Chapter 5-Escape for Some

For those just joining us, I would suggest that you go back at least to chapter 2.

   Surprisingly, the first to come to my rescue is our Drunk Dog. As the others hang back and plan their next move, he rushes forward to see if I'm still alive. By some miracle, I am. The bubaos had hesitated a moment too long in their victory. The Drunk Dog drags me back and attempts to revive me, barely avoiding an attack of opportunity from Bobo Jr.

   Just as he manages to get me awake, someone (for whatever reason) casts a cloud of darkness spell. In theory, it would blind the bubaos and let us attack them without worrying about ourselves. In practice, we all went blind and I wake up thinking I'm in that scary place that bad people go. If I had been able to see, I probably would have thought the same thing.

  After the situation had been explained to me, I immediately proclaim "I TRY AGAIN!"

   Chase gives me a look that would kill a lesser man.

   I know it was a stupid move, I was just trying to stay in character. I was trying to do that thing where a person is confused and only really remembers what they were determined to do a few moments ago.

   Once again, the Drunk Dog comes to my rescue. It's crazy that I even owe my life to this guy once. Twice? How was I supposed to live with myself?

   Anyway, he rolls a decent reflex check and barely stops me, holding me down until I come to my senses. I'm not quite sure why, but after that the group decided to make their escape. I suppose their need to stay alive outweighed the curiosity about the tower.

   Everyone made their way blindly to the portal. I hesitated long enough for Bobo to make a glancing blow to help me on my way. I made it known that I was running towards the portal by saying "I run towards the portal!" I moved my piece to a point somewhere to the left of it. After all, it's hard to keep your sense of direction after being knocked unconscious.

  Suddenly remembering something important, I fall to my knees and start looking for my swords.

   Taking turns like people waiting for a carnival ride (I'm practicing simile), the rest of the group begins the systematic deconstruction of of the U-shaped portal. Who cares if Hans is still in there? Swords slash, bowstrings twang, knives stab, and a great axe makes a sound similar to "ffffsssshhhhhhcrrump" (that sentence has alliteration and onomatopoeia) They hardly make a dent.

   Somehow, I've managed to find the shards of my temple sword and stuff them in my sheath. As the cloud of darkness begins to disperse, I spot my khopesh. Snatching it up, I sprint to the portal.

   I leap out onto the forest floor and roll smoothly into some thorny undergrowth. I begin to assist in the portal-breaking party. The next round yields better (or at least more interesting) results. Brennen rolls a 20 and stabs one of the symbols around the portal. Hard. A bright flash of light knocks him to the ground, and we're all rather surprised when he doesn't get up. Looking closely, we see that one of the symbols has gone dark.

   And now, random reader, I would be curious to know: have you ever read the "Heroes of Olympus" series? "The Adventures of a Strange Group" has many interesting parallels. Frank Zhang..."Master of bows". We have Frank the Elven Archer. The really fascinating thing is, he created his character long before "The Son of Neptune" even came out. Meaningless, perhaps. But fascinating. Scientific evidence is beginning to show that this sort of thing happens all the time.

   Frank the Elven Archer has a pet: A giant spider. He never took the time to name it, but as a ranger, he has a sort of empathy link with it. Kind of like Percy and Grover. Frank has been training it for battle and riding.

   It was this same spider that the bubao kidnapped.

Chapter 4-A Hopeless Fight

I wasn't really sure what a bubao was, but I looked it up afterwards. Apparently it's some sort of giant ape demon thing, but I sort of imagined it as being a black reptile demon thing. That's just the piece Chase used for it.

“Roll for initiative…and you’d better hope it’s higher than the bubao got.”

*rattle*

“12?”

“Okaaaay.…” he jots down a note on his post-it. “Surprise round...It’s your turn.”

“I slash at it with my khopesh and temple sword.”

“The temple sword sinks into it easily, but the khopesh just bounces off.”

“Ah…right. Demons vs. holy sword” (which by the way works just as well even if it’s a stolen holy sword). “I discard the khopesh and wield the Temple Sword Two-Handed.”(I know, I’m starting to sound like a full-class nerd)

Chase gives me a slightly evil smile. “It’s the Bubao’s turn.”

“Come on then, Bobo!”

Chase rolls the 20-sided dice to charge the attack, which he informs us is “dark lightning” or something like that.

Perfect roll.

I’ve once again accepted my death as Chase describes the dark ball of energy building up in its hands. He rolls to hit…

And it rolls so low that it doesn't even fire.

Everyone at the table laughs and relaxes (except Zulu, who looks mildly disappointed). Chase allows himself a facepalm. No one should be this lucky. It’s just ridiculous.

