[DnD] Welcome to the Dungeon of Doom!

The Horde seemed receptive to the idea of mopping up upstairs before throwing away our lives needlessly taking on a dragon in a full frontal assault and I followed them back up towards the hobgoblins, ready to enlist ourselves some meat-shields.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I fired off a flame burst at the two archers, hoping to distract them enough to spoil their aim. I then ducked into cover by jumping on the bed next to me, in case I'd annoyed them...

Scorching burst between archers, move north two squares.

FELIPE NO

The swirl of battle had brought the warriors uncomfortably close to my position of relative safely. Not wishing to fall within range of their flails, I retreated down the steps a short distance, making sure I was still covered from any attacks by the archers. Looking to aid my companions, noticing that the more intelligent of the dwarves looked half defeated already, I once again unleashed my mighty fireball powers only this time, targetting the two goblins engaged in melee combat.

Move four squares south, Scorching Burst on square north of closest goblin

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I was dying. A badly thoughtout evasive move away from the nearest fighters had given the archers a clear shot at me and I had been struck by two viscious barbs. I could feel my life's blood oozing out through the wounds and not for the first time since winding up in this hellhole, thanked my lucky stars I had been wearing the fetching silk undershirt my friend Tarquin the Magnificent had given me for my birthday, the fabric clinging to the barbs on the arrow and stopping them ripping my flesh to ribbons.

I tried to take stock of the situation but the pain was blurring my vision. I saw the ugly dwarf and the child hacking uselessly at the upraised shields of their goblin adversaries, the clever dwarf was locked in combat with the enemy mage but looked as unsteady on his feet as I and of the big human there was no sign at all and I feared he must have fallen victim to the dragon.

This was no time for despair though, this was a time for action. I grit my teeth and put all thoughts of pain from my mind. With a mighty roar I wrenched the arrows from out of me and defiantly cast them to the floor. The dwarves and the child were more than a match for a couple of goblins and the big guy probably needed help. If I was going to die here, it was not going to be alone.

I retreated to a safe corner and gathered my strength, ready for action.

Move south one, east one which should keep me clear from the archers, if not I'll go further down the stairs. Healing surgey thing.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Feeling slightly refreshed, I cautiously headed down the stairs to see what fate had befallen my large companion. This was clearly a suicidal move but my morbid curiosity had taken control of my legs and try though I might, I could not will myself to not go and have a look. After all, it's not everyday you get to see a dragon feeding and last time I had tried, the queues at Mountain Worlde Cayve Lyfe Centre had been so long that by the time I had got into the enclosure, feeding time was all but over and there were only a couple of Kobolds left running around for the beasts to snack on. I had been hoping to get there early and pay the extra 5gp to throw one in but Quentin the Despicable insisted we go to the petting section and stroke a Cave Troll. Quentin always was a sucker for cute, doe eyed hunks of living rock.

As I edged down the stairs, listening for the crack of bones and noisy splatter of blood being drained from a headless human, I was amazed to see that the big guy was still alive! He was wading through the water as fast as he was able, trying to escape the attentions of the dragon who was swatting ineffectually at his retreating back. Tears of joy welled in my eyes at the sight of my valiant minion alive and well and I knew I had to save him.

Figuring that slowing the thing down might prove the best initial gambit, I raised my staff and whistled the soft melody that accompanied my sleep spell, hoping that the tales I'd heard of dragons being almost completely impervious to magic had been gross exagerations.

Move down the stairs just far enough so I can see the dragon by crouching down but not so far that I present a big enough target for it to be tempted to use it's all-slaying breath attack on me, cast Sleep on a square that'll hit the dragon and miss Argumentus

There's nowhere I can't reach.

If I was going to be honest, I was more than a little surprised to see the dragon first slump then fall asleep completely. The big human scrambled past me to safety and I was about to follow him until I thought what a wasted opportunity it would be not to attack the sleeping dragon. I fired off a frost ray, the sleep spell having drained me rather precluding more impressive spells. I held my ground figuring I'd wait for the beast to wake up before running for cover and not wishing to get within line of sight of the archers.

Ray of Frost on dragon

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

The dragon continued to sleep so I fired another Frost Ray at the defenceless creature. In fact, I was so excited I fired two.

Ray of frost at dragon, spend action point, another ray of frost

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

The dragon was awake and I figured that no amount of good morning tea and toast was going to placate it. I scurried up the stairs to the relative safety of the room above. Seeing my companions still locked in mortal combat with the goblins, I fired off a Frost Ray at the nearest one, knowing that our best chance of defeating the dragon lay in killing off the goblins first.

Up the stairs to one square southeast of Argumentus, Ray of Frost on hobgoblin warrior

I was speaking idiomatically.

I desperately wanted to get up the stairs and away from the marauding dragon at the bottom of them but the swirling melee above was blocking my escape route. I blasted the hobgoblin with a frost ray, hoping to knock him out and clear a path to safety.

