Episode 93: On a Roll...

Covered by darkness, the members of DCM Enterprises converged in groups on the Chelonian...

Xeno and Madmartigan, approaching from around the inlet, notice a hulking mind flayer nautiloid hovering over Port Harbor. The light of 100 fires light its keel in an eerie red glow. It stops its barrage of the town and turns, slowly, towards the DCM ruin and slowly starts to creep closer...

Lance and the Philosopher (scuttling along in his leopardskin tunic and carrying the Philosopher's Bone) scurry towards the ship from the west, and are soon pursued by a very large man wielding a scimitar.

Takemiya, utilizing his eldritch wiles and his rope-taut musculature, nimbly hops and shuffles from his hiding place in the woods and scurries up the gangplank, only stopping when he sees the eerie and grotesquely glowing figure of Kobayashi, who was just recently killed (by the Philosopher, I remind you) in a rock/paper/scissor fight to the death.

The Philosopher reaches the ship first, racing past Takemiya and knocking him in the drink. He saw the ghost Kobayashi and attacked, missing, and his hand was benumbed, lost the bone as it skittled across the deck and became lodged in the railing.

Madmartigan stops to rescue Takemiya from certain dampness with his polearm.

As the Philosopher and Lance streak by, Xeno leaps out and attempts to bribe Hassan with riches and not death.

It worked.

The Philosopher tries to save the bone, but with his hand numbed by Kobayashi's chilling death aura, he fumbles and the bone falls into the water. He leaps in after it, and needs to be rescued by Madmartigan, who only succeeds in reigniting his concussion-like symptoms, and causing him to fly.

Kobayashi, now aware of the approach of the nautiloid, heads below to finsd the Spelljamming helm. To his surprise, he can sit in and operate it.

Kobayashi lifts off, and with his mindlink with the ship, gets everyone to battlestations to attack a mind flayer ship three times their own size. Takemiya and Hassan on topside blade slinger, Madmartigan on aft catapult. The Philosopher on fore ballista. Xeno on hot, liquid death.

The Philosopher misses badly with the ballista, and the bolt flies over the ship and into the town and skewers dog.

Takemiya glances a blade off the hull of the nautiloid, and it flies into town and through stained glass window of a church that has taken in refugees from the battle. The statue of Saint Egbert the Lucky was beheaded. 

Madmartigan, however, rolls a goddamn 30, and shatters the bridge window with an iron catapult ball, killing the captain instantly and knocking out the serial lifejamming helm. The nautiloid stops moving and hangs in the air exactly like a hummingbird doesn't.

Kob skates the ship across the face of the nautiloid, and Xeno falls through eye of the ship and into the 'empty skin' hold. Mildly disgusted, he finds his way out to the passageways of the ship and tries to start a fire in the hold. Madmartigan boards the ship to save Xeno. Phil skewers a slave, explodes a ballista and obliterates a slave into a pink mist, knocking out a mind flayer in the process.

Kobayashi then forces the nautiloid gently to the ground while the crew board the captured ship. With only aged, shrunken slaves to defend the ship, the crew captures a viable nautiloid and fits it with the Mobile's backup helm.

Not a bad day's work...

Episode 92: Excerpt from THE BOOK OF IRYIEN

And there appeared a great turban in heaven; women barely clothed with the sun, and no floor under their feet, and upon their heads crowns of shooting stars: And they plummeting cried, travailing in terminal velocity, and pained to be landed. 

And there appeared another wonder under heaven; and behold a great philosopher, having a leopardskin tunic and natty satchel, and the Philosopher's Bone. 

And then this monkey drew down the third part of the turban, and did cast most of it to the earth: and the philosopher stood before the women as they were being delivered, and was nearly pelted by them several times over. 

And he brought forth this monkey, who was to rule all nations with a rod of diamond: and this monkey was made up to sound like James Mason, who is a God. 

And the women fled into the wilderness, where they hoped to have a place prepared of God, but then the philosopher smote them. 

