The game begins. It is tasteless.

Aliarra: Man, Nazis were kind of jerks, weren’t they?

Skipping ahead…

Aliarra: So I believe we had just spent our time getting drunk in a tavern?
DM: I believe that’s how you finished the night. You spent a triumphant evening in the taverns.
Aliarra: Still haunted and disturbed by the guy whose name I wish had been transcribed by now.
Aiden: I’m skating around the room, drunk and super-quick.
DM: Nichol was his name, I think. Did I write anything down on anything else other than the paper I tore up in the frustration of you guys dismantling our encounter?
Aliarra: The monk wasn’t our fault.
DM: No, I’ll give you the monk, but the rest of that was just like, “what the fuck.” Nice well-rounded party, they should be able to get some blows in -- no.
Aliarra: You were not prepared.
DM: Apparently I wasn’t.
Aliarra: ”I’m gonne get him – oh, I’m on the ground.”
DM: Still disturbed by the information you got, but as it were, the night ends in debauchery.
Hanzo: (bursts into laughter)
DM: …in revelry. We’ll call it that.
Hanzo: We wake to a charnel house reek. What have we done?!
DM: It’s the walk of shaaaame!
Aliarra: (referencing her character’s age) There’s only one possible appropriate thing for this seventeen-year-old girl to do. Get sloshed! I’m not worried because my armor is spiked. Anybody who tries to get it off will alert me long before they complete the process.
DM: “Ow, my fucking hand!” I’m giving you guys the benefit of the doubt.

Aiden realizes his character is 45 years old and briefly freaks out, before also realizing he’s a half-elf and that isn’t unreasonable. Still, this is just an arbitrary number, so Aiden rerolls, coming up with 37. Cissy, the new addition to the group, rolls for her halfling height and comes up with an alarmingly low roll.

DM: A night of revelry. Singing… drinking, probably. Will you guys be crashing at the tavern tonight or will you seek lodgings elsewhere?
Aliarra: I’ll see if Drusila will put me up in her bakery.
Aiden: I’ll go to my local parish.
Hanzo: I’ll find an unguarded rooftop.
Aiden: Oh yeah, because we don’t have enough gold for a bloody inn stay.
Hanzo: Prices are going up in this economy!
Aiden: I don’t want to give in to temptation, so I’ll just go have sex with the local clergy.
DM: …wait, what?
Hanzo: Lost on his way to the brothel…

The DM continues to hint that they should stay in the inn. The group forces Hanzo to stay in the inn to absorb plot.

Hanzo: I shall roll up in a corner. I will roll a superb Hide check or something…
DM: (in a ludicrously suspicious tone) Do you all tell Hanzo where you are headed?
Aliarra: Everybody knows where I stay, I’m fucking Aliarra!
Aiden: Everybody knows where I stay, I’m on Aliarra’s ceiling, watching her sleep.
Aliarra: I’m not Banglasharan!
Aiden: It doesn’t matter.
Aliarra: Oh great. Apparently with increased youth comes decreased particularity about possible perversion targets. That’s just wonderful.
Aiden: Well look, there’s only one cat left, and she has good senses, unlike the other one who was kind of foolish…
Aliarra: By the way, I trained myself to thrust mindlessly at the ceiling with my glaive while I sleep.
Aiden: Why!?
Aliarra: FOR EXACTLY THIS SORT OF OCCASION!
Aiden: It’s not like I started doing it recently.
Cissy: “I’ve been doing it all along!”
DM: Aliarra, you are nudged awake by one of your comrades. There’s a man in a dress out in the courtyard waiting for you.
Cissy: A man in a dress?
Hanzo: Oh man… what did we DO last night?
Aiden: Apparently she got married.
Hanzo: Aiden! You poisoned our drinks!
Aliarra: All right, step one. I check to make sure I am actually awake.
DM: You are.
Aliarra: Huh.

Aliarra gets dressed. Hanzo plays the music stinger. Aiden vows to find a party with more chicks.

Aliarra: You find a party of lesbians. Real-life lesbians. You know, they run the gamut of attractiveness and they’re not interested in you –
Aiden: “Run the gamut of attractiveness?” I like that phrase. I need that on a shirt. “Lesbians: Running the gamut of attractiveness.” Just to see how far I can get before some people read it and are like, “Oh my god!”
DM: Go to a gay pride parade with that on. George Takei will be there, he’ll be like, “Oh my.”

The man in the dress is in fact a mage in wizard robes. Aliarra immediately apologizes for her temple as a whole. Lord Denelos has summoned the party to appear before him by noon. The acolyte leaves muttering. Hanzo meanwhile considers going into a ninja prestige class from the Book of Nine Swords, but questions if he can poison his hands.

