(Risus) Be Prepared for a Talent Show

 Our weekly Gamma World game continues to go strong.  As episode 28 dropped last Tuesday, I have another 32 weekly write-ups in the can.  We left off at a good break point earlier this month to allow a player a few weeks off to deal with this odd thing called "real-life."

In his absence, I finally completed my "COVID Trilogy", or better yet, perhaps I should call in the Coffee Shop Trilogy.

Still a point of controversy all these years, COVID killed over a million Americans and millions worldwide.  But few remember the bravery and sacrifice of some of the true heroes of the front-lines:  grocery store employees when toilet paper was stowed away, baking hit an all-time high, and people wore the most outrageous get-ups to either protect themselves, or fight the new world order authoritarian regime, whatever was the by-line of the week.  

Mike Pnevmonus was one of those heroes.  A dirty, hairy, and fat Greek butcher in the meat department of a Giant Foods in Pennsylvania.  He though he had seen it all before, the shortages, the runs on the store, etc.  and by the end of it, he hung up his bloody apron and traveled the country, trying to find a place to settle down in peace.  

He ended up in Bloomington, Minnesota, and thanks to his odd penchant for olive slacks, took a job as a cashier at the Boy Scouts of America Superstore in the Mall of America

The Boy Scouts of America Superstore, Imagined by NightCafe

Working alongside him was Hoyce McGurgle, a 20-year emo-kid who had survived the COVID nightmare with his teenage apathy.  A steady stream of poor reviews let him wander the countryside, the final destination: The Boy Scout Store.  

The best thing about visiting the Boy Scout Store in the Mall of America?  A possibly infinite supply of the photography merit badge. 

The biggest problem with the store?  They were almost completely out of any scarves.  At least that's where all the complaints were coming from all week.

Shawn was a regular at the mall.  When he wasn't accumulating 30,00 steps before lunch, he was the resident expert at every store, or so he told them.  Allegedly he had been a Boy Scout as a lad, and had a broad memory of the finest BSA minutiae.  Occasionally he was even helpful, so the the fellas thought it best to keep him around. 

It was a beautiful day at the Mall of America.  It was just the way Minnesota was.

Hoyce and Mike raised the gates to the store and wandered to their spot around the registers.  Shawn, fresh from his 4-mile mall walk, came in.

"Hey guys, what's new?"

"Photography badges."

"You guys had them yesterday?" 

"We got a new shipment of them yesterday."

"What about the Excalibur pocket knife I ordered for month ago."

"What about the ones we have in the case?"

"Those don't have the dentist drillbit.  The Excalibur has the dentist drillbit."

"Why do you need a dentist drillbit?"

"To complete my dentist drillbit?"

"You're 85 years old!"

Even the apathetic Hoyce noticed that there were an unusual number of people shopping on a Thursday morning.  He girded his loins for the overwhelming act of Scan--> Pay --> Next!

As the typical Scout Mom brought up the last Webelos scarf in the state of Minnesota.  Hoyce scanned the item, the mother inserted the credit card... and the terminal kept clocking, absolutely no progress.

Mike peered over to Hoyce's machine, "Run the card again, and if it's still not working, punch in the numbers."

Hoyce, "It's not connecting at all"

Mike, "Then the internet is down.  Sorry folks, we're going to have to go to cash only."

Hoyce: "The wi-fi is working, I'm on my phone right now."

Shawn:  We can build an amateur radio with all the parts you have in stock.  

While the chaos of the cash-only economy descended upon the store, Shawn stared out at a number of mall employees set up an entire stage, complete with lights and rigging.  Shawn has obtained his lights and rigging merit badge and begins to assist the employees, who simply know better than to tell Shawn no.

Shawn completes the lights up top, when he hears the words, "Good, we're almost done.  Talent Show starts in 15 minutes."

Shawn: Talent Show?  Who's talent?

Employee: It's just the weekly national talent show at the mall.  We placed a Sudoku Store at the old location of the stage, so this is going to do today...

Shawn:  Can I participate?

Employee:  Sure!  It's a $50,000 cash prize... in tens.

Mike's getting frustrating handling cash.  The POS system does not like people using the No Sale button to open the register, so cash is simply stacked on the register.

Hoyce has decided to simply force the customers to round up for charity,...

As the tiny talented kids in adorable costumes show up for the talent show, UPS showed up with yet another delivery.  

