Episode 36: The Return For Takemiya's Head, Pt. 2

Takemiya sits at the helm of a Tradesman, in pursuit of both Fundus and the mysterious Black Silhouette, a being he largely suspects is the notorious Chang Kai Eel, Lord of the underworld of Undermountain.

Conflicting feelings raged all about Takemiya at this time - for although Eel has tormented DCM with his wicked machinations over the past few weeks, it was a mind-to-mind confrontation with the underlord that had freed the monk's soul from the Helm of Telepathy and deposited it (through a convoluted string of unlikely die rolls) into the body of an orc who has had his legs pulled into taffy by Salayashi and consequently cauterized into two gleaming lumps of green crystal. He couldn't help but feel a little grateful, even if the orc he was currently inhabiting does seem to be flatulent and riddled with fleas...

Iryien sits in a stateroom, surrounded by her new entourage - Sulians that have travelled to Lungfish Isle to bring her the news that the TEMPLVS IRYIENS has been completed. While slightly unnerved by her elevation to 'Hemi Goddess', she had to admit to herself that her skin had never taken on such a healthy glow in her life. She was certain that somehow, some way she had altered the flow of reality around her in the cavern, and had had been able to make things go rather nicely for herself for once...

Xoe stands behind Xeno as he sits in the helm of a scorched and sooty Damselfly, humming softly to himself, piloting the vessel from an elaborate titanium helm. Xoe rather enjoyed the surge of magical energies that she unleashed from the Wand of Fire; she felt a little thrill at being able to wipe out the vestiges of Fundus' guards and almost fry the big jerk himself. Theivery was nice, but that - that feeling... hmmmm...

Salayashi looks out at the stars. From the deck of the spelljamming ship he could see the tiny prick

of light that they were persuing. The Mindspider had a good head start, but he had two ships, and that HAD to be an advantage, if and when they caught up to Fundus and that thing... He forgot how much he had enjoyed Wildspace. Everything seemed simpler, clearer, more defined.

And now he could see in all directions at once.

Ragnar retched and roiled in the hold of the ship. "There's no air!" he screamed - or would have done, if he hadn't been so convulsed with fear, terror, horror and the screaming heebie jeebies. He rolled around, clutching his throat as the stars spun around him. Aramis sidled up to the twitching dwarf, eyeing his trousers and sizing up the situation.

"Haven'ta you been onna sheep before?" The sound of Aramis' voice - so close, so near his nearly defenseless pants - snapped him out of his panic attack.

"Why, yes," he huffed, pulling himself upright once again. "I do this stuff all the time."

The two ships stayed on course behind Fundus, Eel and the Mindspider. Holth seemed rather anxious about facing the ship in combat. Salyashi seemed rather anxious that Holth was anxious about combat. And Takemiya seemed just a tad worried that he didn't seem to be able to steer the ship...

Episode 35: The Return For Takemiya's Head, Pt. 1

Well, not an overly successful raid as of yet.

Our intrepid adventurers headed back into the mountain lair of Chang Kai Eel in order to retrieve Takemiya's soul-infested Helm of Telepathy only to be ambushed by a raiding party of orcs.

Where are all these orcs coming from? you might ask. As well you might, as they put a little hurt on DCM, Inc.

Holth took a rather nasty blow to the vitals from, oh wait, that was Xeno... Well, he was ALMOST skewered by a couple arrows from, oh wait, that was Iryien...

Well, at least Salayashi gained a new Crystal Minion - The Ruby Orc, if he gets out of here alive, looks to be the foundation of a promising art/theft scam that could rake in millions - or at least minions, if the die rolls keep coming in as they did on Tuesday night.

Speaking of die rolls, Salayashi has gained a stunning bit of 'double vision' after a roll or two went haywire. Perhaps you should consider purchasing the Union Suit of Many Colors?

I won't give any details here as I want to be there next week when the group explains to Peter what actually happened - DM

Episode 34: "Depends" On How You Look At It...

It wasn't supposed to be like this (thought Iryien, thought Xoe, thought Saladin, thought the DM...)

You make something, create it, you control it... right?

"NOT ON THIS NIGHT", saith the gods...

