Aliz: I don’t know why I played a bard, I feel like I’m going to be really crappy.
Khor: Well you can’t be crappier than me, because I can’t use any of my powers in front of you, so.
Aliz: Where there’ll be a time when you have to.
Khor: Yes, and then it’ll be all dramatic and roleplay-y.
DM: I’m impressed by how long you’ve resisted using your power in front of him.
Khor: To be fair, right now my power is “cast spells.”
Banorm: I use my powers in front of you!
Khor: You’re a cleric! It’s okay!
Aliz: I can’t wait till the transformations start. “Oh, where did he go?! Oh, but this friendly bear has decided to help us!”
Khor: You’ve never seen Khor and the friendly bear in the same place at the same time. “Sorry guys, I was taking a really long whiz behind a tree, what’d I miss? Oh, the foes are beaten!”
Aliz: “Wait a minute, Khor and this bear are never here at the same time!” Intelligence check! I rolled a one. “Oh, they must be two different people.”
Khor: “They should meet someday!”
DM: A druid is a creature of mystery, but dwarves are a race of power. They’re the most civilized and advanced nation for hundreds of miles around. Therefore, Khor can do whatever he wants.
Aliz: That would be hilarious, if between all three of us we could never roll high enough to realize Khor and the bear are the same person.”
Khor: Later I’ll start transforming into dinosaurs.
DM: You’ve never seen a dinosaur! You do not know if dinosaurs exist, even if they do.
Khor: I had bad dreams one night, this was the result. You don’t have to see ‘em in real life.
Banorm: Yes it does.
Khor: Where?
Banorm: Says it in the wildshape thing.
Khor: It says you have to be familiar with an animal!
Banorm: You’re not familiar with dinosaurs!
Khor: I dreamed of it. Really good.
Banorm: That’s shaky at best…
Aliz: I still like the idea of just, every now and then Khor runs off. “I gotta go behind this tree.” And then we just find this friendly bear who aids us for like half the campaign. Then the friendly bear leaves. “How did this bear get all the way to the city?”
Khor: “How does Khor keep getting experience? He’s never there!”
DM: When we last left off, the party was in a dank, stinking cave surrounded by the decaying corpses of animals.

With Rhuarch’s player missing, Rhuarc gets the raw deal of carrying Tourin back to town while the rest of the party continues onwards. The DM starts updating the campaign map.

DM: The stone wall is here… the faddle – battle with the skeletons was around there…
Khor: Faddle with the skeletons?
DM: Shut up. I knew you would catch that…

The DM goes over the loot list, inadvertently giving away the value of a gem in the process. Khor jokingly suggests that the greatsword was forged with a folding technique, which the DM immediately adopts as canon.

Khor: There’s no reason to fold the blade if the iron is of high quality!
DM: They might want two different qualities, folded into one. Besides, somebody could’ve done it for fun.
Khor: “Let’s invent a stupid new forging technique that takes much longer for no apparent gain! This is brilliant!” “Aye, I’ve really got it now!”
DM: Perhaps somebody just folded it because they didn’t have very good control in the amount of carbon in it.
Khor: I’ll allow it. ..I’m going to pay for this in my campaign. I’ll just mention something offhand, Kostya will research it and extract bitter revenge. “No, those black diamond can’t be worth that much… Those diamonds are only of industrial quality!”

Rhuarc heads back to town – to look the hero for saving the guy, which the party realizes too late. They return out of the cavern and continue on the path a short distance, reaching a clearing in which the crumpled form of Aliz’s sister lies. Aliz attempts to leave the game.

DM: As you approach closer you quickly realize it is indeed Varda, Aliz’s sister, who appears to be sleeping peacefully, curled up in the grass.
Willow: Let’s be SURE she’s sleeping peacefully, okay? Check pulse.
DM: As you bend down, she startles and wakes, and sits up. “Huh? What’s going on? Aliz?”
Aliz: “Yeah…?”
DM: “What are you doing here? Why is it nighttime?”
Willow: “I think you should check and make sure you have all your valuables, including your—“
Aliz: I thought you were gonna tell her to do a pregnancy check?!
Khor: Check to see if you have all of your valuables, including your virginity.
Willow: Yeah, pretty much.
Aliz: I thought when she said valuables, I heard ‘ovulating’.

A furious exchange of paper airplanes erupts out of nowhere, which the DM comes out of worst off, blaming American-model airplanes.

Aliz: “Come on, let’s get you back to town, you can tell me what happened.”
DM: She obviously is not really interested in talking, since there are many people she doesn’t know that well.
Khor: Hey, she knows all of us, we’ve already saved her ass once.
DM: She doesn’t know you well. She still seems quiet.
Khor: I can understand if she’s naturally reticent around me, after… you know, everything I did.
Banorm: (chuckling)

The group makes it back to town, flinging paper airplanes all the while. Aliz vocally criticizes Khor’s design, attempts to make a paper airplane, then realizes he has no idea what he’s doing, sings a montage song to cover for the fact, then flings his paper airplane. It goes exactly two inches before immediately crashing to the ground. Most of the group is absolutely paralyzed with laughter.

DM: I don’t understand, Why is something sucking so funny?
Banorm: It’s because he had such high expectations for it, and it delivered just the opposite.

Egrin, Captain of the Watch and Warchief, and also Tourin’s father, emerges from the crowd and demands to know what happened to Tourin. Aliz cuts him off with a Diplomacy check, then flings another paper airplane, which flies a bit before dropping out of the air like it hit an invisible wall. Egrin stomps away, declaring that tomorrow the town will assemble to make a decision on the matter.

Banorm: Oh no, not one of these again.
Khor: I’ll patrol the forest…
Aliz: You better stay out of this, I’m gonna have to use all my Diplomacy.
Khor: I’m a druid, I don’t interfere in such matters. …I don’t say that out loud.
Aliz: You should roll your Intelligence check to see if you do!

Aliz starts writing a rock opera to get his sister off the hook, while in the background the DM quietly explains the uses of captured spirits in magic. Morning dawns, and townsfolk assemble at the ring of stones. Aliz interrogates his sister over the course of the night.

