We pick up right where we left off.
GM Vaschon: Your party managed to open the door last session and saw a fairly large cavern with monstrous foliage alongside the stone bridge.
GM Vaschon: There is a stone bridge leading south. There are giant mushrooms on either side of the bridge leading southeast and southwest. The bridge is fairly large, roughly 20′ in width and extends pretty far south.
Veracity: Any caterpillars in sight?
Aleanghi: Do the mushrooms appear sentient? And if so, are they doing the Fantasia dance?
GM Vaschon: You don’t see any. However, peering over the bridge, the chasm is roughly 100′ down ending in water.
GM Vaschon: The mushrooms appear to be dormant. However, they appear quite sturdy.
Aleanghi: Maybe Veracity can seduce one.
Aleanghi puts on her spectacles, which she is now calling “gogglethingers.” Nothing looks unusual. There is no distinct pattern to the mushrooms, but they do look like they could support a path. The party rolls out, single file, across the bridge with Palin in the lead. Immediately there are shenanigans. Palin goes 10 feet, senses danger, and rolls a 1 on her spot check. The next roll is a 20, confirming the horrifying failure.
AIEEEE!
Today’s trivia question comes from Em.
ETA: Wow, you guys are smart!
Em likes to pretend that she’s injured. Usually it’s a broken or twisted ankle. We wrap it up in a cloth like it’s in a cast and she rests. Sometimes she uses an umbrella as a cane. Two minutes later, she’s magically better, and we repeat the process.
Today, we were racing four laps around the outside of the house and with her usual flair for the dramatic, on lap three, she declared that her ankle was twisted and I would have to carry on and finish the race without her. Unfortunately, just at the same time she declared that her ankle was twisted, I actually did twist my ankle. Ow.
Em: “Um… then… my ankle’s broken.”
Showoff.
With the race called due to injury, we supported each other inside and wrapped each other up in “casts.” Then we laid around in her bed, sharing dolls and resting to make each other feel better. Our casts came off at the same time, but she seems to have bounced back a lot faster. Mine’s fine if I keep weight off of it. No more running today for me. Em will have to finish the race without me.
Word up it’s WordGirl! We don’t have the monkey, whose name is Captain Huggyface (or his mild mannered alter ego, Bob), but the rest isn’t bad. I bought the red jacket at Goodwill for about two bucks and was going to cut the hood off for the costume, but Em liked it with the whole jacket, so fine. Less work for me. It’s about her having fun, not my obsessive need for a perfect costume. I’ve been interested in trying silkscreening, so that’s what I did with the yellow star on the shirt. Needs work before I’m ready to sell anything or give any gifts, but it was fun to try and I see how I can improve.
For those of you wondering who the heck WordGirl is, I have provided this instructive clip. It’s from Soup2Nuts, the same production house that did Home Movies and Dr. Katz, and you can really see the same sense of humor.
GM Vaschon: Alright, when last we left, the group had surprisingly defeated the hill giant envoy and captured his documents. We left the chamber where the giant was and proceeded onward. Soon…
Your party continues west 30′ and up ahead you see a large stone slab in the center of the passage.
It’s the same freakin’ slab that sliced us to ribbons before. And it’s in a different place. This is one weird area. The slab is eight feet high and we fall all over ourselves trying to get to the top of it. (Unfortunately, these reports keep running longer and longer and something’s got to get cut, so us acting like morons trying to get to the top of the slab gets the axe.) We are finally all together, able to cross the top of the slab to avoid the whirring blades of death. Then we all roll spot checks which we all fail, so whatever’s coming for us will have a nice easy shot at us. Wait, wait… Aleanghi didn’t fail!
What does Aleanghi see? Click to find out!
This week, Veracity got a familiar. She considered a weasel or a toad (Bentein: ALL BOW TO THE HYPNO TOAD), but went with a raven. Which craps on me. Of course.
With that settled, after much confusion about dead ends and moving hallways, we go down a previously unexplored corridor. We come to a large stone door…
GM Vaschon: Val looks at the door. The door waits expectantly.
Bentein: It eats us, in revenge for its brother the gazebo.
GM Vaschon: wrong story
Your party budges the stone door revealing a large wooded cavern. A lonely figure stares back at you hefting a rather large tree.
Torkal: THIS SEEMS LEGIT
Val: Andre was friendly
GM Vaschon: Not during his heel days.
GM Vaschon: The hill giant grunts some words in a language evidently no one understands and waits a response.
Bentein: “Uhh… anybody speak hill giant?”
Torkal: “As a matter of fact…” Torkal DOES know Giant. So tell me what he said!
Find out after the cut!
I just realized that I haven’t updated on the situation at Children’s Theater. Props to the teacher, who although he has no experience whatsoever with teaching autistic kids, is being very active in finding out what works to keep Em engaged. He’s asked me for advice on several occasions, shared what’s worked for him, and generally stayed very on the ball. This week we decided that it might be helpful to have a copy of the script (a little three page Shel Silverstein poem with people reciting bits) so that I could run lines with her. And he did have it for me by the end of class, with her parts highlighted.
She had a great week last week, but today was, according to her, “not perfect.” The teacher said that at one point she burst out crying for no apparent reason. The word “apparent” is key there, as of course there’s always a reason. It’s just a reason with a subtle trigger, and she may not tell you in the heat of the moment. The reason, she told me in the car, was “these lines are too hard.”
The teacher, however, immediately said, “raise your hand if you think Emily’s a good actor” and all the hands shot up. “Raise your hand if you want Emily to be your best friend” and all the hands shot up. He relayed this to me, rightly proud of himself and the kids. Em did recover.
Em seems to like going to class, and doesn’t ask “when can I stop going?” as she sometimes has with other activities. So a bad situation was turned around nicely.
Thanks for your support, folks. I’ll let you all know when she wins her first Tony so you can say you knew her when.
Em got dressed up today and told me, “You should take some pictures of me, for when I’m famous.” All poses were hers, and she directed me on the camera.
Afterward, she graciously gave me her autograph. When she hits it big, I’ll sell it on eBay for millions.
