Chocolate Destiny: The BROad to BROkeback Mountain

Divergence from: https://churchofproz.forumotion.net/t1375p100-chocolate-destiny-arc-3#27769

Lee Gray and Jorah Cabot suddenly lose their borderline supernatural sense of some other people doing other things simultaneously. They hear only the sound of the spring breeze rippling over the short hills, rustling through the grass. Other villages, towns, and castles can be seen in the distance, but this one horse caravan has only one destination in mind: The blueshifted mountain range on the horizon.

Gray expressed his displeasure with Jorah's attempt at a game of "I spy", but now the onus is on him to come up with something better to pass the time.

It was a boring three days of travel, but in the end Gray and Jorah made it. From "I spy" to "Myocardial infarction", the two went through many time passing games only to discover that time passed much faster than they had expected.

The blue-shifted mountain range wasn't actually quite so blue close up, more green than blue, but noticeable trails of black smoke indicated that there was humanity somewhere in the midst.

"Brother Jorah, it seems that we are here."

Gray exclaims at last. After making their way to a human settlement Gray asks around for information on the mining activities within this mountain range.

Jorah has a few tears streaming down his face.

"yey, finally. That last story we made hit me right in the feels and was a better love story than twighlight."

Jorah wipes the tears off and takes out his new banjo as well as a random bin (for tips) from the wagon, walks over to a crossroads, places the bin down in front of him, and begins playing a song to try to attract people to help Gray's information gathering.

Jorah and Gray make it to a small village at the base of the long mountain range.
A young maiden with bouncy reddish brown hair and blue eyes rushes over. She seems more attracted to Gray than Jorah's music.
"H-hi, welcome to Niftytown! I'm Anna Steel, how can I serve you mister-?"

"Gray, the names actually Lee, but that's kinda rare around here, so just call me Gray."

Gray smiles his most amiable smile, to seem as approachable as possible.

"We just heard there was mithril around here, and we wanted to join in on the fun. Do you know anything about it Ms. Steel?"

Sensing a change in mood, Jorah changes songs.

"Is this minstrel mad?"
Many of the villagers give expressions of mixed mirth and disgust at Jorah's unnaturally husky, high pitched tone.
"Yep, he's a nutter." "In both ways!"

"Oh yes, there's plenty of fun for you to join in on," Anna replies to Gray. "Follow me, I'll show you where you can get hard metal."

"Lead the way Miss."

Gray smiles at the metaphysical innuendo that the people here surely didn't make.

"I hope it is hard, would it not be sad if we came all this way for nothing?"

Gray remarks, positively not implying anything at all.

Jorah follows them.
"I guess I can practice some specialized combat while you guys are playing with that hard metal."

Anna leads Gray over to a two story daub and wattle building.
"Oops, looks like we've arrived at my house," she says in a rather unsurprised tone.
"Oh well, there are things we can do here too. Would you mind coming inside o- with me?"

"Of course," Gray is relatively unfazed by the overt disregard for his original request as he understands it seems that the universe has plans to deliberately stall his progress.

"I've got all the time in the world, whatever may satisfy you my good miss."

Jorah follows closely, strumming and singing quietly

Anna ushers Gray into the house. "Oh, will you be joining us, Mister Music Man?" she invites Jorah.

Anna claps giddily. "Great! Let's go!"
Lee and Jorah are led into what appears to be an ordinary, if somewhat dimly lit dining room.

"We got some! Table for two!" she sings. Subtly swaying her hips, she shakes off her simple white dress. Underneath she wears nothing but a set of black leather belts, arranged and attached to emphasize her womanhood.
The door shuts behind them and they hear the clicks of several locks and latches being pulled into place.

The merchant and his musical companion suddenly find themselves surrounded by a group of men and women alike dressed in similar outfits, having sprung seemingly out of nowhere. "NYEESSSS!!!"

They attempt to seize the two.

After being lead into the dimly lit room, Gray immediately senses something is amiss with his honed social skills and keen intuition, confirmed by the strange sound of the door locking.

Without hesitation, Gray draws both sword and pistol, lunging towards Anna as she is attempting to shake off her dress, and giving her a hard thrust to the knee with his blade.

"Wow Anna, this doesn't seem fun. Why you do dis to us. We were gonna have da gud tiems."

Jorah takes out his broken blade and assumes a defensive postition, attempting to follow and keep himself behind Gray (assuming forwards refers to the directions the hostile group is in).

