October 21st, 973
No Rest For the Weary
After the battle at the Broken Handle, the long walk to the ranch, and the emotional strain of meeting Oban Bryne, the party was ready—eager, even—for a full night’s rest. They had earned it.
But Oban had other ideas.
The clurichaun paced the barn floor in tight, frantic loops, his vest skewed, his scarf fluttering like a frantic signal flag. Every few steps he sniffed dramatically, as though trying to detect distant omens in the scent of hay and chicken droppings.
“I know what happened back there. You routed them. You embarrassed them. That never happens to rum gremlins—they’re used to doing the humiliating.” He jabbed a finger at the air. “But rum gremlins—oh, they are vindictive little goblins. When cornered, they escalate. When humiliated? They escalate harder. And after a defeat like that? They’ll be gathering right this very moment.”
He paused, fixing each hero with an earnest, rum-sticky stare.
“They will not take this lying down. They will take this lying in a heap, and then they will rise to do something catastrophically stupid. Something like—” He shuddered theatrically. “—The Ritual of Eternal Happy Hour.”
The party looked at one another.
Oban threw up his hands. “We cannot nap our way through a tragedy in progress! If they finish that ritual, chaos will spread for miles. Miles! Drunkenness on a scale that would frighten even me.”
He clapped both hands to his head.
A full night’s rest was out of the question. After intense negotiation—including appeals to logic, emotion, and the need not to die—the party compromised on a one-hour rest, then departure at dawn.
Rum Gremlin Lore (As Explained by Someone Who Has Had More Than Enough of Them)
As the party rested against bales of hay and the barn slowly brightened with the blush of predawn, Oban finally settled himself atop an upended bucket and began sharing what he knew—rum gremlin lore passed down through the strange, illogical oral traditions of clurichauns.
He tapped his temple. “First rule: normal insults don’t work.Call them ugly, stinky, stupid, sticky, too loud, too small—bounces right off. Immune by constitution and temperament.” He leaned in conspiratorially. “But insult their booze, or their ability to hold their liquor… and you wound them. On a psychic level. It cuts deep.”
He punctuated this by stabbing the air with a tiny finger. “Tell a rum gremlin it drinks like a pixie with hollow bones? They feel that in their soul.”
He straightened and lifted another finger. “Next: songs. If you sing a lullaby or anything about sobriety, it scrambles their little gremlin brains. They hate it. They crumble. It is glorious.”
Then another finger. “But! It must be original. If they’ve heard the insult or the song before, no effect. Rum gremlins get accustomed to things like that very quickly.”
He held up a final finger, trembling with sacred intensity. “And if it rhymes?” He nodded slowly, reverently. “That is where the real damage is done.”
He spread his arms triumphantly.
“You see? You mortals are creative. Clever. Unburdened by Fey logic. You can out-insult them. Out-sing them. Out-rhyme them. And once we reach the Broken Handle, we will show those spiteful little bar-wreckers what true tavern spirit looks like.”
He paused, wiggled his eyebrows as if to impart forbidden knowledge. “But there is one more thing that you’ll need.” He held up a finger, solemn as a priest taking confession.
“Bells.”
The party blinked.
“Yes, bells!” he said, offended that this was not immediately obvious. “Rum gremlins hate bells. Can’t abide them. Something to do with the frequency or the purity of tone or possibly the fact that one once swallowed a cowbell on a dare and hasn’t known silence since. But a good solid bell-ring near a rum gremlin? Ohhh, that rattles them. Throws off their aim. Makes them squeal.”
He nodded firmly.
“Bring bells. Ring them with gusto. It will put the fear of sobriety into them.”
“And one last thing,” Oban added, folding his hands like a sage.
“Did any of you feel… uncommonly drunk around the gremlins?”
Every hand went up.
He nodded, unsurprised.
“They project an aura of pure intoxication magic. Hits everyone differently — some get woozy, some get loud, some get philosophical.” He pointed at Wolfgang. “You? Probably rage-drunk.”
Wolfgang did not deny it.
“But fortunately for you, I project something too — an aura that shields nearby folk from their drunken nonsense. So stay within ten paces of me at all times.”
He looked at Ant and Wolfgang. “That’s ten normal-sized paces for folk like us.”
