The group has a new temporary member, as a family member of one of the group members has some luxury to play during the summer! Thus, the party increases even more in size…

Lars: And we ate the thrallherd. And there was much rejoicing.
Inferian: Don’t eat the thrallherd!
Falgrim: But you said we could do it without penalty!
Inferian: You can eat the thralls. NOT ME!
DM: To save yourselves the trouble of burying the thralls, you’ve decided to spit them all and eat them.
Inferian: (sarcastically) Yes, that’s exactly what I decided to do.
DM: Yes, that’s what you do, you’re a Dragon, you’re cannibalistic. Carniverous.
Inferian: Yes, I know, I’m evil. Irredeemable—
DM: I never called you ‘irredeemable’.
Inferian: What could I do that you’d consider me ‘redeemed’? Erase the levels of thrallherd?
DM: Maybe not sacrifice pigs.
Lars: Hey, those pigs were asking for it. They were wearing meat.
DM: They were wearing meat. They were asking to be eaten by a giant scorpion.

The group does in fact properly bury the thralls, but no one will voluntarily acknowledge any of this and the DM strips them of spell recovery anyway.

Lars: I won’t bury his damn thralls.
DM: Lars spits on your thralls before bedding down for the night. The live ones, not the dead ones.
Inferian: I’m pretty sure they outnumber him…
DM: Yeah, but they’re level one, what’re they going to do? Plink plink plink!
Inferian: I don’t think he has damage reduction there.
Calinai: Doesn’t he have an AC of 24?
Lars: Me? 25.
DM: Tink! Tink! Tink!
Inferian: Do you sleep in your plate mail?
Lars: Always.
Inferian: Do you have a restful crystal?
Lars: No…
Inferian: So you’re exhausted every day, is what you’re telling me.
Falgrim: Oooh.

The DM describes Benar repeatedly failing to kill Lars, then declares he’s had enough fun and the game is over. A farting blimp practically kills him, or at least has him collapsed and pounding the table. The game hangs for a moment to find the weather tables; when it resumes, they’re in the midst of another howling storm, followed by a punishing cold!

DM: It does not abate with the rising sun.
Falgrim: What kinda temperatures we talking about here?
DM: Seasonably cold.
Falgrim: Unseasonably.
DM: Unseasonably cold. It’s as if the winter refuses to let go of its grip on the land.
Inferian: “Treedon! What can you tell us of this?”
Treedon: Is that a Knowledge(nature) check?
Falgrim: In very meta terms, yes.

Treedon rolls. It sounds… very odd.

Falgrim: Sounds like he’s making a highball.
Lars: Is that like… one of the Sorry, like, hit the center dome things?
DM: Are you using the Pop-O-Matic Bubble to determine your check?
Falgrim: Oh, I’d love to have a Pop-O-Matic Bubble for rolling dice.
DM: Well, you could roll a lot of trouble that way.

Treedon believes this is a late winter, but the temperature will keep dropping. They start bundling up!

Inferian: I don my alchemists’ fire. This will keep me nice and warm…
DM: Excellent. Roll your damage, please. As you travel throughout the day, the weather does dry up considerably, but the temperature does drop much lower than would be seasonably appropriate.
Falgrim: “This is ill.”
DM: Not frostbite temperatures, but…
Inferian: Good thing I specifically gave orders for my thralls to be properly provisioned.
Falgrim: Those were ignored.
Lars: I stripped the clothes from his thralls and put them on myself.
Inferian: Are you declaring war on me?!
Lars: No man, I’m just saying, I’m gonna take some supplies from your thralls, be like, “That’s okay, he’ll have more of you tomorrow.”
Inferian: Wild surge for two…

They pass the day and the next quickly. The cold continues to linger, prompting Inferian to declare that they’ve come down with a bad case of Saruman. The next day dawns to a torrential rain!