Ray of Frost on hobgoblin warrior, if it incapacitates him, move into the room as fast as possible to stand by the beds in the south of the room, otherwise stand transfixed and wait for the inevitable death by dragon

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I crouched behind one of the beds, more for comfort than from any belief that it would provide any form of protection from an angry dragon. I readied my Ray of Enfeeblement spell, thinking to cast it the second the big lizard poked it's snout round the corner.

Hide behind the easternmost bed, ready a Ray of Enfeeblement spell and cast it as soon as I see the dragon.

FELIPE NO

The angered dragon had reached the top of the steps and the Horde began what could best be described as a fighting retreat. I looked around the room for a switch or lever or anything that might release a previously unseen and incredibly heavy door from the ceiling, hoping to reenact the classic scene from War amongste ye Starres act 6, Ye Valiant Regrouping and Sallying Forth of ye Kinghts of Jedonia in which the hero Lucian Skyjogger, a lowly farmhand who discovers that he is in fact the illegitimate love child of a general in the evil imperial army, known rather unsubtley as Darkus Fatherus (A huge giveaway of one of the play's main plot points for anyone familiar with the language of the Teuton tribe of the Eastern Marches) is forced to battle against a mighty Ogre for the amusement of the crime lord Jaffar of AlHutt without his magic sword. He uses his mysterious powers (Actually, he uses a rather elementary cantrip, the playwright Georgio the Jew had obviously never travelled far beyond the village of his birth and was seemingly unaware that moving small objects with the power of your mind was is pretty much the first thing they teach you at any semi-decent academy of the arcane) to activate a door switch, crushing the ogre and killing it. The play was received rather well upon it's initial release although for some reason, the initial run started with act 4 and even at the time a lot of people felt that the introduction of a race of feral, furry halflings towards the end of act 6 rather lowered the tone. The decision to add the first three acts several years later was heralded as the dramatic moment the world had been waiting for but sadly, the magic could not be recaptured and whilst I did enjoy the additional acts, I could not countenance the addition of LeHah LeHah Banks, a floppy eared half-orc with the most ridiculous accent ever attempted by an actor and whose role, rather than bringing light relief instead turned much of the first act into a farce. They could also have probably found someone who could actually act to play the role of the young Darkus Fatherus, I imagine that a dead Golem could probably portray emotion better than that joker.

Anyhow, there was no obvious switch and now was perhaps not the best time to search for one. In their retreat, the Horde were inadvertently lining themselves up perfectly for death by breath attack, a fate I was not relishing. I circled the room to the north, hoping to get myself out of the inevitable blast radius.

Suddenly, inspiration hit me like a Mexicanian Barbarian swinging for a pinata (A traditon whereby a goblin is captured, trussed up and stuffed with sweetbreads then hung from a tree and roundly battered by all the warriors of the village who for some inexplicable reason are wearing blindfolds. I'm told this is to tenderise the goblin prior to his addition to the communal stew pot but personally, no amount of tenderising would persuade me that goblin was a sensible thing to eat, even if he had been stuffed with offal). I dropped my staff and reached for my belt, grabbing the bag of marbles I had found previously. Loosening the ties at the top, I hurled the sack across the room to the top of the stairs where the dragon's snout could just be seen as the beast continued it's lumbering advance. There could be no doubt that a fight against a dragon that had just slipped over on a load of marbles and fallen down a stair case would be one we were far more likely to win.

Move north to stand in the corner below Gabe, drop staff, grab sack of marbles, loosen the ties a bit, throw sack to land and scatter marbles just in front of dragon, lament not having had time to attach paintpots on ropes to swing at his head

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I found myself once again taken aback at the sheer destructive power my minions were capable of unleashing in such a short amount of time. Once the dragon had fallen down the stairs I had anticipated a fair bit of hacking and stomping to follow but to smash through a wall to get at the beast, that was a level of arse-kickery far beyond my expectations. I positively glowed with pride, the pain from my severe wounds all but forgotten as I was caught up in the moment.

From the sounds it was making, the dragon was badly wounded but not yet defeated and I knew from experience that a wounded animal was often the most dangerous kind. The scars I got when I had trodden on Master Illanor's cat's injured tail by mistake that one time would live with me forever.

I picked up my staff and rushed to get a clear view of the melee, the sight of the dragon covered in masonry and bleeding from multiple gashes almost heart-warming. As soon as I had line of sight, I flicked my wrist and unleashed a debilitating ray, hoping to end this fight before anyone got themselves killed.

Pick up staff, run west until I have line of sight on the dragon, cast Ray of Enfeeblement on aforementioned dragon

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Surely the beast could take little more of this punishment! I unleashed a frost ray, hoping to finish it off.