And there is war in Port Harbor: Xeno and his angels cohorts fought against the Sultan; and the Sultan fought with his cohorts, 

And prevailed not; neither was his place found any more in Port Harbor. 

And the great Sultan was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole island: he was cast out into Ata'ri, and his angels were cast out with him.

And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, "Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our Goddess, and the power of her minions: for the harasser of our brethren is cast down, which tried to smite Xeno day and night. 

And they overcame him by the blood of the Monkey, and by the word of his testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the monk's death. 

Therefore rejoice, ye island, and ye that dwell on it. Woe to the inhabiters of Ata'ri and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. 

And when the Sultan saw that he was cast unto Ata'ri, he persecuted Xeno (or at least tried to, anyway). 

And to the Xeno were given two wings of a great bat, that he might fly into the wilderness, into his place, where he is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the Sultan. 

And the Sultan cast out of his mouth water as a flood after Xeno, that he might cause him to be carried away of the flood. 

And Tree of Life helped Xeno, and opened it's mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the Sultan cast out of his mouth. 

And the Sultan was wroth with Xeno, and went to make war with the remnant of his seeds, which keep the commandments of the Goddess, and have the testimony of Iryien the Radiant... 

Episode 91: Many Explosive Returns

As the blue vortex whirlpool explosions faded into memory, the members of DCM Inc., found themselves lying on a rich, Muralian carpet in Ben Firenze's house; and that didn't even qualify as a 'top ten weird things' of the past 24 hours...

"Well, I'll be damned if I'm not actually glad to see you Xeno..." Old Ben himself stooped over to help the damp yet mysteriously smoking gnome up off the ground and into an unabashedly comfortable sofa. "It took some doing, and there were gaps I had to deal with, but thanks to Iryien I was able to track you down." Ben whirled around, looking at the rest of the party as they unsteadily got to their feet. "Not here, is she? Damn. I was looking forward to seeing her in her... raiment."

Xeno took a cup of hot cocoa from - was it Prudence? Constance? He took the cocoa and looked around. It was then that he noticed the explosions.

"What was that?" He jumped up and ran to the window. a ruddy glow lit up the nighttime sky. Port harbor, it would seem, was on fire.

"Port Harbor is on fire," said Ben with a furrowed brow. "We have  been under attack for the past 24 hours. It would seem that a handful of mind flayer ships have descended upon Plank Town with fire. They took the Hammer of Grapthar by surprise. It was sent crashing down into the town in flames."

The two monks looked up from their recently-delivered warm cocoa-based fluids.

"Any word of the crew? Saladin? The hurwaet? Rodant Kapoor?" Takemiya looked gravely concerned. Kobayashi just looked grave. He rubbed his forehead subconsciously. He'd never forget the llicking the town put on him. If it had burned to the ground, well, it served it right in his view.

"We've heard nothing of them," Ben cast his eyes down to the carpet. "We have quite a few people out there, gathering information. It's a mess. Illithids and their minions. Scouring the island. Looking for something... They're up at the prince's palace now - a pitched battle with the palace guard. It's just a matter of time before the palace falls. Do you know the best way to fight a group of mind flayers?"

Ben looked around the room at all the drained pale faces holding drained, pale cups.

"Well, die, of course!" Ben laughed and laughed and laughed. No one else joined him. "Ah, gallows humor. Where would we be without it?" Ben looked up at the ceiling and fingered his chin, as if trying to remember something...

"Oh yes, DCM headquarters has been attacked as well. By another spacefaring group - of the humanoid variety. Some sort of petty sultan by the name of Abdullah Faloon."

At the mention of the name, Xeno spit out the last mouthful of cocoa. He turned to Ben. "Any word on Der Mobile? Have the, er - invaders gotten to it?"

"Can't be sure," replied the old wizard. "They seem to be a focused bunch." Ben turned his bright gray eyes on Xeno. "It would seem, dear Xeno, they are looking for you."