I attack and hit, doing very little damage. Chase had looked up in the monster manual that bubaos are very cowardly. In keeping with this spirit, Bobo ran a ways away from me, giving me a scape gote (is that even the right way to use the word?). The portal was right there, and I could reach it without provoking an attack of opportunity (an attack for entering or leaving an enemy’s range). I prepare myself to run, knowing this is my last chance to escape. Fate has  been uncharacteristically kind to me, as has Chase (who probably would have had me dead on a worse day). It was high time to stop pressing my luck.

“I run as fast as I can,” I say, moving my piece…away from the portal. “And slash at it again.”

Chase’s forehead is starting to turn red from the heel of his hand coming into contact so many times. It’s a good hit, and I do quite a bit of damage. Also my sword breaks. Apparently hitting Bobo too much does that to weapons. It’s lucky rangers carry two weapons.

Bobo the Bobau lets loose an ear-piercing shriek. He swipes at me but, by some miracle, misses. I’m getting kind of sure of my invincibility at this point. But, as the saying goes, luck has a way of dissolving when you lean on it.

“I drop the hilt of the temple sword and draw my khopesh.”

Chase raises an eyebrow. “You mean the one you tossed aside earlier?”

I open my mouth, then shut it. After a moment, I say the most hopefully lifesaving thing I can think of. “Erm…Did I say ‘toss aside’?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. Can we pretend I didn't?”

“No.”

Slight pause.

“Alright then.”

Another pause.

“Would you like to run away?”

“Yeah. I think so.”

“That’ll provoke an attack of—“

“WAIT! On second thought…”

Actually, my second thought had been ‘I could use my bladed boomerang’; my third thought was ‘no, I don’t want it to break. What about my brass knuckles?’; and my fourth thought was ‘no, they would do almost no damage’. It was my fifth though that had made my eyes wander to my skill modifiers.

“…I ride Bobo the Bubao.”

“You…”

“Ride him, yes.”

“I’ll give you five seconds to withdraw that.” Oh, the mercy of our DM.

Even Brennan tries to convince me to make a break for it.

I only smile. “I have bonuses in ‘jump’, ‘ride’, and ‘handle animal’.”

The jump goes quite well. I have a decent landing, and get a grip on its fur. Then Chase rolls against me

He rolls quite the oppose check.

Long story short, Bobo’s skin is acidic, and I got tossed ten feet.

A second Bubao arrives, attracted by the cry of the first. I once again accept my death (for the third time, no less), knowing to run would provoke an attack of opportunity from both of them.

I’m weaponless and surrounded by deadly demons. I've added insult to my own injury by naming them Bobo and Bobo Jr. I do the only thing I can do. I try again.

I manage to land on his back and hold on. I’m doing so well, until Bobo Jr. blasts me off. This time the ground knocks me unconscious. And this time there is no hope.

On the other side of the portal, Frank, Zulu, and all the rest of the group slaughter some more demons, and the guards shoot and miss again (except for one lucky fellow who hits, but does almost no damage). Our drunk dog continues to patiently sit in a spike pit. Zulu stabs everything in sight.

At this point, I’d like to pause and speak a little bit about Zulu. He sounds like an evil maniac, and he is in the game. But more than that, he’s simultaneously every DM’s dream and nightmare. He understands stories to the point that he is the main thing that keeps a narrative going. His skills of deduction are such that it makes the DM pause to think “I’m doing something right!” For example: A friend (the one who played Cask, coincidentally)  was running his campaign and was playing the part of a goblin leader. Zulu (under the alias "Slim Shady") had snuck into the camp to kidnap this leader. The goblin, sitting at a desk and suspecting an intruder, pulled a bluff, pretending to think it’s another goblin behind him. He asked about his family, to which SS answered “I don’t recall ever having a family, sir.” Goblin Leader was confused long enough for SS to knock him out and escape.

Unfortunately, these skills also make him a very dangerous person to have in a group. His amazing ability to calculate and find loopholes makes him one of the most powerful players. When he combines all of his poisons, masterwork daggers, and strength modifiers, he generally rolls seven or eight dice when he attacks. It’s kind of annoying when he takes out all of the super-difficult enemies in two rounds, leaving everyone else scratching their heads wondering what just started attacking them. Enough said.

Soon enough the battle is over. They know what’s on the other side (even though they couldn't act on that because that would be bad form and lame besides), so they’re getting healed by the cleric.

   One by one, they enter. At this point a tension-building camera effect follows the third member of the party to enter into the purple light-sucking abyss. After a lot of purple and the brief sensation of falling, they find themselves in a dark world full of rushing wind and emptiness.

