[DnD] Secret Cow Level (GFF D&D Adventure 6)

2 Dice Rolls *Insightful Strike Damage

Seeing the creature reeling backwards, Delic grips down harder on the sword hilt and, taking his life into his own hands, he dashes forth with a single-minded determination.

Feeling that this was a make or break moment, Delic screams in passioned fury, a wordless rage that has been unexpressed since the age of Adam. The sound from his mouth?

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Move to W39
Insightful Strike

I was speaking idiomatically.

2 Dice Rolls Crunch a bunch

Garr told me to take his turn via text, since he's moving and will be away for a short bit.

Garr is annoyed by the insect lizard thing. "YOU. YOU'RE REALLY STARTING TO BUG ME." he yells. Soon realizing that wasn't nearly as clever as it sounded in his head, he grips his sword hard enough to have the pointy handle draw a little blood.

Bloodclaw Weapon power
1 HP damage to self.

"Dance like a butterfly, sting like a bee, right?"

Footwork Lure
1 + 18 + 12 = 31 > 17. Hit.
6 + 3 + 2 = 11 damage to Adult C.
Shift to S30.
Adult C slides to S29.

Trying to ward off a combination of the bug's cuts and that stingy sword shit, he pulls a bottle out of his belt labeled HEAL-A-COLA and chugs it.

Drink Potion of Healing
Spend Healing Surge. Regain 10 HP.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

2 Dice Rolls curse damage

The smaller lizardy thing retreated back to the hive lord. This was getting dumb.

Warlock's Curse and Eldritch Blast to the hive lord

Gordok crits that asshole. Whatever 1d10+4 plus 6 curse damage is. Die fucker.

FELIPE NO

Growling incoherently, the tiny bear waves his magic rod at the Hive Lord with great impatience. The Hive Lord explodes for no good reason, showering the Horde with grimy shards of chitin and the remains of various slimy organs. Whatever devil was in charge of of Gordok's Infernal Pact was evidently late for his coffee break.

The smaller lizards, bereft of leadership, scatter into the nooks and crannies of the stone and disappear. It'll be months before one grows large enough to be a Hive Lord, and until then they'll be too disorganized to pose a real threat to the inhabitants of Thunderspire.

Victory! 1180 XP (236 each)

With the immediate danger dispersed, the party can look around the ruined old chapel or do whatever they were trying to do before I don't even remember

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

1 Die Roll Perception (?) check

"Well now, that went well, didn't it? Good good. Let's all chillax for a moment, ok?"

While everyone was catching their breath, Glock busts out a new pimpin track.

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Song of Rest
All healing surges spent regain 4 additional HP

Walking over to the Dragon, Glock wiped off all the crap that he was still covered in on the cleric's shirt. He couldn't stand to not be shiny. A true gentlebot always looks his best, Luke.

Burn surges to full.

After his awesome ballad was over, Glock wandered around and poked through the bug guts all around the room. He was looking for the venom and/or acid sacks these bugs used to shit all over him and make him decidedly less than his shiny best.

Look through bug carcasses for various vendor trash and try to harvest venom/acid sacks from the bodies.
Perception (Nature?) Check.

"Oh, yeah. Sorry guys. My bad. I know we were supposed to go back to town, but I made a wrong turn there. I was devoting too many computational cycles to trying to figure out why some place called Thunderspire, essentially LOUD MOUNTAIN PEAK, was not actually a volcanic structure of some kind."

Glock sets about gathering some wood pieces from the destroyed table in the southern room. He was going to give his compatriates a few minutes to scope this place out and then take it from there. Should it come to it, at least he'd have some firewood for a camp. If nothing came of it, they'd just head back to town before trying the maze again, properly this time. Besides, there was something back in town he wanted to check out.

How ya doing, buddy?

Gheth decided he must look a sight. He'd taken some hits, and not only was his tunic pocked through with acid holes, and blood coming from the most inopportune places, but he had a fresh sheen of leatherbug guts to boot. He figured an extra coat from Robobard wouldn't hurt.

Of course, that was before he got yet more sizzling acid in his acid wounds.

At any rate, they still hadn't met anything remotely cowlike. Gheth was just about to write this whole trip to the underdark off as a disappointment. The local Bureau of Dungeoneering and Palm Resorts would be getting a nasty letter if this kept up.

