Adventure 2

In preparation for the feast, a priest of Tiamat while finishing praying at his own dais and meandering about the temple of all gods, came upon Naknuk being woken by his altar worshipers, to bop a giant badger upon the head, each time the beast seemed to be rousing.

Sighing sadly, the priest of Tiamat went to the cubby in his altar, and procured the one vial of animal compulsion mixture he had been granted after two months of toil, and offered it to Naknuk if only he would use it on the beast to quell its rage for the next forty eight hour period and then let the badger go. Naknuk accepted and unstoppered the vial, not hesitating to tilt the badger's head back and drain the entire contents into its open gullet.

Mercutio and Victor awake in the early morning and head towards the LIGHT, and arrive without any unusual events taking place, the oil smears on the windows send dazzling plays of light into the street, though neither appreciate this common occurance, one due to blindness, the other due to well, he's Mercutio.

Given that Mercutio lectures on some decently advanced scientific topics, thermodynamics and theory, applied physics, and demonstrative engineering, he managed to only drive one student over the edge this day. Victor's perfectionism (understandably so) drove young miss Parker to wailing tears, once again.

The preparations for the feast went off without a hitch for Naknuk, many of the temple hands helping to set tables of food up about the path from the temple to the lift, on the lift itself, and near the Tenochtitlian stables. Barney was once again recalled from the stables and allowed to traverse the small streets of Tenochtitlan, with minimal property damage, to allow for hauling of the greatly revered, nearly incapacitated, badger. The city allowed for one contingent of guards as well as the temporary use of one of the anti-dino ballistae.

As the city came together to act as celebrants of the feast of the badger, the lift being a key point of bottleneck, as it could only take down a few celebrants or guards or massive animals or weapons at a time, what happened next was pure inconvenience in the least, and absolute malevolence at the worst.

Victor perceives an annoying ticking noise similar to that of Mercutio's clockwork bodypart to the Northwest of the lift, but pays it little mind. That is, until the source of the noise also produces a noise similar to that of turning a very powerful valve to the off position, and a snippety snip noise.

The lift gets stuck halfway to the bottom level of Tenochtitlan, and as there are only two levels, both thousands of meters apart, this is very inconvenient. The problem assessed by Mercutio was that the fuel line had been turned off, and that the spark generation device had no power. Excellent deduction, and absolutely true Mercutio, which he of course relayed to Victor, whom while able to perceive the situation, was unable to inform those stuck on the lift of their impending doom, or salvation, whichever the case were to be.

Victor realizing the likely cause of the fuel disturbance to be the recently shut off valve, heads to check out the situation.

Unable to perceive by sight, Victor asks the ticking menace, what exactly the problem is, and if he may attempt to repair the fuel line. Without getting an answer, Victor is unable to do anything save assume the being is unable to communicate, and expresses his wishes to help, and attempts to rectify the situation.

Victor promptly receives a metal fist to the face, and realizes he has to engage in combat with something with mechanical bodyparts, and no desire to help whatsoever. The combat is rather unrousing of suspicion as it happens in an alleyway with a service duct in a wall that few citizens traverse down(and fewer guards.)

Victor scores with a crossbow bolt, dodges past the being towards the maintenance hatch, and turns about to score with another crossbow bolt, when he hears the mechanisms wind down, and the thing cease to move.

Victor splices and caps the electrical wire running to the ignition system on the lift, and loosens the fuel valve to fully open. A whirring and chopping noise irritates Victor as he works, and upon finishing he attempts to pursue it further northwest.

Onboard the lift we hear... "clickclickclickclickclick" "fffffffffffffffffffft"

"FWAKOOOM Boom Boom Boom ChugChug"

Victor able to perceive the explosive operation of the lift engine back in order goes to ascertain the safety of those on the lift and to get back to the party and free food.

The party once again heads underway, and proceeds smoothly for a few hours, until Simple Simon The Pieman spots Mercutio, and attempts to force him to taste his "pretty pies."

Mercutio manages to dodge about, and attempts to reason with the psychotic pieman, which is all for naught, as they play ring around the Mastodon. Naknuk is alerted when his friend, steed, and companion, and all around trustworthy fella, Barney, trumpets in annoyance at the two pests chasing about beneath his torso and flinging goopy stuff that isn't Gum everywhere.

Naknuk intervenes and glues Simon to the spot with a simple spell, while also attempting to reason with him, offering to plant a pielauncher with Mercutio's help in the back of Simon's shop, and to sell the pretty pies with a new delivery method, which delights Simon to no end, and Simon trips in his own entanglement when he reaches to shake hands with the helpful priest and his "friendly rival" Mercutio. Naknuk frees the silly Simon by cutting away the strands of Gum sticking him to the ground, and they all shake on a deal, Simon stops interrupting festivities, and later they work on a new pie delivery method, and help Simon to get out of his predicament... Mercutio had welded the current pielauncher to be unremovable from Simon's body, as a form of "Structural Integrity Enhancement" to reduce the recoil on a missile delivery weapon that can launch pies many kilometers.

The festivities seemed to be finishing up smoothly, when a pteranodon swooped swiftly in and began prancing about tables, knocking platters and bowls askew, scooping up the warmest of entrees with its sharp beak.

In an instant, Simon was flinging a pretty pie at the beast, and of course missing miserably, by a kilometer or so. Naknuk acted next, squirting the beast with Gum, incurably entangling the creature, after which, a few bonks knocked the thing hopelessly unconscious.

As the festivities wound down for the night, still to continue, Mercutio and Victor headed back to their respective lectures, driving their students towards perfection, though perhaps achieving none. Naknuk wrapped up, freed the badger as the ending of the ceremony, and people quickly shuffled inside, and up the lift, before any larger dinosaurs were brought about, the guards were happy not to have had to use the ballista, and all in all, the day ended without a great deal of incident.

All in the norm for Tenochtitlan, almost surprised that no new mad scientist popped up today, or no great menace to society went rampaging about... though at the soon to open kitchen, the construction workers were gabbing that there was that one rumor about the...