I wanna kiss you~ right in front of your dad~

We're all caught up now! In general, I'm not sure where I'd like to see Adventure Time go. I love the show thus far, though, and if Finn's going to maybe take a chance with the Flame Princess in coming episodes, I would be totally down for that. I like Princess Bubblegum a lot, but I don't like seeing Finn suffer-- I've been stuck waiting for someone who had no intention of actually going through with anything with me before, and it totally blows. So, the resolution of him finding someone new, growing past his crush on PB and being able to deal, that sounds like a nice resolution to me. It seemed like a testament to how upset he was to see him cry, considering the ridiculous crazy stuff he's weathered with the immediate follow-up of "Nah, I'm fine, dude!"

With that said, I safely received Being John Malkovich and Interstella 5555, so now I can show them to Danny.

Yesterday's session of D&D was totally crazy. First we had to recap the events for Christian since he was away the week before; then we proceeded to do a bunch of wacky things. This included splitting up the loot we'd acquired from Zarathustra's lair while finding her necklace and mirror for her; one item found was a suit of armor imbued with the ability to send all creatures running in fear, which Sabine took. She then handed over her old armor (emblazoned with the symbol of Sulafta) to Iris, who insisted she would need it cleaned before she could use it. A spear went to Kelta and so on. (I haven't caught up the summary here, have I? Denar died when Esra polymorphed him to try to cure a plague that we all nearly died from. Ironically, the polymorph totally cured the plague-- but when turning back, Denar passed away, so we had to have him resurrected-- thanks to the gold dragon, Zarathustra, after we cured her of a madness-inflicting curse-- through reincarnation. He came back as an ogress, named Kelta.) Before we left there was some minor business, like Llewain giving Asha a raise...

IMPORTANT FACT: Everyone on the ship, except Asha, is paid at least 5 gold per week. Asha is paid 1 gold, 1 silver.

Exchange: I could be off by a factor of ten, but: 1 gold = 10 silver. 1 silver = 10 copper.

ESRA: Honestly, Asha, you're all right sometimes, provided you don't consistently complain about not getting a raise.
ASHA: Hahah...uh, gee, now that you mention it-- and since it came up naturally, and stuff, um. Llewain, could I- could I get a raise?
LLEWAIN: You know what, Asha? YOU KNOW WHAT? That's a great idea. How do you feel about making 1 gold, 1 silver, and ...two coppers?
ASHA: *flatly* Really? That's-- geez, boss, do you even have any coppers?
LLEWAIN: *checks his bags* No.
ASHA: Then, maybe you could--
LLEWAIN: Do you have eight coppers you can give me in exchange for this silver piece?
(Dev: You're such a cheapskate!
Bret: Meh!)
ASHA: Uh...sure. *he hands over eight copper pieces and takes the silver*
(Bret: And I THROW THE COPPER INTO THE OCEAN)
ASHA: No! What are-- why did you do that? That was perfectly good copper!
LLEWAIN: That's right, I owe you two weeks' pay. Do you have eight more copper?
ASHA: *hesitant* ...
LLEWAIN: You want this silver, right?
ASHA: ...okay, well. *he hands over eight copper coins for the silver.*
(Bret: And I THROW THOSE INTO THE OCEAN TOO
Dev: But WHY
Danny: Pffffffft-!
Bret: I THROW THEM. I do it.)
ASHA: No! Why would you do that?
ESRA: He's right, that's currency you're wasting, Llewain. To what purpose?
LLEWAIN: *ignoring Esra* You going to go dive for them?
IRIS: *tiredly* I will pay you five gold NOT to go dive for them.
ASHA: I can't believe you! *storms off*
SABINE: Hahaha, let's set sail before some idiot goes diving for those useless copper coins!
ESRA: They're not useless! Someone of Asha's class is honestly safer with smaller coins-- people won't assume he stole them.
LLEWAIN: Naaaaahhh.
IRIS: Honestly, he made a net profit of 4 copper, so he's nothing to complain about.

*Iris sneaks off to find Asha*

ASHA: *answers her knock eagerly* Y-yes, miss Iris? What can I do for you? Do you need anything?
IRIS: Oh, well, you see. He's too embarrassed to admit it, and it's not a raise, it's a, um, bonus, a one-time sort of thing, but this is for you. *she gives him an amethyst, worth 100 gold*
ASHA: Oh, wow! Thank you! I-I'll do whatever you like, miss Iris, really!
IRIS: In that case, could you clean this armor? *she hands over Sabine's old armor* Thoroughly.
ASHA: Sure, sure!

