Gypsie Princess Effie's Logs: Entry Six -- Black Hawk's Inspiring Vision
In this session, Black Hawk delivers his inspiring vision of the future and leads the party on the hunt for an invisible razorback helphalump.
If you wish to start at the beginning, it is here.
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The day started like so many of the other days in the brief, but seemingly eternal, time that Black Hawk Enterprise has been in operation. There was a knock at the door.
Just like the day before, Ichigo answered the door but unlike last time, neither Ichigo nor Black Hawk prepared to attack whoever had the nerve to knock on our door or walk down the street.
At the door were the same delivery men from the day before.
"Again," said Ichigo.
"That is for me," said Effie, indicating the somewhat plain and old wooden wardrobe the men had sitting on the ground behind them.
"They must use the back door," declared Black Hawk sternly.
The delivery men found the back door in poor repair, and it was impossible to carry in the large wardrobe up the treacherous stairs.
Black Hawk was adamant, and it looked like Effie would not get her wardrobe. Before things could get worse, Ichigo intervened. Ichigo using his legendary, impulsive, well-considered outside-the-box conformist thinking by picking up the wardrobe and carrying it into the house himself. The workmen, free of the heavy wardrobe, were able to safely navigate the deadly back door stairs.
With the wardrobe and workers inside, Effie had the wardrobe carried to her room and spent the next 20 minutes finding the perfect spot. With the wardrobe now placed in the perfect spot, the the workmen went their way but this time did not have to deal with ‘The Puppeteer’, aka Ichigo, on the way out.
Ichigo asks Black Hawk for funds to fix the house. Black Hawk agrees that house funds should be used for repairs and directs Effie to disburse the funds. Effie, is not so eager to to give Ichigo a bag of Berries with no idea of how much is needed. Effie implements a complex bureaucracy that requires 3 competing bids as estimates for the exact same services from 3 different vendors. Each estimate must be for the exact goods and services to control the variables. Once each competing bid is received, she will examine them and send the winning bid to Black Hawk for approval. Once approved by Black Hawk, Effie will then disburse the funds.
Black Hawk is impressed by Effie’s skills with red tape and agrees that made-up bureaucracy is central to the rule and control of law. Black Hawk delivers an impressive speech detailing his vision for a forward-leaning, future-first, agile government, synergizing elements of a monarchy for the people, by streamlining big government, emphasizing that each and every one of us has a place, and that even the mightiest of chains is only as strong as its weakest link. To achieve this vision, we must engage in creative destruction that results in a paradigm shift win-win situation for all involved because it is not a zero-sum game.
Effie is completely inspired by the speech. Effie remembers the stories she heard as a child from the gypsies, a couple weeks removed, of the great Romanov leaders and their 12. Effie tells Black Hawk she is ready to follow and hopes one day to be worthy of being one of his 12!
Trilby produces a group of house-cleaning and repairing rats. She also produces a rat to negotiate the purchase of tools and materials that she introduces as Pepper Pots the rat negotiator.
Black Hawk, in an effort to streamline and trim the procurement process, tells Effie to travel with Ichigo to pay for the items needed.
Effie, not thrilled by this plan but still mostly inspired by the speech, is about to leave, after changing outfits about a dozen times, looking for the appropriate shopping clothes to wear with Ichigo, when the rabbits sound the alarm.
Out the door, a group of orangutan are heading down the street. Black Hawk quickly surmises the orangutan must be heading for our house and attempts a clever ruse to fool the orangutan by altering the house numbers on our house and 666 next door. Unfortunately, the plan is foiled before he can test the house number-reading abilities of the orangutan, when Black Hawk touches the mailbox of 666, and his hand is terribly burned.
Black Hawk returns to the house, and Trilby, using her medical skills, treats his burnt hand using some sort of gross goo and bandages. Considering what is in Trilby’s room [a.k.a. the giant cheese wheel and the rats], this process seems suspect at best, but Black Hawk’s hand is at least covered so we don’t have to see it.
The orangutans, either by following Black Hawk, magics, or perhaps reading the house numbers, invade the house. Breaking in windows and other openings as adroitly as zombies.
Black Hawk has Ichicgo and Trilby stay as the first battle for 668 is waged. Black Hawk engages in a staring and shouting contest with one of the Orangutans. Ichigo sends his ghost friends to scare off the Orangutans.
The Orangutans attack by throwing poo, breaking things, and having a staring contest with Black Hawk.
Trilby does something involving rodents, but Effie is too grossed out by the encounter and in need of a change of outfit for the battlem, so she returns to her room and loses track of everything going on.
Effie comes back downstairs in the appropriate outfit for the fight, but the Orangutan have broken under the onslaught and flee to invade the house of Haudir and Nessa across the street.
Black Hawk and group successfully counter attack and when a couple of the Orangutan get too close to house 666, they go up in a gout of fire in smoke.
The Oragutan break and flee down the street.
