Gansaiyah untensed and gestured to Bones to stand down. 'Who goes there?' called a voice softly from the beached vessel.

The two men tensed and readied for battle. There was the sound of subtle movement from inside the old ship, perhaps the hiss of a blade being drawn. The sailor and the barbarian crept up to the wreck, noticing a curl of smoke from within as they neared. Unnoticed, Malaiyah crept down to the surf and began picking up handfuls of mud. 'Go deal with them' he ordered Bones and Gansaiyah. All he needed was another lawful type trying to foil his plans. No one questioned the seaman's opinion, for a good sailor could tell the provenance of a vessel simply by seeing its lines, or even the style of its rigging. 'That's a Shazarian skiff' noted Billy Bones. They've a boat tied up.' Indeed, a small boat was pulled up on the beach, its mast and sails folded and stored, a line tied from its prow to the timbers of the shipwreck. They stopped at a shipwreck on the beach, doubtless an old merchant vessel run aground in a storm, when Gansaiyah remarked, 'Someone's in there.

'Best keep to the water.' he opined, and they continued westward, their horses' hooves splashing in the surf.ДЄs night fell, they saw the city lights no more than an hour away. As evening fell, he saw the glint of armored soldiers on the road south of them. Soo's coterie crept back to Cassandra along the coast, Gansaiyah scouting ahead with his keen wastlander's eyes. In which the party makes a friend, and Malaiyah makes a mess a city is quickly entered and abandoned information is gleaned from fisherfolk and some small vengeance is enacted upon Pan Tangians. Succeeding in a sidequest will net the character a point of Life Experience, which as noted can be used for various things (increase an attribute, get a skill point, heal a major wound, or have a miraculous escape from death).' I will also prepare the sidequests for Gansaiyah and others should they wish to pursue their Life Purpose, Oracle response, or wishing well vision. At the same time, I will have B plots prepared - tonight, I had planned to send the PCs through the portal to quest for a cure for Mallia. We'll begin with the intro scenario, in which the PCs establish a base of operations in Menii through dirty dealings. The A plot is the adventures from Sea Kings of Purple Towns. 'In game terms, this means I am preparing an A plot and several B plots. His intention is twofold - 1) establish a base on the Isle of Purple Towns to gain funds and allies to confront Pan Tang and return Melnibone to its former glory and 2) travel to the cave periodically to gain extraplanar power and information.' He has found that a cave on the island is known to periodically become a portal to other planes based on stellar alignment. Using the island as a base, he is reading his grimoires to help further his plan. ' Lord Soo has decided you are no match for Pan Tang at current strength. This is the message I have sent to players over Discord: I hope we can resume in a few weeks, as the big success has been the creation of a very dynamic relation between players and the gameworld due to my deep dive into the Elric books coupled with the Life Purpose houserule. My work has also been heating up, and I just passed the halfway mark of the semester.

Also, some have had vacations and work overlapping with the game. Two of us here in Japan, a handful in Switzerland, one in the UK, I think. However, it has been a bit difficult organizing since we are spread out around the world. It has been both a blast running the old game for a stellar group of players, but also informative about where my houserules work and where they don't. If you've been reading The Laughing Tower play reports, cheers.

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