Hanzo: Bestow negative levels with an unarmed attack?!
Aliarra: You’re like a VAMPIRE MONK!
Hanzo: Except it’s actually legit here.
DM: Aliarra and Mrrshala set out to find their party.
Aliarra: “Drusi—wait, no never mind. Aiden! Haaanzo!”
DM: If you wish to inquire after Drusila, you may do so.
Aliarra: Naaah, no one cares.
DM: Damn, that’s cold.
Aliarra: If her last name wasn’t Siameseovitch, I might care more.
Hanzo: Siameseovitch! Hee hee hee hee hee hee!
Aliarra: Well, we might need to spring Aiden out of jail…
DM: Aiden decided smartly to go back to my temple.
Aiden: I told you, I go back to my temple, I don’t have to worry about getting in trouble. What’s in the temple stays in the temple.
DM: Awkwardly. For a very long time.
Aiden: You guys come back to the temple, I’m standing outside… “I’m not allowed to go back in there. It was worth it.”
DM: “My loins are on fire.”
Aliarra: He’s just got a big block of ice strapped to his codpiece.
Aiden: “It’s necessary.”
Aliarra: Let’s see, so far the people that Aliarra has spent the most time with that are male are Hanzo and Aiden. Yeah, she’s gonna be celibate forever after seeing this.
Hanzo: “I’m not celibate.”
Aiden: What’s wrong – what’d Hanzo do?! I don’t know why Hanzo is a picture of –
Hanzo: Then again, you don’t know what Hanzo looks like.

Aliarra attempts to introduce Cissy by the mechanic of “we rounded up our party and there she was”, causing the meta alarm to implode. The party does in fact choose to go check on the Siameseovitch bakery.

DM: You all hate Drusila. What’s up with that?
Aliarra: Her last name is Siameseovitch!
Hanzo: But that’s awesome!
Aiden: My guy is mostly, she kinda left out on us. I was kinda hoping she would eventually return to join us.
Aliarra: It’s like I said a long time ago. Yeah, she was with us for a long time, I have no idea why, because as far as I knew, she was a BAKER! Why did she keep coming with us?! That was her skill set. That was what she brought to the table.
DM: But she was handy with a whip!
Aliarra: Sometimes.
DM: Disarming traps?
Aliarra: I don’t think she ever did that. No, she found a trap that didn’t exist.
DM: That’s the only one you remember! That’s why! There was more than one trap in the dungeon!

The group cheerfully mocks Drusila’s many misadventures, ending with a direct appeal to Drusila’s player to come back (though sadly, the player doesn’t read these game reports, I can only assume because it would hurt too much).

DM: Anyway, you enter the shop.
Aliarra: Oh that’s right, I remember there was a sect down here.
DM: Yes. That was a joke. There is no sect down here.
Aliarra: It’s a subsect, I remember now.
DM: Yes yes yes.
Aliarra: All right, we find the head.
DM: Y-no!

They get a couple of éclairs from the bakery and call it good, then head for the wizard college.

DM: You arrive the college, are shown in. “Master Denelos would like to see you in the Meditation Room.”
Aliarra: …Does anybody remember if that was code for ‘the torture room’?
Aiden: He doesn’t point us where to go, we just proceed to walk around. “Where do we go – do we—there’s a sign, what LANGUAGE is it in?!”
Aliarra: Didn’t they take Carrick to the Meditation Room once when they were torturing him?
DM: You guys THOUGHT they were torturing him. “Man, I love to torture!”
Aliarra: I’m fairly certain we’re going to be tortured.
DM: You got to the Meditation Room. It’s a nice large airy room. The ground is covered in carpets, pillows everywhere…
Aliarra: It’s squishy from all the blood it’s absorbed.
DM: And in the back sits Denelos, puffing on a pipe, looking deep in concentration.
Aliarra: In his left hand, a cat-o-nine-tails. In his right hand—
DM: No, no cat-o-nine-tails, no nothing. Just sitting there smoking his pipe. “Ah, adventurers! Come in, have a seat! Aliarra, you’d probably best stand. I don’t want you puncturing the pillows. No offense.”
Aliarra: I’ve got to get that armor you can just poof on and off of you at will.
Aiden: “Oh man. This seat! Is! COMFORTABLE!”
DM: It is quite comfortable.
Aiden: “Wow, this is – man, woo!”
DM: You didn’t think they could fit that much stuffing in a pillow.
Aiden: “I feel rested just sitting on this thing! Oh man!”