Xeno twitched imperceptibly. He started pacing back and forth across the carpet. He jumped at every far-off explosion. He was working something up in his mind and the others could only watch...

"We need to get to the ship - if it still exists. Air power is the key. If we can get up and about, we can see if anyone survived the Hammer... We can also outrun the mind flayers, probably. And there's something on the ship for the sultan..." His voice trailed off, his mind drifting deep into it's own past, searing for memories that were once there...

"Hey, man," piped up Madmartigan. He had been rummaging through the cold buffet that had appeared a few minutes ago. A scrap of ham had found its way into his beard. He seemed to take no notice. "You know, I can getcha out near your place, man. I know some tunnels that can take us to the beach right near there. We can stop by my place for supplies. I have some stuff we can use. And I need to check up on Lance."

Madmartigan looked down at his feet. Six men lay dead or dying on the wet sand of the dark and briny beach. Up the beach, a pillar of smoke was rising out of the woods in the general direction of DCM headquarters. Loud, drunken chanting could be heard. Then suddenly, like an obscene moon rising out of the trees, a giant turban rose up, up, up and into the smoky night sky.

Kobayashi, brandishing the ring he'd picked up at Madmartigan's, gave an aggressive yelp of delight and took off like a shot towards the ship. Kobayashi, whose decades of wisdom and meditation told him that he didn't need decades of wisdom and meditation to see that the excrement was about to hit the air conditioning, took off after his acolyte, hoping to at least keep him from killing himself for the next five minutes.

Xeno and Madmartigan, having looted every pantaloon on the beach, followed after. Both of them had seen enough shit to know that keeping your distance from Kobayashi was a good life strategy at this point.

They crept up the beach.

They saw the turban lift itself up and over the trees.

They saw Kobayashi raise his fist into the air...

Showtime.

Episode 90: Head For The Light

Xeno froze, a hot plate of simmering nachos in his hands. 

"You coming in or what?" Billy's silhouetted form stood out against his open bathrobe, and Xeno was keenly appreciative of the backlighting. Billy turned on his heel and moved back into the room, leaving Xeno in the hallway clutching his nachos.

Had he not seen me clearly? Did he think I was someone else? One look at the room he entered told the story. Empty bottles of wine. A mound of white powder on a low table. A small, wicked-looking knife stuck into the tabletop. There was even a hookah off to one side, set amidst a circle of pillows on the floor Billy was now settling himself down in front of the powder, and unsticking the knife, he gestured for Xeno to join him.

"Come have have a tootle while those cool down a bit," he squeaked in his irritatingly high-pitched voice. "Not that I'd feel a thing, mind you. I'm high as a kite. I'm higher than the fucking mooooooooooon!" 

Billy was caught up in a fit of giggling, knife wavering uneasily over the mountain of blow. He had started to divide out a portion when Xeno reached the table and knelt, setting the cooling platter down on the table. Billy was muttering as he shoveled little piles around the table's surface, making little snowplow noises in the back of his throat. Xeno pulled one hand slowly away from the nachos and brought it to the knife on his belt. He was surprised Billy hadn't recognized him yet. When he did, he wanted to be ready...

Suddenly, a loud alarm sounded throughout the building. Xeno and Billy both jumped up, knocking over the table and sending ground beef, refried beans and cocaine flying all over the place. Billy swore loudly and tore out of the room, robe flapping away from his body. Xeno was overcome by a wave of nauseated envy.

With Billy gone, Xeno quickly cased the room desperately for any clue as to how to get out of this situation. There were no big weapons available, and nothing presented itself to him as an exit. He would have killed for a self-destruct button - what a way to go, right? Even better would be to get someone else to do it, but...

Just then he heard a low rumbling from outside. Out on the terrace, he could just make out a low, rectangular shape. It seemed to be emitting steam. With a quick glance behind him he edged his way through the oily meats and cheeses on the floor to the double doors at the back of the room. There, surrounded by candles and bubbling away in the semidarkness was some sort of outdoor tub.  Xeno reached a hand in - the water was hot.

