LETITIA RHONDA
Letitia Rhonda was the proprietor of the Elvenhome Bar and Grill in new
Mareilon. She was a scruffy-looking woman whose thinning red hair shot
up in all directions about her head, and the billowy flounces of her
skirt did not make her robust form look any smaller. She had an
extremely short temper. Letitia despised her first name and was known
by almost everyone as L. Rhonda. She was not proud of the drunkards
that frequently the tavern, but she had to make a living.
In
the mid-tenth century, Stribel Wartsworth (who was known to her as
Steppen Wildroz) took Letitia as his wife, presenting her with a bright
gold ring. When he found an entrance to the ancient Great Underground
Highway within the city, Stribel disguised it by building a little
house for Letita over it with his own hands.
The little house
was a quaint but comfortable with thick, hand-woven rugs, ruffled
curtains, an old rocker, a writing table, and a few other pieces of
furniture. The walls were covered with scores of marginally good
paintings, and the easel and pigment jars in one corner revealed that
Letitia herself had painted them. There was also a small dining room
and bedroom. She was a tidy one and never liked Stribel cluttering up
the place.
It was when he was living with her, that Stribel
first sensed that the Great Terror had gotten loose from Largoneth (c.
956 GUE). He knew that he had to get out of the south and find the
GUNCHO spell to defeat the evil entity. When Stribel left, he said,
"I'll come back for you. You have my promise on it." But he did not
return, and Letitia grew angry.
She would not reunite with him
for another ten years, when Stribel, in the form of a short dwarf-like
man called Humble Bellows, would enter her Mareilon tavern along with
his grandson Anesi, a brogmoid Cubby, and the young man Fidget. Letitia
seemed to recognize that it was Stribel, but his odd appearance kept
her in wonder until after a brawl broke out between the party and a
group of miners. When one of the miner’s swords struck into her new
counter, she joined in, flinging dishes in anger at anything that
moved. Against better discretion, Anesi VAXUMed everyone in the room in
an attempt to cease the brawl. But this spell was one too many—the
Servants of the Terror sensed his use of magic and came for him. The
Servants, in the forms of giant nabiz, were too large to enter the inn,
but instead shook its foundations with tremendous blows as one of the
creatures widened its jaw to the height of the structure and to consume
the entire thing. Everyone within escaped through the back kitchen door
into the alley.
Chaos seized Mareilon. It was already too late
to save the poor city. Destruction and ruin was everyone. Two of the
Servants demolished Letitia's tavern, smashing down the walls on three
sides, while great swaths of wreckage marked the passage of the other
four through the city. To destroy the nabiz within the city, Anesi
unleashed RADNOG on the inn, defeating two of the Servants with the
massive five. But the hungry flames spread to the next building and the
next, until the entire city was aflame.
L. Rhonda led the group
to her home, where she led them to a trapdoor in her bedroom closet.
Anesi, Fidget, Cubby, Tyrillee, and Stribel descended the ladder.
Letitia stayed behind to quickly gather her belongs; she intended to
leave the city by another route. For the second time in his life,
Stribel promised Letitia that he would come back for her this time. It
is uncertain if Stribel ever returned to be reunited with her.