   ...Well, almost emptiness. There are four things in sight. One is a fascinating tower in the distance. The next two are almost identical ape-like (or reptile-like, depending on whether or not you're me) creatures advancing victoriously on the fourth thing: the crumpled and bleeding body of Hanserchen Grimm. 

Chapter 3-Consequences of a troubled mind

After I left through the fourth wall (see below), quite a few things happened, and most of them were my fault. One result of my stupidity was the violent death of one of my comrades. As you might remember, after I gave the command to open the gate, a surprised Cask* ventured out onto the battlefield. The demons came, surrounded him and tore him to pieces. The moment they were done (Chase swears he didn't plan this) the sun came up and the demons left. Frank the Elven Archer** picked up his head afterwards, and our drunken dog*** got his arm. (He afterwards made a new character, a Halfling, but I never saw him, so he won’t come into the story).

The group, having agreed to stop the demons for the price of whatever pay they could loot from the demons’ bodies (this was before they realized that the demons carried no loot), tracked them back to the Source. They brought the captain of the guard (remember him?) and a dozen guard(s! guards!) members. The Source, as it turned out, was a U-shaped stone with carvings on it, located in the middle of the forest. By the rolling of the dice it was made obvious that the U was a portal. Zulu**** decided to spend the time until nightfall setting traps for the demons. No one knew why I was watching so carefully. (Oh, that’s right, I had made my entrance again after they found the U.)

Night came, and every square near the portal was covered with a trap of some sort or other. This wasn't going to be a battle. It was going to be a massacre. Brennan had “taken twenty” on every single trap, a term which means he took a lot of extra time to make each one perfect. As the sun sank beneath the horizon, every soldier; human, elf, or dragonborn; took their positions and readied their weapons. I bounced on the balls of my feet in anticipation, ready to stow away my weapon at a moment’s notice.

Five minutes passed.

Then ten.

Then fifteen.

Captain Vi—ahem…The guard captain thought for a moment and looked over to us.

“Sorry. Didn’t I mention that the demons only come every third night?”

Daybreak revealed a very intimidated guard captain surrounded by angry-looking people. It was a shame we needed him, preferably unharmed.

Night came.

Then Day again.

The sun turned red in an eerie sunset. Every single available square on the board was marked with a trap. A few of the guard members looked like they were going to be sick, yet they held their bows steady. The symbols on the portal began to glow, and the center of the U began to darken to a shade of purple. Bowstrings were pulled taut. I looked at the ground with narrowed eyes, going over again in my head exactly where every trap was.

With what could be described as the opposite of a flash of light—a flash of darkness if you will—the portal appeared.

I hopped up, dodged around the traps, and leaped through it.

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            Everyone stared after me for a moment, then looked at each other over the table. Brennan echoed everyone’s thoughts.

“Well…He’s dead.”

Personally, I agreed. I was already considering using one of the guard members as my next character and wondering if Chase would print out a character sheet for me. We did the traditional thing, where Chase pulled me aside and described what I was seeing.

“You’re in a dark wasteland. The sound of wind is prominent and swirling clouds fill the sky with lightning. Far across the plain there’s a tower jutting out of the ground as if it grew there. You’re in the demon realm.”

“Well,” I said,” If there’s nothing else, I run towards the tower.”

“The land between you and the tower is covered by an army of considerable size. They’re all looking in your direction. Would you like to roll a stealth check?”

“Heh. Sure.”

*Rattle*

“Hey! I rolled a 20!”

*Facepalm*

“You evade the demons’ notice and hide behind the portal.”

“Well…He’s dead.”

“Yep.”

“Definitely.”

They shrug and ready their weapons again. Demons begin flowing through the portal. The guards do the one thing they've been waiting to do for three days. They fire.

As you might guess they were about as competent as Vimes’ lads*****.

Three bows snap, and the rest of the arrows miss. Chase had rolled for them, and got three 1's.

The first demon hits the first trap.

“What kind of trap was that?” Chase asked.

Brennan checked. “Falling logs.”

Second demon: Caught in bear trap.

Third demon: Spike pit.

Fourth: Tangled in snare.

And so on.

“I have a plus 2 on listen checks.”

“So?”

“I listen to hear if the demons are gone.”

*Rattle*

“13, plus 2”

“You don’t hear any more demons.

The spike pits turned out to be the most useful. The demons had low dexterity, so they killed themselves trying to climb out. Our drunk dog was having a bit of trouble getting out of one as well. Brennan was pulling a ku de gra (instant kill against enemies that are helpless) on all the demons in snares.

“I peek around the corner.”

“Roll a stealth check.”

