This game report continues from our previous one, as we picked up the campaign having started quite late the previous Sunday. As you may remember (scroll down a post, slacker), our heroes had just defeated a mook-throwing bugbear and vigorously searched its corpse. However, this wasn't the proper passage onwards; the PCs had to turn around and attempt another door. Alliara promptly moves forward to kick in the door, which has become a running joke at this point, to Aiden's horror.

Aiden: I'm telling you, you're gonna get punished for crashing through every door like that.
Alliara: Hey, it hasn't happened yet! Besides, this is time-honored dungeon crawling tradition.
Aiden: Mimics. There'll be an entire dungeon that has nothing but mimics for doors. And they'll all have Improved Trip so when you go to kick them down...
DM: That's a great idea!
Alliara: Gah stop giving him ideas!

Drusila listens at the door and hears noises. In a rare non-door-crashing move, she sneaks in and slaps a wuss-ass goblin upside the head with her sap, KOing it. The other PCs crash in to take the second goblin prisoner.

DM: It's gibbering in terror.
Aiden: What's it saying?
DM: Do any of you speak Goblin?

The players consult their sheets. None of them do.

Aiden: Infernal? Oh sure, let's make sure we can talk to the denizens of Hell before we can talk to the random goblin...
Alliara: It might speak Common. Hold on a sec. "SPEAK, or taste the cold steel of my glaive!" I roll a 20 on my intimidation check.
DM: It gibbers even more loudly, then falls to the floor in a begging position.
Hanzo: (ninja-porting into the midst of the discussion, his player having finally gotten to the session) "What'd I miss?"
Aliarra: "Do you speak Goblin?"
Hanzo: "Yes."

A brief, startled pause. The PCs interrogate the goblin but arrive at no useful information except that they're glad the bugbear is dead. Shrugging, the PCs adventure onwards, encountering a massive creature hiding in a morgue slab, then an ominous "Path of Trials."

Alliara: Oh god, it's full of traps! Let's send Drusila first.
Aiden: I can't resurrect yet... Hey, wouldn't it be great if she reincarnated into the bugbear we just defeated? "Hey guys, it's me --" "Kill it!" Like, five times later, she finally convinces us, after she goes through the bugbear, all the goblins--
Drusila: Wait, what?
Aiden: We just reincarnated you into a bugbear.
Drusila: Then I will be the first bugbear to make an eclair.

The PCs step inside the first room. The door slams shut behind them, and a voice begins to speak from the air: the PCs have apparently stumbled into a test designed to judge if new acolytes of the faith are worthy.

DM: "The four of you will go in--"
Alliara: Four?!
DM: It's pre-recorded!

The PCs move forward into the first room -- or that is to say, Alliara charges forward without fear while Aiden hangs back, advising caution. The DM swiftly draws the next room on the map, including an ominous circle in the center.

Hanzo: I'll move forward past the trap --
DM: Oh, that? There's nothing there yet.
Alliara: Don't draw the pit traps before they go off!
DM: It's not a pit trap!

After a few unpleasant but quick rooms, the party finds itself in a room ankle-deep in water. Prodding various sigils on the ceiling, they advance further into the room as the water becomes waist-deep... then chin-deep...

DM: The voice speaks again. "Now find a way out." (looking overtly at his watch to signal a timed element to this trap)
Drusila: I'll be back guys, there are fireworks outside!
DM: Uh, I won't start the timing till he gets back. You guys can try a couple things.
Alliara: Okay, we''ll all go yank the chains to reset the first block that dropped.
DM: Okay. Those of you who rolled high... your chains just snap.
Alliara: And I rolled a ten. I get yanked up, my hand gets taken off by the pulley...
Hanzo: Ew!

The players while away their time arguing over whether or not they should have learned more about the religion before reaching this section, while the DM wanders upstairs. A few minutes later said DM has come back, while Drusila has not; Alliara grabs the laptop screen and shakes it slightly.

Alliara: "Hello, it is me, Drusila! I am back, we can go on now!"
DM: Hmmmmmmmm.
Alliara: "Willage! Peasant! Willage!"
DM: Got me convinced!

Drusila returns for real, and swims down to pick the lock on the door leading out.

DM: Okay, you can't see a thing. You're working entirely by feel.
Aiden: I cast Light.
DM: Still, the water is very murky.
Alliara: I-- Purify Water!

Aiden has been itching to cast this spell forever, and now does, cleansing 8 cubic feet around the door. Drusila pops it open quickly, and the party crashes into the next room -- and into a pair of displacer beasts, who attack viciously. The DM assigns damage to Alliara, then adjusts the positioning of its mini to put it at reach range.

DM: Oh, wait, I had it bite you. (moving the mini up again)
Alliara: Oh no, mouth-tentacles, I'm at a -4 to defend 'cuz I'm female...

The next room features a statue with a key, surely not ominous...

DM: "Pull one level to sacrifice a comrade to advance. Pull the other to face your challenge."
Alliara: I hook the key with the curve of my guisarme.
DM: Oh, you guys are gonna hate me for this...
Aiden: (guessing -- quite accurately) RUST MONSTER!
Alliara: Oh god, and we don't know what one is!
DM: You're experienced adventurers, I'll allow you a roll...

The PCs roll. Only one succeeds.

Alliara: "Stay back! These things destroy metal and consume it! I faced these... often in the... uh, frozen north..." I take my crowbar out of my pack and throw it behind the monsters!
Aiden: Man, I want to cast Heat Metal on that, so when it starts eating...
Alliara: We've invented rust monster Hot Pockets!

The horrified PCs -- none of whom have artificially weapons barring Banglasharan claws, and most of whom are in particularly expensive metal armor, engage the rust monster in a ludicrously cautious battle before emerging victorious.

Alliara: I mourn my crowbar.

After a save point -- err, room of rest for the weary acolytes and the PCs pretending to be them, the last challenge approaches -- a red dragon, trapped in the room for countless years and apparently quite insane. Due to a initially-vague description of its size, the PCs are horrified.

Alliara: I disbelieve! (rolls incredibly poorly) Ouch. I totally believe it's a red dragon.
DM: That's okay. It is.

However, the dragon proves to be less of a challenge than anticipated; imprisoned and mad, it loses access to much of its fighting power, and the PCs swiftly dispatch it.

Aiden: Coup de fucking gras!