Trilby returns rolling a giant wheel of cheese into the house and up into her room.

Black Hawk and Effie seem a bit grossed out by the wheel of cheese that has been rolled through the horse poop and various offal in the city streets, but Trilby says it is for her rats; and it doesn’t matter, and she rolls the cheese into the house.

Ichigo picks up the offal cheese and carries it into the rat-infested room of Trilby, who also informs the group she has made the 24 rabbits left from the earlier battle now permanent residents of her room too.

Effie tells the group she has found the next job for Black Hawk Enterprises. One of the letters is from the city that is need of an exterminator. It seems there is an alligator loose in the sewers causing trouble.

Effie and Black Hawk think we need to go kill the alligator, but Trilby wants to try to capture it or lure it out in some way.

Once the group arrives at the city official the letter was sent from, they are told of a large alligator that several people have reported. Black Hawk and the man haggle for a bit. The city is offering 15 Berries as payment, but Effie uses her questionable gypsy powers to tell the man that this alligator is very large and worth 20.

The man agrees and sends the group to the last known location.

Once at the location, Black Hawk uses his gross evil eye power, and, for an hour or 2, or sometime that seemed like forever, sat there with his eyes all gross only to find nothing. Trilby then uses her rodent trance abilities, which looks less gross than Black Hawk’s evil eye, although the evil eye itself is noticeably less gross than all the rodents now in Trilby’s room, and in less than a second, says she has found the location of the alligator.

The group then proceeds to walk into the dark, wet, nasty, sewage-filled sewers, with Effie complaining the entire way.

Trilby seems not at all bothered by this, which Effie is certain because she is a fish woman from Atlantis, and everybody knows fish swim in the same water they poop in.

After what seems like an eternity wading through sewage, the party finds what clearly must be the baby of Godzilla or something, as it is a 35-foot-long alligator.

The group once again starts to determine the best course of action when Ichigo draws his sword and challenges the baby of Godzilla to battle.

The baby of Godzilla lets out a roar, and, much to the surprise of everybody, a gout of flame from its’ mouth. This was not an ordinary baby of Godzilla alligator; this was sewer dragon!

The sewer dragon breathes fire as Black Hawk charges with his lance, and Ichig, once again terrible to behold in combat, guts the sewer dragon. Trilby unleashes a shot from her dueling pistol, and Effie mutters a spell to protect the party from fire.

Fire pours from the creature’s mouth and now-open gut, as Ichigo and Black Hawk quickly finish the creature off.

The group victorious has Ichigo pick up / drag the carcass back to the city official. The city official is astounded by the size of the creature. Black Hawk tells him it was a sewer dragon, and he owes us more for the job. The official goes away to file some forms in triplicate or something and returns with a payment of 100 berries and the thanks of the city.

The party returns home with the sewer dragon corpse, after a very busy day to rest for the evening.

Effie, that evening, balances the books and pays out to each party member 38 Berries as their share of the payment, and places 17 Berries, 6 Silver into the house fund.

XP awarded: 4 xp each

Bonus xp for my journal 1

Next Week: Gypsie Princess Effie's Logs: Entry Five -- Meeting (Infernal) the Neighbors