DM: She recounts her story, hiding nothing, because she now realizes a far greater danger awaits her.
Aliz: I stay up all night, researching and formulating a good Diplomacy check. I do some planning ahead of time.
Khor: Dude, this is a primitive culture, make it in the form of a song and it’ll be more persuasive.
Aliz: There you go, I begin to weave a song of my sister’s innocence.
DM: Unfortunately for you, the truth is a little bit dicey. What happened is, she met up with her half-elf friend in the woods on that night. She says they sat and talked for a long time in that clearing, and were happy, until drowsiness overcame them and they fell asleep. After this she remembers nothing except waking up in the middle of the night.
Aliz: Does she remember walking with Tourin?
DM: She does not remember this, nor does she remember coming back to town. Remember, you saw her walking with Tourin and she remembers nothing.

Willow’s tracking skills reveal that two people fell asleep in the woods, one got up and left, then the other, and eventually one of them came back. She returns to town with this news as the meeting gets underway. The DM starts describing the elders.

Khor: Hey, is the old mage here?
DM: Yes, he is, but he’s not one of the elders. He’s considered too quirky.
Khor: I figured, I just wanted to know if he was present. It may be relevant later.
DM: He’s standing some distance away, leaning on a staff, mumbling to himself. There are even a couple of eagles visible. They’re hunting fish over the river but they have a clear view.
Aliz: ”Fuck food! Humans!”
Khor: They dive down on us and peck out our eyeballs.
Aliz: They just grab people off the ground.
Khor: Dire eagles!
Aliz: No no, they’re small eagles, they just grab us by the hair.
DM: Eagles around here are not bald eagles, they’re more like golden eagles.
Aliz: They have a big golden mane of hair.
DM: Mhor calls the meeting to order by raising his hand.
Khor: Is Mhor from Bhor, by the way?
DM: He is. He was born there but he journeyed to Northrock as a young lad and with time he gained their respect.
Aliz: (whimpering) Why is Rhuarc never here for these?! Mhor of Ghoere…
DM: Well, I had Bhor, and I had Mhor, I figured I should probably make Mhor from Bhor, it’s the only way it make sense.
Aliz: But Bhor! Four more from Ghoere. Sore from the roar.
Khor: Who’s his wife? A whore…
DM: He’s unmarried. He’s devoted entirely to his craft of herbology and brewing of ales. And healing people on the side.
Khor: With ale.
DM: Mostly, yes. It’s good for the soul. Most common ailment in this part of the world is depression.
Khor: This is where the term ailment came from, I see.
Willow: (throws something really heavy at him)
DM: “We’re gathered here on this morning to decide what has transpired – who harmed Tourin, and what relation Varda has to this?:
Khor: ‘Varda’, is that her name?
DM: Yes.
Khor: FINALLY! I’ve been referring to her as ‘Aliz’s sister’ for I don’t know HOW long.
DM: I’ve forgotten it in spells, but now I have it written down.
Aliz: I thought that’s what her name was, ‘Aliz’s sister.’

Egrin testifies that he saw Varda walking with Tourin and purchasing a knife from a merchant. The game sidetracks as everyone tries to figure out what had happened to the knife in question – which was obviously the same one found in Tourin. Town watchmen testify to the same thing, and even the Bhor merchant testifies that she did so.

Aliz: “I have a question for you, sir.”
DM: The people hush, and all eyes turn to you.
Aliz: “When she arrived – you’ve known my sister for a while, she’s not new to the town. So when she arrived, did she seem out of sorts? As in not like herself? Kinda hazed over a little?”
DM: People are quiet at this point. And then somebody says, “Well she WAS hanging out with Tourin!” And everyone laughs. Tourin gets blood-red.
Banorm: Have we confirmed that this bronze dagger is from this person?
DM: No one’s asked for the dagger to be brought forth… though that would have made sense.
Banorm: I dismantle the dagger and look at the maker’s mark.
Khor: Right there, you pull out the dagger in the middle of the assembly.
DM: It is a crude concoction, almost as if a dwarf who was made a week prior would have done better.
Banorm: <.i>(noises of disgust)

Aliz calls Willow to testify on the tracks she saw, but revelation of Varda walking with ‘another’ cause Tourin to leap up in anger.