Healing surge to full if party gets to walkin'
otherwise rest

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Gordok the bear rolls around in bug guts. They were his bug guts now. His.

But he supposes he could share. Gordok wonders what bug guts could be more useful for than rolling in. Then he stops wondering and rolls some more. Squish. Squish.

How ya doing, buddy?

Delic cautiously walks around the Hive Lord's body, the stentch of its gore spilled across the floor already attracting flies and sewer gnats. Using his sword on some of the larger molars, Delic begins carefully removing the creature's teeth and pocketing them.

After done with that, Delic uses his sword to cut open the creature's stomach in the hopes of finding something valuable. Or delicious.

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

Glock and Delic methodically dismantle the kruthik carcasses, in search of any valuable wares the big lizards may have inadvertently ingested. Unsurprisingly, not much can enter the highly-acidic guts of a kruthik and remain intact. A handful of metal objects have held together relatively well, however.

* An iron gauntlet, with the partially liquefied remains of the hand still inside.

* A holy symbol of Amaunator, with much of the gold plating badly eaten away.

* About 200 gold pieces, scattered through several different corpses and much of it wedged in the strangest parts of the anatomy. There's nothing quite like slicing open some beast's liver and having money pour out onto the floor.

Beyond these notables, Glock carefully packs away the handful of intact venom sacs he manages to pry out of the kruthik corpses, while Delic sets up an enterprise in creative dentistry. It's not immediately obvious what use these things might have, but surely somebody would be willing to pay for them if nothing else. Wizards loved this kind of vile crap. Now they just needed to find some newts to pull the eyes out of and they'd be in business.

I was speaking idiomatically.

"Holla holla"

Grab 40 dolla

Scope out the gauntlet, see if it's actually cool.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

"Daelegoth Orndeir, I knew you well..."

Delic takes the Holy Symbol and leaves the rest to be split up amongst the group.

Also: Rest

FELIPE NO

SteelChest tips the gore-covered gauntlet over, spilling out the liquefied hand inside it. The bloody sluice hits the floor with a clink!, and the warforged bends over to see if he missed some other shiny prize.

A silver ring, far too small and delicate for his massive mechanical mitts, still encircles one of the finger bones. Curious, Glock picks up it for a closer examination.

The ring is in far better condition than any of the other goods excavated from the corpses, and for good reason — under close inspection, a faint yellow light can be seen to issue from the metal. It's seemingly been enchanted specifically to keep it from being damaged.

The gemstone in the band is no great shakes; green moonstone, common among the drow. Still, probably worth a good 100 gold pieces at a trustworthy pawnbroker's.

Although it's hard to make out underneath the coating of blood, a delicate inscription is etched into the inside of the band:

Amin khiluva lle a' gurtha ar' thar; G.M.

Passing it around, Delic is the first to understand it. It's Elven:

I will follow you to death and beyond.

The gauntlet itself is just generic platemail.

Delic scoops up the damaged symbol of the sun god, though there had been no outward sign of his having much more religion than the ordinary superstitions of any man who spends his life looking evil in the face. That he had ever known the Sunlord Orndeir was questionable at best, but then Swagger had never been totally forthcoming about his past.

Garrmondo explores the rest of the ruined temple, but it quickly becomes obvious that the place had been looted thoroughly even before the kruthiks moved in. A few pouches of sanctified incense are still scattered by the pulpit, but anything of obvious value or interest is long gone.

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

1 Die Roll eyeballin

Gheth picks up his 40 gold share, pocketing it for a down payment on a new tunic, or maybe a pack of gum. All shiny baubles taken care of, Gheth decides it's time to get back to business, and tries to get his bearings in their current cavern, and hoping his friends can aid him to pick a tunnel.

Perception check

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Glock pockets the ring and makes a mental note to ask anyone who looks vaguely elvish about it back in town.

Everyone else seems to be checking things out, but the damn bear midget is doing NOTHING OF VALUE yet again, so he picks up the gauntlet and pitches it at the thing, hoping to dissuade it from covering itself in yet another foul smelling substance that makes adventuring with it just plain awkward.

"Well, it seems like nothing was here after all outside of this little shiny shiny. Too bad. Yeah. Town is just the next door to the left in the maze. Had the route printed out before, right? Yeah. This was just a mistake. Let's head back there now. There's something I want to check."

