Episode 31: There's a Fundus Among Us

The plan was (relatively) simple: Xeno would go to the Barking Spider and order the lamb, while the rest of DCM covered the exits and observed. A straightforward approach that would most probably result in a safe, controlled reveal of the force (or forces) behind the recent attempt on Xeno's life and the trashing of DCM's headquarters.

Except DCM doesn't know the definition of 'most probably'.

Things started to go wrong when Iryien was approached by a drunken satyr.

What do you do with a drunken satyr?

What do you do with a drunken satyr?

What do you do with a drunken satyr?

Earl-eye in the morning?

Iryien, trying her best to be polite, spurned his advances. By this time, Xeno's 'lamb' had arrived, in the form of a 36" x 24" x 36" anthropomorphic sheep stripper named Baarbaaraa. As she led Xeno to the VIP rooms in the back, Saladin noticed a very interested onlooker was looking on most interestingly.

Count Fundus.

Shave his belly with a rusty razor

Shave his belly with a rusty razor

Shave his belly with a rusty razor

Earl-eye in the morning!

Takemiya, who was tracking everyone's thoughts, noticed that as soon as Xeno entered the VIP room, he lost consciousness. Saladin was alerted. He immediately tried to sell Iryien to the satyr in return for some chaotic influence in the backroom quest to find Xeno.

Kobayashi was alerted, and he immediately started tracking Fundus. Xoe chipped in and the two of them followed Fundus and his two bodyguards down a back stairwell.

As this was all going on, Xeno had regained a semblance of his consciousness, and in a moment of fight-or-flight pique, knocked Baarbaara into a candlelit boudoir while turning on the dancer who he believed had knocked him cold. But as Xeno leveled a magic-missile-laden finger at her fleeing back, Sean O'Verkkill, a minor god of Unnecessarily Good Fortune who had, if you believed in Luck with a capital L, just happened to be dining at the Barking Spider and had, at the exact moment the voluptuous redhead had burst screaming from the VIP room uttered the words "Now that's a hot one, innit?" And, as Luck (or just plain luck, for the Unbeliever) would have it, Xeno unleashed five of the hottest, most powerful and overwhelmingly efficient magic missiles in all of role-playing history.

But as the good luck giveth, it also taketh away; for the dying stripper's last act was to crumple in a scorched, lavender-scented heap at the feet of Adolphus Swordhilter, maniacal proprietor of the Spider. He quickly brandished his battleaxe and headed to the back room, only to be fleeing a few seconds later, a yellow streak (is that where that phrase comes from?!?!?!) trailing behind him as he fled his own establishment, leaving Xeno grinning like a madman.

So where were we?

Oh, yes.

Barreling down the back stairs towards the room are Fundus, Bert, Ernie, Kobayashi and Xoe.

Rushing into the other room (recently vacated by a dying stripper) are Iryien, Saladin and a satyr.

In between is an invisible Xeno wielding a powerful new friend.

The rest, as they say, is wildly improbable, but it happened.

Episode 30: The Gods Are Most Certainly A Tad Bit Insane

Xoe watched her brother melt his way into their glaciated home. How in the hell did this happen? Who were these things? Why do I have a feeling this was Xeno's fault? As she pondered the possibilities, she though she heard a distinct 'woof' in the distance.

"Smoke!" cried Iryien. The group turned to look at a plume of purplish smoke rising from the woods behind HQ. It was coming from the general area of Xeno's Bunker of Lethal Experimentation. Saladin went aloft to check it out, and when he returned, he reported that two creatures, apparently slightly maimed, were crawling through the underbrush, away from the bunker. The currently smoking bunker.

"Looks like my carefully planned defenses have done their job," quipped Xeno. The group quickly decided to investigate. Longbottom quickly decided that he had other, less lethal things to attend to.

"I'll be in touch," he whispered to Xoe as he backed away from ruined headquarters, the smoking bunker and the group of heavily armed and bemajiked adventurers who were heading off to interrogate the interlopers.

The problem with the Gods is, they don't get to choose where they live.