Aiden continues to try to screw with Aliarra in this fashion for a while.

DM: “I have brought you here to speak of two thing. One: King Launvalen of the elves has agreed to meet with you.”
Aliarra: “That’s good.”
DM: “Two, I want you to take somebody with you.”
Aliarra and Hanzo: “That’s bad.”
Aiden: “Is it female?”
DM: “Yes.”
Aiden: “That’s good. Is she... old?”
DM: “Depends on your definition of old.”
Hanzo: “That’s bad. Do we get a free frogurt?”
DM: “Yes.”
Hanzo: “That’s good.”
DM: “The frogurt is also cursed.”
Cissy: “The frogurt contains benzopotassiate.”
Aiden: “That’s – what?”
Aliarra: Potassium benzoate! YOU LOSE!
Aiden: “GOOD DAY SIR!
DM: Is your name still the same?
Cissy: Cecelia. Skydreamer.
DM: “Cecilia Skydreamer.”
Cissy: Nicknamed “Cissy”.
Hanzo: Oh man, she’s right up his alley, too.
Aiden: Nope, she’s only two foot eight, that doesn’t work.
Hanzo: She could pose for a half-grown girl…
Aliarra: It’s just a little tighter for your miter.
All: (horrified, pained groaning)
DM: “She’s one of our gifted warmages, and I feel she will aid you on your quest. You seem to be lacking in the arcane department.”
Hanzo: “Perhaps a demonstration could be arranged.”

An oddly long pause.

Hanzo: “On… someone that’s not us. Let me clarify that before we meet her, so she’s not slinging sound lances at us!”
DM: “I can speak for her. She’s got a good heart, but she’s a bit rambunctious.”

Denelos puffs smoke out into round disc, which he then rings like a gong to summon an acolyte. The players are uncharacteristically impressed by this. Cissy is brought to them by said acolyte (while the players have a Star Crunch fight).

DM: “Ah, Cissy, I’m glad you could join us.”

Incredibly long silence.

DM: “Are you ready for some adventure, little one?”
Cissy: (in a voice which would cause Satan himself to cringe and weep openly) “Yes? This gonna be FUN!”
DM: “I told you, rambunctious, but quite useful in a fight.”
Hanzo: “Just what we needed.”
Aliarra: I take the Holy Ibuprofen of Skeldric. I’m gonna need it.

Denelos advises them to split up their magic artifact plot coupons, though the group is reluctant. Denelos agrees to provide them with a box that would make its contents immune to detection. Aiden threatens to steal the gloves and staple them to his arms… then immediately recognizes the folly of this.

Cissy: “We’re going to see the elves?!”
Aliarra: You guys are gonna be begging for the Inferian voice after half an hour of this. BEGGING for it. What’s your Charisma?
Cissy: 18.
Aliarra: How do you speak like that with that Charisma?

Aliarra requests a box with a false bottom from Hanzo. Cissy attempts to overhear.

Cissy: Natural 1 on my Listen check.
Aliarra: “Hanzo, would you care to eat my box.”
Hanzo: “Dot dot dot.”
Aliarra: No, he actually hears something, he rolled so poorly.
Hanzo: Oh, uh, “Dot speak no jutsu.”
Aiden: Whoa, whoa, are you offering him sex over there? What the hell?!
Aliarra: You didn’t even roll!
Aiden: I did. I rolled a 2!

Hanzo heads off into the shady parts of the city and immediately finds the most ludicrously sketchy box merchant in the history of the universe.

DM: “Boxes here! Boxes here! I gotcher boxes here! Iron boxes! Wood boxes! Gold…ish boxes! Boxes that seem too big! Boxes that seem too small on the inside. Boxes with a liiiittle bit of something inside. Boxes that explode! Don’t open them on your own. Gentleman with a mask, how are you today?”
Mrrshala: “DOT DOT DOT.”
DM: “Excellent to hear, glad to hear, what can I getcha?”
Mrrshala: “DOT DOT DOT!”
Hanzo: (resolutely says nothing)
DM: “You care to write it out, or ya mute, I got a pen and paper here...”
Aiden: JUST TALK TO HIM!
Hanzo: Leave me alone, you’re not here!
Aiden: You guys just left me in that fucking place? I just stood there and watched you leave? There’s no way!
Aliarra: You’re not going to the shady district with Hanzo, you’ll ruin everything! It’s kind of your thing in this campaign!
Aiden: I’m just standing there, waiting, doing nothing…
Aliarra: Hitting on the box vendor’s Banglasharan wife!
DM: She’s hot!

