Lars: The Swedish Chef!
DM: I’ll DM in his voice from now on, you’ll just have to follow along as best you can.
Lars: Nice.

The DM does. Inferian obligingly attacks the turkey. Since the group had left off in the middle of combat, they start by scrounging up the miniatures. Calinai bemoans her failure to attract her Warder yet.

Inferian: I’m sorry, Calinai, your Warder is… Chicken Boo. Only Falgrim can recognize that he’s a giant chicken. “He’s a chicken, I tell ya, a giant chicken!” “What?! He has the courage of ten men!”
Lars: Is your druid a man or a woman, Treedon?
Treedon: He’s a guy today.
Inferian: Whaddya mean ‘today’?
Sioneva: He’s a shapeshifter!
Lars: He transforms into female animals.
Treedon: Yes, I’m secretly an evil shapeshifter.
DM: When you get wet, you change your sex. Druid ½.
Calinai: No, don’t say that, because now Druid ½ is just a druid who only shapeshifts one half of his body every time. Top half’s a bear, bottom half is still a human.
Inferian: All right, guys, any attractive mermaids, all his.
DM: Your character is the son of an important druid. Your clan, in their stone circles in the hills – see, no one really knows who you are, or what you were doing… Your clan of druids lives in a forested area in an unclaimed bit of the kingdom that borders a couple of nations that are not strong enough to occupy it permanently. There’s a lot of unrest in the world, currently. Word had come to your father of disturbing goings-on at… whatever I named the museum…

The DM and players briefly get distracted setting up feedback loops, after the faithful transcriber asks them to please not cause feedback loops because it gives him a hell of a headache when he listens to the audio. The transcriber notes that at the time of transcription, he has a headache already, which spikes and throbs painfully with every feedback spike. Thanks so much, guys.

DM: So he had commanded you to investigate and report back to him anything untoward you found out. Unfortunately you were captured as you were trying to infiltrate the museum, and you were locked in a cell underground… and.. beaten daily into a state of oozy unconsciousness or half-awakedness that perpetuated your stay in the cell. Until a heroic – well, a questionably heroic group of adventurers… You’re not sure how long you’ve been in the cell, but they opened it up and freed you and your co-captives. And in a brilliant bit of retconning you decided to join their exploits as they decided to put an end to the evil doings of the dungeon master once and for all.
Falgrim: Wait a minute… that happened before we pushed the pig…
DM: Yeah. I thought of that.
Falgrim: Damn you, retcon!
DM: You traveled with them, through the rest of this perilous place… doing many… heroic… things…
Treedon: Hooray!
Calinai: I remember that time you… turned into a bear, and you did things. That was pretty cool.
DM: Yeah, it’s been so long that you don’t even remember that.

The transcriber bemoans the necessity of conducting an Orwellian edit of the previous game reports. The DM explicitly describes their current encounter as a boss rush.

DM: During which your group of adventurers decided to overpower yourselves as usual by casting Mass Fly, and the ad hoc leader of your group has foolishly sped off by himself in pursuit of the evil… the evil, uh…
Inferian: Doer.
DM: Yeah, the antagonist. Not gonna bother with backstory ‘cuz he’ll just be forgotten anyway.
Inferian: He gave an evil speech and tried to teleport out, and I said, “Hell no, this ain’t a cutscene.”
DM: Truly in the spirit of the lyrics of the song we all know by heart.
Falgrim: “This is the song that never ends…”
DM: The other one.
Falgrim: Oh.
DM: The other one about splitting the party.
Inferian: “Splitting the party is okay! Splitting the party, every day!:
Calinai: Fred from Scooby-Doo did that shit all that time, and it worked out in the end.
DM: In this campaign you’re the equivalent of Maniac [from Wing Commander, but no one in the game needs this explained]. Every time there’s a bad guy, “Woop! Off I go!” Your wing commander is like, “get back here,” and you’re all, “Nope, not gonna do it!”
Inferian: Wait a minute, when are the times that I’ve done that! First time, in that village fight, when I saved that kid from being taken away by demons. Second time, in the fight with the golems, which I couldn’t harm. And third, here.
DM: Three times! That’s only half the session in this campaign. We’ve had like four sessions at the table and you’ve done it three times, I’m pretty sure that constitutes a chronic problem.
Inferian: I saved that kid, man…
DM: You only did it after I basically guilted you into it.
Inferian: I was going to do it anyway! You didn’t have to guilt me.
DM: Meh.
Inferian: Stop inferring things!
DM: But you are INFERian, you can’t spell Inferian without I-N-F-E-R.
Inferian: …he’s got me there.
Falgrim: So what you’re implying, Inferian…

