DnD: Turn Down for What?

While resting and recuperating at the store that the heroes broke into, Asher and Celkini have a slight moral crisis over leaving the children behind. Meanwhile, Dweezil organizes their inventory, generously helping himself to the supplies from the store including: 3 Backpacks 1 pouches of chalk, 2 weeks of rations, rope, caltrops, pot, tinder box, lock picks, and "small" German child. Then they all rest, leaving Ben on guard.



A short while later, the door opens and two Red Brands, disguised as guards, enter the shop, waking everyone up. Ben reports back and the team quickly decides to lure them into the backroom. Celkini makes noise while the others hide, with Asher and Akilah on either side of the door. When the door opens, Celkini smiles, asking the two guards to help her acquire the box on a higher shelf, but the second guard makes no move to enter. Akilah attacks the first, dropping the first guard to his knees. Asher shoves the guy aside to take on the other guard, but that guy's a ninja and manages to catch Asher's punch and toss his arm away. Meanwhile, Dweezil lines up a shot to finish off the first guard, but Celkini leaps in with a kill steal and vaults over the now dead guy to slide between Asher and the other guard's legs and go for the back of his knees with her newly acquired short sword. But with preternatural skill, he blocks her attack. Akilah steps in with a sword straight through this jerk's heart.

They go through the guard's pockets and find nothing, but Xavros scores 28 gold from the cash register. Celkini gets upset because this isn't what heroes are supposed to do. Dweezil and Akilah explain that sometimes, you have to make the tough decisions for the greater good. The gold they are taking will help them live to fight another day. They leave the house through the back door, exiting the town through the dawn shadows. Unfortunately, Akilah forgot to tie her shoelaces, but thankfully, her clumsiness did not affect their stealth.

They stick to the trees until things are clear, then continue on the road that had led them to Phandelver. They decide to return to Neverwinter, where the trouble started for many of them. Xavros tells them tales of the great city, while composing a new song about this new mercenary hero band's adventures while Celkini chats away non-stop as she unsuccessfully forages for plants.

After walking all day, they make camp. With their new kitchen aid tools, Celkini insists on cooking them dinner, which is just barely palatable, but they go to sleep with  leaving Dweezil on watch with a perception roll of 5. All seems quiet until he feels two little stings and looks up to find some strange little flying things.

Dweezil is bitten again and again and starts to feel very drained. He slaps and kills one of these strange ugly little creatures and then runs to wake Celkini. The others start to stir. Dweezil tries to blame their appearance on Ben, but Celkini giggles, recognizing the creatures as sturge.

Dweezil's looking pretty drained by now, with one hanging off of his neck. Xavros steps in and grabs it, while Asher tries to attack another, but the little things are nimble in the air.One gets its stinger into the monk. Celkini removes the one attached to her, and it flies into the air. Akilah finishes it off with a mighty roll of 1. Celkini cures Dweezil, even though he insulted her friend. Celkini tries and fails to make some Deep Woods Off, so they just settle in for some much needed rest.




When they finally get to Neverwinter, Dweezil has plans to outsource the group's remaining quests to unsuspecting noobs...

DnD: A Voice in the Dark

Asher and Akeelah head back toward the prison in hopes of retrieving a body to feed whatever lies in the depths. There are clearly no ethical concerns in this matter. Dweezil follows to pick the lock to the weapons storage that the voice told them about. In the room, they find weapons and dirty red cloaks. The three gather some weapons--5 short swords, 2 crossbors, 2 quivers, 160 bolts, 12 long swords, and one stank ass cloak. Asher moves on to the next room where the drauger are waiting. Too bad we all forgot about the voice's warning about the drauger ignoring those wearing the red robes, which means Asher has to fight. The first skeleton strikes true. Asher retaliates and dodges the attack of the second drauger, but the third hits hard, leaving him with a festering wound. Akilah rushes in wearing the red cloak which causes the drauger to stop and sheath their weapons. The three head over to the prison. Asher explains what has happened and Dweezil considers donning a cloak to see if he can be greedy. They get to the safety of the hallway and Akilah continues on to the prison area. She grabs the body, but the young boy has woken up and asks to be rescued. Guilt +40. Akilah grudgingly tells him and his mother and other child to go into the hallway to discuss this with her companions. Dweezil is annoyed, but agrees since the mother has promised the wealth of her family heirloom. He leads them into the weapons room and tries to ditch them there, but they are too fast for his little dwarf legs.