Aiden continues to complain the background, while Hanzo haggles for a box from the merchant. The box merchant finally attempts to charge five silver pieces for the box. Aiden furiously grabs Hanzo’s character sheet and points to his listed money.

Aiden: This here? This says you should not be haggling five silver pieces, god damn it! He’s over here haggling for 50-cent candy while he has 500 dollars!

Meanwhile, by saying absolutely nothing, Hanzo haggles the price down to like half. Hanzo stalks off, muttering about Knockturn Alley’s box store, then spars with Aiden over pricing and haggling for a while. Aliarra receives the box, then places the gloves in the hidden container, and a holy symbol and some personal effects in the obvious parts of the box, gets the wizards to wizard lock it, then takes it to Faldoun and begs him to watch over it personally.

Aiden: So it’s gonna be your fault that it’s lost?
Aliarra: (already resigned to the inevitable) Yeah.
DM: “This is quite a task you’re giving me.”
Aiden: This guy is THE leader, the guy we’re looking for the entire time, he’s just like, “Thanks!”
Aliarra: He bends over to take it, the heart flops out.
DM: “Whoops! Sorry, that keeps falling out.”
Aiden: We’re all sitting there away from you while you’re about to face him, a musician comes up. “You never split the party…”
Aliarra: I trust Faldoun, because I trust that Skeldric would’ve smoten him long ago. Skeldric don’t stand for your shit.
DM: “Then I will do it with honor.”
Aliarra: “Please, release it only to myself, or if I am dead, one of my companions.”
Aiden: LISTEN CHECK!
Aliarra: “I’d prefer it to be Mrrshala if possible!”
Aiden: You’re found dead. It’s not even twenty minutes later.
Aliarra: I’m found dead of mace. Mace and Inflict Light Wounds. “Why?! Why – oh right, the gloves.”
Aiden: “It’s an addiction, I’m sorry!”
Aliarra: “You keep saying you can handle it!”
Aiden: “I know, but apparently I can’t!”

The group realizes that with one half-elf and no one of any race the elves have respect for, this will be awkward. Everyone wonders how to best ingratiate themselves, or at least not cause an international incident.

Aliarra: Ooh, Knowledge(religion), what god do the elves worship?
DM: Do you ask that out loud, or are you asking –
Aliarra: I‘m – yeah, I say, “Knowledge(religion), what god do the elves worship?!”
DM: You could just ask Denelos, he knows.
Aliarra: I wanna find out if I know.
Hanzo: Kalroth.
Aliarra: …aww, a natural 1, that’s bad.
Hanzo: KALROTH.
DM: You think that the elves worship Drek’thelar himself.
Aiden: You believe that they are searching for the items to take over the world! …that’d be hilarious if even though he rolled a 1 and came up to that conclusion, that’s what’s happening.

In fact the elves worship Kalroth, causing Hanzo some irritation for the loss of his joke. As a brief history lesson, elves were Kalroth’s first race, but dwarves were the first on this world in sum. The elves are a little bitter about this.

Aiden: I hope my father or mother was some high-ranking person there—
Cissy: No no, low ranking, got raped in the slums.
Aiden: Damn. What the hell’s wrong with my father? I can see where the perversion came from now…

It gets horrible, then into a Vampire Hunter D analogy…

Hanzo: They know they’re coming, the elven king said ‘okay, I’ll talk to you guys.’
Aiden: Did someone tell him it was a mirage of every race he hated?
Hanzo: He consented to speak with us, I’m sure he’s not happy about it.
DM: “It took quite some buttering up.”

The conversation waxes increasingly meta…

DM: “Also know that Launvalen is quite an old elf. He’s older than everybody in this tower combined.”
Aliarra: We go there, he’s in the middle of a heart attack.
Aiden: And the even worse militant son who has plans of world domination.
Aliarra: “We’ll be the first race if there ARE no other races, AH HA HA HA HA HA!”
DM: “To the teleportation room.”
Aliarra: It just looks like a giant blender.
Hanzo: “It’s a SAFETY CIRCLE!”

They are taken to a tower room, in which Denelos inhales dramatically, then puffs a mighty blast on his pipe.

DM: Smoke fills the bottom of the floor, then becomes solid, but it’s still shifting.
Hanzo: This Pipe Smoke no jutsu is awesome!
DM: “Going up!”
Aiden: Man, all of a sudden I want to make a character who has “Odd Casting Method: Smoke.”
Aliarra: Apparently we’re going up on smoke.
Aiden: But you must be pure of heart. The smoke just passes me. “Fuck.” Then a light points out stairs. “God damn it.”
DM: You’re all teleported… onto a table. Surrounded by old men. One of them having a heart attack.