Mike opened the box and revealed the long out-of-stock Mall Talent Show merit badge.  Of course half of the last 22 years of Boy Scouts waiting on an eternally back-ordered merit badge were coming to the mall to get one, and the other half wanted to sign up to the talent show show they would qualify for the badge... then purchase it. 

... and it was still cash-only.

Shawn:  "These skits are going to be terrible"

Morty, the manager, finally emerged from his office in the stockroom of the store, coffee in hand.

Mike: "Waitaminute, we've had a manager here the whole time?"

Morty was surprisingly quick to call the credit card company, but hung up with worry.  "We have a problem.  Since the BSA is bankrupt, the credit card fees haven't been paid.  We need to fundraise to pay off our bill, so let's assemble a skit for the talent show and win the $50,000.  I'm going to get another cup of coffee at the other end of the mall."

Hoyce: "Whatever, I'm on the clock."

Mike handled some of the more obstinate Boy Scout moms, Shawn thought up a classic Shawn idea.

"Hey, they closed that Sears down a week before they even opened the mall, but I bet the old credit card slides are there."

Hoyce: "I think we'd still have to pay our credit card bills."

Shawn: "Sure, but you can still take the slips and process them tomorrow."

Hoyce:  "Great idea, let me go get one."  And like that, Hoyce wandered away from his registered and walked down to Sears.  

Mike was flabbergasted, and Shawn was trying to convince Mike to sing Spice Girls for the talent show.  

Hoyce was surprisingly adept at breaking into the Sears storefront,   It was also a shock just how many of the old "knuckle buster" credit slides and large level carbon slip presses were on the counter in the jewelry department.  

Realizing that the larger imprinter could be swung as a weapon, Hoyce almost broke a smile and said, "Cool" before returning to the store.  

Back at the store, Shawn jumped behind the register to try to help Mike.   While Hoyce was apathetic, he had most of the prices memorized through no effort of his own.  Shawn did too, but at 1965 prices.

With the full fury of the talent show dance moms, Boy Scouts, other folks looking to win $50,000, and Peculiar Sal, Minnesota's favorite parody artist.  

Hoyce dropped his machines through the glass counter, and took a 15-minute break.   Morty decided not to question Hoyce's actions, as the manger returned with his coffee, and officially signed up the group for the talent show under "Musical Act".

As the talent show started, that corner of the mall fell into a weird time warp as each act seemed like an eternity, yet hundreds of acts were getting on stage within the mall's regular hours of operation.  

Once the store employees were called, everyone dropped everything to walk behind the stage, abandoning everything.  Morty has brought out a set of four velour Boy Scout jumpsuits from out of the backroom.  

The Boy Scout store sat behind the stage, watching "Eugene the Magician" dressed as Gandalf, began doing illusion and hypnotism.    Eugene talents were limited but his own major talent was summoning the actual zombies in the Mall of America (who could tell the difference from regular shoppers).  Sometimes a random zombie would get distracted and attack a dance mom, but most headed straight towards the stage.  

Everyone was entranced by the zombie horde, except Mike, who eyed a straight path back through the store and out the backdoor.  

Shawn pulled out his Zune and tried to lure the back end of the zombie horde to a new location with some success.  

Mike and Hoyce fought through the crowd to return to the store.  They grabbed the stacks of cash off the register, and dashed through the back store room, through the back door, into the hallway.  

Shawn successfully led his zombie horde to Hickory Farms and Doris' never-ending free samples.  Except that the first Hickory Farms he reach wasn't a storefront, it was the classic kiosk in the middle of the mall.  Lucky for Shawn, the zombies organized themselves into an infinite line, Getting free samples from Doris until she fell from exhaustion.  

Shawn didn't like Doris anyway.  

The zombies finally reached Eugene and knocked him over onto the stage.  In a classic scene, it looked like the zombie descended upon him and began pulling his entrails out.  In reality, they had simply hit his stash of never-ending scarves for his act.  Boy Scout neckscarves,  The horde of Boy Scout and Boy Scout adjacent attendees, waiting on the back-ordered neckwear attacked the stage and fought the zombies for the cloth. 

Fast Forward two years, 2026

Coastal village, somewhere in Eastern Europe. 

Another year, another pandemic.  But the country couldn't afford the fancy medicines of COVID-25 and 26.   They relied on other methods for social distancing.

At a quaint little cafe,  a large Greek man spied his socially responsible friend with a super-model on each arm, Hoyce, walking down the street, and toasted for their good fortune.  

