Story of a chicken

[Venefyxatu]

Before I start this you should know a few things. The following story actually happened in a Dungeons & Dragons session. My character, Achib el Assis Ibn Moussif El Rasjid, is a magical item collector.

Unfortunately, he also has a knack for finding the wrong people to buy items from. I agreed with the DM that I'd get nothing but "screwed-up" magical items, essentially the real thing but with a twist.

I've bought love potions thinking they were healing potions, found the Gloves of Almost Face Punching (which lower my dexterity score ... when I put them on for the first time I nearly tripped and punched my own face, hence the name), bought a Wand of Pffft (fireballs that fade away by the time they reach the target and couldn't even light a candle), gave someone a Bag of Endless Wine (which happened to be sour wine), etc.

 

This character is great fun to play, especially because I play him as having a (badly imitated) Indian accent. The sentence "In my country ... " can be heard several times each gaming night, and he leaves a lot of room for silly interpretation of whatever is being said.

 

One day a party member died and we needed money to pay for his resurrection if possible. So all of us decided they'd do whatever they were best at, and since Achib is essentially a merchant he decided to sell some of his magical items (with bleeding heart, of course ).

 

In case you're interested, I'll quickly cover what *really* happened at the end of this post.

 

 

 

 

In a narrow alley two men are talking, or rather, one of them is talking while the other one is listening. The man doing the listening looks a bit dirty and has eyes that keep darting around as if he's expecting the guards at any moment.

The man doing the talking is completely different. Extremely tall, he seems even taller because of his purple turban with a large, ornate feather in it. The long, flowing robes he wears are purple as well and reveal just the curled toes of a pair of comfortable-looking shoes. After getting used to the way he looks, an observer might notice two dull grey stones whirling around his turban. His speech is accompanied by wide gestures and animated facial expressions as though he's telling a story he enjoys very much. Also, in his hands, he seems to be holding something made out of cloth.

 

You see, this robe, isse no ordinary robe, not even an ordinary magical robe. No, this isse a very very very powerful magical item, one that saved the lives of me and my friends not so long ago.

 

 

So why are you selling it then?

The other one interrupts, to which the stranger gets a somewhat pensive look and strokes his mustache.

 

Well, you see, we really really need money and to get it together we all must help, so I am selling some of my favourite items because they are the most powerful ones we have so we will get the most money for them.

 

But this is just a robe of useful items, and one of the patches has been torn off! I'm telling you, you're not getting any more than 1300 gold pieces for it.

The other one interrupts again.

 

Nonono, it is worth a lot more than that. You see, because of the patch torn off I know that this is no ordinary robe of useful items. It is a very very very very very powerful robe, with extremely very very very powerful items, too. I will tell you the story of what happened that made me tear of that patch. You see, we were on a boat, my friends and I. For some days everything was juuuust fine, smooth weather, good sailing and all that. But then ...

The purple-robed stranger leans forward a bit, widening his eyes and pausing for dramatic effect.

 

Then, a storm came. It was a very bad storm, threw us completely off-course, but the captain, he was a good captain so we did not sink, but even he could not see in the storm because the ship was being thrown around by these huuge waves, you see.

The storyteller makes wide arm gestures, indicating just how incredibly big these waves were.

 

And with all the clouds and the rain and the thunder and the lightning we suddenly hit a big rock that hadn't been there before!

As the stranger once more pauses for dramatic effect, he notices that the other one is listening with fascination.

 

So we were stuck. On the rock, with the boat. The boat was stuck on the rock and had a hole in it, so it was sinking. There was nothing we could do, you see, because we couldn't fix the boat in that weather and it was sinking anyway, so I tore off one of the patches and threw it on the deck!

As he says this, the purple-robed man makes a throwing gesture with his right arm as if he's actually throwing a piece of cloth to the ground.

 

And what did I get? Not just anything, no, the patch magically transformed into ... ... a chicken! But not just an ordinary chicken, oh nononononono. This was a very very very powerful magical chicken! I knew it had to be useful, you see, because it came from the robe of useful items, but what use could a chicken have on a sinking boat in a storm you ask? Well, I will tell you. I picked up the chicken and held its legs, and then all the others formed a chain and held on to me. While I was still holding the chicken, of course. And then, then it happened! The chicken revealed her power, because it flew away with all of us! Of course, it was a bit of a crazy sight, all of us hanging from a magical, flying chicken, but it did save us from drowning in the stormy sea.

So the chicken, it flew with us all the way to the land, where it disappeared, poof. So you see that this was a very very very very very very powerful magical chicken, because if it hadn't been so very very very very very powerful it wouldn't have disappeared, because everybody knows that such powerful magical items don't stay in this world for very long.

 

The other one nodded slowly, still impressed by the story.

 

Riight ... you know what, that really was an amazing story, and it's definitely worth more... I'll give you three thousand gold for it.

 

Deal!

 

 

 

 

---

 

Now, as to what really happened : I did get a chicken, but it was an ordinary, everyday common chicken. While on the boat I tried making it fly away with me (and failed). Fortunately the boat got repaired and we got to a harbour. I immediately decided to use the chicken as a way to advertise for our mage's "knowledge shop" : put some signs on it and having it run around the town. I never saw it again, even though I explicitly told it to come back before nightfall!

 

By the way, while this sale made the most money, the one that had the most value for what I was selling was that ordinary stone I sold for 500 gold pieces.

 

I love this character!

[Sweetcherrie]

hehe, clumsy characters are sometimes the most fun to play. They give you an opportunity to think out of the box, and most of the times bring a smile to the other players.

 

Mr. Achib el Assis Ibn Moussif El Rasjid certainly made me smile, thanks

 

Sweet