Relying on the concentration of devout followers, the Gods will, as is their nature, tend to hang out where they are liked. And sometimes, as the devout splinter into their subgroups, heresies and offshoots, Gods find themselves in the company of subtly different, but often like-minded deities.

One look at the group of shabby deities huddled over the weekly Most Honorable Lords of Ata'ri Cripple Mister Onion game would tell you one thing about the devout on Atari - they didn't think too highly of mathematics.

"Double 30s? Impossible!" cried Lee Chang Seven, considered by most to be the luckiest of Atari's pantheon. He once rolled a Triple Onion in the court of an Arch-duke of Hell's personal valet, and was considered lucky to ever see the Prime Material Plane again.

"Not impossible, dear Chang," chuckled Didymus as he scooped up the dice, "Just highly improbable."

Iryien and Xoe crept up the hill on opposing flanks. Xeno led the monks up the path in the center. Saladin watched from the treetops with the bemused detachment of one who realized that the chances were good that someone would die.

"CURRENT ODDS FAVOR THE GNOME," said a voice - not so much in Saladin's ear as directly in his head. It sounded like a heavy stone being rolled over the mouth of a tomb. He turned to see Death sitting on a branch next to him. He was smoking a cigarette. "THE LITTLE BUGGER'S BEEN RIDING HIS LUCK OF LATE. PROBABILITY SAYS IT HAS TO RUN OUT SOON."

Saladin looked down at his companions. He noticed that for a half-elven ranger trying to sneak up on an enemy, she was particularly easy to see. He reckoned the shiny plate mail didn't help.

All at once, the group's quarry came into view - great gelatinous behemoths, covered in eyes, were making their way towards Xeno's group. Xoe, on the left flank, attempted hitting one with her crossbow, only to succeed in missing Iryien by a few feet. Iryien, bravely gripping the hilt of her sword, leapt towards the Ocular Custard with a mind of smiting it goodly...

"Who's that one then?" said Threepole Thrice, a minor deity of Northdumbria. "I like her style. And you know, I've always been partial to the half-elves..." Xi-Gong the Prolifically Bad at Subtraction looked down upon the scene and snorted. "Stick to the dice, Threepole. I'm sure she doesn't need your help. Besides, you're more likely to cause her harm than-"

Iryien punctured the Custard with a well-timed stroke, only to have the poor creature literally empty itself of its innards in a pool at her feet. Backing away from the mess, Iryien thought this just might be her lucky day as she looked up to see how the others were faring. Xeno had entered the fray, and was about to give the other Custard an outright stabbing...

Xeno was performing the perfect Malbegonian Eye Gouge on the Custard when he heard a distant rattling noise. Distracted, he looked up in the trees and thought he saw a robed figure cracking his knuckles as he sat watching the fray. Was that where the sound came from? Come to think of it, his hands appeared to be very bony. I bet his cracking knuckles would sound almost exactly like rolling dice. The next thing he knew, he was up to his eyes in custard, the overwhelming stickiness filling his ears, his eyes, his mouth. He couldn't even manage a loud vulgarity before everything went black...

Igor the Inauspicious was late to the dice game. He'd burnt the cookies, forgotten the beer and to top it all off he really had to use the Male Deities' Room. But if he didn't hurry, he'd miss out on a chance to get into the Big Onion, and when Fat Shoe Heel is rolling as poorly as he has been of late, there was serious green to be made. Damn this bladder! He really couldn't wait... But wait! He was a minor deity, wasn't he? What was the point if you couldn't use your eminent powers to bend the rules a little? And it wasn't like he was reworking the fabric of the time/space continuum or anything. He just needed to empty his bladder and get on to the game. Now if he could just concentrate on someone down on the planet's surface, the first person who stood out - and use them to rid himself of his liquid burden... There. It was done. And quite easily, too!

Igor remembered just a little too late that he'd had asparagus last night - and in great abundance. Well, it wasn't his problem now...

Xeno awoke, spitting and sputtering. He had been talking to someone, someone who SPOKE LIKE THIS, AND WAS BEING MADE TO FEEL LIKE A NAUGHTY SCHOOLBOY WHEN the speaker was washed away by a tidal wave of some sort. That was a lucky break. The guy was really starting to creep Xeno out.

