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Author's Note:
If the reader will permit this writer a brief interlude in the form of an introduction, I would be much obliged. You see, you have stumbled upon issue #54 of Spicy Adventures, and this is the issue in which our heroine’s life changes dramatically. Not only does her life change, but the very writer of this story has changed. To me, to be precise.
Let me begin this tale by describing the one of least interest: the writer of these tales. For the moment, I shall leave my name unknown for indeed, it would only detract to amble on endlessly on my own behalf, if the true topic of these tales is your beloved Moxie Malone. But there is one thing you must know, before you can understand all these tales accurately. You see – I am a figment, a spirit, an ephemeral thing. I cannot be detected, I cannot be sensed. Even the Goddess Mystra, it is rumored, lacks the ability to scry me. And yet you will have to believe me when I tell you that I not only exist, I know things.
Things that not even our beloved Moxie knows. So, my darling readers, I ask you to suspend any disbelief, open your mind to the unimaginable, and flip open this lovely new edition of Spicy Adventures. Moxie awaits us eagerly, still recovering from her battle with the Chultan Snake-God Sssisssstisssssiffirussss.
Moxie sat on the creaky bed in the room she had called her ‘home’ these past few days, while sweat beaded off her forehead and feverish dreams haunted her. Indeed, Moxie had on more than one occasion scared a hapless chambermaid when they came in to change the sheets, only to find a feverish Hin adventuress hidden beneath her blankets, thereby startling the poor women half to death. Yes, dear reader, it had been a few difficult days for our heroine. But as we all knew it would, the antidote she had acquired from the Murd’Rus Pos’se – those wicked villains – had worked, and she was at long last able to get dressed.
She hummed a merry tune as she hoisted herself into her safari-shorts (and dear reader, pardon me for pointing this out, but do pay extra heed to the shortness of said shorts, depicted on the front cover of this very volume) and strapped the many humming, buzzing and whirring devices she had so lovingly built over the past years to her person. Trusty blade by her side, every inch of the metallic components of her gear neatly polished, she looked quite the dashing heroine! She exited her room and, in a Moxie-impulse, hopped, backside first, onto the railing. Down she slid, building up more and more speed, until she landed in a nimble crouch before the innkeeper.
“Tavernkeep!” she proclaimed, standing abruptly and straightening the wide-brimmed hat atop her head, sporting her most charming smile. “I am here to pay the dues owed to you for my stay!” Dear reader, you will imagine her surprise when the gruff man (to whom charity came as easy as it came to a dragon) waved her off. “Been paid” were the only words this grunt of a man produced. Moxie’s frown lingered for but a second, before being replaced by a genial smile. “What, my good man, do you mean?” She added her best guess, “You find the publicity your famous guest has brought to your establishment ample payment?”
The man, who clearly had never learned to read or he would no-doubt know of our beloved Moxie, burst into wicked laughter. “No, lass” he roared, spittle flying. “I sold yer horse!” Our Moxie’s ears would be flapping if they had the size required. “My horse?” she inquired, putting into her voice an admirable degree of restraint. “But my horse carries every bit of my equipment, my livelihood, on its back!”
The man did not seem to care. “Ye didn’t pay enough ‘p front, couldnae wake ye, sold yer horse. Now bugg’r off.” Now readers, allow me another interlude. The man used language far more colorful at this instance, but for your sakes and mine, I will omit the particulars. Moxie put her hands on her hips and cocked them. “To whom, praytell, have you sold it?” she asked, with her Moxie-grin, feeling, perhaps, that fate was guiding her in a direction.
“A car’van, going to Suntan ‘r somesuch.” The gruff man responded, ample spittle flecking from his protruding lip. Deftly sidestepping the assault on her hygiene, our heroine unrolled the treasure map she had found in issue #51, and broke into her broadest Moxie-grin. “Sundren?” she asked, eyes twinkling in the way only Moxie’s could.
“What’ver” the gruff man responded – to none but a cloud of up-kicked dirt. Dear reader, our Moxie had already turned tail and was out the door. For indeed, marked on her map, as if Tymora herself had drawn it, was a place in Sundren. A dreadful place, to be precise! A place called …. Hah! I got you there, didn’t I? You did not think you would receive anything but a cliffhanger-ending?
((OOC NOTE: Spicy Adventure Stories welcomes letters from readers which can be PM'd to me. They'll be answered in the next edition!))