The group returns to the house, and Ichigo tells Black Hawk that Black Hawk has a spiritual wound on his burnt hand that is dripping spirit blood all over the house.
Black Hawk and Ichigo come up with some half-baked plan to have Ichigo knock Black Hawk out of his body in an effort to deal with the wound.
Trilby has the house rats start cleaning the mess as best they can; Pepper Pots goes out in search of vendor bids.
Ichigo asks Black Hawk to step outside so he doesn’t bleed on the house and knocks him out his body, but whatever they were trying doesn’t work as planned.
Black Hawk wants Effie to try and heal his burnt hand. Effie says OK, but she needs to go change first. Black Hawk tries to tell Effie that she doesn’t need to change, but Effie is adamant that she has to be dressed right for the magic.
Ichigo takes matters into his own hands at this point and uses his powers to knock Effie out of her body in an effort to get her to use her magic on Black Hawk now.
Effie not happy at all by this development threatens to light Ichigo’s pants on fire. Effie, continuing to now argue with Ichigo and Black Hawk about the nature of magic, the merits of attacking party members, and general displeasure, is put back in her body by Ichigo.
Effie, once in her body, is still upset but goes upstairs and returns a bit later in her dancing clothes.
Effie performs a dance about Black Hawk and is able to pull the bad fire from his wound and have it follow her outside as she dances. Effie leads the fire close to the mailbox at 666 next door, and the fire vanishes as it get close to its home.
Effie returns to the house to find Black Hawk in his body and doing better. Black Hawk says Ichigo has to apologize to Effie and that Effie has to accept the apology before the group can do anything else.
Ichigo apologizes, but Effie is still miffed and not willing to accept his apology yet. Black Hawk, employing the stare that can defeat Orangutan, tells Effie she has to accept before they can move on.
Effie tries to resist, including running to her room every 5 minutes to escape the piercing gaze of Black Hawk. Each time Effie runs to her room, she declares she must change outfits, and this happens for 30 times, but on the 31st change of clothes, Effie breaks and begrudgingly accepts the apology.
Pepper Pots returns with some bids for rat-sized tools, but the entire group heads out to the town to find craftsmen and materials for house repairs. The group successfully bargains for what is needed and even saves some money in the process, by Trilby making the cleaning rats large enough to use normal tools.
Black Hawk desiring to make some money, asks Effie what jobs do they have lined up.
Effie says Raffid Clarkson is in need of protecting from Count Bartholomew's men. Trilby leads the group to Raffid Clarkson’s house through a series of left turns. Somehow, Trilby can turn left five times in order to get where other people would go by only turning once.
Upon arriving at the Clarkson’s house, the group sees their neighbors, the Big Moe gang, trying to workover Mr Clarkson. The Big Moe gang, seeing Black Hawk and his impressive array of hawks, Ichigo, and herd of sheep rodents, depart without a fight or complaint.
Mr Clarkson is impressed with Black Hawk, having run off the Big Moe gang, agrees to accept the Black Hawk triple platinum protection plan.
Effie produces a strip of sewer dragonhide for Mr Clarkson to place on his house as a sign that he is protected by Black Hawk. Trilby helpfully offers up, NOT, that people showing our symbol may be attacked by our enemies.
Mr Clarkson takes the hide, and the group departs.
Black Hawk asks Effie what is next, and Effie says Five Mab Don is in need of help finding a creature that accidentally escaped.
Trilby once again leads the group by a series of left turns to the creepy bio-tech part of town where Five Mab Don lives.
Five Mab Don lives in some sort of creepy living house that is beyond description. Inside the house, Five Mab Don tells the group of an escaped creature that is so bizarre that sheep rats and sewer dragons seem mundane. Five Mab Don and Black Hawk play a game of 20 questions about the creature, but Effie gets bored and stares at her nails for most of the game.
She does hear the creature that can’t be described is the size of an elephant, has tusks like a boar, can turn invisible, breath fire, shoot lightning, and eats anything.
The parties agree on a price, and Black Hawk asks Five Mab Don to show them where the creature used to stay.
Five Mab Don agrees, and a mouth in the wall opens for the group to step through. Effie is reluctant but follows, after having the wall mouth lick them with a giant tongue.
Effie walks after Black Hawk into the forbidden zone to find what clues they can on what man has unleashed on the city of Shimmerbolt.
Black Hawk finds some poo from the creature and stares at the poo intently. Effie wonders if the creature drops invisible poo, too, but decides such thinking leads to madness as she looks at her shoes. Black Hawk stops staring at the poo and declares he has located the invisible creature.
The day is late though, so the group returns home, poo in hand to start out fresh the next day.
XP awarded: 3 xp each
Bonus xp for my journal: 1
(Bonus award from moderator for time spent on journals: Flying Boots now have enchantment from Ankle that make them change color and footwear style to always match Effie’s outfits.)
Next Week: Gypsie Princess Effie's Logs: Entry Seven — Saving the Razorback Helphalump and Averting a War