He looked around. The others were all gawking at him (except for Takemiya, who was for some reason fiddling with his robe with his back turned). Oh well, Xeno thought, I feel great! So great in fact I think I'll barge right into my bunker and see who set off one of my traps. I'm sure it was probably nobody important - just a brazen local thief or cheeky teenage daredevil. I'll wager they lost an eyebrow or two and are making a beeline back home to mommy as we speak. I bet they even peed their pants! Haha, let's just open this cracked and dented door here and see what lies... within the charred and... smoking remains of my... bunker? Oooh, what's this shiny thing stuck in the wall?

Episode 29: Frozen Lump Sweet Frozen Lump

The final gifts had been distributed, the final pints had been drunk and the final concubines had given their final frankincense and myrrh rubdowns. The Caliph had let the crew know of the existence of the elemental wormhole - the one opened up by Xeno's unfortunate interaction with the Elemental Throne.

The Caliph brought the silken cloud to the wormhole - a giant hurricane spewing fire and steam into the Plane of Air - and bid the crew adieu. Then, one by one, everyone popped though the smoky bubbleportal back to the Prime Material Plane and onto...

Ice.

At first, a number of the party groaned as they thought they'd been transported back to Aquae Sulis - and gods knows when. But as the intrepid Saladin transformed into death hawk form (and thusly avoiding becoming a druid pancake) he climbed back into the sky and surveyed the surroundings. In the distance.... the ocean. White sails billowing in the breeze. Closer in, the familiar sight of Port Harbor, the quaint tourist town nestled in peak fall foliage. And below, Saladin's comrades, sliding across a small shelf of ice to what looked like a frozen lump - right where DCM headquarters used to be.

Meanwhile, in another plane entirely, the hulking ice devil Mytzlplk was receiving a report from Chief Antagonizer Grewellyn, deep within the scintillating glacial palace of Pwn.

"Haave yoou foound thaat deetestable gnoome yeet?" hissed the devil through his large, razor-sharp mandibles. Ice cold venom, reflective like mercury, dripped from the chitinous tips and pooled at his feet. A minion scuttled out from a trapdoor at the base of the devil's frozen throne, collecting the venom to sell at a later date on the open market. Minion's gotta live, yo.

"Y-yes my liege," stuttered Grewellyn. He hadn't bargained for what an outright bastard this Mytzlplk had turned out to be. Sure, he had sent his resume all over the Hells, and the 8th level of Hell was reputed to be one of the nastier ones (especially when compared to Mammon's Vile Level Of Naughty Luxury) but this one just gave Grewellyn the heebie jeebies.

"I have sent a detachment of your Bone Guards to his domicile with express instructions. I am sure that they will have him in custody shortly. And as your Lordship will recall," he winced as he embarked on reminding Mytzlplk about his recent shortcomings in the memory department, "the Lady Gawgaw is overseeing the mission personally."

Mytzlplk turned his faceted eyes and, to Grewellyn, it looked like he was looking far away through the mists of Time.

"Yees, the Laady Gaawgaw... Exceeedingly beautiful... Deeliciously cruuel... I am ceertain I wiill haave hiis heead in my haands byy moorning..."

Mytzlplk shifted in his frozen throne. Grewellyn looked away with a modicum of embarassment and, bowing low, backed his way out of the chamber.

It took a moment for everyone's inertia to settle out on the ice. Takemiya broke through the thin ice that covered the inlet and found himself cold, wet and alerting the hidden team of translucent blue skeletons to DCM's return home. Immediately, the four skeletons sprung forth from the water and a melee ensued.

Luckily for DCM, numbers and tactics overcame surprise and superior cutlery as the skeletons were quickly dispatched. Only Saladin suffered the ignominy of being almost killed as a hurtling blue sphere of icy flame sent the scent of deep-fried falcon across the land.

(Moments later, in port Harbor, a down-and-out food vendor was inspired to, at extreme peril, update the items on his portable lunch menu. 'Grylled Skwab of Falcune' sounded like a surefire winner to him.)