If the reader will permit this writer a brief interlude in the form of an introduction, I would be much obliged. You see, you have stumbled upon issue #54 of Spicy Adventures, and this is the issue in which our heroine’s life changes dramatically. Not only does her life change, but the very writer of this story has changed. To me, to be precise.
Let me begin this tale by describing the one of least interest: the writer of these tales. For the moment, I shall leave my name unknown for indeed, it would only detract to amble on endlessly on my own behalf, if the true topic of these tales is your beloved Moxie Malone. But there is one thing you must know, before you can understand all these tales accurately. You see – I am a figment, a spirit, an ephemeral thing. I cannot be detected, I cannot be sensed. Even the Goddess Mystra, it is rumored, lacks the ability to scry me. And yet you will have to believe me when I tell you that I not only exist, I know things.
Things that not even our beloved Moxie knows. So, my darling readers, I ask you to suspend any disbelief, open your mind to the unimaginable, and flip open this lovely new edition of Spicy Adventures. Moxie awaits us eagerly, still recovering from her battle with the Chultan Snake-God Sssisssstisssssiffirussss.
Moxie sat on the creaky bed in the room she had called her ‘home’ these past few days, while sweat beaded off her forehead and feverish dreams haunted her. Indeed, Moxie had on more than one occasion scared a hapless chambermaid when they came in to change the sheets, only to find a feverish Hin adventuress hidden beneath her blankets, thereby startling the poor women half to death. Yes, dear reader, it had been a few difficult days for our heroine. But as we all knew it would, the antidote she had acquired from the Murd’Rus Pos’se – those wicked villains – had worked, and she was at long last able to get dressed.
She hummed a merry tune as she hoisted herself into her safari-shorts (and dear reader, pardon me for pointing this out, but do pay extra heed to the shortness of said shorts, depicted on the front cover of this very volume) and strapped the many humming, buzzing and whirring devices she had so lovingly built over the past years to her person. Trusty blade by her side, every inch of the metallic components of her gear neatly polished, she looked quite the dashing heroine! She exited her room and, in a Moxie-impulse, hopped, backside first, onto the railing. Down she slid, building up more and more speed, until she landed in a nimble crouch before the innkeeper.
“Tavernkeep!” she proclaimed, standing abruptly and straightening the wide-brimmed hat atop her head, sporting her most charming smile. “I am here to pay the dues owed to you for my stay!” Dear reader, you will imagine her surprise when the gruff man (to whom charity came as easy as it came to a dragon) waved her off. “Been paid” were the only words this grunt of a man produced. Moxie’s frown lingered for but a second, before being replaced by a genial smile. “What, my good man, do you mean?” She added her best guess, “You find the publicity your famous guest has brought to your establishment ample payment?”
The man, who clearly had never learned to read or he would no-doubt know of our beloved Moxie, burst into wicked laughter. “No, lass” he roared, spittle flying. “I sold yer horse!” Our Moxie’s ears would be flapping if they had the size required. “My horse?” she inquired, putting into her voice an admirable degree of restraint. “But my horse carries every bit of my equipment, my livelihood, on its back!”
The man did not seem to care. “Ye didn’t pay enough ‘p front, couldnae wake ye, sold yer horse. Now bugg’r off.” Now readers, allow me another interlude. The man used language far more colorful at this instance, but for your sakes and mine, I will omit the particulars. Moxie put her hands on her hips and cocked them. “To whom, praytell, have you sold it?” she asked, with her Moxie-grin, feeling, perhaps, that fate was guiding her in a direction.
“A car’van, going to Suntan ‘r somesuch.” The gruff man responded, ample spittle flecking from his protruding lip. Deftly sidestepping the assault on her hygiene, our heroine unrolled the treasure map she had found in issue #51, and broke into her broadest Moxie-grin. “Sundren?” she asked, eyes twinkling in the way only Moxie’s could.
“What’ver” the gruff man responded – to none but a cloud of up-kicked dirt. Dear reader, our Moxie had already turned tail and was out the door. For indeed, marked on her map, as if Tymora herself had drawn it, was a place in Sundren. A dreadful place, to be precise! A place called …. Hah! I got you there, didn’t I? You did not think you would receive anything but a cliffhanger-ending?
((OOC NOTE: Spicy Adventure Stories welcomes letters from readers which can be PM'd to me. They'll be answered in the next edition!))