Last time, the poor people in the dwarven kingdom had taken shelter in the armory, swiftly donning their armory and readying their weapons. The game gets off to a depressing start since Cambrian forgot the minis…

DM: Humans are the minotaurs, the green goblins are supposed to represent the dwarves, and the big guy is supposed to represent a dwarf lord commander.
Davlamar: Who’s the mum—is that a mummy?
DM: No.
Davlamar: What IS that?
Cambrian: Hey, put me back in the corner where I wanted to be. I’m arching.
Davlamar: You’re doing yoga?

Initiative is called for and delivered. The DM quickly recaps the previous adventure for them!

DM: You have made it to the armory. Inside the armory you have had just enough time to don your weapons, convince the dwarven commander who is there that you are not his enemy-
Davlamar: And unsheathe our armor.
Drengar: That’s what I was thinking, too.
Davlamar: We’re interchangeable tonight.
DM: Thank you, guys. I was just gonna keep moving on. You donned your weapons and sheathed your armor.
Davlamar: And hobbled our horses.
Connor: I put my left breastplate in a pocket.
Cambrian: Well good for us… I guess…

The clash of battle draws closer as they ready themselves. Guards have taken up position in the hallway to meet the oncoming human onslaught, while the PCs hole up in the armory to fight defensively.

Cambrian: You know, the first roll of combat, somebody’s going to roll a 1, is gonna hit a dwarf, they’ll think we’ve turned on them…
Connor: We’re all gonna die.
Cambrian: How tall is that shelf they knocked over?
DM: It’s to the ceiling. It’s like a weapons rack shelf unit that goes from the floor to the ceiling.
Cambrian: Oh, I thought they pushed it over.
DM: You… can push it over?
Cambrian: I seem to recall they already had pushed it over.
DM: Maybe, I don’t remember. Fine.
Cambrain: I’d wondered if they had so we could fight on top of it and get the +1from higher ground.
DM: Sure.
Davlamar: (eyeing Cambrian’s damaged mini) Well that might compensate you -4 for only having one arm.
Cambrian: Well how high is it?
DM: It only goes from the floor to the ceiling, but if you want to push it over… sure.
Cambrian: I don’t want to push it over if it’s not pushed over.
DM: Then it’s not pushed over.
Cambrian: But I wanted it pushed over!
Drengar: Take out the pins from the hinges.

The players ready their actions to commit slaughter on the first foe they see! This… takes a while. Outside, the conflict between the humans and the dwarves rages on, with the DM rolling for both sides and adjudicating the combat as it goes.

DM: Davlamar!
Davlamar: Seriously…? What? Renh!
Cambrian: Davalamar lets out a fierce grunt!
Cain: Wasting his whole turn.
Davlamar: A gront.
DM: So your dwarf on the far right, he has been fighting valiantly to protect you, to buy you time SO YOU COULD GET OUT AND JOIN THEM, but unfortunately this warrior that he came across had an incredible slashing move that decapitated him in one smooth swing, taking him down.
Cain: That’s okay. Everyone knows that dwarves have two heads, and a second one grows in its place!
DM: The second one takes a 10 foot step to the first one he comes to. He missed, but that dwarf in return…
Cambrian: Dies!
Cain: Falls on his own axe.
Cambrian: “The shame of me kingdom being invaded by humans!”

Drengar actually has a clear shot on a human, and fires a sickening blast into one. The PCs call for the dwarves to fall back, but the brave, bold, horribly-dying dwarves refuse.

Hanzo: And they’ll say, “Ach!”
Cain: “We don’t fall back, we charge in!”
DM: “ACH! Ya don’t give order to my soldiers!”
Hanzo: (giggling furiously)

Foes… continue not to come in, as the battle continues to rage outside. The DM, growing steadily more irritated by the PCs’ refusal to come out into the open where archers can riddle them with arrows, starts moving the archers away to make a more tempting prospect.

DM: So the dwarf in the throne room is dead, as he took a shot to the face with an arrow. Archer 4 is actually going to go… he’s um… all the way far to the right. Archer 4 is going to go… five ten, fifteen twenty… back to the top of the room.
Cambrian: He gets lost, because he was blindfolded when he came in here the first time.
Davlamar: (laughs so hard he collapses onto the table)
Cain: Done! K.O.!
DM: Move him up so he’s within melee range… and that’s it. He missed his attack. That dwarf… also missed.
Cambrian: They’re all blindfolded now!
Davlamar: That’s why they’re missing! That’s how they got in! The pumping dwarves were like, “Ya can’t come in without blindfolds,” so they all put them on, with their weapons in hand!
DM: The dwarf to Davlamar’s left that’s standing in the hallway just rolled a 1 for his attack. As he took his double-headed axe and swung it back over his head for a hefty cleave, he hit his ally in the top of the head and killed him as well.
Davlamar: I’m ashamed of being a dwarf right now.
Cambrian: They ARE committing suicide!
Davlamar: The feather in our cap will be the dwarves that were sent to investigate the authenticity of our story will come back and blame all this massacre on us.
Cambrian: Drengar slams the DM up against the wall. “This is for me people!” “Drengar, the game is over—“ “I KNOW!”