Then at the rest of the party. “And five of your freakishly long giant strides.”
They agreed.
Departure at Dawn
As the horizon brightened from navy to violet to thin streaks of rose, the party readied their gear. Oban fussed, pacing, humming, and double-checking that his scarf was at the appropriate jaunty angle for heroic deeds.
Outside, Gizi Vargas waited to see them off.
Oban hesitated, then shuffled toward her, wringing his tiny hands.
“Miz Vargas… I, ah… wanted to say… I’ve been a self-absorbed, annoying little git the whole time I’ve been here. And you’ve been patient. Kinder than I deserved. Thank you. And I’m sorry.”
Gizi softened, the stern rancher expression fading.
“Oban Bryne, you’re a disaster. But you’re a good-hearted disaster. You just needed direction.”
He sniffed, deeply moved. “Well. I have one now.”
She handed him a small sack. Inside: horse bells, one for each member of the party.
“I hear that you’ll be needing these,” she said. “Bring ’em back when you can.”
Oban tied the bag to his belt with ceremony.
“I swear they will be returned. I shall personally guarantee the safety of every one of your bells, your ranch, and your entire extended chicken family.”
“Just go save the tavern, Oban,” she sighed.
A Story Shared on the Road
The party set out at sunrise, walking through fields still damp with dew. For a time they walked in companionable silence — until Ant gently asked what none had dared earlier, “Oban… what happened to you? I mean long ago. What made you start wandering around so depressed?”
His shoulders dropped. The scarf drooped. His usual theatrical bluster faded.
“…You deserve to know,” he said quietly.
And so he told them.
Long ago, he had been the guardian of a beloved tavern called The Golden Clover, a place overflowing with music, warmth, and companionship. It was more than a tavern to him — it was a home, a purpose, a family.
Then one winter, a mysterious plague swept through the village and the patrons stopped coming, the hearth went cold, and laughter faded to silence. And then… then… the last bartender — a gentle old woman who always saved him an extra dram at the end of the night and called him “lad” — succumbed.
With no one left to protect, the magic binding him to the tavern released him.
“And suddenly,” he whispered, “I was… empty. I had failed them. Failed her. I was supposed to watch over them. And I couldn’t. I drank to forget, and when that didn’t work, I drank to remember.”
He took a long breath, the morning sun glinting off unshed tears.
“For a hundred years I wandered. Looking for something — anything — that felt like home again.”
He smiled at the party with fragile hope.
“And then I met you.”
The rest of the march was spent inventing insults, rhymes, sobriety chants, and lullabies potent enough to injure a gremlin’s soul.
It was, strangely, a joyful march.
Return to The Broken Handle
By noon, Miley came into view. But something was terribly wrong. The tavern’s wooden sign lay shattered in splinters. In its place, strung between two posts, hung a crude banner that read,
THE INDEPENDENT NATION OF RUMISTAN – NO HUMANS OR OTHER DOGS ALLOWED
(Rum Gremlins Welcome. Bring your You-Know-What.)
The doors, once welcoming, were barred shut.
Peering through the dirty windowpanes, the party saw a terrible sight – Finnan, Tilly, and every patron bound to chairs, gagged with bar rags, forced to witness a ritual circle chalked across the floor.
Nearly a dozen rum gremlins capered around it, chanting and swaying drunkenly.
And at the center stood a taller, meaner-looking figure —
A Rum Gremlin Lord, wearing a cracked crown made of bottle caps and wielding a staff topped with a corkscrew.
They were deep into the Ritual of Eternal Happy Hour.
Raise the mug and drown the light,
Twist the sun and choke the night!
Spill the rum and ring the bell,
Let sober minds go straight to hell!
Cup to cup and keg to keg,
Drunken chaos, break your leg!
Fill the skies with tipsy power—
Grant us Endless Happy Hour!
The gremlins were so absorbed in their ongoing chant that they had not yet noticed the party looking through the windows from the outside. They ducked beneath the windows and withdrew to the side alley, brains snapping into tactical alignment.
Session 9 will begin with your hasty reconnaissance of the tavern, proceed to planning of your raid, and climax with the heroic rescue of all of the hostages! Or not. Let’s find out what happens on Wednesday!