Once we set sail we headed for Carina, but in town were sidetracked by Maligos, who was pestering us through dream-controlling folk, and Bishop Dinta, whom we found in the local church. Taking Dinta hostage and temporarily expelling Maligos from his host, we decided to escort Dinta to the Council of Four for fair trial (which is secret code for "putting the helm of opposite alignments on him to see if that fixes him"). We nearly left immediately, but Esra worried for the crew's morale and insisted we stay at port overnight.

SABINE: No! Who cares, they'll be fine, they got paid!
ESRA: But they can't spend their money if they have to stay aboard! It's for the best, let them carouse. It's only a day, and so long as we do not harm him, Dinta has agreed to come peaceably.
SABINE: This is stupid! We should gooo, come onnn! I never leave the ship!
ESRA: Well, you should!
SABINE: Nu-uh!
ESRA: *pointing* Sabine, I order you to go out into Nys and have fun tonight!
SABINE: *lassos ESRA's arm, then ties him up and THEN ties him to the mast* I'll do whatever I want!
SYLVIA: Oh! Lady Sabine, uh...should I call back the rest of the crew?
SABINE: Leave 'em! *she stalks off the ship* I'm going into town.
ESRA: *struggling* Damn it, Sabine! ERGH. Could-- somebody help me?

Here, we made use of the Carousing Table, which I think Danny found on Jeff Rientz's blog; I might be misremembering. In any case, Sabine ended up rolling 12 and waking up with a splitting headache!

(Danny: You have the ultimate hangover as you awaken!
Dev: What're you drawing?
Christian: The thing. How much does it cost to get tattoos?
Danny: Huh?
Christian: Tattoos.
Danny: Oh, 10 gold.
Christian: Heheh, then Sabine wakes up with all her hair shaved off, and THIS *holds up his drawing* tattooed over her face, centered around her eye! This part is patterned like dragon scales.)

SYLVIA: Shall we set sail, Esra?
ESRA: Hm. Is everyone back aboard?
SYLVIA: I think so, though some of the crew are hungover. Can't hold their whiskey.
ESRA: Oh, dear. Should we wait, or will we be able to pull together a skeleton crew?
SYLVIA: We should be fine.
ESRA: All right, well in that case--
SABINE: *limps on deck*
ESRA: Oh my-- Sabine?! Is that you?
KELTA: Who is that?
LLEWAIN: Yeah, hey, do you belong on this ship? I don't recognize your face.
SABINE: *cringing* Not so loud. *scowl* Yeah, it's me.
ESRA: Did-- *frown* Did you find that diplomat you kept insisting you were going to kill? And lose?
SABINE: Naw, man.
ESRA: My goodness, you really shaved it all off.
SABINE: Yeah, yeah.
ESRA: --um, yes, Sylvia. Now we can set sail.

On the way (at sea, but not too far out of port), Iris offered her magic (cursed) comb to Esra mysteriously while she, Esra, Sabine and Llewain were on deck. Seeing that it had no effect on his hair, Iris grew frustrated with the mysterious comb and combed her own hair with it.

And turned into a medusa!

She turned Esra and Sabine into stone, but Llewain managed to avoid her stony gaze, and she became deeply desirous to mate with him. (We have been joking for quite some time that Llewain will just leave Iris-- as portrayed in the mysterious dream we shared months ago-- once they have kids, and they sorta kinda have some modicum of romantic tension going on). So she led him belowdecks, warning the rest of the crew to look away, and turned Dinta into a statue. Satisfied, she then fucked the snot out of Llewain, which was mostly okay except for the part where her snake heads were constantly biting him. (She cast slow poison on him beforehand to keep him from dying.)

Following that, she rushed off to her room and laid medusa eggs.

On the upside, Xenocrates was able to discern, through use of Esra's mage lab, how to turn those made stone back into flesh. On the downside, it required used of the medusa's blood. We decided to leave Dinta a statue for a while, and Iris turned Esra and Sabine back, then removed the curse upon herself, as well. Since she had no ability to cure Llewain of the poison until the next day, she belatedly realized that she would need to turn him to stone to successfully save his life.

We all agreed we'd let her and Llewain be inside Iris's cabin, as she wouldn't be able to turn herself back until the next day, either, and closed the cabin doors.

Iris pulled out the comb, combed her hair, and--

died, instantly, failing to survive the system shock of being turned into another being. Luckily, Llewain survived the poison-- but Iris may be gone forever! And when her medusa eggs hatched we're all probably going to get medusa'd. Particularly amusing is the fact that earlier in the session, Esra asked Iris during an argument about the conflicts between the religion of Sulafta and the religion of the Birds of Heaven if she objected to being brought back to life if she should fall in battle at their side, then, and she said she would.

Knowing us, we might try to bring her back by going to Rukri anyway. Man, there were a lot of points last night where I was laughing too hard to breathe!