After warp-marbling and bear-hugging the final skeleton out of existence, the crew surveyed the lump that was their headquarters. It looked like someone wanted to send them a message - and it wasn't a very nice one at all.

Episode 28: As Gertrude Stein said, "A One is a One is a One."

Xeno stomped towards the Temple. He was fed up. He wanted answers. And no one was going to stop him. No one but the orange dragon that exploded out the temple's double doors, taking bits of wood, plaster and stone with it, that is.

Fortunately, Xeno's recently highly-developed sense of non-causal reality had prepared him for this, and he was, with the deftest of backflips, able to avoid the steaming freight train of teeth, talons and wings and land safely on his feet, out of harm's way.

Less so was his ability to process the large, metallic horseless carriage that shot out of the temple in pursuit of the dragon. Rolling at high speed on four tires, covered in a myriad of colors and skeletal motifs, and bearing the words 'Grateful Dead' down the side, Xeno was caught off guard just enough to fail to notice the large leather satchel that was dislodged from the top of the vehicle.

It landed on his face. And would have killed him, too, if not for the intrepid healer Kobayashi Jones, who leapt forth from the cowering band of cohorts to remove the satchel from Xeno's face, thus sparing him from a gruesome death by drowning, smothering and bone fragment inhalation.

By this time, however, the rest of DCM was shaken out of their fearful stupor by the fact that the dragon was now turning towards them (pursued by a bus). Fortunately, Saladin (in death hawk form) was grazed by the dragon (who then expired midair), knocked into the bus (windshield, that is) and met Iryien's mom (who was not happy to see him).

Takemiya utilized his SUPA GROW POWA to snatch the dragon's falling corpse by the tail just before it crushed a slow-to-react-Longbottom. Unfortunately, due to die rolls, timing and inertia, the innards of the dragon paid no mind to Takemiya's heroism and proceeded to nearly drown the slow-to-react-Longbottom in muscle, sinew and innards as they shot out the dragon's mouth.

It was just at this point where another deadly Timestorm arrived and threatened to suck our heroes into yet another timeline altogether. But some quick thinking by Xoe (using a rarely utilized lasso proficiency), and enormous length of sheep-filled dragon intestine and the rear axle of a Grateful Dead tour bus tethered our heroes to the plane just long enough for Ben to arrive, pull them into the Temporal Prime and set them on the path (at last!) to wrapping things up. All that was required was tossing a Temporal Mine into Saladin's path, preventing him from leaping through the stained glass window and crashing into Iryien, thus fracturing an already fractured T/S Continuum beyond all hope of repair.

Ben opened a portal and Xeno crept towards it with the mine in his hand. History forgets how exactly the ensuing events transpired*, but suffice it to say that somehow, Xoe lost her grip on Xeno as she tried to assist him in getting the mine out into the temple. Xeno then hit the Elemental Throne at exactly the wrong angle**, possibly with the Temporal Mine***, and all hell broke loose.

The next thing anyone but Takemiya knows, they are floating in the crystalline clear Elemental Plane of Air, soaking wet and smoldering slightly. It would seem that someone**** blew a hole into all four elemental planes at once, and Takemiya pulled everyone out of the gouts of flame through the geysers of water and into the Plane of Air. There, everyone learned that Takemiya was a Janni, a genie who is at home on all four elemental planes. They also learned that Takemiya had a distant cousin who resided in a large, billowing palace of silk by the name of Caliph Ali Bhagwan Shri Rashneesh. The Caliph was very happy to see his distant cousin and has taken in the group, is seeing to their health and recovery, and is bestowing upon them many and various boons.

Let us see how long this lasts...

* Somebody rolled a 1.

** Somebody else rolled a 1.

*** Very damn probably with the Mine. I mean, he exploded an artifact. One I took great pains to construct as the nexus of a whole multi-session campaign. Weeks of careful planning, gone. Thanks, guys. Thanks a LOT.

**** Xeno.

Madeleine L'Engle's Knickers

When you were as old as Ben was, and tinkered with Time as often as he had, you learned not to panic at the mere smell of smoke.