"Aren't you heroes?" the mother asks, threatening to call the guards.

"No," Akilah and Dweezil reply. Dweezil kills the mother and locks the kids in the weapons room.

"She should have listened," says Akilah tersely.

Had Asher not been in festering pain, he probably would have disagreed with this decision. Instead, he grudgingly wraps the red cloak he took from the body Akilah carries tighter around himself.

They return to Celkini and Xavros and feed the body to the voice. It thanks them and shows them a vision of the exit to the south. There's no dilly dallying. The team heads south, coming out into the town. They decide to rest up at the store. The window is conveniently open and they climb in quietly without alerting the guards. Asher stands guard while the others scavenge food and supplies.

DnD: Red Brand Shmed Brand Part 2

After much deliberation, Xavros takes out his attacker. Asher catches the blade thrown at him and retaliates but misses with his first strike! But while he's distracting them along with Dweezil's near miss, Celkini slides under the table, between Asher's legs and comes up behind the guards to drop caltrops at the door. Ben leaps onto the shoulders of one of the guards and successfully annoys him. Akilah steps in and misses. The caltrops affect one of the guards while the other attacks Asher, only to be DENIED. Because it's Asher, bitches! Then the wizard walks in, floating over the caltrops like wizard Jesus. He casts lightning fingers at Asher, who takes maximum damage.

A bugbear roars in through the south door and immediately attacks Akilah, hitting the half elf for 11 damage. The wizard follows up with a wave of his staff. Three magical missiles hit Celkini, Asher, and Akilah. Akilah siiiiighs. Celkini has great intentions: 

But she ROLLS A FREAKING ONE BECAUSE HER HUSBAND JINXED HER. The reality is that the team is not in a good way. The wizard orders everyone to yield. Dweezil aquiesces immediately. Akilah mumbles her agreement before passing out. Celkini is still on fire. She is glaring at the wizard and it's taking everything Ben has to keep her in check until Dweezil drops by to wrestle her weapons from her. The remaining guards strip them of their weapons. The one guard Celkini tried to groin roughs her up, takes the rest of her weapons, and tosses her aside. She hisses angrily at him and imagines jumping on his face and clawing out his eyes. 

The wizard orders them to follow the bugbear to incarceration. Asher helps Akilah along and they limp forward together. After some internal deliberation, Xavros finally follows grudgingly.

They are all taken to three jail cells, their attempt at escape and general troublemaking a complete failure.

There is an older woman and some teenagers already there. One looks pretty beat up. Dweezil interrogates the boy who doesn't seem to know how long he's been imprisoned. They learn that the boy and and his sister and mother are from the town and were captured to be sold into slavery because the father spoke out against the Red Brand.

Celkini is climbing the walls, literally, though Ben is trying to settle her down. The group decides they should finally rest for once. All the healers are conveniently in a cell away from Akilah. They use their Cure Wounds spells on themselves and on the boy, then they go to sleep.

During the night, one of the guard leaves the room while the other dozes off standing against the wall. Ben follows the first to see that the next room is empty and beyond that, the first guard is joining another drunken card game. Ben does not see their weapons. He returns and awakens Dweezil, but Dweezil doesn't want to do anything. Ben grunts and wakes up Celkini instead who immediately jumps to action. She squeezes through the bars and sneaks a shortsword and thief's tools away from the guard. Dweezil  frees himself. Celkini beckons him over and climbs on his shoulder so that she can sink the blade into the sleeping guards throat. He dies with a quiet gurgle AND NO YELLING.

They wake the others and get them out of the cells. After some deliberation and plans to possibly set the children on fire ("look at the flowers") as a distraction, they decide to leave the family behind and head into the room with the sarcophogi. There, the stone coffins slowly open and drauger rise from the crypts. Should they throw Asher at them? No, they run through a door to the north into a cramped hallway. The other door is locked, but Dweezil's stone sense finds a false door. They come out into the area they had discovered and partially explored before. They recognize it, knowing now that there is an escape just ahead if they can make it. But a voice in Celkini's mind stops her, politely asking for them to bring him the Red Brand they killed. The voice also speaks to Xavros, asking him to convince Celkini to get the food he's requested. Soon the voice is in everyone's head and it reveals that there are weapons to be had and that it is willing to help us if we help it. It's just... hungry...