Lead the party back to town

Emerging out into the town, Glock proclaims to the rest of the assholes in his group that they should always trust his robo-common sense from here on out, and that he's king of the motherfucking mountain.

"See that, assholes? I'm king of the motherfucking mountain."

"My robo-common sense is telling me that it might be a good idea to keep a map if we go down there again. So let's take care of that."

Go to trading post, buy something to write on to keep a map, and buy writing implement.

If the party decides to try the maze again, keep track of it via this.

Also buy 4 healing potions from the vendor if he's got any.

Until the party has made up it's mind, though, the steel man leads them to the one spot on the town map he's curious about.

Pulling at the brim of his awesome hat, Glock hands the town map to the party.

"I am wondering why every room is either marked on the legend, or connected to a marked building except this one room. It seems curious that it is out of the way. I would like to go check it out. Which room do you think it is?"

Crossposting in page 6 so you don't have to look back at page 3

Most amazing jew boots

Gordok picks up his 40 gold and deposits them into Glock for safe keeping.

He then proceeds to touch everything in sight in hope of chance gold coins popping out of nowhere. They could be useful in a pinch.

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

Back in the Hall, Glock heads directly for the Grimmerzhul Trading Post in search of stationary and medicinal beverages. Sadly, the duergar in charge of the place aren't selling anything other than shiny rocks and an assortment of vile poisons and exotic liquors. This would be somewhat more acceptable if the poisons and liquors weren't all unlabeled and stocked on the same shelves.

Defeated, Glock returns to his previous ambition of examining the Room Of Mystery, somehow important enough to be worth placing on a map of the settlement yet left completely unidentified. Luckily, it's only a short walk from the trading post to the Road of Shadows.

Glock cautiously leads the party up the short corridor that ends at the mysterious door, watchful for anything. There must be a reason someone erased this room from the map legend. Somerthing sinister is afoot.

The door itself looks fairly ordinary, although the wood is at odds with the rest of the Hall's entirely stone construction. Glock puts his tin ear to the door; immediately, he makes out the sounds of a man groaning, as well as the growling of some large animal.

Setting caution to the wind, he takes a step back and kicks the door open — prepared to rescue whatever poor soul is being tormented within.

He is not prepared for what he sees.



Instantly, Glock slams the door shut and hurries away at his top speed. Then he finds a heavy boulder, and slowly shoves it in front of the door so no one will ever open it again.

Then he drinks.

Heavily.

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

Delic stands up from sorting and collecting the Hive Lord's treasures. Clapping his hands to get the gunk off, he looks around the room and snorts disdainfully, "Creatures like this don't just appear for no reason, and its not like this is a brood chamber either. These things were protecting something..."

He gives a second furitive glance at the gemstone. That inscription isn't something the olden folks put on things commonly - it could be a curse just as much as it could be a blessing. Best to pawn it off as soon as they got to another town.

"Glock, why are you five seperate shades of white?"

I was speaking idiomatically.

1 Die Roll Checkin'

Even though he has no stomach to speak of, the sheer quantity of alcohol Glock ingests threatens to short out his internal circuitry. Even a week spent standing under an industrial strength magnet wouldn't wipe his memory of this.

Quite literally traumatized for life, Glock develops Ursaphobia and several unknown mental disorders.

Going to the inn and renting a room seemed like the only thing he could do. Maybe he could sleep away the memories. Or have recurring nightmares. Either or.

Doing so, Glock curled up on his bed into the fetal position, rocking slowly back and forth, quietly chanting "it'll be all right Sally, it'll be all right" for several hours.

------------------

Waking later, Glock decided the best course of action was to get some shit DONE.

He gathered his comrades and plunged back into the maze, determined to find the bullshit they were here to find.

Dungeoneering Check

Following any clues he could, he hoped to stumble across SOMETHING. Anything, so that people who were watching him and his companions wander about weren't so bored to tears.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

3 Dice Rolls more wanderin'

After several long hours of painful introspection, Glock decides the only way he'd forget about his painful experience was to find something even more reckless to do. Leaping back into his boots, he storms out the door of the inn and back into the labyrinth. Whistling sharply, he beckons the others to follow him.

After another two hours of aimless wandering, they find themselves on a winding and narrow path skirting the edge of a chasm. The path leads directly into the stone wall of a small fortress; a small portcullis blocks the way into the structure itself. Two stone bridges can be seen spanning the chasm, leading to two similar-looking fortresses, but it's not clear how to reach the bridges from this side.