"Oh, you wanna hop in, baby?" Billy had appeared in the doorway. His hair was wild, and his eyes weren't pointing in the same direction. He had guacamole smeared under his nose. Whoever Billy thought he was, he obviously hadn't noticed the change. Xeno decided to play along. Quick as a flash, Xeno hopped into the tub.

"You're in for a treat, sweetheart. I'm gonna take you to to heaven and back. Move over and I'll steer-" Again, the sounds of some sort of alarm system broke the spell of the moment (if you could even call it that) and Billy tore off with a scream of anguish.

It was then that Xeno noticed the knobs.

There seemed to be an entire panel of knobs hidden just under the surface of the tub, on the inner wall facing the building. Xeno could make out dials, numbers, levers. Peering in through the roiling water, Xeno spotted a display that looked like a date, or a pair of dates. He reached out his hand, warily. Could this thing actually be...

"Well that bastard won't be going off again anytime soon!" Billy reappeared in the doorway, a fist full of still smoking wires. "Now how about you move over, toots, and let me show you what this thing can do!" Xeno froze for a moment - the state of Billy's membership making it unclear what it was he was actually talking about. Billy hopped into the tub, sidled up uncomfortably close to to Xeno and thrust his hands underwater, feeling around for the right knob.

____________________________________________________________________

By the time he woke up, Billy felt like Hell. The coke hadn't been the best idea. The Cantilevered Ragweed had clogged the hookah twice. And, by the feel of it, he had quite recently been punched in the face.

Repeatedly.

He looked up (as it was now apparent he was on the floor) and saw someone... an indistinct figure... twitching nervously and ready to - was that a towel he had?

"One false move and you get it again!" shrieked  a familiar voice. Damn, it was the gnome. How'd he get in here? Was he the one that had loosened a tooth? I gotta lay off the hard stuff...

"Get up! Tell me how to use this thing to get us out of here!"

Xeno was pointing to the hot tub. Billy held his hands up, stalling for time. It was then that he noticed a figure standing in the doorway. And what a figure it was...

____________________________________________________________________

The Goddess Iryien, accustomed as she was of late to seeing weird inside of weird inside of weird, was a little weirded out by what she found on the balcony. Xeno seemed to be holding a wet and naked Billy at bay with a towel, twisted up and ready to snap. She herself was a little out of her comfort zone, wearing just enough chain maille to cover her assets. But not one to miss an opportunity, she quickly spoke up and took control of the scene.

"Hey Billy. Why are you fooling around out here when you could be attending a goddess? Wouldn't you rather party with me?" She gave 'slinking' a shot, and slinked rather adeptly in Billy's direction. As she reached out to cup Billy's head in her hands, with her other hand behind her back she gestured to Xeno. Now Xeno had never been one for taking orders, but when it came to dealing with overly-powerful, drug-addled, priapistic imps, Xeno was glad to yield the reins.   

Xeno sidled around the tub while Iryien continued to occupy Billy's attention. As he reached the door, he suddenly felt a strange compulsion to take one of the potted plants that were strewn about the terrace inside with him. He hoisted the biggest one he could carry, and as he stepped inside he was met by the weirdest vision of the night: Ben Firenze's head, floating amidst a swirl of blue flames inside the room's fireplace.

"Ah, Xeno. What a pleasant surprise. Go ahead and bring that over here please. And lose the tree. Can't stand those things."

Xeno stood there for a moment, slack-jawed. The fireplace (with Ben in it) was pulsating, swirling with blue light. He faintly heard Iryien behind him say '...be right back with a surprise for you...' before she came in from the balcony, shuffling quickly on her high heels, holding a sloshing flowerpot filled with water. "Get that dirt in the fireplace, and hurry!" she barked, and Xeno, for once, obeyed without question. Iryien hurriedly heaved the water in after it, sending an arc of liquid right through Ben's smiling face.  Iryien then set down the flowerpot quietly and, picking up the matches that were sitting next to the hookah, she lit one and slowly set the corner of a pillow alight. She held th epillow towards Xeno as the flames started to slowly spread.