“What?! You told me there were no more demons!”

“I said you don’t hear any.”

“Ah, whatever. I draw my swords, jump out, and say ‘AAAAHHHHHH!’”

Chase put a single piece on the board, obviously the boss he had planned for the battle.

“Roll for initiative,” said Chase. “And you’d better hope it’s higher than what the Bubao got.”

CLIFFHANGER!

*Cask is what’s called a war forge. Basically a hulking magical robot with low intelligence and an incredible amount of talent for destroying things. Also one of the most affable people in our group, and a loyal friend. For more info, see http://throwingflasksofacid.blogspot.com/2012/07/i-do-actually-play-d-as-player-as-well.html#comment-form

**Frank: a character who likes to shoot arrows as his primary weapon. Played by Andrew, a kid you don’t know.

***Drunk dog: I never did learn his name.

****Zulu: A violence-centered rouge whose hobbies include: Stabbing things, checking for traps, setting up traps, stealth checks, being evil, and stabbing things.

*****Specifically Nobby. There are no Terry Pratchet allusions in this post I assure you.

PS Sorry about the allusions. Like I said, I've been doing this in installments to my brother, and he's read "Guards! Guards!"

PPS Some things are changed for the sake of the narrative, but overall it's the same.

Yours always,

King D. the Magnificent

Chapter 2-A New Leaf

This is actually quite a while after the last post. I've been writing all of this down in installments in emails, and I hadn't written in a while. That's also why the font changes halfway through.

After beating up these giant evil trolls (just an average day), My character was unconscious, so I decided to introduce my NEW character. He (or rather I) entered the story riding on a sheep and shouting random things. Once it was clear that I was completely insane I mellowed out a bit. I sent the sheep off and started following the group. It’s a mark of how uninteresting I was that no one even wondered what happened to my old guy. They just left him unconscious and bleeding on the side of the road. All this despite the fact that I had saved half of their lives during the battle.

After traveling for a short time we came across a small cottage. Cask kicked down the door before realizing it was inhabited. One of our guys tried to cover up for him before I ruined everything by saying “I think your house is on fire. And I think I started it”. He responded with  “ aren't you the one who stole my sheep?”

After a hasty retreat, we headed to the nearby city. There were these big holes in the walls, and we tried to use a rope to get through one. After almost everyone in the party failed to do so, I used my  amazing rope climbing skills to get inside the city walls, along with our drunk dog. We both rolled a spot check (basically a look around and see what’s there check) to see the city. I rolled really high and the other guy rolled really low. Chase took us aside and told us the city was half-destroyed, but there were plenty of people still alive. I instantly went to the other side of the “Wall” and yelled down that the town was fine, but everyone was dead. DEAD!

Of course, everyone was starting to catch on by this point, and wanted a second opinion. As the other guy was explaining it and they had the inevitable discussion on what to do next, I began whispering instructions to Chase (the DM). I stealthily climbed down the other side of the wall and began talking to people. I was getting awesome rolls on charisma (people skills) and eventually ended up talking to the chief guard. I convinced him that we were friendly and that they should stop shooting arrows and open the gate. I stood dramatically in front of it as it opened, and the others, dumbfounded, entered the city. They were a bit more accepting after that.

After that things started getting kind of boring. Everyone was trying to talk to the incompliant townspeople, and we eventually reached the conclusion that they had been under siege every night by these demon things. Meanwhile, I was wandering the city. I went over to this huge stone throne thing and sat in it. Nothing happened. I saw some lights, but I think that was just Chase messing with me, because next he told me that I noticed my feet were no longer touching the ground*. I then went to the stairs up the wall and tried to get the guard to let me pass. He was like one of those British guys with the big hats. I tried poking him in the eyes to make him blink, saying weird stuff, charisma checks, and threatening him. He was a tough cookie. I tried using my rope to climb the wall, but kept falling down. Meanwhile, everyone was trying to argue with this blacksmith lady, who was beating them up by throwing stuff over her shoulders. When she was done she started talking (very curtly) to them. Meanwhile again, I asked Chase for a “relieve boredom” check. A guard came along the wall and cut my rope and Chase started the countdown till dusk. Getting quite frustrated, I walk back to the stair guard, but not to bother him.

My companions were beginning to get angry, and there were raised voices across the table. Then, cutting cold and clear through the mass of arguments, a single voice, quite calmly, said “I slit his throat”. One by one they all fell silent as this registered. They looked at me. Then at Chase. Then at me. It was clear that Chase was thinking VERY quickly.

            “You walk resolutely up to the guard…and…uh…forgot to draw your dagger. You run your hand across his throat and he doesn't react in any way.

