Van Helsing and Carmilla, in some kind of Mexican standoff, waited outside the beaver hut while Alice said hello to her idol Lucy Pevensie and her older siblings Susan and Peter. (Edmund was of course off somewhere fraternising with the enemy over some Turkish delight.) Lucy turned out to have more in common with a certain modern female character than anyone could have anticipated - much to the distress of Alice and the players.
Meanwhile, Louis and Long John went around investigating ... and met a nameless dwarf, who had a few things to say about his employer (the White Witch), his lack of a name, and the reason behind the recent influx of Christmas decorations in the book. Louis was kind enough to give the dwarf a name: Louis. Just a shame it won't last.
Courtesy of 18 December 2013's 2nd Edition Jurisfiction adventure at Chimera.
“This is a serious investigation.”
“That’s debatable.”
“I like the fact you want credit for not having bitten a party member.”
“Yet.”
“STOP MOVING! … Yes, the sight works fine.”
“I cannot believe we avoided all of the pussy jokes, and we’re diving straight into beaver territory with this.”
“Carmilla likes pussies, beavers and muffs.”
“Brilliant.”
“And apparently, she likes girls.”
Alice: “I’m very pleased to meet you, Mr Beaver. My name’s Alice. I’m from Wonderland. This is Mr Long John Silver. This is the lovely Carmilla, and this is professor van Helsing. And this is some gentleman from a book no one ever reads, so we’re not quite sure who he is.”
Louis: “Thanks, mushroom girl ...”
Louis: “We can do this the easy way.”
Alice: “Oh, could we please do this the easy way? The hard way involves lots of pointy objects and terrible violence.”
Long John: “The old man has no problem shootin’ things.”
Carmilla: “He’s not discreet.”
Louis: “Well, you won’t be the biggest beaver I’ve ever shot down, but y’know, I like a challenge.”
Carmilla: “He’s very eager decapitating people.”
Other table: “‘Not the biggest beaver I’ve shot down’? You hammy bastard!”
Our table: “Says the table that hit scrota before we started!”
Mr Beaver: “Maybe you could come in, you’re the smallest one.”
Alice (excited): “Will I get to meet Lucy?”
Louis: “I think BOTH the ladies should go in.”
Carmilla (suddenly interested): “Is Lucy inside?”
Alice: “Lucy is, AND Mrs Beaver! We’re going to have such a wonderful time!”
Carmilla: “I’ve always wanted to see Lucy as well.”
Player: “Ever since you first saw the pictures.”
“The only person with knowledge of the narrative is locked inside a beaver hut.”
Player: “You’re going to fall for the Miss Marple trap again?”
Alice’s player: “Quite possibly.”
Player: “I don’t BELIEVE this! TWICE in a row! You can’t say no tea, can you?!”
Alice’s player: “It was hot chocolate last time, this is different!”
Mrs Beaver: “Would you like a cup of hot chocolate?”
“Oh, Brian Tumnus. I’ve met him, I think. He’s a bit creepy.”
Alice: “Oh, whenever you’re with Mr Tumnus, don’t look in the wardrobe in his bedroom.”
Lucy: “The shrine, you mean?”
Alice: “You KNOW about that?”
Lucy: “Of course I do, it was my idea!”
“Lucy’s been reading Twiiiliiiight!”
“NO! BURN HER!”
Alice: “… And you’re very young.”
Lucy: “I’ve been around here since 1950.”
Alice: “Well yes, but I’ve been around longer than that, but I never wanted to elope with the white rabbit. This is slightly disconcerting. They say you should never meet your heroes.”
Lucy: “What about the Hatter?”
Alice: “Definitely not the Hatter, no. The dormouse is very sweet, but only for a little snuggle and nothing else. Anyway! I must search the cupboards.”
Lucy: “Have you not SEEN his hairy chest?”
Alice: “The dormouse?!”
Player: “OH GOD.”
Lucy: “Mr Tumnus!”
Player: “Lucy is Bella!”
Alice: “Susan, you don’t want to elope with anyone, do you?”
Susan: “Why do you ask?”
Player: “Maybe her brother? Then we get Game of Thrones!”
GM: “I WAS toying with the idea!”
Alice: “Umm … No reason at all. Making idle chat while invading the beavers’ privacy.”
Carmilla: “And you find ME creepy.”
“Is there anything hiding in – god help us – the beavers’ closet?”
“Mr and Mrs Beaver, could you perhaps explain the presence of these contraband items?”
“Everyone does it?”
“I’m not sure that’s a very good reason.”
Mr Beaver: “Selling of Narnians?”
Alice: “The Narnians have been sold, petrified Narnians, as garden ornaments in return for Christmas decorations.”
Mrs Beaver: “Now, that’s a nefarious scheme.”