"How about a little fire, Scarecrow?" 

Just as Xeno was about to ask politely what the hell was going on, Iryien tossed the burning pillow into the fireplace. Instantly, the fireplace emitted a blinding flash of blue light, and was afterwards replaced by a swirling blue vortex. Beams of blue light shot out of the vortex and out through the doorway into the night beyond. A beam of light reached out to Xeno, and like a warm, tender tentacle, it grabbed hold of Xeno and lovingly tugged him towards the vortex.

"Don't fight it," shouted Iryien, above the growing, vortexy din. "The others are coming too!" And sure enough, floating in through the balcony doorway were Takemiya, Xoe, Madmartigan, and Kobayashi, who seemed to be embracing a Glamazon warrior in a most unmonkish way.

"There is some explaining to be done," muttered Xeno as he was sucked into the vortex and away...

Episode 89: Excerpt from THE BOOK OF IRYIEN

THE BOOK OF IRYIEN CHAPTER 37

1. Then, there, in front of Her Radiance was assembled the Great Crag. It was defended mightily by a number of Harlots arrayed all in leather and steel. And some brass, mostly fashioned into polearms of acute pointiness. And rather strappy boots. 

2. Here She paused for a moment, to have constructed in front of Her great presence a wall. Stacked like cordwood, a dozen dozen fighters lay onto one another, creating a defensive shield and protecting Her most Holy personage. And her Chosen Dancer, the Xoe.

3. On Her right flank, Iryien saw the Mad Martigan toiling with a pair of tubular weapons designed to discharge projectiles. And while he had difficulty exhorting one of them to discharge it's payload, the other he discharged repeatedly into the left flank of the enemy.

4. This annoyed them greatly.

5. Three of the enemy's greatest warriors issued forth from yon Crag with intentions of divesting Mad Martigan of his weapons. Mad Martigan attempted to keep them at bay with his Device for Generating a Hot Cube of Steam, Radius 5' - but he was slow to get it up and soon was entertaining one of the warrior maidens at the base of his pole.

6. Meanwhile, directly in front of Her Radiance, the monk known as Kobayashi was riding on the back of a fish characterized by a cartilaginous skeleton, five to seven gill slits on the side of its head, and pectoral fins that are not fused to the head. The monk tried to divest one of the warrior maidens of her brass polearm, but found himself roughly dismounted instead.

7. Taking no heed of his injurious unseating, Kobayashi attempted to get back on the fish characterized by a cartilaginous skeleton, five to seven gill slits on the side of its head, and pectoral fins that are not fused to the head that threw him by polearm vaulting onto its back.

8. Only he missed.

9. And instead the monk flew ever on, over the fish, etc. and towards a young flaming boy who, at this particular moment, was puffing himself up something fierce.

10. The boy had, in fact, just been instructed to self-immolate by his parental unit, Xeno.

11. You see, having sent his only-begotten son, rolling and on fire, into the Crag, Xeno thought it would be a great idea to explode his son to breach the Harlots' defenses.

12. And, to some extent, it was. Only now, Kobayashi was about to land on the exploding child.

13. Luckily for Kobayashi, all of his vital organs had already been seared off and replaced with metal by an Xixchil surgeon on the Hammer of Grapthar, so the monk fell through the rapidly expanding fireball and took little notice. He landed, alone, on the hot sands of the Crag. He was surrounded by a ring of the enemy. He tried to escape...

14. On Her left flank, Iryien saw Takemiya make his way, quietly and with great stealth, to the mouth of the Crag. With great skill he approached undetected, and as he did so, he watched his acolyte struggle with shark riding, pole vaulting and sand digging, all in the same minute. Takemiya blinked at the blinding flash of light that was Troy, rejoiced to see his acolyte had survived, and winced at Kobayashi's  attempt to polevault out of trouble. Takemiya reached out and swiped a brass polearm from a passing Harlot and waded into the fray to save his flailing friend.