This completes a ridiculous trilogy of COVID-adjacent adventures.  Bigg Melons  and the Great Hall of COVidiots were run in the first months of the pandemic, and I never got to us the street cafe picture above.  It's only really related by the use of Coffee Shop, and the appearance of Shawn in all three.

(Gamma World) This is Not a Test #29 - Dr Helianthus and the Return to the Lost City

Sonny felt an odd sensation.  The mutant sunflower involuntarily jerked its head up.  It took him a few seconds to reorient himself.  He was still firmly rooted in the ground, inside a group tent with a photosynthetic amplifier on top.  The journey through the Glow Zone had been trying for his team, but after a quick rest, they were all ready to finish their mission.  

Dr Sonny Helianthus -  Scientist, Researcher, Sunflower of Action

He had assembled a top notch team of PLANT operators. The Plant Liberation Army of a New Tomorrow didn't hate animal-kind, but animal kind was getting in the way of everyone's improvement.  

That would stop today.  One way, or another.  

Stick, his trusted scout and hand-to-hand expert, returned to camp.  "Doc, the device was right where you said it was, surrounded by a ton of living metal."

Stick

"Stick, I have something up my sleeve for that."

"Is that why you where a human lab coat, Doc?"

"That... and other reasons, my friend. Go tell Venus and the others it's go-time."

The scout left to tell the others:  Stump, a tree with artillery-sized projectile capability.  Twig I and Twig II, the big guys friends (children) but very capable plants.  And Venus, the true intelligence in the party, even if she was dumb enough to get involved with Sonny for some extra-curricular activities.  

Venus

Sonny's team, about to dash across the City of Eternal Flame

The device across town supposed to fix alot of the glow zone issues, and bring back plant life.  That would help everyone.  Sonny had spent years pouring over an operator's manual someone had found years ago, and even more time sending teams to find if any of these machines still existed.

His biggest problem know was the device's location:  The City of Eternal Flame was a no-go site deep with the Glow Zone.  Fires constantly raged throughout the city, fueled by something that even kept the adjacent lake aflame.  The glow counts were normally in the Instant Death category on the Ancients' instruments, but one week out of the year, the winds changed and pushed enough material off into the lake to make the counts drop to Deathly Stupid.  If they were quick enough, they could complete the mission and get out of their with only lingering complications, or, if they were lucky, a new mutation.

The problem was, most other groups were aware of the weather patterns, and it was a prime week for scavengers, restorationists, and power hungry groups to prowl the ruined streets, looking for artifacts, and dealing with any resistance in very murderous ways.  

The PLANT Operators spread out.  Sonny had given them orders to secure buildings quickly, and scavenge even faster.    The Twigs quickly uncovered a lost stash of electronics from another group.

Venus moved over towards an old industrial facility.  They were always good for more practical items, and the elevated position would give them better intel about what was coming at them.  

A single shot rang out through the town.  Everyone froze in their tracks and crouched down.  A second shot rang out.  Venus was already dead before she fell onto the platform below her, a victim of a scavenger sniper.  

Where Venus fell.  Scavengers unleashed toxic mutants from the tanks, so there was some karma.

The orders quickly changed from Secure/Scavenge/Move On to "Go, go, go!"    Sonny appeared to wipe a tear (?) from his face with his sleeve, then proceeded to run forward.   The others followed.  

Those two shots appeared to bring the City of Eternal Flame back from the dead.  Weapons fire from every direction could be heard, and off in the distance, something was flying in the air.

The PLANT operators was shocked to find Sonny sprinting across a wide open street, then feared the worst when a mutant, six-legged reindeer came charging right him.  

They were even more shocked when the sunflower jumped on the creature's back and they rode towards the device.  

Sonny wasn't prepared for the loss of the love of his life, but he did call in favors from his old crew, the De Facto Explorers.

Another group emerged from the rubble, a motley group with a mutant weasel, a mutant ram, a mutant earthworm, and a some sort of human barbarian, blasting away at multiple packs of monstrous animals.  Sonny's old crew still had connections to the Restorationists, but years of working with the sunflower built up a number of favors he cashed in for today.  The reindeer was a stagon named No Name,  a loyal mount for the human in the group, Lathar the Mighty.  

(L to R) Front Row:  Sneaky Pete,  Squiggles
Back Row: Lathar the Mighty, Ramsay, No-Name.

The De Facto Explorers dispatched some wolves and turned their attention to distracting the living metal guarding it.  With an opening, Sonny leapt off of No-Name and slid right towards the device.    With the sound of slugthrower fire and chicken clucks coming from the east, Sonny activated the device and once it was engaged, jumped back on No Name and headed back to his fellow PLANT Operators.