Next: A Voice in the Dark 

SWTOR: Dark Side Cookies

We took a break from DnD to adventure in a galaxy long ago in a time far far away.

DnD: Red Brand Shmed Brand Part 1

We're off to see the wizard. And by that we mean we're escorted back to the mansion that they'd accidentally found before, which Celkini points out, before finally being silenced by Ben. They enter the depths beyond a cave, through a different entrance where they get a strange feeling that Xavros is pretty sure is caused by this:

But our DM swears that's not what it is. But we don't trust him. Everyone, including the Red Brand guards, shrug off the fuzzy feeling and move on. Ahead, there is a bugbear on patrol, but he does not pay them much mind. Further on, they pass a table of drunken gamblers whom carefully robs, causing a bit of havoc after they move on. They finally come to a room with a table full of alchemic potions and tools. Excited, Celkini tries to rush over to the table, but is pulled back by one of the guards. Dweezil steps up to her defense, but backs down when a sword is drawn. Once things settle down, they are ordered to sit around the table. Celkini, thanks to a badass roll of awesomeness:

 recognizes potions for invisibility and the embuement of weapons with cool stuff. A rat runs around, sniffing them. It hisses when Ben appears on Celkini's shoulder and then it vanishes.

The guards take places against the walls at the doors. Then NotGandalfSephirothDumbledore appears. Dweezil notices that the guards all snap to attention at his commands. The rat returns, scrambling up on the mage's shoulders. Celkini points out that his rat is much like hers, but Ben refuses to come out of her pouch to greet them. The wizard calls Ben a punk, but Ben doesn't bite. Or rather he does, silencing Celkini once more and for the rest of the conversation, though she is dying to spill alllll the beans. The mage, occasionally pausing to confer with his rat, tells them that they will be taken to their benefactor, The Spider, who lives there at the place with a full contingent of bugbears to escort them there in the morning. They don't get much more out of him and he Dweezil fails to steal anything from the table. The intimidating mage leaves, but his rat stays behind. Ben runs out to check him, but finds the other rat is much bigger and backs down.

The mage's final order is to take their weapons and lock them up, but when one reaches for Xavros, the bard reacts with Hellish Rebuke. The other guards haven't taken anyone's weapons yet and are confused by their suddenly burning friend....

DnD: Housekeeping

Celkini leads the way as the team checks the cave. She finds a rubble filled path leading up to the other side, but as she and Asher climb up to the landing and attempt to throw down a rope to help the others up, the platform gives way. Akeelah takes seven damage from the falling pebbles. Good thing she leveled up earlier. Celkini also offers her a Cure Wounds spell, then Ben goes up the path to check things out. Celkini and Asher follow and this time discover that there's nothing up there. Totally worth the effort.

The team decides to rest while Dweezil works on a map of the cave to give to the lady who owns the stolen stuff. Celkini offers everyone her stash of muffins that she'd brought with her from home. They are rock hard and taste awful, but they do the job and refill their waterskins from the river that goblins hopefully have not peed in. They know better now than to accept food from Celkini, but Xavros was very, very hungry.

Then they head back to town. It's dark now, but they spot the two poorly dressed guards at the entrance. They approach cautiously, except for Celkini, who waves and proceeds to inform the guards of their recent adventures, including the slaughter of Red Brands. The guards don't seem too surprised by this, but they haven't yet drawn their short swords. Instead, they offer to escort the crew to the Town Master's house. Dweezil attempts to discern what these two are up to. Xavros doesn't trust them, Asher is on guard, and Dweezil and Akeelah are playing up Akeelah's injury so that they can hang back. Celkini skips along merrily. They spot other "guards" walking in town, at least two, and another at the door to the Town Master's house. The guards nod to each other

and then the guard at the door knocks in what seems to be a specific pattern. Ben and Dweezil commit the pattern to memory. They go inside and discover a disheveled Leroy Silverhawk in a cage. What the hell is wrong with this man? Did we not just rescue him? There are four guards. At the far end of the room, a door opens and a man in a hooded red cape steps in to greet them. He knows who they are, and if he didn't know, Celkini confirms it anyway. He takes out a piece of parchment. On it is a picture of Celkini and words that they can read this time, indicating that her capture is valued at 25 gold pieces. "That's just like the one we have," Celkini exclaims. Her friends shake their heads and try not to cry. Dweezil tries to explain that gnomes all look alike, but Celkini takes great offense.

