Episode 80: Mission Impossible

The dust had barely settled before Xeno was heading down the stairs to recover his hat. He'd worked too long, too hard, and had eviscerated too many giant-kin to let it be lost to Chicken Heart now.  Even as he made his way carefully down the steep and perilous natural stairway he was not troubled by the fact that the thing that currently had his hat was a giant, ravening beast. He also failed to notice that he was descending stairs quite easily, having been transformed by the magical chicken feed into a larger, more humanoid size. And so complete were his thoughts of revenge and recovery that he didn't notice his sister descending the stairs behind him until she's landed in the mud at his feet - concussed, cocooned and strangled by her own garroting wire.

"Where is this mud coming from?" Xeno asked no one in particular. He looked up into what should have been the ceiling of the large subterranean caver. It had begun to rain.

Madmartigan was next down the stairs. "Hey, man, should your like, sister be that, you know, like, blue?" Xeno looked down dispassionately. "Blue. Like she knows what it's like to feel blue. That was my favorite hat."

Madmartigan let the weird wash over him like the cold, dark rain was beginning to, and quickly bent down to undo the wires around Xoe's neck. After a moment he had managed to free her and she seemed to be breathing. 

"Gimme that," Xeno spat, and he hoisted Xoe up in his arms and trudged off in the direction of the chateau that rose out of the forest like a purple mole on the skin of an acquaintance who you'd quietly urge to see a doctor. It's windows were dark. There was a smell of old flowers.

Meanwhile, the monks were having a really bad time. Takemiya had managed to displace himself by about three feet, and when he tried to have the two act independently, he just managed to pull himself over the precipice and into the forest below by a shimmering blue chakra slinky. 

Kobayashi had even less luck. Becoming fed up with his ineffectual nature, he decided to channel a little Xeno and bring some chaos to bear on the situation. Problem is, Xeno isn't so little anymore. So when Kobayashi found out that Billy had a sheet of "Unkle Terd's Hot Pynk Blotter Acid" on him, the monk bade him to ingest it forthwith. The last Kobayashi saw of him was a sparkly streak as Billy leapt into the void. 

Kobayashi then decided to perform a similar leap, gracefully launching himself from the precipice and into a nearby pine tree.

Problem was he failed to launch himself, then missed the tree.

By the time both monks recovered, Billy was seen streaking towards the chateau screaming "I'll fuck anything that moooooooves!"

Later, the party would find his pants.

By the time the rest of the group had gathered itself together and shuffled off to the chateau, most everyone had been brought inside the estate of Jonathan LaFey and his young fiancee, Miriam. There, the butler served up warm tea, scones, and very special pancakes and everyone (apart from Xeno, who lay in the mud, nearly got eaten by Chicken Heart, and gained a very special umbrella) warmed up and was just starting to feel normal again when...

Episode 79: Chicken Heart

"The second worst thing you can do to a creature is kill it. The worst is to get Xeno to hate it."

When Xeno is done with something, he's done with something - and such was the case with the mostly broken glass pyramidal chicken coop. Xeno fired up his Forked Finger of Doom and with an atypically well-placed fireball, brought the thing down in a smoking ruin. The dust, smoke and burnt feathers had hardly settled, however, when a muffled cry rose up and out of the rapidly cooling slag heap.  17

"Hey, man - I'm tryin'a sleep!"

Billy was quickly sent in to the sizzling mess to extrude what appeared to be a rather large human wearing plate mail and covered in tar and feathers. 17

"Hey man, thanks for the rescue and all, but can you help me find my flaming monkey?"  17

And so it was that Madmartigan and Lance joined our intrepid adventurers. He was immediately helpful in letting the party know that they were indeed in Undermountain, and on the third level down from the surface. He had been guiding another group of adventurers when he was set upon by a particularly fearsome foe, and had fled smack dab into the middle of the demonic chickenherd's flock. 17

"Fucking chickens, man..."

But not that the flock was no more, Madmartigan agreed to lead the party up to the surface... if he could just remember which way he came in. 17

"Yeah, out of here, we like, take a right and... is that like, a dead dude? Naw, man, I think it must be THIS way, yeah- Hold on a sec... Does anyone else hear that?"

Madmartigan froze like a dog listening for a whistle only he can hear - then suddenly bellowed "GET OUTTA HERE, MAN!" and took off at top speed down the hallway - only to come face-to-maw with... 17

Chicken Heart.