With a boom the device began to work, terraforming the City of Eternal Flames.  Where there had been desolation, huge growths began to sprout out of the reclaimed soil.  

For the members of PLANT this seemed divine, but the terraforming rapidly exceeded anything Sonny had pulled from the manual.  Plant growth grew exponentially, vines covered everything, including passive humans, until succumbing to an even heartier plant growth.    What could have been a paradise for all races turned into primaeval jungle only the most dangerous beasts could survive in.  Most of the exploring gangs survived with only their lives. 

New lifeforms began emerging from the soil.  Sentient lifeforms

The City of Eternal Flame had turned into the City of Eternal Flowers.

Sonny felt an odd sensation.  The mutant sunflower involuntarily jerked it's head up.  It took him a few seconds to reorient himself.  He was still firmly rooted in the ground, inside a group tent, just outside the walls of the Hisser village of Notex.  A noise appeared to have awoken him in the middle of the night.

But.... mutated plants don't sleep, much less dream, do they?

GM: Welcome to a proper place to put in the Fistful of Lead: Wasteland Warriors game I played in, and Mike Lung ran at Historicon 2023.  Mike was nice not only have myself, but "Gnome King" and fellow Gamma World player Jim play in the session.  I ran Sonny's plant commandos, while Jim statted out the other characters from the campaign to play in the miniatures game.  

Next: #29 - Coffins for Hissers

Mandatory AAU Basketball Spring 2024 Rant - Weekend #2 - The Birthday Hullabaloo

 This whole separate tournament locations for Maja and Millie is for the birds!  Although I'm getting far less wear and tear on my car.  

This past weekend, I got to take Millie (13u) to the Scranton Slamfest, while Maja's mother got the honor of fighting thousands upon thousands of people at the Live at the Nook even in Spooky Nook (Lancaster, PA). 

It was also my birthday this weekend, so while Maja went down to Lancaster right after school for a 6:10pm game Friday, I watched over Millie, and Millie's Friday was going to be baking a lot of cupcakes, whether she like it or not.  

My Official Birthday Sticker for the Weekend. 

Millie (7th Grade/13U)  

The unfortunate news for Millie's team was that they were missing arguably their two best players, who decided to suit up for different teams that were attending the same Live at the Nook event as Maja.  This left them four regulars and three girls new to AAU.  The good news was the pool was tiny, composing of a Scranton AAU team, and the girls own 13U- B team.

For the first Saturday game against Scranton, the team adapted to this new concept call share the ball equally and play with high energy.  The first few minutes were close, but they eventually pulled away with a 15-point win.  

The second game against the 13U-B team started rough.  Down by 4 and only shooting 9%, the girls rallied back under the center, Londyn's 25 point, 15 rebound performance to win 47-30.   My high point?  Millie playing such lockdown defense that multiple players went to the bench in tears.  

My low point?  The referees.  It's been an ongoing issue, and with the excuse of "if we don't use these refes, we won't have games,"  I'd rather not have games.  

Some of the zebras are good, but one assigned to Scranton High School on Saturday had no right overseeing a family Tiddlely-Wink tournament, much less an AAU game.  When everyone in the building, family, players, coaches, and his replacement cringe at over a dozen horrible calls, from missing blatant elbows while staring at the action 10 foot away, to calling fouls on perfect screens and making no-calls on moving shoulder block screens that didn't level girls, but physical moved the girl in the direction the other player was still moving, like a football block, it was simply horrible.

The worse call wasn't even during Millie's games, but one in between, where down 19-16, the player shooting the 3-point shot to tie was legitimately fouled and the foul called.  However it was waved off because this inept ref blew an inadvertent whistle for no good reason, killing the play and giving the winning team the ball to burn off the last seconds.  (I got this directly from the ref who called the foul, whom I'm on good terms with).  

While I was quite please with Millie's performance (Opponent crying and a 6 point 6 assist game) the most amusing part of the day came at dinner.  Millie agreed to Buffalo Wild Wings  and ordered her usual:  10 Wings, all-flats, extra-crispy Mild, Order of Fries with side of Mild Sauce, Shirley Temple.  

Once the food arrive, I happily engaged with my burger, until the waitress came back.  She asked Millie if she wanted water, and I thought her tone was a bit odd.  Millie immediately said yes, though, and within seconds I saw her melt down and nearly spontaneously combust 

It seems the waitress put in for WILD sauce on the wings (one of the three hottest they have) and Millie housed six of them before realizing something was amiss.   Some water, some milk and four replacement mild wings later, and she had a fun story to tell. 