Aliz: I go back to my notes! Which I properly prepared for this moment, because I knew I would have to say something!
Khor: Check your evidence folder! “Present.” “Press.”
Banorm: “TAKE THAT!”
Aliz: I was just trying to hide who she was with… “She was with… the only recent banished one.”
DM: The town gasps.
Aliz: “She met with him just outside of town in the fields, at approximately this location, which can be confirmed by our tracker here.”
DM: The town gasps again. Egrin shouts, “What? He was within thirty minutes walking of here?!”
Aliz: “Approximately 45 minutes, sir.”
DM: “That criminal! We must hunt him down!”
Aliz: “Now is not the time for this… We must determine what’s happened here first. They were there. I brought this up for a reason. As you know, me and my comrade engaged in combat with a very wicked spirit who had incorporated the body of a spider. This particular spirit had the power to control darkness, causing people to sleep and be confused!”
DM: And here Aliz unleashes his full rhetorical might. You take your time, a full fifteen minutes, for back then people had long attentions spans.
Khor: Are we still on this?
Aliz: And I explain what happened! The epic battle with the spiders. The casting of the darkness spell. All this stuff and what happened at the very end, and explain at this point…
Banorm: And suddenly a guitar is in his hands.
Khor: He’s a bard, of course it is.
Aliz: It’s like real notes flying in the air.
DM: Roll your Performance check.
Aliz: I go into detail on what happened, and how all this was a little too coincidence, that where he fell, this spirit and spider was just waiting to get ahold of him to wrap it up. Using his powers, the spirit was able to control others to bring what he wanted. …awesome roll, Aliz. I rolled an 18, so 27. There was a screech in there.
DM: You can tell out of the corner of your eye that your grandfather is pleased.
Aliz: A single tear?
Khor: As he watches from your father’s mouth.
DM: Yes. Yes, you get a single tear – wait, what? Anyway, I don’t get that, but continuing on. Even some of the elders seem to be wiping tears from their faces, but not Mhor. He sits there immobile, his clear blue eyes gazing over the assembly.
Aliz: I was hoping to move Tourin so much that he would admit his own guilt… “I did it! I told her to do it to me! It was all my fault!”
Khor: Roll to see how much money you get from your performance.
DM: You move the crowd, but you don’t get any outbursts from Tourin, dropping the charge or anything like that. You do think there was a chance with a mightier performance you could have made them so grateful they would have abandoned their quest to exert justice on your sister.
Aliz: I need a banjo.
Khor: Minus five to all performance checks.
Aliz: Fuck! Oh that’s right, I was gonna get Banorm to make me an electric guitar…
Khor: “It’s clear what’s happened here! Our banished colleague was in league with this spider spirit! We already know he’d been using his magic to cloud her mind and judgment, to encourage her to pursue him from the beginning! Now he heard that Tourin was attempting to court her, and thought to rid this town of him and himself of competition, through an alliance with this spirit!”
DM: …wait, what was that last part? Tourin was trying to court her.
Aliz: (mimes kabonging Khor over the head)
Khor: Tourin was trying to court her, so the half-elf allied with the spirit to kill the competition. How dare he, you know, lay eyes on his woman and so forth.
Aliz: The sound of a destroyed instrument smashing across his head…
DM: Khor, that is a very vehement argument, now roll a Diplomacy check.
Khor: 19.
DM: Giving your vexing argument, indeed the town begins to mumble.
Khor: I get a plus two bonus because I’ve previously riled them in racist anti-magic creeds.
Aliz: (horrible whimpering) I don’t know if he’s helping or not, I’m not positive – as long as my sister’s safe…
Khor: I’m getting your sister off the hook by blaming the half-elf. This isn’t to say I don’t believe what I’m saying…
Aliz: I think she’s gonna injure someone else again.
DM: At this point, Mhor raises his hand once again, calling for calm. He says, “At this time, let us ask the accused if she will speak to defend herself.” Varda jumps to her feet, never being really the shy one—
Aliz: Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! I get a rock ready! “She just fell asleep.”
Khor: She starts to stand up, you just sap her in the back of the head.
Aliz: El Kabong!
DM: “First know that I do not love Tourin.” And the town gasps, Tourin once again turns blood red. He says, “Why did you go to the words with me? You—you –“ Before he can utter a slur, she continues, “I never did! I have no memory of this!”
Khor: “You see the magical influence he has over her!”
DM: “He is innocent, I swear to you!”
Aliz: “Taxi!” Get a carriage out of this fucking town.
DM: “I swear Arnon is innocent! He has a heart of purest gold! He is strange, yes, but he is innocent.”
Aliz: The town goes to look to me to do something on the defense, I have a trenchcoat on and a hat, paying someone off. “Get me out of this goddamn town, dad! My sister’s gonna ruin it for us!”
DM: The elders begin to confer among themselves. It doesn’t take very long.
Khor: “Burn the witch!”
Aliz: Time for some damage control.
DM: They say, “Because we know that the sorcerer half-elf was involved in this, there can be little doubt that he indeed bewitched Varda. We all know her as a lovely young lady and have known her as a lovely young lady up until her association with this half-elf. Therefore if she just renounces her love for him—“
Aliz: Oh, this is how it ends?!
Willow: I’m just backing off and hiding, because I don’t want any guilt by association on me because I’m a half-elf too.
Aliz: (ludicrous accents) “All half-elves must be evil!” “Yeah!” What is this, the fucking South?
Willow: With the way he’s talking about half-elves, I dunno. “Pointy-eared lynchings!”
Khor: Just because I’m in favor of an angry mob tracking this guy down and hanging him doesn’t mean I’m racist! It means I don’t like him!
DM: At this point there’s a minor distraction – Doger, who still has his arm in a sling after his bout with Rhuarc, speaks up in his booming voice with his strange Bhor accents, and says, “Of course, we in Bhor know that half-elves are all no good, har har.” At which point one of the rangers takes the time to nock an arrow and shoot his hat off his head.
Aliz: “I think we should calm down a bit. Friends, fellow villagers, family. While our—“ We know you’re a druid or we don’t know you’re a druid?
Khor: You don’t.
Aliz: “While our friend over here – our friend carpenter over here may be wise at carpentering, but when it comes to understanding the powers of magic and spirits, you can’t just jump to conclusions – we have a festival that we’re working on right here, we should focus on that! Everyone’s alive, we’re all safe right now, rangers –“
DM: “QUIET! We never heard from Varda? Will you renounce your love for the half-elf? Will you no longer go out and meet him?”
Aliz: I’m gonna go start packing the house… we’re gonna get banished from town.

Khor, convinced that the half-elf is lurking on the outskirts of town, begins vigorously looking for him with the rangers’ help. He isn’t there.