The group steps through a smoke-portal, into room intertwined with twigs and vines in a nature motif. Elves, go fig.

Hanzo: “No one to meet us.”
Cissy: “Oooh, purty!”
Aliarra: (cringing)
DM: Watching you cringe every time she speaks is fantastic.
Aliarra: I don’t know how the rest of you guys aren’t doing it.
DM: I’ve been subjected to it already.
Hanzo: Under the mask I’ve got earplugs jammed firmly in.

The group travels a full mile down a long hallway, becoming increasingly alarmed as they see no sign of any reception or acknowledgement. The DM briefly vows to never draw out a battle again just to deny Aliarra attacks of opportunity. At last, though, they reach pair of guards. Aiden attacks the microphone for no good reason. The guards leave the PCs to cool their heels.

Aliarra: “Well then, Cissy, while we wait, why don’t you tell us what you can do?”
Cissy: “I kill shit!”
Mrrshala: (collapses into hysterics)
Aliarra: “As do we all, but I was hoping for a manner.”
Cissy: “I just cast spells, shit dies.”
Aliarra: (strained)“Hmm. Very well then.”
DM: Deep breathing exercises!
Aliarra: Yeah, I’m gonna need this extra attack of opportunity.
Aiden: I don’t know why you expected a more coherent answer.
Aliarra: Since conversation with the halfling proved more futile than conversation with Drusila, who I now miss, I kneel in prayer. And pray for the patience to get through this. “Skeldric, why are you testing me? Haven’t I done enough?”

The players briefly lampshade the wait they’re being put through. Cissy abruptly tried to take the Drusila role.

Cissy: “Scuse me guard! Scuse me! How long are we supposed to wait?”
DM: “As long as it takes.”
Cissy: “But with all due respect, we’re kind of in a hurry.”
DM: “We’ve always said the mortal races need to learn more patience.”
Cissy: “We don’t have the same amount of time you do! Our lives are much shorter and quicker to end. Therefore the patience is something that we have to exercise with prudence!”
DM: I can not keep a straight face… “You are in our realm. Patience is required.”
Hanzo: I start poisoning my darts.
Aliarra: Oh god! This is heading downhill fast.
Hanzo: No, not for use on them!
Aliarra: You say.

A game of craps erupts, despite the fact that not one single player knows how to play craps. Half an hour passes before the guards beckon them in.

Hanzo: “So soon?”

Dead silence.

Hanzo: “I mean…”

Hanzo is pelted with various thrown items and snack cakes. The guards lead them into the room past the hallway at long last. The open space before them is colored in countless shades of green. The guards lead them up the stairs there.

DM: “You may enter, mortals.”
Cissy: “THANK YOU!”
Aliarra: (literally leaps across the table to beat the crap out of Cissy)

Elven maidens standing around the room give them a stiff, formal bow, earning a variety of responses from the players, from turning the other cheek to sarcasm. On they go, into the great throne room of Launvalen!

Aliarra: It’s on fire for some reason.
Cissy: OH MY GOD!
Aliarra: We put it out and earn the king’s gratitude. “It was THAT easy?!”
DM: Twenty feet in the air, on a grand throne made out of bent trees and moss – it’s quite beautiful, really – stands a wizened elf, his features very sharp, face narrow, cheekbones sticking far too high up. You realize this is probably the first elf you’ve laid eyes on.
Aliarra: I bow – whatever the diplomatic protocol here is, I just rolled a natural 20 on it, so. That’s a 34 all told.
DM: You remember hearing about some practice of the elfs on your travels. You attempt to recreate it! Apparently quite successfully, as he arches his eyebrows at you. “Impressive.”
Cissy: He and I are the only ones who speak Elven, I’m assuming the king speaks Common.
DM: You don’t know yet. He said “Impressive,” but he did say it in Elfish.
Aliarra: I don’t know what he said. I hope it wasn’t an insult.
Cissy: “He said ‘impressive’—“
Aliarra: (violently blundgeons Cissy with a book she’d been holding for exactly that purpose)
DM: Stop that!
Aliarra: Why am I being told to stop it!?
DM: She’s in-character!
Aliarra: THAT’S THE PROBLEM!
DM: I can’t blame her for being in-character!
Aliarra: YOU CAN AND YOU SHOULD. (collapses into a broken shell of a person)

Aiden goes to the bathroom… out of character, implied horribly to be IN character, right there in the throne room. The DM tries to convince Aiden and Cissy to switch seats.