15. Xeno, by this time, had decided that animating a couple Harlots would be a great idea.

16. He managed to rescind the soul recall of two poor girls and had them shamble out to greet him. Looking only moderately worse for wear, the two girls escorted him through enemy lines and unto the House of Billy.

17. Delivered thusly, Xeno had the girls do a stiffening striptease, drawing out and distracting the chambermaids and allowing Xeno to penetrate the penthouse, never to be heard from again.

18. Iryien, seeing how easily the mortal gnome perpetrated the ruse, attempted the same.

19. She was not so lucky.

20. Sometimes, even a Goddess stumbles, and it was for some higher reason that Iryien, in an attempt to slide through the Harlots as one of their own, was discovered.

21. Five pairs of eyes turned and regarded Iryien's divine form. Five knives were drawn. Five bosoms heaved. Five warriors circled in, looking to eradicate the divine interloper.

22. "I am so out of here."

23. At that moment Iryien rose up above the fray and looking down, she saw the chaos wrought by her dearest friends and followers.

24. Xeno had gained entrance to Billy's penthouse.

25. Madmartigan had boiled two Harlots alive and was dissecting another.

26. Takemiya was armed, virtually invisible and watching Kobayashi...

26. Takamiya put his hand to his mouth.

27. He looked stricken, horrified.

28. He started to retch.

29. What was Kobayashi doing?

30. He was on top of a Harlot, backwards.

31. OMIGOD WAT IS HE DOING TO HER LEGS OMG HE RIPPED THEM OFF AND IS SWINGING THEM AROUND LIKE LEG MACES WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?

INTERLUDE: The Rise of Billy

Billy stared at the rectangular wall-mounted scrying device with a growing sense of agitation and distress. The confrontation on the beach was not turning out as he had planned, and he was damned if he was going to let this ragtag group of misfits barge into his realm and undo literally years of... weeks of, wait... days...

How long have I been here?

That wasn't important. What WAS important is that he had a good thing going here - booze, girls, fame... and he wasn't going to let this ungrateful group of misadventurers fuck it up.

Billy walked over to the bar, his robe flapping openly in the Automagic Air Coolination System. The chill reminded him of his start here in Billsylvania. Naked and unafraid he'd entered the dark gray realm... naked, unafraid and - quite frankly - tripping balls. The next few hours were pretty much a blur of hot sex, hot liquids and horses, for some reason. He had vague recollections of one or more girls crying, and of himself apologizing profusely through a mouth stuffed with cake.

But that was the past. The present was about what he had, what he earned... A few acres he could call his own. A penthouse in the sky. An elite army of battle-ready strippers willing to die for the lord of their realm. And while he wasn't quite sure he'd secured an heir to his red leather throne, he was certain there would be more than enough opportunity to bugger that bridge when he came to it.

He was just going to have to deal with these interlopers first...

He walked over to the tea table and picked up a tiny black box. He pointed it at the scrying device on the wall...

He pushed a button.

Episode 88: 299

A number of things had gone wrong. 

Xeno was not in his right frame of mind, certainly, after licking the epidermis of his very own Beanstalk of Urine. And he was probably still smarting a bit from the blow to the peripherals by the Rapidly Accelerating Dildo of Doom. And, well, when Mr. Pointy Hat meets up with Mrs. Tubular Weapon Or Other Device Designed To Discharge Projectiles Or Other Material, bad things tend to happen...

But at least Xeno had an iron hat, metallic skin and the warm, loving embrace of Chaos to fall back on.

So when a number of tiny explosions occurred within a small area ad combined forces to create one BIG explosion, the hat and the skin combined to prevent his head from being blown clean off. 

Chaos, it turns out, hung back until Kobayashi showed up.