Iryien looked on in helpless exhaustion as SALAYASHI hovered over her dying Sulian. Even as he raised the glowing, crystalline syringe up over his exposed, bacon-scented chest she had the feeling that all was lost, that all was gone from her, that she was just watching a movie - a bad one at that - I mean, couldn't they at least have gotten Peter Jackson to direct it? Even as the syringe was plunged into (insert Sulian's name here)'s heart and he reared up, turned red and attacked SALAYASHI, she let it unfold, watched it dispassionately, she saw her grip on the situation slip, like pants over the hips of an Italian...

Xoe saw things slipping too, as Porthos' flesh bubbled into the stones, melting away into nothingness at the hands of SALAYASHI, (Healer??? Really? He's killed more of our party than the enemy, for Baldur's sake!) she watched her brother calmly strip two frames of their less-than-priceless contents. Umbertino's Two Sheep Humping? Really? I mean, not only is it the least of his works, but sheep don't actually do it like that - not modern, up-to-date ones, anyway - and the less said about The Painter Of Light the better... Did he have any taste at all???

At least she had Aramis left to, oh wait, where was he?

Hmm...

Well, her remaining Guido was dry humping the air at the base of the eel statue. At least that was within the bounds of relatively normal acceptability...

Now Takemiya, on the other hand - he was in complete control - control of the statue as it's crotch opened to reveal a secret passage... control of the eerily glowing sarcophagi containing the underdeveloped simalcra of the entire DCM crew (plus a dwarf???)... incontrol, in fact, of the naked dwarf that was released when Xeno shattered the glass above the growing Saladin's sarcophagus, setting off a chain reaction of explosions, untimely clone-deaths and releasing into the world an angry dwarf with no pants on.

Which brings us to....

Xoe gripped Aramis by the few threads of clothing he had left. He had been caught up in an illusory tryst - one involving the cheap, tawdry woman of his dreams (at the base of a creepy statue in a dungeon under the stronghold of his mistresses' sworn enemy, but whatever...) when Xoe slapped him (perhaps a little too hard) and called him back from the edge - called him back into his clothes - called him back into...

His Pants.

Somewhere in the Void, Trouseronomous, God of Pants, saw a 20 being rolled and smiled...

Aramis felt his legs become encased in 3 square yards of heaven.

Purple seersucker heaven.

In fact, now that his legs, his buttocks, and his $5 footlong had become wrapped up in what can only be described as 'dream trousers', nothing else in the whole world seemed to matter...

Except the naked dwarf who had appeared from below and was now suspiciously eying his pants.

A melee ensued. This multiverse's first 'Pants Off', in fact.

And when the dust settled, and the dwarf's buttocks stopped quivering, one thing was certain: DCM had a new (old?) member, he was wearing the best +5 Protection v. Fire purple seersucker pants imaginable, Aramis was now fully his bitch, and Aramis was now completely unclad.

OK, so that was 4 things.

I really need to regain control of this campaign.

Episode 33 - Really? Really??

You should never disintegrate a significate portion of any planet without expecting some... repercussions.

Saladin had become suspended midair in the recently excavated tunnel by a rising sonic turbulence - a turbulence that was now becoming more turbulent after the introduction of a guido who had improbably fallen into the tunnel.

Acting quickly and with heroics in mind, Kobayashi leapt to the rescue, proffering his extendable staff to Porthos. Unfortunately for Kobayashi, improbability reared it's ugly head again and caused the unlucky monk to be pulled into the tunnel as well. Xeno and Iryien started to get pulled towards the tunnel. As the third body entered the viciously thrumming space, flesh, bone, crystal and rock began to harmonize and echo all together, creating a clear, crystalline sine wave that bound the three bodies together in the air of the sonic microwave. It was at this point that Xeno disappeared. Iryien also noticed that Saladin's flesh was starting to melt off his bones.

Unbeknownst to the trapped individuals, atoms were whispering conspiratorially to one another now, shaken into sentience by the unlikely combination of crystal, flesh, and magical dragonscale armor. Molecules started to rearrange themselves, forming splinter cells along ideological lines previously unseen in the sub-cellular world. New substances were being synthesized. Old ones discarded. Something new and never seen before was about to happen...

Just under the molten surface of the tunnel, some red crystal of Ata'ri itched into a peculiar awareness, sensing something remarkable was about to happen...

Deep within Ata'ri, some rare green crystal, tucked away in scattered veins due to the introduction of a rather large meteorite to a very poorly-located prehistoric health spa, thrummed to life and started making its way to the surface, homing in on the life energies that were calling to it from a tiny space near the surface of the planet...