DM: This is like, the third 90-plus I’ve rolled.
Inferian: I’m telling you, Saruman!
DM: I keep getting right to the cusp of hurricane but it won’t HAPPEN! (angrily tossing down his dice)

The group merrily envisions the antics they’d undergo if a hurricane did, in fact, hit. The DM rolls yet another storm as they reach the final day of marching!

Falgrim: Stupid Smarch weather.

An ominous feeling settles over them as they draw closer to the city. The DM calls for Listen checks! Lars rolls a mighty 11.

Lars: Lars is too busy peeing on a tree, going, “Ohhhhhhhh! Aaaaaaaaaah!”
Inferian: He’s been whizzing on that tree for fifteen minutes straight!
Lars: “Oooooohaaaaaaaah.”
Inferian: Just leave him.
Falgrim: (mimes chopping down the tree)
Inferian: My men carry it along so he can keep whizzing on it…

They hear the sound of drumbeats, coming from east, west, and south! Falgrim identifies them as trolloc wardrums, perhaps eight and a dozen fists. And a fist is 100 trollocs.

Inferian: “No shelter. No safe spots. No higher ground.”
Lars: “I saw we fight them.”

The rest of the group mentally facepalms.

Falgrim: “Lad, I don’t think you understand how many of them there are.”
DM: This would be THE most epic final combat in the history of D&D.
Lars: “Lars do not run from a fight!”
Falgrim: “Goodbye, Lars. It was nice knowing you.”
Inferian: “Treedon!”
Lars: He’s gone.
Inferian: Fuck. I had an idea but it won’t work if he’s run off on us! “Well, the druid has left us to die.”
Treedan: I was preparing dinner. Okay, so what’s this master plan where I save the world again?
Inferian: Turn into a bird and do some scouting. That was pretty much the plan.
DM: Yes, get devoured by crows…
Falgrim: Turn into a crow.

Lars consults his spell list for helpful spells, but has none that are either long enough or can affect enough people.

Lars: You lose some of your followers to buy us time.
Inferian: WHICH ONE OF US IS ALLEGEDLY EVIL HERE?!
Lars: I’m just trying to tactically plan our retreat.
Inferian: So sacrifice the mooks so we survive!
Lars: Isn’t that the point of the mooks!?
Inferian: Only out of character!
Falgrim: Inferian doesn’t want to be like, “Ah, you’re worthless.”
Calinai: He’s not playing a supervillain from a cartoon show!
Inferian: Yes, that’s if you’re an EVIL thrallherd.
DM: You’re sacrifice an evil pig, but you won’t sacrifice regenerating mooks.

Treedon takes to the air, and sees torchfires to the horizon all around them save to the north. The marching lines will basically bowl them over; there is no escape except a hard march to their destination, which they immediately set off on. After some quick checking on the rules for crow flight, they reach their destination at last!

DM: In less than an hour’s time, your crow’s eyes can see the ruined city that you march towards. It is ominous. …it is wet.
Sioneva: That’s what she said.
DM: Did I roll another 9—awwwwwww. The weather lets up.
Inferian: A hawk’s flight speed is 60 average. A mule has a speed of 30. An owl has a fly speed of 40. A pony has a fly speed of 80.
DM: A pony has a fly speed of 80?
Inferian: Only a pegasus.

The group makes their displeasure known. Calinai rolls a quick Knowledge check to figure out where the heck they’re going.

DM: If someone was crazy enough to seek refuge here with it, a good place to look would be anywhere there’s a corpse. The city destroyed itself long ago. It wasn’t overrun by the Shadow, it was actually overcome by its own greed and malice.
Calinai: I don’t know if I should be waiting for the crust to brown… I lost track of time. The problem is the crumble crust hasn’t been on it yet –
DM: STOP! Stop gesturing with the oven mitt, it’s ridiculous!
Calinai: (gestures)
DM: STOP!

At last the focus turns to Artemis the ranger (and cursing the magebred ghost tiger). Lars returns with some sliced up fruit bread!