Aliz: “Come on, sis, apparently we’re about to get fucking banished from the town.”
DM: “At least you understand. And you’re not trying to convince me to renounce my love for Arnon, like these people here.” She points to her mother and father who are on their knees behind her, begging her to renounce her love for Arnon.
Aliz: “I’ll be honest with you, sister, there’s this great town to the south, I can make a mean thirty-forty gold a DAY.”
Khor: Thirty on my Spot check! I know he’s there!
DM: He is not!
Aliz: That’s where the real story starts, when we get banished from town and have to go on adventure.
Khor: What do you mean ‘we’?
Aliz: Me and my sister.
Khor: Yeah.
Aliz: Get banished from town.
Khor: Yeah.
Aliz: We have to go on an adventure. We have to go to a summoning village to deliver a note..
Khor: “Package opened automatically.”
DM: “Aliz, tell me what to do! I cannot renounce my love for him! Is there anything I can say that will prevent us from being thrown out of here?”
Aliz: I wish I had a Snickers bar. “Got a minute?” I just go into my backpack, time seems to stop!
Banorm: He’s like… “Snickers… Mentos. Uh-oh.” We’ve confronted this half-elf before, haven’t we? At the house of the old lady, right?
Khor: Yeah, and we gave him brutally mixed messages.
Banorm: Yeah, well, YOU did.
Khor: No! My message was on-target the entire time!
Aliz: I told him to find someone else.
Khor: Yeah, “Be a man – with someone else” was your message, you were very confused. “Be a man. Get what you want. Have some confidence and strength in yourself. Stay the fuck away from my sister.”
Aliz: I don’t know how she can get out of this without denouncing for the town. She’s gonna run away!
Khor: I can’t give you in-character advice, or I would.
DM: You’re around. People are discussing at this point…
Khor: No. I wouldn’t give him in-character advice.
DM: You wouldn’t?
Khor: No?
Aliz: Because he’s a douche.
Khor: I don’t LIKE the half-elf.
Aliz: “I don’t know what to tell you. At the current moment… If you don’t do this, we’re all gonna have to live with the consequences. I’ll be behind you regardless of what you say. But remember, what you say and what you do don’t always have to be the same thing. That’s the power of diplomacy.”
Willow: Oh god.
Banorm: The power of LIES.
Khor: “She hesitate! Rouf! Rouf the Aged, I call upon you! If the half-elf has power over her, is she even CAPABLE of renouncing him?”
Aliz: “WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON?!”
Willow: His own.
Khor: THIS guy’s!
DM: People are like, “She’s bewitched! Get rid of her!”
Aliz: Hide check… I got a 29 on my Hide… I’m going to use my Precise Shot…
DM: Rouf says, “I dunno. Let’s see what she does.”
Banorm: I like this wizard.
Aliz: You have his AC written down, right? I rolled a 26 – I rolled a 20, so I crit him, and I’m targeting his mouth.
DM: You land a mean bitch-slap on him! The town gasps.
Aliz: This is the secret story of your other character! The secret origins, he comes from a completely different dimension!
DM: The tow grows silent, and everybody looks at Varda.
Khor: “Burn the witch!”
DM: She says nothing. Mhor sighs deeply. “I’ve known you for a long time and I’ve looked at you for a long time, but I’m afraid we have no choice! I give you a fortnight to find where you shall go!”
Aliz: Oh my god, you got my sister banished, I’m going to kill you.
Khor: Oh yeah, like it’s my fault!
DM: “May the spirits that govern the hearts of lovers be on your side.”
Aliz: I have a ward now, I have to follow her. Fuck you, Khor. Fuck you, DM!
DM: A lively discussion ensues around you about where she should go. Rhuarc is there, he offers – he does, he offers his tribe as a possible home. He is from the Bear Tribe, governed by the spirit of the bear. Somebody from Bhor also says, “I’m sure there are plenty of families in Bhor who would welcome you—“
Khor: “BOOOO! BOOOOOO! BOOOOOO!”
DM: Yes indeed, they are booed down. And then Idir, Willow’s ranger partner speaks up. “Why my uncle lives on a farm a couple days north of here. I’m sure that he’s very experience in woodcraft, and she’d be very far away from town. And Bhor.”
Khor: Wait a minute. I peer at Idir very carefully. Is he really the half-elf?
DM: No he is not.
Banorm: You are a paranoid little bastard, aren’t you.
Aliz: What he doesn’t realize is the half-elf is right next to him the whole time.
DM: You ARE the half-elf.
Khor: Goddamn schizophrenia!
Banorm: Wait… it makes so much sense now…
Aliz: He’s got a Fight Club personality, so while the rest of us just only see him or him, in his mind he sees himself as the half-elf…
Khor: This is why I hate him so much, because he’s ME!
Banorm: It makes SO MUCH SENSE NOW! That’s your wild shape, half-elf…

After a brief discussion, Idir’s suggestion quickly catches on, though the players remain grumbly.

Khor: Here’s what I don’t say: “Townsfolk, are we going to send the most promising breeder of this generation away? I think not!”
DM: A number of young men of the town are looking increasingly dejected, as several of them volunteer to escort her there.
Aliz: “You really think I’m going to allow one of you fools to do it? I’m escorting her up there! God.”
Willow: “I’ll go with you.”
Aliz: “That’s excellent, thank you.”
Khor: Don’t look at me, he’ll kill me.
Aliz: I’m just waiting for my moment. He’ll never sleep around me again.
DM: There’s an unspoken agreement that if she were to get married to someone else, she’d probably be allowed to return. Or if the half-elf were to die.

The group promptly declares the half-elf kill-on-sight… for those of them he wasn’t already.

Khor: There’s nothing evil about this. He’s clearly bewitched her! He’s ensorcelled her to ensure she’s banished.
Aliz: Ensorcelled her?! I’m taking the council, I accuse him of making up words. It’s a severe punishment in this town, word mockery.
Banorm: What are you talking about? We’re still building our vocabulary!
DM: You guys have a fortnight, which I think is fourteen days.
Aliz: I like that. ‘I think.’ We shoulda been like naw, man, it’s two years.

The council breaks up, and the characters set about their own things for the next two weeks. Aliz investigate’s Idir’s uncle, Banorm plays the wizard in chess, and Khor goes to interrogate animals.

Banorm: You’ll learn the truth and you’ll hide it forever.
Khor: …it’s possible.
Aliz: This is the scene right here. “WHAT DO YOU KNOW, SQUIRREL?! WHAT DO YOU KNOW?!”

Khor interrogates an owl, which has very useless information.

DM: “Did you know crows like to peck out owls’ eyes during the day when we’re asleep, because we cannot see? We get them back at night though. There aren’t any crows around here because I’ve killed them all.”
Khor: …I use 25 Diplomacy to make an appropriate response to that, that I can’t conceive of out of character. I’m sure as a druid, I know what to say, but fucked if I the player do. “Good bird, you get those crows…”

Khor then pumps a squirrel for information. It is also useless. He doesn’t even bother with the woodpecker. Conveniently, Willow stumbles on him right in the middle of talking to the squirrel.

Aliz: I can’t wait to hear this explanation.
Banorm: “Ah! Uh! Uh! Uh – I was – uh – masturbating!”