Ray of Frost on dragon

There's nowhere I can't reach.

The robe was particularly fetching so I tried it on, it seemed to fit ok and my old robes were looking particularly tatty. The goggles looked pretty fetching too and being the primary ranged combatant of the party I nabbed them too. I helped myself to roughly the same amount of gold everyone else seemed to be taking and went to investigate the dead hobgoblin mage whose sparky staff had piqued my interest...

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I examined the mage's corpse, hoping to discover how he'd made his staff go all sparky like that. I then tagged the wall and sat down for a quick rest before we headed back to the kobalds.

search the mage's body, tag the wall, healing surge my way back as close to full health as I can

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

After retracing our steps through the dungeon, past the many scenes of our glorious victories, we arrived back at the Kobold's den where they immediately began trying to bargain with us.

"So" I postulated, "There's a secret escape hatch eh?. Seems to me that the fairest course of action for everyone would be for you little fellows to show us the hatch first, maybe open it a little and then we give you the cup or the sweets or whatever it is you're after. Do consider though that we've just slaughtered our way through the entire lower levels of this dungeon and my stunted friend with the silly hat in particular is really in the mood for some more violence so it might be best to make your minds up pretty quickly".

I smoothly loosened the tie round my wand and subtley moved it in to my hand, ready to blast the creatures across the room, should any of them make even a hint of an aggressive move.

How ya doing, buddy?

"It seems to me though like we need some acid to set the things off. By the time we get all the way downstairs the stuff leaking out of the dragon will have dried up and anyway, it's wet down there so we need a waterproof container". I was more thinking out loud than particularly expecting any help, especially as despite our time together, I still could not make head nor tail of anything the Horde said to me and the small child could have been speaking Swahili for all I knew.

Still, our time together had changed me in some ways. For starters, I had a load of new gear, at least three crossbow bolt shaped scars forming on my chest and some new, mysterious powers, some of which I even commanded the use of. I had become bolder too, thanks in no small part to the proximity of three and a half walking killing machines dogging my steps. It was that point that a plan began forming in my mind.

"Hmm, a source of acid and a water-tight container... Well the obvious choice to me would be to grab one of these two-faced little runts, take him down to the dragon's lair, snap his little ankles so he can't run off then prop him up next to the boulder and feed him candy until there's a way out. Any other plans or objections?". I opened up the floor to the Horde, expecting neither objections nor alternatives. Everyone loves a firework display after all, especially a Kobold flavoured one.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Sighing at the missed opportunity for torturing small animals but happy that we had finally killed every last living thing in the dungeon, I drew one last tag on the wall to mark our passing and headed out to join the dwarves.

The sunlight and fresh air was invigorating after so many days underground but I felt as though the days in the cold and dark had had a rather lastnig effect on me. Once again, I felt my powers increasing and knowledge sprang unbidden into my mind. I knew at once how I could make my ice spell that much more effective and wondered that I had not realised such a thing before.

Looking at the dwarf zombies beside me and realising that I still had no clue whatsoever as to how I had managed to reanimate them and flushed with my new-found powers over ice and fire, I made a momentus decision. No longer would I persue the arts of revivification, from this point on, I would become an elementalist!

Unless of course I met someone who could teach me to control my necromantic powers, in which case I would resume my efforts to become a mighty and powerful reanimagus and take over the world ahead of an army of the undead. MWAHAHAHA

MWAAAAHAHAHAHAAAAAA

MWAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA

I'LL GET YOU NEXT TIME, GADGET!

FELIPE NO

Having regrouped, we made our way down to the city. I was concious of the stares we were getting from people as we passed by but assumed it was due to my incredible aura of power. After all, the sight of an elf wizard, a massive human retard, a small child and two dwarves, one of whom had had his beard burned off and was wearing a variety of goblin hexxer skull adornments and all of whom were drenched in blood, covered in dirt and had various bits of Kobold gib hanging off them is hardly an uncommon one in any city of the civilised world.

No sooner had we passed the suburbs and were entering what was obviously the Sumerian quarter from the architecture, we were accosted by a tiny man with a pointy hat and a fishing rod who, sadly enough seemed to speak the same crazy garbled nonsense as the Horde. I assumed he was some kind of locally employed tour guide and marvelled at the foresight of the civic leaders of this particular conurbation in organising such a thing for visitors to the city. It occured to me that I couldn't even remember if this had been the city I was in the night I got drunk and ended up in the dungeon. Quite what I had been drinking that night I might never know but I resolved to stick to white wine in future. I addressed the charming little fellow, slowly and loudly as is best when dealing with foreigners.