Inferian attempts to murder Falgrim, while the latter ignores this and explains It’s This Big to Lars and Treedon. The DM sets up the battle quickly, and Inferian’s lone figure faces down several others.

Inferian: How many saving throws do I have to make? Answer: None, it’s all attack rolls.
DM: Correct. Can your character disarm traps?
Inferian: …if by “disarm” you mean, “trigger so they no longer trigger,” then yes.
DM: In that case, you’re going to get a lot of XP for disarming traps!
Inferian: …medic.
DM: I’m kidding, of course.
Inferian: Our characters don’t get XP.

The DM harasses Inferian about his choice to go off alone for a while, and then about people who fight to the death… having apparently forgotten his solemn vow of “death before being taken to prison” as a player. Inferian fires an enegry ray at their fleeing foe, but just barely misses; the foe, in turn, summons his many minions to action.

Inferian: Question. Two questions in fact. How are they moving towards me – Three questions, I’m the Spanish Inquisition. How are they moving towards me, what weapons are they carrying, and how high is the ceiling?
DM: The ceiling—
Inferian: Among my many questions are….

Their foes wield bows, so Inferian attempts to duck behind a pillar, but the DM calls for initiative rolls. The group plods lazily through the battle setup, as is its wont; Sioneva has completely disappeared, so they just assume she’s at the top of the initiative order. The group debates just leaving Inferian to die.

Inferian: I’ll roll a new character, man. It’s an artificer.
Falgrim: Every time he rolls a new character, it’s an artificer.
Inferian: It’s my revenge.
Treedon: Oh wow, I can summon a shark.
Inferian: You’re not allowed to summon a creature outside of its environment.
Lars: I will use Create Water. Whale!
Inferian: They put in that rule specifically to stop people from summoning whales to drop on people.
Lars: That sucks!

They continue to dick around waiting for Sioneva for a fairly significant amount of time. Lars actually reads his spell list.

Lars: Where did I GET this spell list? Light of Venia… Clutch of Orcus…
DM: Clutch of Orcas? It’s like a pod of killer whales…

Sioneva finally wanders back and rolls initiative. Inferian, acting first, fires an Energy Missile at two pair of foes close enough together to make the attack worthwhile, then ducks behind a pillar. The DM finally finishes drawing the room, leading to some jokes about the world loading and noxxramus_doodad_2. The conversation, as it tends to, goes down a bad place.

Calinai: He’s gonna fail the first game of homo chicken, I can tell that already.
Inferian: It’s HOMOPHOBE chicken, not homo chicken. Homo chicken is an entirely different game!
Falgrim: Oh, Treedon left…

The DM cheerfully gloats as Inferian’s movement discovers enemies with readied actions, then threatens to replace Benar with Wimpy. Their foes reveal themselves as drow, or at least, this campaign’s flavor of drow. Treedon checks up the rules on the pearl of speech, which allows him to speak a language while it’s in use.

Treedon: Is it a one-time-use only?
Inferian: You speak the command word and it comes back out. The command word is ‘the’.
DM: The elf that was facing you directly puts two bows to his shortbow –
Inferian; Interesting technique… how much damage does a shortbow do?
Calinai: Two arrows. You said two bows.
DM: Did I say that?
Falgrim: He puts two bows to his shortbow.
DM: (pulling a beer out from behind the DM screen) Move this away… Arrowstring! Arrowstring!
Inferian: I contemptuously swat them away, taking no damage.
DM: Yes, of course you do. That’s what you’d be saying if they hadn’t hit you.
Calinai: Or if they hadn’t exploded. 30 points of damage altogether.
Inferian: Now neither I or my psicrystal have temporary hit points. That’s super.
Calinai: Now for their second attack.
DM: And do me a favor, roll me a Fortitude save.
Inferian: 17!
DM: As badly as the arrows hurt –
Inferian: They didn’t hurt at all, they didn’t touch my actual hit points.
Lars: As annoying as those arrows were –
DM: Your hearty psionic fortitude has warded away the poison tips.
Inferian: And by mighty, I mean lucky on a d20.
DM: Lars, you’re human as well, right? Oh, favored enemy… What is a man?
Falgrim: A miserable pile of secrets!
Inferian: What is a count? A miserable pile of Seacrest.