Beyond the portcullis, several orcs can be seen moving back and forth — at least 3 individuals, maybe more. The room within is well-lit, making it obvious that the orcs are prepared for an attack — even with the portcullis to protect them, they all seem to be armed with both longspears and crossbows. If any of them have noticed the Horde, however, they make no sign.

FELIPE NO

2 Dice Rolls Bluff 2

Noticing the Orcs had not seen them yet, Glock shimmies just out of sight of the door, and motions for the rest of the party to do so as well.

Very, very quietly, so no one else could hear, Glock hums to himself and strums two notes on his guitar. "Time to lie, but nothing to buy. With the help of fate, let's open this gate."

Perform Glib Limerick

Taking his inspiration from a man he once met named Deny'kalys, he puts on his best large, gruff, and stupid voice, and yells to the orcs.

"ME GREENMAN CRUSHINGTON. ME BACK AFTER PATROL. ME HOPE YOU RAISE GATE. PLEASE RAISE GATE. GATE ENTRY CODE CRUSHINGTON BETA GAMMA SEVEN"

Bluff Check x2
Use Bluff 1, I guess

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

1 Die Roll aid?

Trying to act suave, Gheth grunts and attempts his best bawdy orcish laugh to give the impression that their collective presence is that of an orcish patrol.

Aid Glock in bluff check

Jam it back in, in the dark.

One of the orcs saunters up to the gate, eyeing Glock suspiciously.

"I not remember see you before. But you very loud and stupid, so you probably orc. In fact, if you claim to be orc you must be orc, since nobody who not an orc would claim to be orc. Orcs very distinctive, so pretend to be an orc when not would be dumb and obvious. Obviously clever orc like you not do that, though."

The orc chuckles.

"We not even have password! It take an orc to think of a password that isn't there, for sure."

Bluffed the hell out of those fuckers

The orcs open the portcullis — which, in the fashion of all good orcish construction, swings to the side rather than raising up.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Delic slaps his stomach and laughs as deeply as he can muster without shitting himself.

(He hopes he doesn't stink of Elven, considering his upbringing)

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

Playing this up to the nth degree, Glock decides to take this several steps further.

"ME NEED HELP. ME AND FRIENDS PART OF ORC SECRET SERVICE. VERY SECRET. WE TELL NO ONE. WE DRESSED LIKE THIS TO FOOL STUPID NON-GREEN MEN. THEY ARE EASY TO TRICK."

"WE SENT HERE TO LOOK FOR COW PEOPLE. WE TOLD THEY HAVE HURT SOME ORCSES. WE GOING TO GO TEACH THEM LESSON WITH OUR BASHING STICKS."

"PROBLEM. WE LOST. WHERE BE COW MEN? YOU KNOW?"

How ya doing, buddy?

"Secret service?"

The orcs murmur amongst themselves for a moment.

"What you say is most stupid of idea. Orcs not do anything secret. Orcs is not ashamed of doing orcish deeds! Orc says: I is here, I have spear, get used to me! Orc is proud of way he is.

Yet, as we establish, you must be orc and you doing a secret thing. I feel sorry that a orc like you must feel a shame feeling about your orcishness. I hope one day you can be perform your services without feeling that you are bad or wrong. Maybe we cans help you by giving you clue of secret mission. You win and feel better about your natural way of life.

But sad story, I not see any cow mens. Wait, wait. There is a SKELETONS of cow men! They in skeletons room in big house across bridge. Also there is statue of cow men, and some cow man pictures, but no living cow mans.

Dwarf boss say cow men used to live here many forevers ago, and his dwarf friends find it when cow mans was all deads already. So if you think about it, maybe there was never no cow mans. Somebody just make fake cow man skeletons, like mermaid I see at festival. All dolphin that somebody sew arms onto. And then I find out truth! Need get marriage annulled! Worst day of life!"

For a long, awkward moment, the orcish door-guard seems to be holding back tears.

"Maybe dwarf boss Urwol know more about cow mans. But a tale of alarm for you, secret orc. Urwol sometime murder you even if you is orc! But maybe he give direction if he not murder you. It a bit of a toss-up."

Having imparted this wisdom, the orc scratches his head and smiles vacantly as his eyes begin to track an errant moth that had entered his field of view by happenstance.

I was speaking idiomatically.