Aliarra: Oh yeah, put Aiden closer to me, that’ll help too. Hey Aiden, let’s discuss something!
Aiden: We don’t have to yell as hard, because we’re closer.
Aliarra: That won’t stop us and you know it.

The elf king makes a comments on Aiden’s elven heritage, which is vaguely favorable thanks to a good diplomacy roll. Aiden waffles for a long time about how to respond to this.

Aliarra: This is where you seriously kiss up to him, lick his ass and be like, “How could the elven grace and beauty NOT shine through an otherwise frail and mortal heritage.”
Aiden: Uh, I say something like that. I bitingly diss my human heritage.
DM: “It’s been ages since I spoke the common tongue.”
Aliarra: He says in Elvish.
DM: No, he says it in Common!
Aiden: “Our allies appreciate you using it for their sake.”
DM: “It is only because my son…”
Hanzo: “Arthas.”
Aiden: Shut up!
DM: “Is learning the ways of the arcane with Denelos that I grant this audience.”
Aiden: “We appreciate it nonethe—“ How much information are we gonna give him?
Aliarra: Considering he’s fucking old, he probably has a pretty goddamn high Sense Motive, so let’s be honest. Meta. Meta. Meta.

The DM reminds them that Denelos already spoke of their meeting. They attempt to tell the elven king their tale, someone misstates “boots” as “boobs”, and for five minutes they tell the story of Kalroth’s dread boobs. Then they rewind and start over.

DM: “No mortal has stepped foot on our island for over a century.”
Aliarra: (Unicron voice) Then it pleases us to be the first.
DM: “I see no safer place for [the knowledge].”

A long silence.

Aliarra: Why are you all looking at ME?!
Aiden: I’m just trying to think like – I missed what he said, so I thought he was trying to take the items that we have for himself to hide them heard.
Hanzo: Well, you can certainly take it that way, but that’s not what he said. He said, “We have it, why should we give it to you?”
Aliarra: “This is the safest place to keep it perhaps, but the items have been put into play. They’re no longer safely behind locked doors and closed labyrinths or insanity chambers or what have you.”
Aiden: “It would also be very prudent to ensure the item has not already been taken, if a watchful eye is not on it.”
Aliarra: “It’s no longer a race at this point to keep them safe, but a race to see who can gather them all first, for what purpose.”
DM: “And when you gather them, what do you plan on doing?”
Aliarra: “Nothing so nefarious and evil as what our opponents would do.”
Aiden: “According to the book they can only be destroyed when they’re all together.” I think that’s what the book said? No? Never mind.
Hanzo: Don’t mention that to him!
Aiden: At this point I didn’t realize why we were gathering them either. Why ARE we gathering them? Why aren’t we destroying them?
Aliarra: We don’t really have a good reason, and I kind of tried to tapdance around that part. Except for the fact that we want them safe.
Hanzo: We want them so that the people who do want them don’t get them.
Aiden: My character is stumped, like, “Wait a minute…”
Aliarra: “At this point all we can be certain of is that we don’t know enough about the foes we face. We do know that they have powerful enchantments, enough to even overwhelm a mighty mage who was working with us, and that they do have the ability to commit all sorts of magical felonies. Their goals in obtaining this can only be nefarious.
Aiden: They made a male PREGNANT. That’s inhuman!
DM: “Oh, we do that all the time.”
Aiden: I want OUT of this kingdom!
Aliarra: (ominously) How do you think YOU came to be?
Aiden: AAAAAAH!
Aliarra: “The power of these items can no longer remain in hiding. They’re not safe there. All of the protections that have BEEN put into place to protect them have fallen thus far, and even as mighty as the elf kingdom is, and as wise as your people are, can you deny that there are some within it who might be swayed by temptations of power, knowledge?
DM: “I daresay not, but there’s always room for something new.”
Aiden: “See, the item is right here… under my throne!”
Aliarra: “Sir, sir, that’s your throne itself, you just pulled it out from under you.” “Aaaaah!” Thud.

The king tells them that they placed the book in the heart of a sacred grove, and over time, a Gauntlet of Thorns arose around it. To be worthy of safeguarding the book, they must simply retrieve it. Failure is death, of course.

Cissy: “Sounds like fun!”
Aliarra: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

The king tells them that braving the gauntlet is a rite of passage for elder elves, so it certain should be possible. Naturally, the party doesn’t even consider not doing it.