Lars takes damage, leading to a general debate on the 20-plus-level rule of thumb for AC effectiveness and its general uselessness overall. Lars repeatedly attempts to claim he has armor with a Fortification property that negates 100% of crits and sneak attacks, despite being only 8th level. Sioneva, being half-elven, doesn’t count as a favored enemy.

Lars: So he’s only half-angry? “I really… really don’t like you.”

Sioneva returns fire, though she takes a moment to debate her choice of arrow.

Sioneva: I’m not going to use that, since their Reflex saves are high. Even if they’d look much better on fire.
DM: You lose them?
Sioneva: Yeah, the dragon’s breath one. And I’m not going to use my black arrow on these guys.
Falgrim: Arrow.
Sioneva: Black arrow. 14 points of damage.
Calinai: Am I really that low on the initiative?
DM: You’re next, actually.
Calinai: Oh okay. Are we actually at the entrance, or how much move do we need to get in?
DM: Just say you’re at the black line.
Falgrim: Line. Black line.

Calinai hurls a fireball into a clump of mobs, heedless of the mobs’ Evasion. The DM begins rolling their saves.

DM: Oh-ho-ho! You lucky fuck. One of them did not make his save. One of them clearly… apparently saw pretty lights expanding in the middle of the room and decided to run into it OH MY GOD TWO IN A ROW! TWO FUCKING ONES! (hurling a die away) Apparently they decided to be Wonder Twins and jump into the fucking fireball.
Calinai: “No, brother, don’t do that!”
Lars: “I’ll save you, brother!”
Treedon: Stop standing in fire.

The rest of the group comes hauling up the tunnel-path-thing to the combat room, accomplishing very little thanks to the necessities of movement. Harmony, Treedon’s magebred ghost tiger, pounce-charges an elf, hitting with only two of five attacks, but that’s all it takes, since his target was wounded. The group raises the question of just what the hell a magebred ghost tiger IS.

Sioneva: You can tell that Inferian helped him.
DM: Oh yeah. Anything this side of the raptor. Anything that side of the velociraptor, it’s a fine line.
Inferian: It was a SWINDLESPITTER, not a velociraptor!
Falgrim: (watching the DM collapse) You made the DM die.
Inferian: Would you like a grappler or a charger form?
Treedon: Let’s go grappler.
Inferian: May I recommend the brown bear, then?
Treedon: Go brown bear. Roar.
DM: A swindlespitter…
Falgrim: It was a –
DM and Falgrim: SWINDLESPITTER!
Lars: Wait, his dog is not Huge? What is it, Dire?
DM: It’s a ghost tiger.
Inferian: A magebred ghost tiger.
Lars: What the fuck?
DM: What’s a druid doing with a magebred creature? They’re very un… whaddyacall it… it’s like a crime against nature, right?

Drusila is roundly mocked in absentia. Lars starts looking at food options, being a hungry guy.

Lars: What is this? DiGiorno Pizza Dripping Strips?
DM: Dripping Strips? Ah ha ha ha ha! Pull it out of the oven, there’s this big mess in there. That’s for bored people, after you eat you get to clean the oven…
Inferian: Wait a minute, doesn’t he still have Mass Fly on him?
DM: Who?
Inferian: Treedon.
DM: Yeah, sure.
Inferian: So he’s a flying bear.
DM: Yeah, a flying bear.
Inferian: (plays the TaleSpin theme)
Falgrim: (the most laborious groan EVER)
Treedon: Did I miss anything?
Inferian: You’re now Baloo.
Treedon: I’m now blue? Great.