For as soon as Xeno's limp, nearly lifeless body slumped to the ground, Kobayashi sprung into action. He reached out with his Jade Hand and felt under the now-flattened hat. Nose? Hmmm, nope. Mouth? Nope. Jaw? Oh, that's probably it over there on the linoleum. And this feels like what I imagine what a cerebral cortex feels like...

There was nothing for it. He would have to summon some Chaos to help.

"I summon forth... some Chaos... to help!"

There was a sickly flicker of yellow/green light. Kobayashi could feel things moving beneath his hand. Synapses were being restitched, sinews restretched, muscles and skin regrew at an enhanced rate. And, oddly enough, Xeno's head was almost perfectly restructered, with only a few, moderate side effects*.

And all the while this took place, Madmartigan looted the corpses.

Xeno snapped back to consciousness with a start and immediately regretted it. His skin was now a damp, smelly mess;  his codpiece had a permanent sag; he was hated and reviled by every squirrel and fawn; and he now had a dirty child by the name of Troy to look after. Death looked like an improvement.

So it was with self-loathing in his heart that he attempted to fling himself into the abyss of the coliseum. As he squelched past Iryien, however, his progress was halted by the 'mailled goddess. With a wave of her hand, Iryien stopped his suicidal attempt and refocused him. "Kill Billy," she whispered in her bedroom voice (if her bedroom contained a rack, a full set of graduated manacles and about a thousand whips). She then gently tossed (read, hurled) Xeno towards the sound stage door where Billy had last been seen. She also conjured up a mighty wind that gathered up Takemiya, Kobayashi, Saladin and Madmartigan and hurled (read, hurled really fast) them down the runway and out through the sound stage door behind Xeno. They were all carried with a swirling cry down, up and out the tunnel until they were spat out the other end...

...on a gray and desolate beach.

Away to the left, a cold, rolling sea brimming with dorsal fins. To the right, a high, impenetrable cliff. Ahead, a deep, mysterious crag, from where the occasional glint of gold (or was it brass?) could be seen. And from behind, the shuffling, cursing, broken-bottle-wielding mob led by Iryien and Xoe. 

Xeno, still adrift in a melancholy sea of self-loathing, tried to use his one really useful new power to change himself into something useful. His self-loathing, unfortunately, got in the way.

He rolled a mud bat.

Kobayashi, again trying to seize control of his life, attempted to summon an animal helper to assist the party in it's hour of need. His inability to seize control of anything, unfortunately, got in the way.

He rolled a mud bat.

Her name was Evelyn, and she had just been circulocuting a banza tree in the depths of the jungles of Gleg. It was mating season on Gleg, and her little mud bat flaps were flipping out, trying to find a mate...

She had just spotted a weak-willed specimen, perfect for dominating in the ancient rite of fFlarGha'a'aa when POOF! she was suddenly transported away from the lush jungles of Gleg and into a dark, gray land utterly devoid of hope and reason.

But there, flapping erratically before her very sonaculars, was an even weaker, more morally pliable specimen of the mud bat species. It looked like fFlarGha'a'aa would happen this day after all...

Xeno had just come to grips with the basic functionality of flying when he was hit from behind by a damp, flapping assailant. Claws, teeth, and some rather invasive appendages made Xeno's head and new body spin as he and the stranger would plummet, rise and plummet again in what would always be remembered by the somewhat flummoxed onlookers as 'the Mud Bat Dance of Love'.

Madmartigan, trying to seize control of reality, decided it would be prudent to see what was awaiting them in the distant crag. Cube-tipped polearm at the ready, he lurched across the gray sand, readying himself for whatever terrors the crag held. He could see one, two, a dozen shining shafts of reflected light standing tall in row upon row of... spears. 

Brass, stripper pole spears. And under the spears, hundreds of grim-visaged strippers were eyeing him, death in their kohl-lined eyes. One stripper, larger and more buxom than the rest, was pacing back and forth in front of the undulant legienne, shouting curses and taunts at Madmartigan, and raising heady jeers from the girls behind her.

Madmartigan turned on his heels and ran.