Xavros lingers at the door, leaning his full weight against it and surreptitiously turning the latch to ensure they do not have any more company join them before this party goes south.

The hooded man notes that this group has caused much trouble, but clearly they have skills that would be useful to the Red Brands. He offers them two options: join us, or die. The four guards pull their swords.

Dweezil notes that the Red Brands don't seem keen on non-human membership, The man says they are willing to make an exception.  "I am not too familiar with human feeding customs," says Dweezil, "but I don't eat the ass. We need to speak to the head." He then drops the mic. The hooded man chuckles and agrees to take them to his leader, the wizard.

DnD: Hobgoblins Party

Previously, on Dungeons & Dragons, our intrepid heroes were running for their lives from a pack of hobgoblins. We took a very long hiatus for the holidays in hopes that our DM would forget that these hobgoblins existed, but alas, he did not, so everyone ran deeper into the goblin cave. Xavros promised to sing a DMX song at Akilah's funeral if she died on this adventure. Celkini remembered the layout of the cave and dashed onward to set up a trap from above, dragging Dweezil with her. Asher dragged the bugbear he so cruelly murdered in cold blood earlier into the path as an obstacle, sitting the bloated creature up and posing him nicely. [Scriber's note: I just googled "posing dead bodies and this is actually a thing and now I am creeped out]

Celkini dropped caltrops behind the bugbear's body and she and Dweezil waited while the others tried to figure out what they were doing back at the little reservoir. A hobgoblin appeared and, rather than wait for it to stumble over the caltrops, Dweezil ruined Celkini's plan (well, it was Ben's plan, really), by shooting the hobgoblin. The creature took a lot of damage, but as these beings are wont to do, he yelled out to his companions before Celkini could finish him off.

Back in the alcove, a pair of hobgoblins rushed at Asher and Akilah. Asher took out one with a viscous spear attack and a warrior's yell that drew Celkini's attention. She attacks the hobgoblin that had gone after Akilah, softening him up for the half-elf who, sadly, missed. Yet again. Poor Akilah. Xavros finished him off.

A calm settled over the cave and all anyone can hear is the dripping of water and the rumble of Xavros' hungry tummy. Then Dweezil heard the sound of armoured footfalls. And then Dweezil YELLS about it, alerting the hobgoblin to his presence. Celkini excitedly runs back, and Xavros follows to add a crazy floating dagger spell to the collection of traps down below. Between the three of them, they took out the hobgoblin, but not before it managed to shoot Dweezil. Two more hobgoblins followed and the heroes huddled up at the edge of the cliff. Akilah, in desperation, threw her sword at one, but

she missed.

Everyone was happy and considered having a party over their joyous victory, but then an arrow flew out of the darkness behind him, hitting Asher because the party had forgotten how to count to six. Everyone turned. Xavros, still very hungry, insulted the hobgoblins mother and demanded him make the bard a sandwich. The hobgoblin did not comply, instead rushing at them. Akilah stepped forward with the long sword she looted from the other hobgoblins. With the encouragement of her companions,

But alas...

she missed. [Scriber's note: For the record, Akilah had great initiative rolls this session.]

Celkini stepped in with her hammers, but both she Ben missed and the hobgoblin kicked her away. There were too many people in the way for Dweezil to fire a crossbow bolt (we know what happened last time), leaving Asher to shove Xavros aside, saving him from certain death (but not feeding him), and try to take out this hobgoblin, who clearly had leveled up while he rounded that corner. Asher stunned the hobgoblin, leaving him open for Akilah to FINISH him.

Akilah killed him in an epic sword swinging move, slicing off various body parts this way and that.

Blood spouted everywhere, which Akilah crip walked through, relishing in her first hit and kill of this adventure. While she was busy doing that, Dweezil searched the pockets of the hobgoblin and discovered a strange note:

WHAT COULD THIS MEAN???

Xavros doesn't care because he is still very hungry.