Hanzo: “How far from here?”
DM: “A day’s travel.”
Hanzo: I was just wondering if we were going to be embarking on a long journey to get there.
Aliarra: Yeah, by boat.
Hanzo: (sighing) And the king himself is coming along!
DM: The king has been murdered.
Aliarra: They blame the halfling, unless you can prove it was someone else.
Cissy: “I’ll sink this bitch!”
Aliarra: It WAS you, wasn’t it. You just got bored during the night, didn’t you.
Cissy: “HE CHEATED AT CRAPS!”

The Gauntlet has guards which will escort them in and see to their challenge… which through elven maaaaaaaagic, already know to expect the PCs.

Hanzo: We won’t have the element of surprise.
Aliarra: I kick open the Gauntlet. KHHH! There we go, there it is.

Somehow it gets weird again. Look, I seriously can’t even track it and I’m listening to it.

Aliarra: It turns out Aiden has been asexual this entire time, and in denial…

The king offers directions or an escort, their choice.

Aliarra: I think we’d best take the escort.
Hanzo: Yeah, that way we don’t need to sleep in shifts.
Aliarra: That way we don’t misfollow the directions. That way elves who don’t know what we’re doing here don’t throw poop at us. As I assume elves do.
Hanzo: Rotten vegetables appear out of nowhere.
Aiden: What are you talking about, there are carts.

The elves provide them with saddled salamanders to ride! (Aiden dubs them “Hendlar Experiment #19). No one has the Ride skill, so they grimly settle in to fake it. Cissy promptly rolls a natural one.

Aliarra: Down the gullet of the salamander the halfling goes, roll a new character.
DM: You are at a severe difficulty getting on this salamander.
Cissy: Yeah, I’m 2’8”.

Cissy is placed on a salamander by a helpful elf, who seriously questions if she should be strapped in. Mrrshala threatens to leave Aliarra behind when she leaves for the night if she eats a licorice candy for some reason. The salamanders have an incredibly jouncing gait.

Aliarra: I roll a 21 not to throw up.
Aiden: That wasn’t high enough.
Aliarra: Then the rest of y’all are screwed, Fort’s my good save.
Aiden: I just threw up, I wasn’t trying to resist.
DM: He was actually sticking his finger down his throat.
Mrrshala: Hairball!
Aliarra: Hanzo throws up in his mask.
DM: You guys do not need to roll. Unless you want to.
Aiden: This isn’t a corpse spinning in a wind wall.
Aliarra: “And to your left you’ll see a corpse spinning in a wind wall.” This is the Elven Hall of Tributes to Old Game Memories. The elves are very meta, you see. “And here, is the one and only vampire monk.” “Let me out of here! I want to punch! PUNCH TO DRAIN!”
Aiden: And on the wall, there’s just a picture of us.
Aliarra: “And over here, the pony that could not be grappled.” “But that just looks like a regular pony!” “Sure it does, till you try to grapple it.”
Hanzo: And over here, the door that Dirk ripped off its hinges.
Aliarra: I love the elves now!
Hanzo: And over here, the tower Hendlar was pushed out of.
Aliarra: And was later punched into collapse.
Aiden: We’ve taken the ground where a dwarf landed and got up unharmed!
Aliarra: Then what are the two dwarves to them next to the impression?
Aiden: They’re the ones who pushed him out.
Aliarra: These elves are awesome. I guess being immortal is pretty cool.
Aiden: They’ve lived through all time and all worlds. (singing) “Interdimensional elves from the future! Who live in the past!”
DM: “Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”
Hanzo and Thanatos: (singing the theme)
Aliarra: The elf king shoots past us in a DeLorean.
Hanzo: If only Aiden had pooped on the floor in front of him. “Manure! I hate manure!”
DM: That’s being added to the hall.
Aliarra: As we watch, the vines peel back, and you see Aiden squatting on the floor.

Travel and a night pass. For the first time, they gain the benefit of their “two hours of sleep only!” teamwork benefit… but the salamanders need actual sleep, so it gains them nothing. Midday the next day, they arrive! The walls are covered in oozing thorns; Hanzo immediately identifies the liquid as poisonous. Aliarra suggests he collect it, leading to absolute delight as he harvests.

DM: After about forty feet, it forks off. You look towards the left and you see two very tall elves, angular as the king himself. But something’s very strange and very off. These two are smiling at you.
Aliarra: They’re laughing at our impending deaths.
Hanzo: One has a mustache!
DM: No, no facial hair.
Aliarra: He’s Flim, he’s Flam, they’re the world-famous Flimflam Brothers!
DM: “Greetings, travelers! How exciting to see mortals attempt this.”
Aliarra: “I promise you we’re thrilled.”
DM: One cocks his head over to Mrr. “Hello, cousin!”
Mrrshala: “Cousin?”
DM: “And our half-brother joins us as well!”