The large orange dragon that was sitting on top of the temple, however, was a historically legitimate pantswetter.

Ben rolled and rolled away from the dragon, away from the burning temple and into the hedges that surrounded the grounds. He came to rest in a patch of damp grass.

"Looks like someone's been panicking here already."

Taking care that he wasn't seen by the dragon, Ben got to his feet and surveyed the scene. The dragon was casting his head back and forth, scouring the grounds in search of something - something he quickly found on the other side of the temple. The dragon hopped down and out of Ben's sight, which gave him a moment or two to focus on the otherwise wholly remarkable scene just a few yards to the left of him: an aging rock band was packing up their gear from what looked like a successful gig. Empty beer cups littered the temple grounds, young couples were wandering off into the night, and more than one pair of undergarments lay strewn about the place.

"Ah, youth!" Ben sighed.

It wasn't until Ben saw the roadie curling lengths of cord around his forearm that he realized that something was more than unusually wrong. Electricity still had a ways to go towards being harnessed.

"I hate this place," Ben muttered as he stepped over a large, snoring figure. The man reeked of Groovy Ghoulie, that really excellent black-tar shit that they grow in lightless catacombs, exclusively in the chest cavities of dead musicians that have been dead for at least a decade. Some say that two hits of the stuff will give you the exact feeling of what its like to be dead. 

Be really didn't see the point.

He looked up as the side door to the temple flew open, and a crazed, hippy-looking girl rushed out and headed towards the crew, shouting at a woman who was packing up what looked like a rather intricate and multidimensional drum kit.

"Granny! Granny! That dragon's humping the bus!!!"

The woman, hereafter known as 'Granny'  (age, 87, most recently of West Teacup, Throwfarthertanyoushire, Kent) dropped a number of cymbals (to great acoustic effect) and charged off the stage and into the temple, screeching a few words that even Ben hadn't heard before.

Ben sighed.

This had gone far enough.

There was only one way to set things straight. He had to round up the crew, and get them to sort things out once and for all.

It wasn't going to be easy. Nothing ever was when Xeno was involved.

Ben produced a white quill pen from his jacket and drew a smooth, blue arc in the air. Within the arc, he found four jeweled skulls bobbing in the void, leering at him.

"Ah, Benjamin. Back  for another go, are you?"

A Wrinkle In Time...

Ben woke up to the sound of the wind rattling through the leaves. Feeling far in advance of his already far-too-advanced years. He placed his hand on one knee and groaned to his feet. Where the hell was he?

He remembered the Time Elemental. How he hated those bastards.

He knew they were just protecting their territory. He knew that, along with the rest of DCM, he was the intruder here, but couldn't they leave him alone for a minute or two? I mean, we're only trying to fix-

Wait a minute... Where were the others?

Ben looked around.

The first thing that struck him was that he didn't recall how he'd gotten under a large maple tree. Golden orange leaves were falling on him now, stirred by a breeze that slowly rocked a tire swing to and fro.

The second thing that struck him was that 'Pirelli' tires most certainly hadn't been invented yet.

He turned and looked behind him. A path wound up a leaf-strewn hill to a large and careworn house at the top of a gentle ridge. The house was silhouetted against the clear blue sky behind it, making it look a little darker than it actually was. He thought he could almost see a figure in one of the upstairs windows. It looked like someone was watching him.

Ben looked around for alternatives, but between an autumnal forest, a small family cemetery and the rusted out remains of an Alfa Romeo 4C GTA, there wasn't much hope.

"Well, it's up the path then," he muttered to himself. "I hope the lady of the house is at home."

Ben picked his way through the susurrating leaves to the porch, where a grayed and worn swing swayed creakily in the breeze. He pulled open the screen door and knocked on a heavy wooden door that shed lichen-colored flakes of paint as he knocked.

He peered though the thin lace curtains, anticipating the lady of the house making her way down the stairs to answer the door. What he didn't anticipate was...

"Benjamin?"

"Mother?

The two regarded each other for some time, confusion buzzing around their heads like a cloud of very small flies. Time Flies, as it turned out.