“Oh no, don’t talk to Aslan, he’ll be terribly cross and he might breathe on us.”
Alice: “I do know that I’m very disappointed with the beavers. And I’m not sure I like Lucy anymore either. She wants to elope with Mr Tumnus, it’s quite inappropriate.”
Carmilla: “Eloping with Mr Tumnus? She likes boys?”
Alice: “Well, she likes people with hairy chests.”
Carmilla: “Ewwww!”
Alice: “I know!”
Carmilla: “That’s just plain WRONG.”
Alice: “I couldn’t agree more.”
GM: “There aren’t actually any sleigh bells. That was a lie. They’ve just pushed you out the house and closed the door.”
Player: “Perhaps being lectured by a pretentious 7-year-old was too much for them? Yeah. It’s a bit too much for me.”
Dwarf: “Are you in cahoots with her? The White Queen, the White Witch.”
Louis: “We’re not from this narrative, dwarf.”
Dwarf: “You can still be in cahoots.”
Long John: “What do you know about Christmas decorations? Or more importantly, what do you know about missing Narrrrnian statues?”
Long John: “Have you noticed them being missing as you’ve been TAKING THEM AWAY?”
Dwarf: “Yeah, because I’m a dwarf, I’m automatically a pilfering thief.”
Louis: “Well, to be honest …”
Long John: “Is that a confession?”
Louis: “If it makes you feel better, you weren’t the first suspect.”
Dwarf: “Yeah, that makes me feel SO much better.”
Long John: “Would it make you feel better if you knew that Mr Tumnus was the first?”
Dwarf: “Serves him right, I guess.”
Long John: “Serrrves him right for what?”
Dwarf: “Being a creepy old bastard!”
Long John: “… It’s hard to argue with that point. To be fair.”
Louis: “Hold on! Hold on, what do you mean, ‘creepy old bastard’?”
Long John: “Do you ALSO have a shrine to a 7-year-old girl?!”
Louis: “No! I have pictures of my grandchildren, but that’s it!”
Player: “Not yet, but he’s only just met Alice.”
“I believe he’s senile as well as crazy.”
Player: “Do you HAVE to have that accent?”
Long John: “Yarrrr!”
Player: “There’s only so much I can take of bad Cockney/Yorkshire accent.”
Long John: “That it be, yarrrr! You’d have this problem too if different actors played you in the different films, and the narrative of the remakes of your book kept on changing the accent.”
Player: “You have a point.”
“Sean Bean didn’t help.”
“Sean Bean never helps.”
“Do you know my name?”
“‘Dwarf’?”
“Yeah, that’s not much of a name, is it?”
Dwarf: “She doesn’t really like ANYONE.
Louis: “Okay.”
Dwarf: “Except herself.”
Louis: “Okay.”
Dwarf: “And killing Aslan.”
Louis: “Okay.”
Long John: “She sounds like my first wife, apart from the Aslan part.”
Dwarf: “Maybe she was, I don’t know. Did she ever … turn anything into winter but never Christmas?”
Long John: “Often the bed.”
“If one person believes, that’s enough.”
“You sound like that Aslan person.”
Louis: “He breathes and makes wine. Yeah, that’s nice. I have a little device in my kitchen that does the same thing.”
Dwarf: “Yeah, and you know … it’s not even GOOD wine?”
Louis: “Really? Is it that cheap, horrible stuff you get down the shop around the corner? Cheap wine-seller. Pffft. Terrible.”
Dwarf: “He goes ‘ooh, I can turn water into wine’ and then you taste it, and it’s like …”
Carmilla: “Awful.”
Dwarf: “Yeah, or it’s corked … vinegary …”
Louis: “Oh no, I hate the cheap stuff.”
Dwarf: “He’s quite rubbish.”
Long John: “So you’ve been importing Christmas decorations and putting them up around Narrrnia.”
Louis: “To move the narrative along a little bit quicker?”
Dwarf: “Mmh.”
Louis: “I think we could let him off with a reprimand for that, don’t you?”
Dwarf: “Say yes.”
Louis: “I’d say that’s pretty mild.”
Player: “Time to derail the narrative, for personal gain. I’m not there; I’m just saying!”
Long John: “Do you know the most important question about this?”
Louis: “What?”
Long John: “Can you organise me Dwarvish ale from Tolkien?”
Dwarf: “… I’m sure we could come to some sort of agreement.”
Long John: “I don’t have an argument with you.”
“I’m not taking bribes.”
“THAT was taking a bribe!”
Alice: “Now I’m really disillusioned about Lucy Pevensie. I didn’t think she was like that at all.”
Carmilla: “The more you tell me, it makes me feel more and more … about her.”
GM: “You’ve gone off her?”
Carmilla: “Yeah.”
To be continued, and possibly concluded, when we need a filler post. Next week, our first Rifts session of 2014!
