Day 23.1: Bad Penny Jenny

Seems Jenny was willing to let us have our sleep, but not a moment longer than needed.

We wake to fog and snow in our rooms, a shadowy figure watching us. Jenny’s prattle starts, taunting us in the pervasive, all-consuming fog, moving us to our next showdown. Charles offers her a chance to surrender and walk away (It’s that whole Sarenrae, chance of redemption, blah blah blah – just kill her!) and then when she declines tells her “bring it on Hag!” I admit, it caught me off guard – a hard thing to do – but also brought pure joy to my shadowy heart! (Mayhap there is a hint of shadow within Charles. A side I appreciate and should nurture)

5-6 creatures appear at Jenny’s bidding, while she sits out of range sipping tea. (I am so going to drop her one of these days) Kiren taunts JD but Charles just lets loose with a fireball on the creatures. (Did someone get up on the wrong side of the fog?) One of the creatures [Se] burrows into the snow popping up in front of Him, missing miserably. A second creature [B1] goes after Kiren (guess I did get a little bit under her skin) but between myself and Mutu, he doesn’t last long. A back and forth, blows and parries continues for a bit, but Him eventually focuses in and destroys a third creature [T]. I guess us ignoring JD bothered her and she casts a Nightmare spell which effects Mutu/Charles/Diana, but thankfully not Him & I.

Fine want to play that way? Let’s play hide and seek as I go invisible and move out of the sphere of monstrous illusions. The others follow in getting out of the area, but the creatures get some serious hits on the others, especially Diana and Charles. A twang of concern radiates through me – I have to protect them. I can’t stop the ones who chased after, but I can slow some of them down with difficult terrain – it worked! I guess Jenny didn’t like my invisibility act and like the coward she is, used the same trick to disappear. It was almost as if she didn’t really want to hurt us, but bound by her contract had to make an attempt.

Unable to strike at the creatures, I manage to protect Diana and weaken two of the creatures so Mutu can smack them hard. Not sure who pissed in the Him’s bone chips, but several critical hits later, he smacked creature [Se] into ice shards. While Charles keeps the others alive and in spite of JD taunts to do otherwise, I appear behind a creature [Z] and connect. Mutu finishes off another [I]. Creature [Z] wasn’t too bright and attacked Mutu, leaving him open to Him and another devastating defeat, who then turning smartly to crit 2 more times on the last creature [B2]. Creature [B2] feeble attempts to hit me just left him open for my killing blow.

Jenny being the arrogant Fey that she is tried to talk down to us. Mutu’s answer? Let Geist have his free 30 minutes to answer her. She wasn’t happy. We were.

JD claims one more trial required and decided it would be wits this time. She confirmed my suspicion of not really trying too hard after the first attempt – not in so many direct words (lord forbid the Withering Man finds out) – but refused to drop the contract.

Like a lump of chewed spit stuck to your boots, I guess we can’t scrape her off easily. But if I can find out where she is located through my new contacts and we bring the battle to her…

Some dreams are worth having.