Directly underneath the tunnel, a sizable deposit of blue crystal, sensing it was on the verge of being late to something really exciting, decided to exert what little psychic influence it could on the scene as it was unfolding in the tunnel above. If only there was something it could use, something it could focus on in order to step up its energies just a wee bit...

It was precisely at this moment where Aramis decided to save his brother.

Grabbing the Demonic Lacrosse Stick from Hell, Aramis hurled a ball of blue energy into the tunnel, introducing into the finely balanced superturbulence an explosive, if not malevolent element to the tunnel.

Some strange things happened.

Firstly, Porthos was expelled with some force from the tunnel, landing with a thud inside the portable hole (which shall now be known as the Porthoble Hole).

Secondly, as the rest of Saladin's flesh fell away, the red crystal in the surrounding rock arced into the tunnel and replaced, molecule for molecule, the bone of Saladin's skeleton.

Thirdly, with no guido acting as a buffer, Kobayashi and Saladin were hurtled together at the speed of light. The red crystal skeleton, acting as both a hammer and a sieve, stopped Kobayashi's flesh in it's tracks while letting the shattered bits of his skeleton fly through it before being totally vaporized against the back of the tunnel.

The poor monk's flesh, superheated into a gelatinous, living magma, clung to Saladin's bare bones and instantly began to cool. It reacted with, through a series of harmonics, the skeleton, the tunnel walls and the rapidly emerging node of green crystal to form a clear green skin that hardened as it cooled, creating a symbiotic being never before seen on this or any other planet...

Just another Tuesday, really.

Episode 32: Leaving Holes In Your Heart

It all began so pleasantly: sharing a nice mug of scumble with the man who's ruined your memories and has been of late trying to ruin your lives. Fundus was concussed and a little bit drunk, and more than willing to lead DCM to the meeting place where Chang Kai Eel lay waiting - the mastermind behind the ill-fated events on Lungfish Isle.

Fundus weaved his way up the narrow path that led to a man-sized rock covering a secret entrance in the rock face. The rock slides open, and a long chasm is revealed. Up ahead, two dozen orcs, a large ogre and the shadowy Eel himself await Fundus and his new 'bodyguard'.

Saladin, in bat form, flies ahead to scout out the scene, but has a turn of bad luck and meets the cave wall head-on. He then discovers that while bat urine does not serve as ogre repellent, guano can be an adequate fire starter...

Still feeling the effects of the blow to the head, the now-burning bat flees up the staircase at the back of the cave... transforms into his Saladin form... and falls down a dozen stone stairs and loses consciousness.

Somewhere above the planet's surface, the Gods of Ata'ri have a hearty laugh. "Don't you think the poor lad's had enough?" one asks. "No, not by a long shot," chuckles another.

Rushing to his side, Kobayashi helps get Saladin back to consciousness, before a flood of onrushing orcs chases him up and into what appears to be Chang Kai Eel's underground palace. As he watches, Fundus, Eel and the orcs emerge from the secret passage and disperse. But not before Eel sneaks up on Kobayashi and flattens him, knocking the portable hole open and causing the box of all pandoras to spew forth Xeno and the rest of the crew.

A melee ensues, and Iryien ("Doesn't she know how bloody dangerous that thing is?") opens fire with the Alien Bazooka, opening a tunnel-sized hole in the mountain. The sudden evaporation of thousands of cubic feet of rock cause a nearby vein of crystal to become unstable and start resonating at a high but audible frequency. This resonation fills the tunnel, and as it does so, the pitch climbs and fills the space, getting ever closer to fulfilling the equation E_ik = 8πG/c⁴ t_ik. The only thing that was needed was a mass object of suitable size and density to act as a focus for the building sonic energy. Once introduced into the tunnel (read High-Powered Sonic Oscillator and Matter Accelerator), this mass object would trigger the 8πG part of the 8πG/c⁴ t_ik equation, and cause either a chain reaction of sub-atomic explosions throughout all of the non-living rock (out p=2D/∞ (∆-4)/∫˚• π miles, where D= 2d6) or a transformation (at the most basic atomic levels) of any organic matter inside the tunnel.

At this point, Saladin appeared, swimming through the living rock, and came upon the fleeing Chang Kai Eel. Saladin grabbed at Eel's heel, but missed. Chang Kai Eel lashed out at Saladin with his foot...

...and didn't.

The last thing Saladin heard as he toppled backwards into the tunnel was the climbing resonance of a million angels singing.

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?