Iryien stood on the beach, devoid of 98% of her clothing, in front of thousands of drunken, leering men.

And she'd never felt better.

"Must be the sea elf in me being actually useful, for once," she thought. She had the men in her thrall. She could feel them behind her, their eyes boring into her like lasers. "And I am the diamond," she thought, "the diamond that will focus these drunken lasers into a force mightier than the armies of Alexander, an army greater than the hordes of Ghengis Khan, a horde fiercer than- whoa. Is that Xeno?"

Iryien bent over the broken and discarded body of a mud bat. It was heaving and sighing in a mix of agony and ecstasy.  Iryien could see the poor thing had suffered a number of broken bones, had severe dehydration, and on top of it all had contracted gonorrhea. She took pity on the poor, mad gnome and reached out her dainty hand to heal him...

Xeno sat up with a start. His skin had returned to normal. HE had returned to normal. And his has was a little pointier than it had previously been. Now only the dirty kid with the lollipop remained.

By now Madmartigan had returned and informed the party of what lay in wait for them in the crag. The party huddled together to strategize. The conversation went something like this:

"How many warriors await us in yon crag?"

"About 299, Iryien."

"Surely my army of thousands can dislodge such a puny force?"

"The mathematics lay squarely on your side, to be certain."

"I'm gonna summon another animal helper."

"Try to get one that actually helps and isn't a rapist this time."

"Oh, look! A shark jumped out of the water and landed right next to me! I think it wants me to ride it!"

"You got any tricks up your sleeve, kid?'
"I kin turna balla fire."

"Let me see."

WOOF

"Whoa. Cool. Think you can roll yourself into that crag over there?"

It was then that the charge was blown, and the battle was joined. Behind a rolling, flaming child rode a half-android monk riding a shark who decided to even things up a bit by casting a three-foot-high fog into the crag. The smell of burning hair extensions was only drowned out by the high-pitched screams of strippers who could not see the shark that was tearing through them to impale it with their stripper-pole spears.

It then, if you can believe it, got weirder.

Madmartigan now found himself caught between two different, but no less imminent, certain deaths - the mad, panicking strippers on one hand, and the horny, bloodlusting drunks on the other. So he did what only Madmartigan can do and attempted an Improbable Escape. (MM's subterranean life and penchant for fungus has allowed him to 'see', at certain times, a highly-improbably path out of almost any predicament.) Madmartigan relaxed, opened his third eye, and looked around to see a way out of this mess.

When he looked down, what he saw he looked an awful lot like Roseanne Arnold.

The charging mass of drunks in his immediate vicinity stopped dead in their tracks. Many of them fell over themselves to get away from him. Some were even heard to start crying. The strippers, seeing a large segment of the charge stop charging, stopped to take stock of the situation. Most of them were quite confused. 

But SOME of the strippers, mostly the ones who didn't take exotic stage names like Tiffini or Starrlyte - the ones who actually kept their given names, like Gretchen or Trudy - some of them stepped to the fore and sashayed over to the new girl, lust glistening brightly in their kohlless eyes. 

A couple licked their lips. A few made rude licking gestures. And one, a strapping six-foot specimen named Gert, brandished a hairy-knuckled fist that was as big as a canned ham.

Madmartigan blenched. A quart of blood dropped out of his body. And in the flash of panicked inspiration that occurs when your life (and your cherry) is on the line, he clicked his heels together three times and whispered to himself "There's no one like me, there's no one like me, there's no one like me..."

Slowly, inexorably, the succulent mound of flesh that was Roseanne morphed back into the hulking, man-beast that was Madmartigan. The aggressive strippers, whose object of lust now had  far more hair and far fewer wattles, grew repulsed, and ceased their advances.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Well, everyone except the few dozen strippers who were being actively mauled by a land shark as it cut a swath through the fogy crag.

Iryien smiled as she looked over the violent and chaotic scene.

"It has been a good day," she said proudly to herself. "A good day indeed."