An elf fires on Treedon, striking him for 27. The physics of skysurfing are hotly contested; Inferian fires a shot but misses. The party begins to clump up painfull as Lars steps up to cure Treedon. A movement debate erupts as the NPCs move!

Inferian: The tiger should get some AOOs there.
DM: What’s its reach?
Inferian: Five feet.
DM: He didn’t have reach on that guy.
Inferian: He just moved two squares through its threatened area!
DM: This was through his threatened area?
Inferian: No, the other guy.
DM: The other guy didn’t move there. I didn’t take my hand off the chess piece…

A flurry of AOOs doesn’t erupt, except for Benar, who whacks for a mere 6. Inferian, injured again, takes 5 points of Con damage from poison, while Benar passes the save handily. The DM begins rolling dice again, causing Calinai to recoil.

Calinai: I can’t look that way when he’s rolling dice.
Lars: His ass is jiggling right in front of you?
Calinai: No! All I see is his hand down here. It’s coming right out of his crotch.
DM: Aww, I just missed a crit.
Inferian: I got my new stats rolled up!
DM: Not you! This one can’t see you.
Inferian: That won’t stop him.
DM: Sure it will! I’m not gonna bend the rules to exact revenge on you. I’ll just scale up the challenge level, Or just say you got hit. Hey Inferian, what’s your armor class—you’re hit!
Treedon: My armor class is 4,325!
Falgrim: Natural 20.

Their final boss foe teleports away on his action, and the players curse their failure.

DM: Failed? You shut down this death trap with horrible genetic experiments and pig-killng!
Calinai: One of the guards is like, “We never killed any pigs! Ever!’
Lars: “That pig was my pet! We used to raise them as domestic animals for the orphanage!”
Sioneva: “That pig was my brother!”
Falgrim: We’re gonna leave here and they’re gonna be polymorphed people…

Lars mocks Inferian for pouring so much power into rescuing that kid way back when and getting no thanks or even acknowledgment for it. Sioneva shoots one for 18, then casts Detect AC by failing to hit with a 20. Lars abruptly double-takes at his character sheet.

Lars: I’m going to put this on Inferian, writing “Whitecloak” on my thing. Also changed out my thing for War domain, my spell power is Power Word: Butt. Thank you, because I have no idea what is supposed to actually be there. And for my Inquisitor domain, my level 7 spell is “Dicked ‘em”.
Falgrim: (helpless laughter)
Inferian: It’s the spell Dictum.
Lars: Thank you, ass.
DM: To cast that, you grab the front of your breeches…
Falgrim: Power Word: Butt…

Falgrim whacks down a foe, and chooses to move forward rather than attacking an ally as the DM suggests. Treedon types; it’s incredibly loud.

Inferian: Treedon always sounds like he’s raging out when he types…
Falgrim: Like he’s using hammers.

Benar whirling frenzies up to hit one twice, and Inferian maths out the damage laboriously.]

Inferian: 44 damage.
DM: Eh, he was dead so long ago, I just wanted you to finish doing the math.

Treedon sends Harmony to savage an archer, then starts whipping up an SNA.

DM: And you guys get all antsy when there’s a bunch of minis on the map. It doesn’t matter!
Falgrim: The numbers are overwhelming at first.
DM: By the second round you’ve either halved or destroyed everything I’ve thrown against you.

Harmony has five attacks on his pounce, and it gets REALLY REALLY confusing to the tune of arguing for five minutes what actually did damage. Initiative cycles around; Inferian does 96 fire damage from a ray, and Calinai tries to encourage the DM to ragequit.

