Pugmire: Into the Monarchies

Yesterday was Pugmire! We had undead dinosaurs, stoned cats, and new clothes. Strap in. Here's last time.

Our heroic pupper doggos are heading to Mau City to be properly thanked (with medals!) for their heroism in rooting out the Cult of the Ebony Skull. They're quite a distance from Mau, though (especially since there's no map that I could find that shows where in the Monarchy it is; nice job guys). So the first order of business is a journey up the Shiver Water river on the Bee Bonnet, and then travel overland through the Monarchy of Cymric into Mau, and up to Mau City!

The Bee Bonnet is a riverboat captained by one Phyala von Siberian, a black cat who weaves cloth and makes clothes for cats up and down the river. She also transports people sometimes, and since her boat is the next one heading upriver, the Pioneers are hitching a ride with her as far as Wetpaw Hollow, a town at the northern end of the Monarchy of Rex. 

The trip is about a day and a half, and the dogs pass the time as they do. Dire Newfoundland sings shanties loudly (while the crew glances at each other with occasional wincing). Boomer Pitbull stands at the back of the boat and stares out into the river, contemplating his mortality and how close he came to burning to death at the hands of the Two-Headed Giant. Petunia Pibble catches up on her journaling, sketches the boat and the crew, and takes in the sights, while Gelert Sausagedog practices juggling. Peppa Papillion chats with Phyala about the river and the Monarchies; apparently there are numerous riverside villages and they'll be stopping for one called "Built Twice" for the night. ("It's called that because it burnt down a few years back and they had to rebuild it." "What was it called before it burnt down?" "...you know, I never asked.")

The dogs also wind up buying clothes from Phyala since they want to dress appropriately for the Monarchies, and she charges them a little extra because Dire is hard to fit, but they all wind up with some fancy new duds. They arrive in Built Twice as the sun sets and go to the inn there for dinner, and Dire winds up in a fish-eating contest with one the local cats (which he wins!). 

The next day, they head upriver the rest of the way and arrive in Wetpaw Hollow, so named because the ground is always just a little damp. They find their ride waiting for them - the Henkelion, a special horse-drawn carriage designed for dignitaries and dynasts to travel the land! It's got bubbled-out windows so that travelers can see the world around them, and it's stocked with good food and good wine. A crowd of kittens is standing around marveling at it, and the as the dogs approach they see two cats attending. One is very large, nearly as tall as Dire - he's Hootie von Mau, their drive and bodyguard. The other is calico and much smaller. She introduces herself as Risky Marge von Cymric, their guide and assistant on the trip. 

Hootie ties up their weapons and lashes them to the roof with the rest of the baggage, and after Sausagedog uses his portrait clicker device to take a picture of the others in front of the Henkelion, they climb aboard and set off!

Risky Marge informs them that they'll be traveling north through the Monarchy of Cyrmic, famed for theatrical skills. The farmlands, though, are pretty sparsely populated, though there are guardposts and farming villages. Indeed, they'll be stopping to resupply at some of these villages along the way. 

As they're riding, Peppa looks out the bubbled windows and notices a rider approaching. She lets the others know and Hootie pulls the carriage to the left a bit, and the rider zooms past them. The dogs ask if there's something wrong - that rider is riding hard, but Risky Marge says that there's no reason to be concerned, to her knowledge. The rider is wearing a scarf, but Petunia notes that the tail that it's a cat, which of course isn't unusual.

Some hours later, they arrive in a small farming village, and Hootie and Risky Marge cover their faces with scarves. Dire asks if they're doing crime, but they explain that this village grows catnip and it's easy to get a contact high if you're not careful. 

They stop to rest the horses, and the cats of the village crowd around to look at the carriage. The dogs get out, and the villagers are pretty surprised to see them - it's weird enough to see the Henkelion, but transporting dogs in it? Boomer stops a cat pulling a cart of fresh catnip and buys a bag, and the others talk with the (slightly perpetually stoned) villagers about whether roads are like rivers except dry or rivers are like roads except wet.

As they chatting, they hear terrible tromping and clattering, and they turned to see three skeletal monsters emerge from the catnip fields! One smashes right through a house, the villagers run in fear, and the dogs ready themselves for battle - except none of them have their gear!

Dire runs to the Henkelion and yells to Hootie: "WEAPONS!" Hootie leaps to the back of the carriage and throws the bundle of weapons the ground, but the horses bolt immediately thereafter and Hootie is never quite able to get them under control. Petunia casts Shatter on one of them, hoping to break it, but all she does is stagger it a little. One of the creatures, a quadrupedal skeleton with horns on its face, charges Boomer and slams into him, and Boomer flies into a rage and starts pounding on its head as it lashes out with those terrible horns.

Sausagedog runs for the carriage and grabs his weapons, while Dire picks up his shield and warhammer, and the dogs leap to battle! The skeleton monsters are tough, almost rock-like, and so conventional weapons are minimally effective. Peppa conjures a Spiritual Weapon, and Petunia lashes out with every spell she knows, but the creatures stomp and slam the dogs. Boomer eventually beats on the horned one so hard that its skull breaks in two, and between Dire's relentless hammering, Sausagedog's precise ax strokes, and Petunia flinging every spell she knows at them, one of the bipedal ones falls, too.

The last one roars and knocks Peppa back, smashing her against a wall! Petunia helps her up, and notices that the creature lowers its head and looks straight at her, as though it recognizes her. Realizing that these things might be animated by baleful magic, she summons her power and dispels it, and the final monster collapses. (Dire: "You couldn't have done that sooner?" "I didn't know if it would work!")

Peppa glances upwards and spots someone a good sixty feet in the air, flying without wings. She can tell from the clothes that it's the same rider they saw on the road earlier, but as soon as the last Stone Bones falls, the rider flies away out of sight. 

The dogs take a moment to breath, and survey the town. There are only a few houses here and one of them has been destroyed. The villages are terrified, Peppa is injured (though recovering), and the Henkelion has run off without them. Not for the first time, they wish catnip had some effect on them.