Bursting through a section of dungeon wall as if it were the last three sheets of toilet paper the morning after free burrito night at "Disreputable Sanchez' All Night Burrito Bin" was the largest, meanest, toothiest and certainly unrotissiereiest chicken anyone had ever seen.  17

Madmartigan froze. Or he would have done, had he not already been travelling at top speed down a slick stone hallway towards a ravening monster that had just violently appeared a mere 20 feet in front of him. So he did what anyone would have done. He tried to use his glaive-guisarme to pole vault up and over Chicken Heart's head. 17

It will come as no surprise to you that he was not successful.

In fact, Madmartigan was now splayed on the beast's nose, legs dangling tantalizingly in fron of the monster's hungry mouth, while his weapon lay on the floor some 15 feet away. Clinging on for dear life, Madmartigan's nerves finally hit the breaking point as most of the indigestible parts of a "Disreputable Sanchez Bargain Bucket" finished it's inexorable journey through the fighter's gastrointestinal tract at least two hours too soon. 17

Rushing to the stinking knight's aid were Kobayashi, who employed the Jade Hand to a rare 86.666% efficiency and sizzled Chicken Heart's ankle and Ragnar who, while failing to connect with his Dwarven Berserker Rage, managed to get punted down the hallway by the giant fiend, taking Billy down the hall and down the stairs in the process. 17

Seeing two of his friends coworkers associates down and out at the claws of Chicken Heart, Xeno charged into the fray, ululating a battle cry worthy of a chicken feed-wielding gnome. 17

It will come as no surprise to you that he was not successful.

Xeno in fact tripped, spilled and slid his way underneath the beast, and prepped his hat for the Gutting of Destiny. Takemiya quickly joined him after a rather nimble display of monkish cartwheeling and glaive-guisarme retrieval. The two aimed a double attack at what they hoped was the soft, unprotected underbelly of the great beast. 17

It will come as no surprise to you that they were not successful.

The did, however, manage to rankle Chicken Heart just enough so that as Madmartigan was attempting to clamber up and over the monster's head, he instead was jostled by the annoyed beast and instead slipped down off it's nose and landed with a wet schlup on the hungry beast's tongue. But luckily, due to his recent inundation in 'secret sauce', Chicken heart was not interested in gulping down the beleaguered  warrior. 17

That bought Xoe just enough time to sneak in, clickitty clicketty her Dagger of Venom and strike... 17


It will come as no surprise to you that she was quite successful.

So successful, in fact, that the pain she inflicted was so great that Chicken Heart screamed - screamed so hard that the entire contents of his stomach were brought up in one hot, miasmic geyser - one that shot Madmartigan down the hallway, surfing on a tidal wave of bile, avian stomach juices, random humanoid body parts and armor - right into the recently-recovered Ragnar and Billy. 17
#downthestairs #again

Reeling backwards in pain and surprise, Chicken Heart stumbled towards the weird outcropping of rock from whence he came - and reached out and grabbed the nearest thing to try to break his fall. Unfortunately, he came away with a clawful of angry gnome. As the two toppled over the precipice into a strange, subterranean forest. Xeno steeled himself for the inevitable impact by aiming his pointy hat down Chicken Heart's maw; and when they hit, Xeno's hat got him right in the gizzard - and the impact was so great that it caused Chicken Heart to expel the remaining air from his lungs and propel Xeno up, up, up to the precipice with a thud. 17

Rejoicing at the reappearance of their friend coworker associate, the rest of DCM gathered around Xeno and thanked the gods for his safe return. Xeno, however, just stepped to the brink and peered down into the dark and foreboding forest, scanning the murky silence for any sign of the great demonic bird. 17

"Well, we're gonna need to go down and get that hat back."

Episode 78: In the Hall of the Chicken King

Being transformed into an undead chicken has never been considered a positive career move.

Don't mess with his chickens

But after being lost in an unknown subterranean level of Undermountain, set upon by a demonic chickenherd and sprayed by chaotic lightning, their current status could be deemed  by the party as "not too shabby".

Xeno was feeling petulant and peckish - so he pecked around the back of the cavernous coop to find a snack. He, of course, did so. And what the multicolored chickenfeed lacked in flavor it more than made up for in restorative zeal - and before you know it, Xeno was his old, hat-stabbing self again.

The rest of party, however, chose the wrong time to venture out of the nest and were soon caught up in a skeletal lord's hot pursuit of some fresh meat.

"Are you playing D&D?"

Drafted into his service, the rest of DCM soon was forced to pounce on the fallen men-at-arms, rip open their spleens and drink their fluids.

This was generally interpreted as free license to loot.

It was here too that Kobayashi had enough and went on the offensive. That is also generally interpreted as a sign to duck and cover...

...and rightly so - for as the Bringer of Death to Campaigns showed up, it took a particularly clever bit of trident wielding by Billy to slay the skeletal lord and save everyone for another day.