Lars: Does anybody need healing?
Inferian: Ah, the role of the cleric.
Sioneva: I could use some.
Lars: What are you at?
Sioneva: 65.
Lars: Your damaged hit points is the same as my max. Out of spite, I’m not healing you for that.
DM: “No healin’ for you… even though you are quite fetching.”
Inferian: Isn’t she of the wrong race to be appealing?
Lars: To Lars? Lars only wants to fuck royalty, dude.
Inferian: He DID try to put the moves on the Queen.
Sioneva: I’m too common for him.
Lars: Lars’ll get away with it, man, you’ll see. He’s gonna bed himself a queen. Next stop, a goddess.
Calinai: What’re you talking about? The DM’s like, “You wake up. You smell of blood. A dead body.”
Lars: “You have assassinated the queen,” awww.
Inferian: You wake up! A dead body! (dramatic chords)
Lars: That’d be awesome. I could use my Cloak of Transponder and just teleport—
Inferian: Cloak of Transponder! (bursting into laughter)
Lars: Cloak of Transposer, to swap places with Falgrim… I’m gonna switch places with a guard outside, all right. Then I’m gonna bust into the room, kill the guard, be like, “The guard tried to kill the queen, oh my god…”
Inferian: Have you ever noticed that all of his ideas are pure evil?
Falgrim: Yeah.
Lars: Dude, what are you -- (laughing)
Inferian: I like how you couldn’t even deny it.
Falgrim: He just stops and laughs.

Lars abandons his healing plans and goes off to bash the enemies. Inferian sings a merry song about this, which earns Sioneva’s hatred forever. The DM peers at Inferian’s character sheet, then asks him to roll a d20.

DM: You hear what sounds like a stone being kicked across the floor behind you.
Inferian: He went invisible and snuck behind us.
DM: (giggling) I can’t fool you.

Inferian warns the others through their mindlink, and Lars tries to figure out what his chance to not be crit because of his Fortitude shield is. Inferian fails to open something.

Sioneva: Oh come on, if my pussy ass could get that thing open, YOU should be able to.
Inferian: I wasn’t USING my ass.
Lars: Wow.
Falgrim: But that’s the best way to open it!

Lars gets stabbed, but fends off the poison with a mighty save. Inferian makes possibly the most random comment in the history of this gaming group.

Inferian: Looks like all the Sneeches on the beaches now have stars upon thars.
Calinai: I have no idea what you just told me. Please don’t repeat it. I’m okay with not knowing.

Inferian gets brutally Strength-poisoned to the tune of 11 points. The DM reminds him that he’s got Con secondary coming in a minute.

Inferian: That won’t kill me. Luckily.
DM: Oh in that case, forget it. Out pop another ten drow, ready to do battle.

Falgrim makes his attack, inflicting grievous if not fatal wounds on an elf. Treedon moves up for a claw-claw-bite that puts out two hits.

Treedon: 26 damage.
Inferian: Can he BEAR the damage?
Calinai: God damn it, Inferian.
DM: Minus 200 experience.
Treedon: Not good enough.
DM: Want some more Sith lightning? Keep ‘em coming! I’ll delevel you yet!

The group furiously outputs damage onto the remaining foes, dropping them, while Lars helpfully casts Neutralize Poison on Inferian. They mop up their injuries as best they can and start searching the loot area for goodies.

Sioneva: 27.
Inferian: Ha! 30 for Benar!
DM: Benar pushes you out of the way, eager to please his lord Dragon.
Falgrim: “LORDDRAGONDEMANDSILOOKFORTHIS!”
Sioneva: “Get out of the way you pointy-eared bitch!”
DM: Just as you found a slight elevation.
Sioneva: He’s gonna find a shiv in his back one night and not know why.
Calinai: He loves you so much, he has to kill you so no one else can love you.

They find a square with mysterious runes, which is Old Tongue gibberish. Sioneva heads off to check out the chest.

Inferian: Benar rolls a mighty 27 on Disable Device.
Sioneva: We didn’t know there was a trap there yet.
DM: Benar makes up a trap. “There was a death cloud trap on this chest, Lord Dragon, and I have disabled it!”
Falgrim: I roll on my Strength check, with my crowbar… 25.
DM: You snap –
Calinai: The entire chest in twine.
DM: Yeah, you broke all the loot.
Inferian: The fragile crystal vases.
DM: The PRICELESS fragile crystal vases.
Calinai: “Was there a chest of priceless fragile crystal vases in there? Worth a cumulative one million gold?”
Inferian: “I’m sorry… the Forsaken HATE those.”