DM: Booberry?
Inferian: No, blueberry, not Booberry!
Falgrim: But Booberry’s delicious! It tastes nothing like blueberries but it’s delicious!
Inferian: We’re gonna have to fight a dangerous vampire monk now. Count Chocula.
Falgrim: “Part of a naturally balanced breakfast!”
DM: And then Frankenberry. And you’re also going to have to fight the Fruit Bruit.
Inferian: Oh my god.
Sioneva: Oh my god, the Fruit Brute.
DM: And they’re all being commanded by the captain.
Falgrim: What was the fruity mummy? Yummy Mummy?

During all this, the DM has casually come around to peer over Inferian’s shoulder.

DM: Damn.
Inferian: Why are you cursing?
DM: I was just looking at something.
Inferian: Looking at my Will save?
DM: STOP BEING UBERMETA YOU ASSHOLE!
Inferian: Yes, my Will save is SKY HIGH.

Anyway, back to Artemis… She was part of a group who had entered the city in the Hunt for the Horn, and had scouted at the city as part of that. Her group seems to have disappeared, and now she hears the ominous drumbeats!

DM: Even as you sit there pondering what to do, a group of around 30 people are heading towards you at an expedient clip.
Artemis: Um, I guess I get on my bat and I—

Someone’s phone makes a farting sound at exactly this moment. The DM bursts into absolutely uncontrollable laughter and collapses behind the screen.

Calinai: Damn. Are you gonna live?
DM: (still helplessly laughing)
Calinai: He’s dead!
Lars: You broke the DM!
DM: (still helplessly laughing)
Calinai: K.O.!
DM: (still helplessly laughing)
Inferian: He’s OUT. One… two… three…

Artemis on her dire bat nearly runs headlong into the transformed Treedon! The DM openly encourages them to kill each other, but Treedon greets Artemis instead!

DM: Your knowledge of the woods tells you this is some sort of druid in wild shape.
Inferian: Or a familiar.
DM: Ugh… familiars.
Treedon: Familiars can speak the common tongue too, can’t they?
DM: Shaddup! Both of you!

The two of them struggle to roleplay! Artemis cheerfully admits she’s checking out the group because she can’t find her own.

DM: The passive-aggressive RP in this group is always off the charts, especially when there’s a new person. I throw hammers at old ladies. And I don’t mean to be that way, but now that I’m on the outside I can see how hostile this comes to pass as.
Lars: NPCs we’re like, “Hi! Here’s our whole life stories!” but PCs we’re like, “What the fuck do you want?”

The attempts at roleplay… don’t last long. They wreck it. Badly. As usual.

DM: The combat depends on you. Are you gonna turn to bay and face the trolloc army? Even Falgrim probably realizes the foolhardiness of that. 30 individuals turning to face 1200.
Inferian: I have to keep an eye on frickin’ Lars to make sure he’s not slipping back to hamstring my minions. Or as he calls it, hobbling them. Someone’s falling behind, check his kneecaps. Laaaaars!
DM: Yeah, since there’s no meat here…

The DM pretty much railroads Treedon and Artemis into joining forces, and everyone is fine with this. Artesmis joins the party! They attempt to rename her “AAAAAAAA”.

Falgrim: Until we find a Namingway.
Inferian: On the up side, you have the top score in every arcade.

The DM tells them that when night falls in the city, an amorphous, murderous fog-snake roams the city. There is really no safe refuge past concealment in the city. A wave of sound effects deafens the transcriber, including someone’s call that could not be completed as dialed. Artemis, who has scouted the city, leads them to an entrance, the southeast gate. For some reason, Inferian mocks Iglar.

Calinai: Why is when Inferian does Iglar, it sounds like Iglar with Down Syndrome?
DM: “No, it’s not like that, Inferian!”
Inferian: It is in my head. “I think having a wife and kids is more appropriate than playing D&D…”

The DM requests a table-clearing. They oblige, scrambling for minis in the process.