Jorah examines the matching outfits and sees if he recognizes them.
[Knowledge Check]

The strangely dressed folk close in. Gray strikes.

The member 'Corenat Rovarnus' has done the following action : Dice Roll\'d

'fudge' :

Gray's stab meets only air, his forward momentum leaving him in a precarious position.
Anna steps away. "Ah! A sword?"
Jorah does not recognize the outfits of the people. Two attempt to grapple Lee from the side and the one who locked the door behind them assaults Jorah from behind.

The member 'Corenat Rovarnus' has done the following action : Dice Roll\'d

#1 'fudge' :


--------------------------------

#2 'fudge' :


--------------------------------

#3 'fudge' :

Lee's arms are immobilized, and Jorah is wrapped in a bear hug from behind.
"Naughty slaves!" Anna chides. "Drop your nasty weapons and we'll go easy on you."

Jorah drops his weapon like he's asked and starts singing as though praying in a desperate situation.

[singing a verse of Law the First: Energy is Conserved, then a verse of Law the Third: A Pure Crystal’s Entropy, then a verse of Law the Second: Universal Entropy Increases, then switching between laws 1 and 2 after every verse]

Lee switches his sword into a reverse grip with two fingers, and smashes into the hilt with his head, hammering the blade into the genitals of the person to the right. Gray adjusts his wrist on his left hand so that the gun points at the man on the left's chest and pulls the trigger with his hand at an odd angle, risking the recoil damaging his wrist to shoot the man at point blank.

"Good boy!" Anna says to the seemingly subservient Jorah. "Oh, you can sing?"
Lee's sword twitches slightly from the impact, but as his arm is still being held out no harm is inflicted save for the bruising of the merchant's forehead. "Don't worry, you'll feel plenty of pain later."

The woman holding his other arm has her attention drawn to the strange device Gray is manipulating. "Hey, what's-"
*BANG*
She shudders, and slumps to the floor. Pain pulses through Lee's head and wrist.
"Hun?"
A man quickly moves in to grab Gray again, and a ball gag descends on his head from behind.

Gray ducks under the ball gag, draws his right arm in, swinging his body towards the man on the right, shielding himself from the man on the left with his back. Gray fervently jams the empty pistol into the crotch of the man holding down his sword arm, and also pulls the trigger in hopes of ejecting any unspent powder to ignite his trousers, and also struggles with his footing, attempting to keep the man holding him down between him and the rest of the hostile strangers.

After his sword arm is released, Gray thrusts his sword at the closest person's chest.

[Gray is emboldened by the First Law]
As Gray turns, the hand of the man grabbing his arm slides down to lock his wrist in place. The barrel of the pistol hits his leather codpiece, eliciting a cry of mixed joy and pain. His grip only grows tighter, and the leather codpiece appears to put up more resistance.

Gray's erratic steps form an awkward dance with the man that impedes the other two from their attempts at restraint.
Jorah finishes a verse of the First Law and starts on a verse of A Pure Crystal's Entropy.

Gray changes his strategy from low to high as he turns to poking the man in the eye instead of the protected nether region, and hammering the man in the nose, defenseless due to having both hands on his right arm.

After the intense pain of getting poked in the eye loosens the opponent's grip, Gray slides out his sword arm from underneath and then delivers a quick thrust to the closest man's abdomen after pulling back some distance.

Gray attempts to strike his captor's eye with the pistol barrel.

The member 'Corenat Rovarnus' has done the following action : Dice Roll\'d

'd4' : 3

The pistol smashes into the man's cheekbone, which along with the abdomen jab sends him reeling back and leaving Gray free.

Anna shouts "Stop!"
"Wait a minute!"
"Fill my cup, put some liquor in it!" Jorah inexplicably sings in tandem.

The bondage enthusiasts all back away. "Fucking main characters..." one of them mutters.
"Fine then, you win. We just wanted a little fun. Leave if that's what you want, you bloody protagonists," Anna spits the last word out with malice glowing in her narrowed eyes.

Gray achieves a flawless victory, and it's all thanks to his own skill and daring ingenuity.

[Jorah stops singing]
"i wuz willing to hav duh fun tiemz, guise. but dis doesn't seem fun... By the way, do you mind if I get summa dat joose?"