Aiden slaps around the microphone with a book for a while, out of raw sadism. The guards caution them to enter with an open mind.

DM: “You are dealing with the mind of a god. You may face a physical challenge…” …this is not Double Dare.
Hanzo: I was immediately…
Aliarra: I was thinking it too!
DM: “You may face a challenge of the mind. Whatever he deems worthy of you to face. Other than that, there’s not much else we can tell you. Several have entered, many have come back through. Some did not. And some got… changed because of it.”

Aliarra jokingly ponders Intimidating the location of a back door out of them. They allow the PCs to drink from a sacred buff pool, and then at last enter. The DM calls for the table to be cleared! Another iteration of “elves are druggies” pops up.

Aliarra: (singing) “I was gonna roll Init, but then I got high. Gonna got roll my d20 and crit, but I got high. Now I’m at negative seventeen, and you know why!”
Cissy: “Why man?”
Aliarra: “Because I got high, because I got high, because I got high.”
DM: The walls themselves look exactly the same. However, the floor is covered with leaves, as if this area is going through a period of autumn.
Hanzo: Ah, the Four Seasons.
Aliarra: Walk the seasons from spring to winter, then spring again and we can enter.

Vines grow over the entrance, sealing the group in as they step into the room. They eye the trees suspiciously and make Spot checks, but see nothing odd or unusual about the large trees in the room. Unsurprisingly, a fight immediately breaks out! A pair of shambling mounds emerges from the forest floor to engage them. A flurry of blows erupts which are oddly hard to decipher from the recording; we were, apparently, all so in-tune with the map that we talked oddly less than normal. Cissy hurls a Scorching Ray into the fray despite rolling only a 10 on the attack roll. With an excellent damage roll, she leaves it smoldering!

Aliarra: And now…
DM: The entire place go up.
Aliarra: I saw this coming. That poison? Very, very flammable.
DM: Cissy erupts into combat. PEWPEW! Sound effects… she may have made them up, it is in her nature. Scorching the thing!
Aliarra: Then they go. Now the brutalization. Is it attacking?
DM: Of course it is.
Aliarra: It’s at -4 to hit anyone who isn’t me!
DM: That’s okay, it’s going for you.
Aliarra: Good! That’s what I’m here for!
Aiden: The DM’s just like, “Ha ha, the spine goes through you. 77 points of damage.”
DM: Both tendrils whip out and lash at you, for a total of 28 points of damage, and we now encounter a grapple check as the vines coil around you.

Aliarra promptly rolls a 20, for a 25 total. This is either a success or a failure depending on whether or not a natural 20 is an autosucceed. The DM allows him the success.

DM: You slip out, barely, from its grip.
Aliarra: (casually waves off the attack)
DM: I said ‘barely’, don’t wave it off. But a good belt to you nonetheless. But the other one… (muttering to himself as he positions the mini as far away from Aliarra as it can go and still attack) Aiden, a total of 13 points of damage as you are whipped. 12.
Aiden: Good thing I heard you correctly, because I heard thirty.

The inevitable Devo joke is made. The DM allows Cissy to roll Knowledge(arcane), which she rolls fairly poorly, but still thinks the attack should have done more damage to the mound. Aliarra starts quoting a scene from The Critic where Duke Phillips inadvertently copies the Nazi ‘heil’ gesture.

DM: And Hitler makes it back in, excellent.
Aliarra: Hey hey hey hey hey, that was a reference by proxy, that was a Critic reference that just HAPPENED to be a Hitler reference, it is not counting.
DM: Okay! Hitler’s already been checked off, it doesn’t matter.
Aliarra: If the Critic can do Hitler, we can do Hitler. If the Critic can do Hitler, we can do the Critic doing Hitler.
DM: Okay… And the baby’s in blackface. That still gets me.
Tywin: Oh, we’re fighting the kid from Easter Island.
Aliarra: He’s extra-vulnerable to trip.

Aiden casts Bless. Aliarra whacks the nearest shambling mound for fifteen damage, killing it, then strikes the other one with a maneuver that stops its AOOs. Mrrshala uses Emerald Razor on it. Hanzo misses; Cissy starts lining up a lightning bolt. Aliarra, who out-of-character knows EXACLTLY what lightning bolts do to shambling mounds, leaves the room to avoid giving away the information to Cissy, who doesn’t know in-character. Still, despite this, Aliarra’s Foehammer and Mrrshala’s Ruby Nightmare Blade drop the thing. Satisfied with their performance, they heal up and prepare for the next challenge… Which will not come this night. Game end!