Lars: Is Harmony a bear?
Treedon: Harmony is a ghost tiger.
DM: You have to say all of it every time. Magebred ghost tiger.
Falgrim: I imagine “bread” being B-R-E-A-D.
Lars: Ah! If I log out for more than a few minutes, I’ll lose it. I can’t get rid of my mage bread.

Inferian cranks up “Make A Man Out of You” for appropriate battle music. Calinai stares.

Calinai: I know this song…
Inferian: EVERYBODY knows this song!
DM: I can’t wait to crush your group’s spirit – I mean, uh…
Inferian: Hey, I rolled up stats, I’m ready.
Falgrim: Artificer!
DM: I’m not trying that hard to kill you, it’s just becoming increasingly harder to feel like I’m even challenging you guys. I either make a foe that’s too puny for you guys to do anything but steamroll, or too strong for you to do anything but die to.
Inferian: TPK! TPK! TPK… total party kill, I don’t know what you’re thinking…
Falgrim: Toilet Paper Kamikaze!

Calinai attempts to deploy the live pigs as trapfinders. Lars takes a moment to explain the whole trapfinding pig to Artemis. She is horrified.

DM: See? See? Doesn’t that seem terrible to someone who’s not in context?
Artemis: Poor pig!
Lars: What did he say? “It’s FOOD on LEGS!”
Falgrim: “It’s meat on legs” is what he said.
DM: It was an innocent pig that never did anything to everyone. They didn’t even eat it!
Falgrim: Someone else got to it before we could!
Inferian: We would have eaten it if we had the chance!
Artemis: You should’ve saved one, killed it, then sent the REST of them out…
DM: In that case, you fit right in. It is a pity. There were more traps and you didn’t bring more pigs.

Inspired, the group begins filling out the bingo sheet! The group enters, some of them flying to the DM’s massive annoyance. The horde of thralls piles in like a reverse-clown-car. The DM angrily points to his map to indicate how much black ink his dungeon designer used, then realizes he’s showing the map to the players and hurriedly stuffs it away.

DM: You don’t sense any [darkspawn] within 60 feet.
Artemis: …Listen check?
Treedon: Your druid is flying and one other person is.
Sioneva: (disparagingly) Inferian.
DM: Yes. I don’t have problem with a mount that flies… this is becoming a running gag. You might as well be Gohan and -- (realizing that Inferian has been mocking his entire speech with grapes in his mouth) -- Stop that!

The room they’ve entered has four different doors leading out of it. All is deathly quiet. Inferian proposes barricading the doors with debris.

DM: Are you going to send your psicrystal ahead? I won’t hold it against you. Despite my tone of voice.

Everyone starts Listening at doors, Benar rolls a mighty natural 20 to search his door, and discovers some sort of magic ward protecting the door!

Inferian: Can he attempt to disable it? Is it a trap?
DM: He would gamble his life on it being a trap.
Inferian: Should I make him gamble his life by trying to disable it… Aww. Natural 1. He DID gamble his life.
Falgrim: I thought I was supposed to be the one opening the doors.
Inferian: You were the one opening the doors, not disabling the traps.
Falgrim: Wait, he has Disable Traps now?
Inferian: He’s always had Disable Device! He doesn’t have Open Lock, because you have Open Lock, with a sword.

The DM begins gathering heaps of dice.

Falgrim: Oh, that’s a big spell.
Inferian: Oh boy. A fireball just wiped out everybody.
DM: It’s not a fireball!
Inferian: A cloudkill just wiped out everybody.
Calinai: So Benar killed us.
Inferian: Yeah.
Treedon: Good job!

The DM bitterly complains that he’s never done anything worse to them than a dungeon full of constructs. The DM takes an uncomfortably long time to describe the situation.

Treedon: So what’s happening?
Falgrim: He’s looking up a spell.
Artemis: Dead babies, that’s what happened.
Lars: Wow, there it is.
Inferian: She’s reading it off the list, don’t get impressed, guys.
DM: Do any of you have spell resistance?
All: No!