"HELLO THERE. ME SCARY BOB AND THIS'M MY HORDE. MUCH AS WE APPRECIATEY THE OFFERIO OF TOURY, WE MIGHTY BUSY BUSY. NEED GO SHOP SHOP FOR A BLUE HAT AND FACEY PAINTYS, THEN FIND MIGHTY BAD MEN WHO PUT NICE MR BOB IN HOLE AND KILL THEM, POSSIBLY IN THE FACE. YOU KNOW ANY MIGHTY BAD MEN OR HATTY SHOP SHOPS? YOU TAKE BOB TO HAT SHOP, BOB GIVE YOU A COPPER PIECE SEE? BUY NEW TOADSTOOL FOR THE MISSUS."

I supposed that a bath wouldn't hurt either and a nice lie down. It had been a pretty busy day after all and goblin blood tends to stain the skin if you don't wash it off for a couple of days.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

The small creature spent a minute or so spouting more garbled nonsense and gesticulating wildly. Try though I might I could not understand a word of it. Abruptly, it stopped speaking and held out it's hand. I took the proferred hand and shook it vigourously.

"THANKS ANYWAY LITTLE FELLOW, I'M SURE I CAN FIND IT ON MY OWN. YOU HAVE A GOOD DAY NOW"

I pricked up my ears, hoping that my keen elven senses would alert me to the sound of commerce. I was reluctant to go running off on my own though, knowing full well the kind fo trouble the horde could quickly get themselves into if left unattended. I figured they'd be drawn to food eventually so resolved to just follow where ever the party went for the time being.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Despite a near universal inability to speak common tongue, it seemed as though the local shop keepers had prepared useful price lists in a sensible language. Through the medium of pointing and sign language I indicated my desire to upgrade my shortbow to a longbow and handed over the correct money. I would normally have haggled but doing so in a foreign language was tiresome at the best of times. I then nipped back to an apothecary we had passed in search of some reagents and a healing potion. I was still keeping my eyes open for a fancy dress shop too.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I did a quick round of the quaint boutiques in the mercantile district. The prices were, for the most part prohibitively high and I wished that some of the grubby shopkeepers spoke anything approaching an understandable tongue that I might try to haggle them down a bit but my attempts at communication were met with little but blank stares and slack jaws.

Still, I found a rather delightful hat. It was royal blue and pointed, as a good wizards hat should be. I had 202 gold in my pocket and the hat would have set me back 150 but I traded in the wand I had found in the dungeon for 70 gold, mitigating the damage to my pocket somewhat. With the 122 gold I had left I purchased a terribly interesting looking book entitled "Delvers Fire". I had no idea what it was but it had fire in the title. I then bought a spare water skin and one set of reagents for my foreign language ritual.

I offered my shortbow to anyone who wanted it, thinking to give it to a beggar if nobody did.

Shopping always made me sleepy so I looked around for somewhere to take a nap and have some food.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I saw the ugly dwarf, now dressed in more armour than a regiment of elven spearmasters would deign to carry between them heading to the local inn. I still had a couple of gold pieces left so I followed him, not wishing to let the Horde go too far on their own, knowing the potential catastrophy such a course of action could bring.

As an afterthought, I also bought a day's worth of trail rations, just in case we didn't find anything else large and edible on our travels.

Securing a room for the night, I settled down to read my new book.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Having copied and learned the ritual (And yet still having not a clue what it actually did) I went and found the Horde looking at the help wanted section of the inn's noticeboard. I reasoned that without supplies and funding, we would be unlikely to satisfactorily avenge ourselves of our previous captors and a bit of mercenary work was always fun.

Looking at the board, my eyes were drawn to two notices in particular. The very first one was from a wizard who was having problems with squatters. This appealed to me as it would inevitably take almost no time at all and rewards from wizards were the kind of thing I was after. There was always the chance of finding some small, easily pocketable items lying around his house he wouldn't miss too.

The other notice I was interested in seemed to be of a similar vein, retrieving a magic sword from a dead wizard's house. This seemed the ideal choice to me as the chances were the wizard had died from natural causes, allowing us free run of his house and possesions and gaining the favour of someone calling themselves a Lord for very little effort. The more I thought about it the better it seemed, as with the wizard dead, the house would be looking for a new owner anyway and I was in no mind to live out my days in an inn.

I feared that these tasks would not slake my companions' lust for blood sufficiently but it was easy money either way.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I studied the notes I had made in my spellbook and personal log more closely and discovered that I had happened upon a most useful ritual that would create a functioning and undistinguishable campfire with the greatest of ease. How I wished I could have commanded such powers back when I was traversing the icy wastes of Hothonia or exploring the mythical underwater city of Newes Orleandoth, a city as famous for the unusual syncopated and atonal music produced by it's one tme dwellers as it was for the idiocy of the city's founding fathers in building it slightly below sea level in an area prone to tropical storms and flooding. I smirked inwardly, thinking what a bargain I had clearly won from the ignorant shopkeeper.

Truly, another step on my life's quest to become an all powerful elamentalist had been taken this day.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?