            Everyone sighs with relief. Then, with perfect timing, his watch alarm goes off.

            “The sun sets and everyone begins frantically heading for some post or other.”

            And so a battle began against the evil demon things. I was still in the stair room trying to get past the guard, who kept stopping me, when Frank the Elven Archer ran right past me and told me the guard wasn't there anymore. I lowered my sword rather dejectedly before an incredible idea occurred to me. A wonderful, awful idea. At this point, I knew I had to leave early, so I was going out with a bang. I used my charisma to tell a guard to open the gate (small point: this is a bad idea when under siege). I ran to the stables adjacent to the room, stole a horse and, instead of heading for the gate, began riding it up the stairs. A confused Cask (confused because the gates were open) had already engaged the enemy, and Frank was shooting arrows. My tactic: I jumped the horse off of the battlements, throwing my lethal boomerang. That caused a bit of a stir. I landed relatively unharmed, although the horse had four broken legs. I was a little jealous because I had only ever managed two. I really had to leave then, so I hopped through the fourth wall and wasn't seen again for the duration of the battle. Some speculation says that I was hiding in a pit. I resemble that.

“Role-playing game” is sort of a nerdy term. I prefer “interactive storytelling”.

*This is called foreshadowing, although none of us realized it at the time. Not even Chase. In fact, this whole thing leads up to more stuff later.

P(ost)S(cript)! check out throwingflasksofacid.blogspot.com

It's amazing.

That is all! Good day, and if there's an apocalypse, good luck.

Chapter 1-Fire and Portals

Yesterday our D&D group met again for the first time in two months (a bit longer for me, because I missed the last one). The day before, our DM warned us not to tick him off, or he would send us down a portal to a “My little Pony” world. We vowed not to enter any portal that he placed before us. As the story left off, I was left behind in a bar as the others went to the dungeon. I don’t actually know anything that happened in the bar, but my character is a Paladin (named a’Paddlin), so it’s physically impossible for him to get drunk. My waterskin was mysteriously full of beer. They accidentally used a mysterious orb to teleport me to the dungeon (and swap places with a guy that wasn't there that day, two birds with one stone [actually 3 birds, now we knew what the stone did]).

I was rather astonished to find a couple of dead monsters on the ground and a bed on fire. Apparently Nova was standing on the bed when Zulu threw a torch at the monster he was fighting.

So, anyway, we went to this room and almost didn’t notice the somewhat large pit that was at the top of the stairs (a rather inconvenient place for a pit, let me tell you). I dropped a torch down and woke up some angry bats (we had been having some trouble with bats recently).

Using some fancy minor actions with my beer-water-skin and lighting my sword on fire, I lit the war bat (oh did I  mention the bat was giant?)  on fire. Unfortunately, poor Nova (who was having a bad day for fire and happened to be pinning down the bat at the time) caught on fire as well. He remained on fire for the rest of the battle until one person remembered his “create water” spell.

So we killed the remaining bats, crossed the 100-foot pit using my wisdom powers and a bookshelf, and entered a room with a big chair. Past that was a room with… a giant portal.

Look back to the beginning of this post for a moment. There was a portal. We couldn’t figure out what to do next, so, naturally, my next line was “I enter the portal”. Lucky for me, it vanished just as I tried. So we were still stuck. The bookshelf had already fallen down, and we couldn’t get back. So I licked my finger and put it in the air. I noticed a breeze and we escaped by a mechanical mechanism under the chair and a hallway that required us to sacrifice our drunk dog’s barrel. As a cliffhanger, we were all nearly consumed by giant globs of acidic goop cubes. Halfway through the battle, everyone had to head home. The end.

Important Note: This was written a couple of months ago. My narrating skills have, in fact, improved since then.

Prologue-Creating the World

You may notice that this begins in the middle of the story. That's because I believe this sort of story has no real beginning. From the time that people first began to imagine strange fantasy worlds, they worked from everything around them. They dreamed of finding glory in slaying dragons, and visions of goblins haunted their dreams.

And then time froze.

Oh, sure, the world spun onward, as it does. But everything they imagined stayed in its own time, growing into a world that seems ever more impossible, yet increasingly real. There's a reason that most fantasy novels are set in the past.

My friends and I began our quest so that we could become a part of a story that is more than anything that's ever been written about it, and I'm writing this now so that everything we did won't be lost.

In regular speech, my friends and I started a Dungeons and Dragons group (don't judge me) and now I'm going to write the story.

I play as a character by the name "James A'Paddlin".
Let's begin.

For more information about our group, go to swiggingwaterskins.blogspot.com

That's our DM's journal.