Benar detonates a Symbol of Pain, which thanks to the narrow confines of the room sweeps over the entire group, thralls and all. Sioneva repeatedly spams the screaming goat until everybody gets pissed off at it. Calinai quickly tosses out a dispel to remove its crippling penalties. Meanwhile, Sioneva’s door is immobile. The discussion wanders.

Treedon: I don’t think you want a campaign run by me.
Falgrim: It’d probably have ponies and pie in it.
Lars: You eat the poisonous pie.
Artemis: Rainbow Dash is a lesbian!
Calinai: What are you talking about? The game would be, “What race are all you guys? Oh right, you’re all ponies.”
Treedon: That’s gonna be a Friendship check!

The discussion wanders to the space-pirate father of Cyclops and the Safety Dance for a while. They at last finally open the Symboled door and Benar looks through.

DM: This is a room much like the one Benar just left. Stony, in a state of advanced decay. There are, however… skeletal remains strewn about the floor of this chamber.
Inferian: Anybody have any alchemists’ fire…?

Sioneva’s door is completely blocked, thus explaining its immobility. Calinai steps up and drops a Fiery Burst on the skeletons; the DM briefly cackles about them wasting their spells before being reminded it’s a reserve feat. To no one’s surprise, the bodies lurch upwards, and initiative is rolled!

Sioneva: Does a 24 hit?
DM: (from the bathroom) Yes!

The group retreats back into their current room to force the skeletons into a conga line of death. Sioneva attempts to shoot the skeletons, despite being nowhere near the door and having no line-of-sight.

DM: If you could get through that door you could do something, but that door is blocked.
Calinai: Blocked?
Inferian: Totally blocked. A giant pile of debris. A ton. A literal ton.
DM: A ton. Not like a T-O-N-N-E. A ton.

The 50-or-so characters jockey for position around the door. Lars proposes using his Cloak of the Transposer, while the DM openly cackles about them using up the charges. Inferian points out it’s only three skelestons.

DM: Yes! Use your charges needlessly! Use your Widen Empower Sudden Energy…
Falgrim: Energon cubes?

Some more jockeying. The flaming skeletons burst into the room, or at least one of them does, laying some pain on Benar. Treedon contemplates spells.

Falgrim: So Treedon is just casting Summon Nature’s Ally IV.
Inferian: No! Too high!
DM: Yeah, that’s like an eighth level spell, isn’t it.
Inferian: No… it’s fourth level.

Harmony attempts to advance! …too many people in the way, it can’t. It skulks back.

DM: I was considering making this all… hugeass…
Falgrim: Open area?
DM: Something like that with enormous ass… doors or something like that.
Inferian: Enormous ass-doors.
DM: Yes, ass-doors. You open them by spreading the cheeks.

Artemis shoots a skeleton! This takes a while…

DM: The mooks actually go next.
Inferian: They’ll unload a barrage of missiles at it. Mostly ineffectually, I’m sure.
Lars: Can they… are they going to be hitting Benar?
DM: Let’s see!
Falgrim: Benar – pincushioned!
DM: Actually they rolled very well. What’re they using?
Inferian: Probably shortbows. They have a very low chance of actually doing damage.
DM: 1d6? So if they roll a 6.
Inferian: It’s a very low chance, but it’s made up for by numbers…
DM: A miniature storm of arrows is unloosed by your slaves – your psychotic enslaved minions. A couple of them managing to punch a hole through the skeletal head.
Calinai: You said they pointed the arrows up, all the arrows just slam into the ceiling…
DM: Better up there than in your backs. This creature is still up.

Falgrim rolls for his attack while the DM shakes his head at his own folly for giving the PCs access to that Frostbrand weapon too soon.

DM: Stout dwarf! With a mighty hew, it turns into a pile of bones and dust.
Falgrim: Frostmourne hunge—I mean Frostbrand!

The DM mocks Inferian for cowering. Lars is still really itching to use his cloak.