With the two wins Sunday, Millie's team won the most important prize of all, a chance to sleep in rather than play the 8am play-in game for the title.  

Credit to the 13U-B team, they won their 8am game for the right to the rematch and balled their hearts out.   It was Londyn again, asking for permanent residence at the foul line for the last two minutes and giving the team a 50-47 and the championship.    After championship t-shirts and cupcakes were distributed, it was onwards and just over two hours to reach Spooky Nook for Maja's last game of the weekend.  

I'm the statistician for Maja's 15U team, do Friday night, Millie and I huddled around the laptop to watch them play the SI Liberty, the older team of the same program that gave Millie's teams fits in week one.  This batch didn't disappoint, as they hit SIX three-pointers in a row (11 overall), to keep things close, but Maja's Clutch won out 58-55.

Saturday morning, Maja played just before Millie was supposed to go to a shout around warm-up, I was hoping to do stats for most of, but not all of the game, but the family recording the games for us encountered horrible wi-fi.  It took me over 40 minutes to watch the first 10 minutes of actual play, and when we arrived at the CYC for the shout-around, I changed again, and the recording only lasted 17 minutes of actual play before failing.  It's a little sad that there's little to no wifi in student rec center (but the University Gymnasium, where the second game was, had it in spades.)

Still 61-40 and 44-23 wins were impressive, even if I needed to construct stats for the first game, thanks to no parent or player remembering who even scored. 

Sunday, the goal was to get down with an hour to spare and meet up with my sister and brother-in-law to watch Maja's last game, and conduct a dinner, much requested gifts for my birthday.    We actually met, grabbed some light fare from concessions and talked, only to discover (a) the game started 30 minutes early and no one told us and (b) the inept scoreboard operator used a running clock (not in the rules) for the entire first half before being called out on it by the refs.  

Even with poor scorekeeping, the inevitable happened, a 40-34 win that wasn't as close as the final scored suggests.  

I somehow traded kids with their mom, and Maja accompanied me to the birthday soiree at a decent at best local chain of pub restaurants.  

The random gift my sister got me this year?  A Slayer cooler!  .  

I don't know if I want to use it for lunch, or get a job transporting blood or transplant organs.  

The drive home in the waning daylight was difficult, and I did spend some time back at the house while dropping off Maja before heading home.  I got my final gift there:  Kids on Bikes: Strange Adventures Volume 1.  

50 Years of Viscount Eric

 

The Mike Lung Gallery #90 - Homemade Gemrocks for Stalagbite

In his e-mails to me promoting the Stalagbite! Kickstarter, friend of the blog, Mike, sent me these little tidbits, and they might be more glorious than the Kickstarter itself.  

Inspired by a trip Disneyworld awhile back, Mike rode Snow White's Mine Train ride and noticed the barrels full of gems and other items.  Upon return home, he made rocks encrusted with gems for use in the original version of Stalagbite!  

The gems on the rocks were colored rhinestones.  

(Gamma World) This is Not a Test #28 - Shrapnel From the Ancients

 Our heroes, the De Facto Explorers, assisting the Hissers of Notex with the sky falling....

================= 

Sneaky Pete: A mutated weasel scout.  Pete's telepathy and night vision take a backseat when he whips out his electrical powers.  Recovering from his injuries from the Glow near Ulmin.

Sonny Helianthus: a sentient sunflower artifact examiner with trusted Restorationist ties. 

Slitheran Wurmtail (aka Squiggles): a mutated earthworm scout, in impromptu power armor, looking for trouble, and finding it often.  Recently "gave birth" to a litter of sentient earthworm babies.

Lathar Bracken: A pure-strain human from River Bend.  He's got the muscle, the face, and a mount for most encounters.  Lathar's trusty beast of burden, No Name, travels wherever he does. Looking for trouble in all the right places.  Recent jousting champion of Fair-Town and has been awarded... a peacock he has named Chambray.

Ramsay Kallax:  Mutated Ram from the far-off KIA Academy with a predilection for ancient treasures... and the occasional head-butt. 

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

After leaving the safety of Notex's walls, they figured out how a pistol of the Ancients worked, at the expense of Squiggle's face.  Stabilizing the earthworm, they saw five objects streaking down from somewhere in the heavens.  Each object had a flaming head and a smokey tail, and all five appeared to be headed a towards the village, the mesa, and the dish that serves nothing.