The two of them set off after the half-elf, with Khor singing the mob song from Beauty and the Beast as they go. The conversation turns to describing Gaston in less that flattering terms. The DM wanders off. Willow’s amazing tracking roll follows the half-elf all the way to the large ‘wall’ of mountains, and they find a small climbing path up that leads to a broad ledge. They discover a rock wall that doesn’t look right, take 20 on the search check, but can’t figure out how to open it.

Willow: “I say we go back and tell her she’s been abandoned! He’s obviously left the valley.”
Khor: “This is the work of foul magic and I refuse to accept it! No doubt our senses have been clouded by it!” I disbelieve and stride boldly through! …I hit my face on the rock wall, don’t I. You’re not even gonna make me roll for that, are you.
DM: Yeah.
Khor: Yeah. I thought so. But I had to try.
DM: As you stand there rubbing your bruised head, the wall opens, and who should stand there but Arnon, and he says—
Willow: I’m gonna punch him.
Banorm: “Would you people shut the fuck up?! I’m trying to sleep in here!”
DM: “I probably deserved that.”
Willow: “PROBABLY?! You’re lucky I’m not shooting you!”
DM: “But I love her! How can you expect me to stay away?!”
Khor: “Your magic has caused her to be banished!”
DM: “What on earth do you mean, banished?”
Khor: “The enchantment you placed on her made it impossible for her to renounce her! Now we’ve come to make certain that you do release it!” I clock him with a 21 with my quarterstaff!
DM: Right as he says, “Enchantment, what enchantment—“
Khor: THIS ENCHANTMENT! He takes nine points of damage from my quarterstaff!
DM: You knock him on his ass. He says, “Wait, what are you doing? You’ve gone mad!”
Khor: “I’m beating the shit out of you, that’s what I’m doing, boy!”
DM: “Wait, before you kill me, what enchantment was placed on her? As far as I know she abandoned ME in the clearing!”
Khor: “The one from your spider friend! We know you’re in cahoots! Eliminating the competition!”
DM: “What are you talking about? What spider friends, what are you talking about, what competition?!”
Khor: “Your protestation of innocence holds no weight with me!”
DM: “If you’re gonna kill me, you might as well tell me the whole story so I know before I die!”
Willow: “She bought a dagger and knifed Tourin in the back!”
Khor: “After meeting with you, and after you caused her to fall asleep.”
DM: “She knifed Tourin? Oh the horror. What was the judgment of the town?”
Khor: “Oh yeah, you sounded really sorry there. Really surprised, too.”
DM: “Well he’s my competitor, I didn’t like the guy!”
Khor: “Exactly! You admit it!”
DM: “He beat me up when you were a kid!”
Khor: “Waah waah, we all beat you up when you were a kid.”
Banorm: “Even I did!”

Willow relates the story, and Anorn seems surprised.

DM: “Wait until I tell the druid about this.”
Willow: Druid.
Aliz: OH HO HO HO MAN!
Khor: PLOT TWIST AHEAD! “Speak! Tell us all you know! Not literally.”
DM: “Oh, that’s who showed me this cave, and gave me the password, and—“
Khor: “The password?”
DM: “Yes, mandrake. Mandrake is the password.’
Banorm: (miming the door closing on him)
DM: Yes, actually that does happen. “I don’t understand. This masked, robed figure – I don’t know if it’s a man or a woman – has been helping me these past few weeks.”
Khor: “NECROMANCER.”

A very long pause.

Khor: Why are you just staring blankly at me?! React or something!
Banorm: I think that’s an appropriate response to your exclamation.
Willow: Considering how frothingly crazy you’ve been acting…
Banorm: “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
DM: “Necromancer, what do you mean?”
Aliz: He’s just… (frothing incoherence!)
Khor: This is what I get for roleplaying!
Aliz: I don’t remember your character being this insane the first time you played him! Do you remember this insanity?
Banorm: YES.
DM: Yes, he was always like this.
Khor: I kinda have the backwater attitude of my fellow townsfolk.
Banorm: Oh yeah. You’re playing it great. I’m just saying, this character’s coming off as a little batshit crazy.

Nevertheless, Khor seems to be on the right track – conversing with Anorn further reveals that the figure he’s spoken to does seem to be the necromancer, who released the half-elf from the old woman’s house, and who has heard much from Anorn. The other players grumble about being left behind.

DM: Well you guys could have rounded up your friends before you decided to follow the trail a day’s travel away.
Banorm: NOPE!
Khor: We had no idea it was going to be: A, a day’s travel away, and B, plot.
DM: Besides, I wasn’t really planning – he was hiding his tracks quite thoroughly, so if Willow hadn’t rolled so well, you wouldn’t have been able to track him that far.
Aliz: Yeah, but they did.
Khor: We could’ve always had a bad roll on the wandering monster table. Elk… bears… owlbears… griffons…
Aliz: A druid killed by an elk. It seems almost stupid.
Khor: Dinosaurs.
Willow: Landsharks.
DM: “But what shall I do now? Surely I cannot stay here, it seems I have outworn my usefulness.”
Khor: “You bring us the necromancer’s head, I’ll speak in favor for you staying in the town.”
DM: “How’m I going to do that? I have no power.”
Khor: “Let the power of your love compel you or whatever crap you keep spewing, I don’t know. It’s for Varda. Who he will continue to persecute and assault, if you don’t do something about it, so let that be inspiring to you.”
Aliz: Now Army of Two style, we get to see what he told him did. It zooms off. You see him become a powerful wizard and summon the tarrasque, and destroy the world.
Khor: Stop making everything I say or do destroy the world, Aliz!
Aliz: No!

Anorn walks sadly off into the distance, while the group gets a good laugh at how pathetic he is. Even Banorm won’t defend him.

Khor: You honestly think that all of my behavior is motivated by shameless anti-half-elf and magic racism and not the fact that he somehow managed to score the most eligible bachelorette in town?
Banorm: So you’re saying it’s jealousy-induced?
Khor: A little.
Aliz: I can’t envision your character any more, I just see this druid with suspenders on and a straw hat. “See here, pilgrim, we don’t like your kind around here. I’m gonna transform me into a bear, rawr.”
Khor: “I say – I say, son, we don’t like your kind around here.”
Aliz: He doesn’t have a bear transformation, he has a chickenhawk transformation.
DM: You’re giving me too many ideas.
Aliz: He turns into a giant rooster.
DM: (clutching his head while speaking loudly) Willow and Khor return to town!
Khor: I like how his brain is trying to explode out of his forehead.
DM: AND BY AND BY they tell their friends what has transpired.