Lars: I should just transmute myself through a wall. Get over there and just start hacvking.
DM: Is there an item that just lets you transmute? Or is it one of those things that has a fail chance? Because if you bamf inside of a wall, your character’s done!
Lars: Just teleport.
DM: You don’t have to see where you’re going?
Falgrim: He can guess. But…
DM: Don’t roll a 1! You see Lars’s hindquarters sticking through the stone wall!
Inferian: “I see no difference.”

A skeleton steps up into a wall of readied actions. The skeleton gets a faceful of attacks, but the DM openly gloats that he’s delaying them so that they will be forced to face the army. Treedon takes a bizarrely long OOC time just to summone one eagle. The mook army, however, gets it turn!

DM: Your mooks…
Inferian: They slaughtered the skeleton?
DM: They rolled enough. And they rolled well enough.
Inferian: That’s great!
DM: That is great.
Calinai: “No! This can’t be how I die!”
Inferian: “A level 1, why!”
DM: No matter how big and strong one of us is, enough first-graders piling on…
Calinai: I dunno. Our show… Kidfights! Falgrim takes on Ms. Jill’s class. We told our 30 kids candy was in Falgrim’s stomach! Let’s see what happens.
Falgrim: I hold my action.
DM: COWAAAAARD!
Falgrim: Coward?! I can’t do anything!
DM: The skeletons have defiled your people’s religious… your people’s place of religious worship! Pigs are defecating on the shrine to what’s-his-name.
Falgrim: …yes. Great DMing, there. To what’s his face, you know! The guy with the beard!

Everyone readies actions in preparation for the next skeleton’s entry. The DM disgustedly moves the skeleton forward. Amazingly it withstands a multi-person barrage! Treedon prepares his action, but his path is blocked. He sends in the eagle! It misses!

Lars: What’s the DR reduction? 5?
DM: Yes.
Lars: One point of damage.
DM: (chuckling) Oh…
Lars: Falgrim’s like, “Really. One point, dude? That’s it?” Yes.
Artemis: I rolled a 1… I’m gonna miss it!
Lars: Not just miss it, you’re gonna shoot yourself in the foot.
Artemis: Uh, 12..
Inferian: You missed, you rolled a 1.
Falgrim: That’s an automatic fail.
Lars: You just shot one of his mooks in his face.
DM: I dunno, she was firing into melee…
Inferian: She has Precise Shot!
Lars: She tripped and shot one of the mooks in the face, dude, they’re dead.
Artemis: I precisely hit a wall.
DM: Or a guard.
Lars: I think it’d be best if she killed a mook, dude. That’s be great.
Artemis: It bounced off a wall into a mook…
DM: It was a really bad angle! One of you mooks will join the dead in this cursed city. Like another one won’t just show up…

Aretemis’s second, better shot drops the skeleton, and the field is theirs. The DM gloats again about the delay; Inferian proposes blocking up the second, narrower door instead of the larger gates.

DM: That’ll take up the same amount of time!
Inferian: I’ve got minions to do it anyway.
DM: They can only work so fast.
Falgrim: There’s FORTY of them!
Artemis: I club them like seals.
DM: There’s THIRTY-NINE of them, Inferian!
Inferian: She can’t have killed one.
DM: She killed the strong one. Now they’re all, “Eeehh, rocks, eeeehhhh!”
Inferian: She couldn’t have just taken it out completely.
Artemis: I was angry.
DM: She was doing 15 damage a shot.
Inferian: That’s because she has a favored enemy of undead. She can do ten damage maximum to a normal guy.
DM: It was an arrow to the knee…

Lars discovers he can combo Share Pain with an Amulet of Retributive Healing to maximize heal effectiveness. Inferian actually indicates his approval.

Lars: Thank you! That’s the first time Inferian’s supported any idea I’ve ever had!

The group discovers to its dismay that it’s dicked around so much they get their one combat and the game is over. Bemoaning their folly, they wrap up for the night.