One thing the crew did confirm: they molten objects weren't falling off of the odd dish atop the mesa.  They came from much, much higher.  

They had already moved out of their test clearing and closer to the tree line once Squiggles was stabilized.  Seeing the objects careening to Gamma World the moved further in and tried to find additional shelter in ditches, beside fallen logs, all while Lathar tried to wrangle No-Name, while Pete was giving the beasts telepathic calming, telepathic suggestions.

Sonny dove on Squiggles as the first objects impacted.  There were no explosions, but as they peaked out amongst the trees towards Notex, they could see flames and smoke coming over the walls.  There were other dust clouds around the mesa.  

Our heroes ran back to help the village, only to find a water brigade well in hand, taking care of a burning building that had suffered one of the objects crashing into it.    A portion of the fence appears to have been hit and knocked down as well, that object cratered in one of the community gardens.  

Peter tried to coordinate further assistance, but the Hissers brushed him aside.   The injured had already been rescued and wounds being tended to.  From a cursory glance through the hivemind thought, no one had scene anything fall.  

Pete then tried to seek out the Hisser Elder, Goral, and repeated their question how they could help.  

"We have everything under control.  We needed to find a few missing folk."

Peter was confused, "Who would do this to you?"

"The sky, silly mammal!  They've always come from the sky.  Finish the promise you came to enforce!  The other elders think you going into the rock has obviously made things worse.  Just stop this." and with that he slithered to check 

Goral the Elder, Ready for anything...

Sonny gently moved passed the chaos of the burning building and went over to investigate the crater in the gardens.  While the remains of what fell were still quite hot and steaming, the mutant sunflower's card of the ancients that detected the glow, only detected a very minor increase in the area, nothing more than they already walked through to get there.   

Sonny was perplexed.  Everything they had assumed about the "sky is falling" was wrong.  He relied on his other prior experience:  reading the flimsy catalogs of the Ancients he had acquired back in Fair-Town.  He had read through most of one before turning his collection over to Justinian and the Restorationists.  It was largely militaristic pure-strain militia working along the shoreline of the "ocean", even a few in vehicles that could go underwater.  But very little mentioned anything from the sky, and he was completely confused about something called "Lichtenstein Flash."

"There was one news article about some flying metal vessels fighting in the sky, shooting cannons like giant versions of the pistols they had just tested.  There was some sort of damaged Ancients facility in the background.    One side were a rebellion run by brothers, the other side, OHTORI, held possession of the Murder Base.   The only line I remember was 'ZERO HOUR IS NEAR!    If this is related to that, then we need to search further and see if we can stop it launching attacks.'"

Returning to the crash site in the garden, they investigated the melted orb in the crater.  It looked the same as the others they had located.  Some of them did notice pieces of super-thin shiny material getting kicked up and blown away by the light breeze.  Sonny grabbed one with his fronds, it was indeed metal, and crumpled within the slightest adjustment, only to be pulled pack with some effort.  There was no writing on any of the pieces they hunted down.  The sunflower fold the pieces into quarters and tucked them away between the pieces of writing paper he had brough along.  

Pete was not enthused, "Okay, we have to go back in.  My bigger question is who gets to wield the new gun?"

Sonny was taken aback, "That will take a bit, since I need to train you guys.  I also want to get it intact, so we can go back and fix up the broken one with more parts."

"Agreed, as the best shot, I should probably use it."

"Squiggles is an equal shot, an after that accident, needs additional help, although Squiggles might not want anything to do with it."

"I do NOT!" was all Squiggles could yell out. 

The Hisser healers were busy dealing with their own kind, and with the discovery of two bodies in the building, funeral rituals were put forth.  Our heroes set up camp just outside the walls and let the natives be.    

GM Notes: Boy's Life, August 1986, inside front cover.

NEXT: #29 - Dr Helianthus and the Return to the Lost City

(Kickstarter) STALAGBITE! The Dwarven Quest for Gold and Glory by Midlam Miniatures

 It's a little late notice, as the Kickstarter has less than a day, but Friend of the Blog and fellow Gnomie Mike Lung loves the original version STALAGBITE! The Dwarven Quest for Gold and Glory from 2012 with laser cut components, so a new edition with all Midlam Miniatures metal figures seems like a jolly good investment. 

The game is for 1-6 players, where each player take on a role of a Dwarf, hunting for gold and glory in the caverns, beset by hazards, vicious creatures, and goblins.