From NoelW: Address to a Sorceress (45 points)

 “Sorceress! O, Sorceress!
We’re in trouble, as you might guess.
Please help us. We are in a mess.
We’re trapped at our last known address.

If you have a potion brewing,
If you’re suing, canoeing , wooing,
Please stop what (or who) you’re doing
To save us from carnage ensuing.”

There’s a sudden cloud of green smoke, apparently left over from a pantomime, obscuring a flurry of lace handkerchiefs, ruffs and feathers. A behatted figure staggers from the smoke, tucking his shirt into his pantaloons and blinking like a startled owl. He pulls his floppy hat down over his eyes, hunches his shoulders and stares round wildly, realises his jacket is on inside out, so pretends that’s how they’re wearing them in the Chambers these days, and wipes lipstick from his earlobe. Dishevelled as a disreputable rat, he skulks off into the sand dunes.

“Ray!” calls Getrude. “Is that you?”

No answer is the firm reply. Instead the vanishing figure is pursued by an angry female voice: “Where are you, Ray? I’ve found the blue potion. Where in the name of the Unpronounceable Epithet of all the Nonentities has he got to?”

Out of the smoke steps a woman almost dressed in what might once have been white. Abruptly, she stops short and scowls, furiously.

“Adventurers? Here? Now? Well that takes the biscuit.” ⁽¹⁾

“You’re not Sarah the Spectacular Sorceress of Seductive Supernatural Splendour.”

“I’m her reserve. I’m Mediocre Magical Mildred the Misunderstood.”

“But we summoned the Lady Sarah.”

She sighs.

“Unfortunately the epitome of all things enigmatic has a schedule clash. Something to do with fingernails and the latest colourways, I believe. You’ll have to make do with me. So, quickly now. I’ve no time to waste. Tell my why you’ve decided to spoil my – er – breakfast. Who do you want me to (a) turn into a toad (b) radically improve their dress sense” - she looked pointedly at Titchy -“or (c) sensitively but significantly modify their physical attributes?”

“None of the above,” says Getrude. “We need to get out of this place. If it’s the last thing we ever do.”

“Girl, there’s a better life for me and you,” observes Gnawbone.

“Woof?”

“Fireworks!”

The sorceress mutters: “So it’s come to this. I’m nothing but a glorified Uber…”

***

(1)   Or, presumably, “That acquires the cookie” for our readers on the far side of the Atlantic. But which applies in Canada? ⁽²⁾

(2)   Also, “biscuit” means “twice cooked” but presumably “cookie” simply means “cooked”, so why do epicures in the US make do with half-cooked biscuits?

***

Only two figures this time. First is my Curtgeld. This is a floppyhatted Musketeer from Warbases. It’s rather a nice figure, though seems to me to be “true 25mm” rather than the 28mm we’re more used to these days.

For m’lady, I’ve painted a Frostgrave sorceress. I really love the North Star wizardly kits. I’ve made far more of these than I could ever reasonably use, and I've more to build! I like the way they paint up, too, and this one seems particularly successful. The only downside is that I couldn’t get my camera under the brim of her hat, so you can’t see how badly the eyes are painted!

If I’ve got this right, that’s 25 points for a female figure who looks like a sorceress, and 20 for the Curtgeld. Total: 45 points