"Have you been playing in Temporal Traffic again, Benjamin?" Ben shook off the confusion and the mild reproach to hurriedly push past the old woman. He looked about the interior of the house, frenetically looking for a clue, an anchor.

"No time for formalities, Mother - when is it that we are? And where is your - aha!"

Ben found what he was looking for on the floor between an old, overstuffed chaise lounge and a Gottlieb's "King Kool" pinball machine. It was an old, elaborate, hand-carved barometer.

"You don't have anything to do with this... this... phenomenon, do you?" Mrs. Dominique Galatea Firenze gestured towards the barometer. Ben groaned as he went to one knee and peered at the cloudy dial.

The elaborately scrolled needle pointed to a tiny blue square at the bottom of the dial. It was upside-down, so Ben had to turn his head as far as he could around to read it. It said:

"This is not good," Ben muttered as he stood to his feet. It was clear to him that this was a bigger problem than he'd originally thought. Not only was the Time Storm getting bigger, it was spreading as well. He turned to regard his mother, but she was gone. In her place was a man who was standing and watching him. The man was stooped over, fully a head shorter than himself, and backlit to the point of being almost perfectly silhouetted.

Except, Ben noted, that there was no real light source behind him.

"You and your associates have caused me a great deal of inconvenience," hissed the man. The man moved, crablike, slowly around Ben as he talked. "Your meddlings in the Temple are causing havoc with my plans. Too many timelines - too many possibilities. The Future doesn't like the Past to change it's mind. You above all should know that."

Ben offered a hand by way of introducing himself. His other hand moved slowly to the pocket of his waistcoat. Imperceptibly, or so he hoped, he felt for the jade figurine that he had hidden there.

"I don't believe we met. Ben. Ben Firenze. And you are..?"

The man stepped back from Ben's hand as if he feared being touched.

"I know of you, Firenze. AND of the company you keep. I would advise you to reign them in and put things back in their place. It would be unwise to continue to treat Time like a plaything." These last few words were spat out in a way that gave Ben the impression that the man did not approve of Ben's vocational choices.

How did the man know him? How could he possibly know what DCM had been up to? You had to be into some pretty occult stuff to notice what had been happening for the last few days. Fish didn't know they were in water. Flowers weren't aware of the garden...

Ben's hand reached the figuring in his pocket just as the man spoke again. As the jade warmed up to Ben's hand, the man's features came into focus, lightened, and for the first time Ben beheld the man's face.

"Return to the world, Firenze. Return and heal the breach that threatens-" Suddenly the light from the man's face grew, and Ben staggered back as it grew brighter, and almost painfully so.

The phrase "realization dawned on him" shot through his mind as he reeled back, back, crashing into the pinball machine, back, back through the wall, through Time...

Ben opened his eyes.

It was dark.

A warm breeze washed over his face.

He could smell smoke.

The temple, it would appear, was on fire again.

Episode 27: When We Hit Bottom, We Bounce!

Player: Events must play themselves out to aesthetic, moral and logical conclusion.

Guildenstern: And what's that, in this case?

Player: It never varies — we aim at the point where everyone who is marked for death dies.

Guildenstern: Marked?

Player: Between "just desserts" and "tragic irony" we are given quite a large scope for our particular talent. Generally speaking, things have gone about as far as they can possibly go when things have gotten about as bad as they can reasonably get.

Guildenstern: Who decides?

Player: Decides? It is written.

The skulls of the old, dead Elemental high priests hovered in the darkness.

"You need to fix the breach in Time," one said.

"You need to put things right," said another.

"Has anyone seen the cat?" said the third.

Eventually, things were discussed. A temporal Mine was produced. A plan was put, however gingerly, into place.

And it went mostly awry.

There was a fight. There was a totally deep hole. And there was an eel-like statue in a palace.

Other than that, things just got a little more confused. The time/space continuum has started to buckle, to bend back around itself like a broken umbrella over Lungfish Isle.

Unfortunately, in this case, the rain is not rain, but evil lizardmen from outer space.

"I just hope they figure it all out in time," said the fourth skull.