"Well Ms. Anna, that was certainly a nice little scuffle. I would invite you over for tea anytime if you actually wanted to drink tea any time in the future." Gray smoothed over his frazzled hair and straighten his collar.
"Say, would you like to join us on our quest to find the real mithril? Or would you rather just stay here and continue your hobby."

Several enthusiasts agree to join you, giving Jorah a mug of beer. Anna just leaves the room, grumbling something like "fiat".

Lee Gray triumphantly leads the procession outside to continue their journey. They are only a short distance from the house when Gray stumbles upon a finely cut block of gleaming purple metal lying on the ground. It is 3 feet long, 1.5 feet wide, and 5 inches tall.

"By golly, will you look at that!" one of the enthusiasts exclaims. "I've never seen so much refined mithril in my life!"

Jorah thanks the enthusiasts for the beer and chugs it.

"Wow, das shiny"

Gray looks around cautiously, and the turns his attention to the block of mithril to determine why it might be sitting in the middle of the road in one solid block.

Gray stares intently at the unmarked trapezoidal prism. The grass and dirt around are disturbed, so it must not have been here for very long. He asks the block how it got here, but surprisingly enough it does not answer.

Jorah tries his luck and asks the Mithril block:
"ey yooooo mayne. So how'd you end up here in dese parts? eh bruh? eh? how u be? how u doin man? u k ova thar?"

and listens intently for any sort of response
[Batshit Cray]

Jorah must have some sort of affinity with the metal, because he hears an enthusiastic voice answer him.
"Shieeeeeett mayne. I dunno. One minit I wuz smokin' sum daaaank kush, den SHAMWOW! The funky wizard musta strike again, bruh! O lawd jesus, I ran! I raaaaaan fo mah life! But dat smoke got meh, gave me bronchitis! Ain't nobody got time fo dat!"

Jorah turns to Gray
"We must find and defeat the funky wizard so that we can claim the promised loot of daaaank kush. This poor block of mithril lost his stash while running from the wizard. Hurry Gray, we must go!"
Jorah turns to the block of mithril
"where b dis weezard, mayne? We will get yo kush fo u"

"Naaiiiiizzz, I KNEW you wuz true bruddas. Mayne I dunno, where are you!? Where am I?! Where everytang be? Looks like uptown dun funked me up! Shieeettt..."

"Uh, if you don't want that I'll take it," One of the belt-dressed companions says to Gray.

Jorah senses the block has gotten its bearings again. "Ayyy, I need dat kush BAD. Now to catch dat funky weedzard, y'all needa go on a QUEST. Y'all needa go ovah the river, thru dem woods, past the pimps in the crib, den up duh sp00ky tower- watch out fo dem skeletons! to get to dat magic suckah. Watch out doe, he can drop some sicknasty beatz."

Gray rubs his clean chin thoughtfully.
"That sounds too dangerous my dear Jorah. Even ordinary wizards tend to be quite unpredictable, who knows what a wizard whose head is literally in the clouds might do."
Gray hefts the block of mithril onto the volkswagon.
"We can go get some dank kush back in town, where it's much safer."

As Gray lifts the metal, he feels a strange tingling sensation.

The member 'Corenat Rovarnus' has done the following action : Dice Roll\'d

'Coin' : 2

The strange sensation subsides with no other effects.

Jorah abruptly hold his hands out to Gray
"Woah, woah. How would you feel if you were picked up and manhandled like that. Anyways, I'm sure the wizard is high enough that he'd let us chill with him if we just offer him some crunchy snacks. We needa go ovah the river, thru dem woods, past the pimps in the crib, den up duh sp00ky tower- apparently he's able to drop some sicknasty beatz and he's a necrophiliac. We really gotta help... Um..."
Jorah turns to the mithril block
"Wuzyo naem?"

"Juanita Francita Shaniqua Tyhoonie Billiams!"

Jorah turns to Gray
"We've gotta help out Jaunita Francita Shaniqua Tyhoonie Billiams!"
Jorah turns back to the mithril block
"Izk if i call u Bill?"

"You wanna holla at me dat way, you call me BILL NYE THE SCIENCE GUY!!"

"Wow!" Gray tried to sound excited but came off quite dry.
"I honestly did not expect to find a talking chunk of metal, Mr. Bill."

Indeed he hadn't, but that stint with Prince Ali had killed off any sense of surprise that Gray had once held towards the mysteries of the world.

"Uh, alrighty Gang, lets go find that dank wizard," said Gray reluctantly, while in actuality leading the party back towards the nearest town.