The druids relate that the necromancer has surely gained mastery over many spirits to use their powers to conduct his act of evil. They tell Khor many things about the usage of spirits--

Aliz: Can you come back to town and undo the damage you did? Jackass.
Khor: Get out of our secret druid meeting, Aliz.
Aliz: I already found you. I paid off the squirrel. You see a squirrel in the background holding a bag of gold…

Banorm, meanwhile, has spent his time learning how to cheat at chess for some reason.

Banorm: “Let me just put this queen back on the board…”
Khor: Wait, WHAT’s your alignment?
Banorm: Look, cheating at chess is not an alignment-shifting thing!
Aliz: Well, if you look at this right here, it says – what am I pointing at?
Banorm: It says… “Number of Ranks.”
Khor: It depends on how many ranks you have in cheating at chess.
DM: [The wizard] looks straight at you, twists his beard a little bit, and says, “No ordinary necromancer you’re dealing with. No ordinary necromancer indeed.”
Aliz: He twists his beard.
Banorm: Rips it off.
DM: And then he goes back to the game almost immediately, like he’s forgotten the whole incident.
Banorm: He’s very absent-minded, isn’t he.
Khor: I’m glad I didn’t play the apprentice. It’s just following him around, trying to undo his horrible mistakes. He starts mixing a potion, then steps away, the flasks are still pouring each other, overflowing, the apprentice is mopping it up…
DM: It’s a well-known fact that once he stood in the center of town all night long because he forgot where he was going.

Khor abruptly comes along on the Varda-escorting trip, to his surprise. Aliz hints that he’ll cheerfully murder Khor later. The friendly-during-trading-season orcs are also departing at the same time. The group eagerly watches to see if Banorm’s hatred of orcs will override his hatred of crappy weapons. Aliz considers disguising himself as an orc to lure other orcs into attacking Khor.

DM: Do you guys journey together with the orcs, or separately?
Banorm: Separately.
Aliz: I don’t wanna go with them!
Khor: And yet I would’ve gone with them. Now who’s the racist?

North they go, further into goblins land, and the road becomes more dangerous, but the orcish tribe seems to have driven off trouble. The troupe at least reaches a complex situated on top of a hill in a secluded area, their final destination. As they approach, people who distantly resemble Idir emerge to greet them.

DM: They quickly introduce themselves, they seem to be very simple, straightforward folk. They corral you into their compound and before you know it, mugs of ale are pushed into your hands.
Khor: I like these people.
DM: A goat is slaughtered and put to roast.

The DM describes the compound as idyllic, selling Varda’s choice as a good one and going to efforts to make it seem welcoming.

Khor: With ale in my hand and friendly companionship all around, I foolishly and naively drop my guard and enjoy myself.
Banorm: You remember what happened the last time you did that.
Aliz: The moment I’ve been waiting for. Quickly, while no one’s looking, Grease by the stairwell.
Khor: I make my Reflex save.
DM: “Oh, looks like Khor’s having fun! More ale for Khor!”

Khor heads outside to relieve himself, only to find himself confronted with a giant gypsy moth. It flutters around him, then sits on his head, insistently.

Khor: Is my druidic order attempting to communicate with me?
DM: They have never used a gypsy moth, they’re simply too fragile.
Khor: Welp, I’m a pawn of the necromancer now.

Naturally, the moth is attempting to lead him somewhere. Khor follows it, but discovers it’s trying to lead him out of the compound. An NPC conveniently stops him to comment on the size of the moth, which also allows the party to properly assemble to follow it.

DM: You quickly gather up your things. Your hosts – they regret seeing you leave, but at the same time, that’s the biggest gypsy moth they’ve ever seen, how could you NOT follow it?

The group steps off and abruptly becomes alarmingly tired simply by virtue of not resting. They plunge onwards after it for several hours anyway, but it isn’t stopping.

Khor: “All right, moth, look here, we’re not following you any more till we get some sleep.”
Aliz: We go to sleep , the moth just carries us along…
DM: It’s a moth, it doesn’t really understand this. But you could probably put a hat on it for a while.
Aliz: It’s a pity none of us can SPEAK. TO. ANIMALS.
Khor: Yeah, it is. Banorm, clap your helm on it.
Banorm: My coif is in the river.
Khor: You never replaced it?!
Banorm: With what?!
Khor: Another coif!
Banorm: Bronze? Ugh!
Khor: Why didn’t you go after it then?
Banorm: Because I would’ve died in the river!

Aliz slaps his hat over the moth and they grab four hours of rest, having dreams about treasure chests in the meantime. They follow the moth after waking up again, following it straight to a hill with a brown bear standing in front of it.

Banorm: “Only you can prevent forest fires.”
DM: It growls angrily. Those of you who know about animals can see that it’s disturbed but even anyone who’s never seen a bear before would know that this bear is very upset about something. It roars and stands on its hind legs, and begins to walk towards you.
Khor: Wild empathy!
Willow: Yep!
Aliz: Both of you fail miserably and cause it to go into a rage. It evolves into a dire bear.

The bear glares angrily at something in the bushes. Aliz starts playing his arcane magic like a Mage: the Ascension character to avoid irritating the arcane-magic-hating locals. The moth zips past the bear into the concealed cave entrance in said bushes.

Willow: Is that hole big enough to squeeze into?
Khor: The bear might have a problem with it…

Willow soothes the bear enough to slip into the hole, finding a cave beyond. She smells death and blood inside. Outside, Khor’s dog starts growling at the hole as well. The wall shows evidence of something huge dragging through, scraping the walls and floor as if with spears.