The characters realize, with the assistance of some Spellcraft rolls, that the Forsaken had not actually teleported out – it was supposed to be some other spell, which they did not identify. They spend a while slapping around Lars, because he deserves it.

DM: Regrouping with the former captives…
Inferian: So once we’re certain the curator is, you know, all with it –
Falgrim: “What’s THIS?!”
Inferian: Yeah, “What’s this?” and how about that stuff we came here for in the first place? We were looking for stuff on heartstone? Remember?
Falgrim: YEAH!
Inferian: The only reason we ended up in the dungeon was because his assistant sent us down there to talk to him.
Falgrim: Then, three sessions later…
Calinai: Did we assume that the assistant was a traitor who sent us down to our deaths?
Falgrim: Hell yeah! That was pretty obvious.
Calinai: “Oh, he’s just downstairs.”
Inferian: “In this elevator, which conveniently holds only six—“ Uh-oh, how are we going to get up?
Falgrim: Your thrall herd’s going to be massacred up there, aren’t they?
Inferian: That depends on how long we’ve been down here. If it’s been 24 hours we might not even notice.
DM: Too bad that golem’s not still raging around. “We hear you, we’re coming – agh!”
Lars: Wait a minute, isn’t one still raging around?
Calinai: Shh!
Inferian: No, they broke out, and we had to deal with them in the middle of a fight with other ones.
Lars: God, that’d be so cool if they were standing at the door.
DM: It’d be so cool if you turned around, go down the ramp, and it’s like, “dun dun, dun dun!”
Falgrim: “We make holes in teeth! We make holes in teeth!”
Calinai: We’ll just have to make two elevator trips.
DM: God forbid you use the elevator more than once.
Inferian: Look, it’s the old fox-and-the-chickens thing. You have a chicken and three golems, and if you leave a golem on one side it’ll kill your player characters, so how do you get the chicken up the elevator without any deaths?

Benar finds a switch to summon the elevator down from the above, and the players attempt to portray his positioning in a way that results in his horrible crushing.

Calinai: Why couldn’t Benar die at the end of every adventure? He keeps adding a roman numeral to the end of his name…
DM: The elevator slowly and surely drags its way to the bottom, where it waits. Shortly thereafter you hear the sound of one of your trusted slaves—

Most of the group laughs at this description, while Inferian fights the losing semantics battle of why they’re not mindslaves.

Falgrim: I have to sit in between this one, because we could theoretically eat them without penalty.
Inferian: It’s subtle but effective!
Calinai: “We’re going to be fed to the Dragon? Yay! Let’s pre-tenderize ourselves!”

Inferian suddenly realizes that after leveling in the dungeon, he’s gained more mooks, and declares himself the Hypnotoad, at which point the DM starts assigning him the minions from Despicable Me. They query the curator about the mysterious heavy cube.

DM: In the meantime, the curator’s taken interest in…
Inferian: The herd of mind-controlled thralls.
DM: “Who are all these people?”
Inferian: “What evil is this, and how can I get in on it?” “Why you can get in on it easily?” (making a mind-control-rays gesture with sound effects, then chanting) “Hail Lord Dragon…”
Inferian and DM: “Imhotep… Imhotep…”

They manage to finagle the box open; it shifts slightly along a seam. They find sniper rifle ammo in it. Then they actually open it, and find heartstone! A palm-sized disk, their goal! (They briefly argue over whether all the seals were supposed to have the same shape, before the DM explicitly says they’re identical.) Meanwhile, the other Sister and the curator have been comparing the missing tomes!

DM: There are some differences, or at least some pages present in the newer one.
Inferian: Telling us that everything we’ve done is a foolish maneuver up to this point. “A wayward group of adventurers should NEVER gather the seals!”
Calinai: One sneaky adventurer shouldn’t put it in a box, and leave it in some guy’s house…
Inferian: You’re confusing campaigns!
Calinai: I know it’s the other campaign, I’m just preventing you from doing it in THIS game!

The curator casually identifies the next place they should be going as Shadar Logoth, the cursed city, which they shouldn’t go to. Worse, their next destination is out in the elven waste! The DM promises them loot and XP on the next night, as they prepare to set out for the cursed city of doom…