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."