Khor: Oh god, dire porcupine.
DM: That would’ve been nice. The passage goes on 20 feet before turning to the left. It does seem to be a natural cave…

Khor can’t calm the bear, since it takes over a modified 21 to do so, and Willow comes back out to help but can’t do much better. A Knowledge(nature) roll informs them that the bear needs food.

Banorm: Feed it the moth!
DM: Well, you guys probably have some trail rations…
Banorm: Well crap. I have 10 rations on me, how about we give it to the bear?
Khor: Yeah, toss it some hardtack. Then when its mouth is glued shut we can get past it.
DM: In your town, the preferred ration is not hardtack, because grain and flour are not that plentiful. It’s usually pemmican, so it’s elf fat and ground meat mixed with berries.
Banorm: So it’s like a medieval power bar…

They feed the bear and pass. Khor lingers behind, ostensibly to cover them should the bear prove hostile but actually to cast Omen of Peril.

Aliz: Just so you know, his Omen of Peril detects that I casted Grease on the stairwell behind me.
DM: There are no stairs!

They head down to discover a strange pattern drawn in blood on the left wall. It is unrecognizable to Willow, but Khor recognizes it as a magical rune.

Khor: “Magic!” …Is it good magic or bad magic?
DM: It’s drawn with blood… Druids sometimes use blood for some of their rituals as well, but this is sinister.
Khor: “Destroy it.”
Willow: “Uh, okay.” I take out my waterskin and pour water on it.
DM: It does not wash off.
Banorm: I take my axe and clang! Clang! With the back end of it.
DM: After a few minutes of work a chunk of limestone clunks off and the rune falls flat in the ground. You cannot see it any more. Willow, the chunk of limestone glows and bolts of energy strike you.
Aliz: 32 points of damage, your head explodes.
DM: You take 8 points of damage as two bolts of energy penetrate your body.
Aliz: That’s still a lot, good god.
Banorm: I whack at it again!
DM: The rock is shattered.

The group continues on, and Willow, still the victim, makes a Will save to notice a rune at the last moment and shake it off. Aliz yells at her to keep going and sucking up negative effects for them. Inexplicably, she does, but spots the next rune well ahead of time.

Willow: “Banorm, I’m going to let you go ahead and deal with that.”
DM: Sometimes, when you’re not quite sure what to do, your Maker said, “Hold forth your holy symbol and see if the heat of the forge won’t melt away the strangeness.” Make a turn check.

After laboriously looking up the turn rules, Banorm rolls a crappy 2 on his turn check and accomplishes nothing. But with no better use for the turn attempts he just turns again. And fails again. The DM shrugs, realizing the symbol is too strong, and Banorm has no real choice but to eat the save. And fail it, falling asleep and threatening to plummet down the slope.

Khor: “Fetch!”
DM: Your dog leaps forward and clasps him on the shoulder of his arm with his jaws. The dog begins to slide forward, Banorm is rather heavy. Khor jumps forward and grabs the dog by his haunches.
Barnorm: Tears him apart.

They slap Banorm awake, then start rolling Climb checks to get down the slope. The first ones down find themselves facing a bear skeleton, which attacks. The DM calls for initiative.

Aliz: We all made our Climb checks, he’s assuming.
Khor: I don’t know what he’s assuming.
DM: What checks?
Khor: …okay, we’re all down there then.
Aliz: I didn’t even get a chance to roll!
DM: Banorm made it, I assumed everyone else did.
Banorm: That’s fucked up…

Initiative is rolled. Aliz, going first, fires up the bardsong. The bear attacks Willow but misses, and Khor wallops it with his shillelaghed quarterstaff for 11. His dog hits, fails to break skeletal DR, but still gets its free trip.

Aliz: Did it roll a 20?
Khor: It did.
Aliz: God damn! The dog grabs his shin bone and runs off, and begins to bury it.
DM: 24 total. What did your dog get?
Aliz: Sadly not as much. It only has a 15 strength, so 22.
DM: It resists, but it has to catch itself with its forepaws, so I’m gonna say its initiative drops below Khor’s now.
Aliz: So it gets to go again.
Banorm: You White Ravens Tacticsed it, you idiot!

Banorm misses it, but after grim and laborious recalculation of his total to-hit bonus, hits it after all.

Aliz: I didn’t bring a mace with me… I do have an extra lute.
Banorm: Works as a club, won’t work for much else afterward.

Another flurry of paper airplanes breaks out. The skeleton continues to resist most incoming damage through virtue of DR or AC.

Khor: I club it to the GROUND – natural 1.
DM: You catch it in an unlucky way, your staff sails into the air and falls to the ground behind it.
Aliz: Roll a perform check to fake like you wanted to do that.
Khor: My dog also rolls a natural 1.
Aliz: That god die betrayed you!
Khor: No, it was two different ones.
Aliz: The dog saw the staff, thought his master was throwing a stick, goes to fetch it…
DM: The dog goes to fetch it, and provokes an attack of opportunity. I hope your dog has 12 hit points…
Khor: It has thirteen hit points.
DM: Seeing you defenseless, the – the bear doesn’t really think but it’s going to go after Khor yet.
Khor: Luckily I can take it.
Aliz: Except for the crit.
DM: (triumphant and gleeful) Yes! Except for the crit!
Banorm: Aww, man…
Khor: It can’t do enough damage to kill me!
DM: 22 damage!
Khor: I told you!
Aliz: How much hit points do you have?
Khor: TWO!
Aliz: God damn! We’re gonna die!
DM: Can it spreads its multiple attacks over multiple people?
Khor: It CAN. Is it going to, or is it just going to maul me until I’m dead?
DM: It’s probably going to maul you until you’re dead.
Khor: That’s what I thought.
DM: Fortunately, it did not succeed.
Khor: Did it really not succeed, or did you just give me a DM pass on it?
DM: Of course it didn’t succeed, it missed you.
Khor: (cynical, sardonic laughter)

Banorm casts Burning Hands and promptly rolls three ones on his damage dice, exactly as he’d predicted. The party attempts to just lie down and accept inevitable death. Aliz casts Grease, but the bear passes. Khor, out of options, steps back and draws his sling – missing his attack. The bear punishes Banorm with fourteen damage.

DM: Still standing? I thought I had you for sure.
Khor: He admits it, he wants to kill us!
Aliz: He wants to end this adventure.
Khor: “I’ll never run this game again! How dare they make me bring it back!”

The bear stays standing in the grease effortlessly. Willow finally beats the bear down before anyone can die.

Willow: Once again, I AM THE SLAYER!
DM: Suddenly the cave is eerily silent.
Aliz: (rolling up a new character for no reason) Look at that great stat! See that, Banorm? A seven!

The players continue to have terrible cursed dice luck. Someone notices that the cardboard tube Khor has been waving around for a while is actually two cardboard tubes, and he snaps, dissolving into a cackling monologue about it.

Khor: LOOK! LOOK AT THE MADNESS I’VE WROUGHT UPON YOU! LOOK AT IT!
Banorm: You’ve gone mad with power!
Khor: I’ve gone mad with MADNESS!

Willow discovers that the walls are covered in, well, cave paintings, the most important of which appears to be hunter figures kneeling before large winged lizards. A large stone plate rests on the floor. From beneath it comes the smell of death, the sound of moaning, and dripping. They use their bronze crowbar to level aside the plate, then lower themselves with a rope.

DM: At the far end of the passage, you see a prone figure, and another prone figure on the ledge.
Khor: How much you want to bet it’s his sister?
Aliz: Wait, what?
Khor: Your sister’s always in trouble, or responsible for it.
Aliz: How would my sister get all the way here ahead of us?
Khor: We slept for four hours, she didn’t.

The prone figure is the old woman who was sheltering the half-elf, still barely alive. The figure above is an elf, either dead and well-preserved or alive and oddly still, leaking blood into a bowl which then drips onto the old woman’s face – though she refuses to drink it.

DM: You realize that Kana is chained to the floor with bronze chains.
Khor: “Banorm! Iron! Solve our problems! Through the magic of your metal!”
DM: Your iron slices through this crudely-worked bronze.

The evil runes on the wall encourage thirst and drinking in mock-druidic, prompting Khor to angrily attack them and deface them.

DM: You scramble the spell, you have no chance of knowing what was going on.
Khor: I had no chance anyway, I have no Knowledge(arcana).
DM: Um. I suppose…
Khor: It’s fairly obvious what was going on here, they were attempting to corrupt her by making her drink the blood of the elf. Beyond that the details are blasphemous and foul.
DM: Banorm, you realize that the elf is almost certainly paralyzed as if by magic.
Khor: See, blasphemous and foul!
DM: I think his name was Guilder, he was the elf that warned you about the goblin attack. It seems that he’s wandered around in these parts a little too much.
Khor: He dug too deep!
Banorm: “Ah, ya blasted fool, ya did what we did!”
Khor: He unleashed the calzone golem.

The DM allows various rolls with Knowledges to determine what was afoot here. Khor, for his part, uses Knowledge(nature).

DM: Knowledge(nature) would only tell you that this is very unnatural.
Khor: DUUUUUUUUHHHHHH.

Aliz’s bardic knowledge recalls a sorcerer who hid his life force inside a needle inside an egg. Khor starts smashing up the bowl on Banorm’s advice, which appears to be the proper solution, since the elf starts moving. The elf states he’d merely fallen asleep, while Kana explains she was waylayed by goblins. For somewhat unclear reasons, Willow starts digging through bat guano – emerging with a small chest, in accordance with her dreams. This kind of freaks everyone out. They head back out of the cave only to find orcs attacking the bear! Feeling more sympathy for the bear than the orcs, they burst out, but their mere appearance on the feel causes the orcs to flee.

Khor: Taunt them in Orcish!
Banorm: Oh, I do! “Get back here, you pansies!”
DM: “He who fights and runs away!”
Khor: “Is a fucking coward!”
Willow: Oh, I do know Orcish. I insult their mothers.
DM: One of them stops briefly and gets his head taken off by the bear.

Khor correctly identifies Kana as the Gandalf of the campaign, and the DM is pleased someone got the reference. (The other PCs were identifying her as a Pokemon trainer.) They return to Idir’s uncle’s house, and warn them of the orcs.

DM: They confer among themselves and say –
Khor: “You brought orcs upon us, you are banished.”
DM: “What you say is strange. Why would orcs attack a bear? I suppose they could’ve just been a hunting party. Did they have bear hunting forks?”
Aliz: (bursts into laughter)

The DM describes the bear-hunting forks, but Aliz just can’t stop laughing. The DM awards the loot from the chest, but no one is sure what to spend it on. Khor suggests raiding Bhor. Apropos of nothing, the bear remains something of a loose end.

DM: Did you guys do anything for the bear? He was kind of just hanging around there, waiting for his mate to come back out.
Khor: Coup-de-gras.
Banorm: We cleansed it, we healed him so if that guy comes back he can wallop them, we done good. I’m not no forest dude.
DM: Roll your Knowledge(nature).
Khor: 28.
DM: It dawns on you that the skeleton you fought was probably the bear’s mate, and --
Khor: DUUUUUUHHHH. Once again, Knowledge(nature), a real valuable fucking asset!

Khor indicates he will go back when he has Speak With Animals prepared and have a word with the bear. His cover story: he’s looking for good wood for carpentry.

Banorm: “You’re going to look for wood, are ya? I’ll come with ya!”
Aliz: “I could use wood for my instrument.”
Willow: “I could use wood for my bows!”
Khor: You guys are dicks.
Aliz: Day two, he’s like, “I’m gonna go out and do this!” “We’ll come!” Finally: “I’m going to go out and masturbate!”
Banorm: “Whoop! Diarrhea!”
Khor: “I got it really bad, I don’t wanna flood the encampment.”
Aliz: “We got a diarrhea pit right over there.” It’s just this deep hole.
Banorm: Oh my god. A little sign, “No open flames.”
Khor: It’s right next to the well…
Aliz: Days later, he finally has an excuse—
Banorm: The bear’s dead. Starved itself to death.
Khor: Do I need to roll a Knowledge(nature) check to see that the bear is DEAD?

Satisfied that they’d accomplished a good run this adventure, the players end the game here.