A couple more dwarves move around ineffectually, but then Drengar strikes true with another eldritch blast.

DM: It flies forward, leaving a scorching human looking down at the hole in his chest, then looking back up at Drengar. Then back down at the hole in his chest. Then back up at Drengar.
Cambrian: His hole is now diamonds.
DM: Then he looks at his hands. Look at that thing you like. Now look at this. Now I’m a horse. Now I’m collapsing.

The dwarves again ignore the PCs’ pleas to retreat to safety, and this is the exact moment the PCs give up on them and accept that they’re happily inviting death.

DM: Why do you guys all assume that I’m just going to have all these guys pour into the room after you?
Davlamar: Well, if they want to kill us, our tactic is going to force them to do so.
Cain: They don’t have a reason to kill all the humans here. We just need to survive.
Connor: If they DON’T charge into the room and leave us alone, that’s all the better.
DM: I’m kinda tempted to have them kill the dwarves and just leave…

The players and the DM snipe at each other; the players insist the dwarves are blocking them in the armory anyway, the DM arguing that they’re defending their home, and the players pointing out they’re being idiots in the execution of it. To spite them, the DM has the dwarf commander move a step to the left, and then a warrior steps into the armory.

Drengar: Unleash hell!
Cain: Time to attack with everything I have!
Cambrian: Gonna be one crowded initiative phase…
DM: Yes it is. You all move your initiative to where he is?

Cambrian fires but can’t hit even by rolling a 15, while Connor is unable to charge because of the commander. Cambrian remembers he has Point Blank shot and retroactively hits, but the DM mocks him the entire way.

DM: Cambrian says, “Don’t worry, guys, I’ll get him.”
Cambrian: 17 damage.
DM: Yeah, he’s dead, dude. Your bolt hit him with such force that it pinned him – that it made him explode.
Cambrian: It IS a Bane weapon.
Cain: All right, who put on the Bloody Mess perk from Fallout?
Lydanna: I did 19 points of damage.
DM: Oh, he’s dead too. In fact your force hit him with such damage that it literally stuck him to the wall.
Davlamar: In the same place the other guys was! Blood Mess!
Connor: We’re slaughtering these guys and the dwarves are dying in dwarves.
Davlamar: Now he’s making us feel silly for cowering in the corner.
Cambrian: Yeah, but we can’t exactly take a ton of punishment at second level. All they have to do is get in two good sword thrusts—
Davlamar: You act like you want to survive. Don’t you want that to be the running gag of this campaign?
Cambrian: I die in every encounter?
Davlamar: Party refresh every week? Eventually we’ll make up a party composed of a racial soup...
Cambrian: If I rolled a natural 1 and he ruled that I shot myself, I probably would die.

Another warrior moves forward and takes a hit from Cain. The dwarf commander hacks the human in half, because humans don’t have breastbones apparently. Most of the rest of the humans have retreated from sight!

Cain: “CHARGE!” (mimes several arrows hitting him)

Soldiers continue to pour in from the front of the castle, people run through the castle, soldiers stomp all around... Drengar fires at a soldier as the group slowly begins exiting the armory. A bunch of humans begin readying their actions.

DM: You know, if I was being an asshole right now I could have something like a hydra break out of the floor in the throne room. RAAAAAGH! Vampire monk has swung in through the window! The dwarf commander… he’s actually going to step out of the room, and he yells, “We cannot show them quarter!” He heads out and turns to the right… and that guy’s readied action…

It disintegrates into rules of cover and archery line of sight for painfully long. The DM angrily accepts that the guy must be standing in the hall, but arrows are still coming at them!

Davlamar: He’s got a penalty because of the distance.
DM: A short bow is like what, 60 feet?
Davlamar: Yeah, and that’s 70 feet. -2.
Cambrian: It’s a SNORT bow, he does a line of cocaine, giving himself +2.
Drengar: Wooooow.

Cain and Cambrian spend a moment working this out – the line of cocaine is on the string hand, and the user of the snort bow inhales as he pulls the arrow back. The dwarf commander takes a mere point of damage from this shot.

Cambrian: Thirty – SHOOT!
DM: What’re you shooting?
Cambrian: The archer – natural 1. Naturally.
Cain: The bow explodes in your hands!
DM: The bow, as you lift it up to fire, jams. The bolt shatters inside it, making it useless for the time being.
Cambrian: Welp, I’m out!

Cain shoots a guy! Connor questions why they can’t all be friends. The commander hustles down the hall! Lydanna shoots a guy in the neck!

DM: It’s sticking out of his neck! But he’s so hopped up on adrenaline—
Cambrian: And crack!
DM: That he’s just barely about to die. But he doesn’t.
Drengar: Natural 20.
DM: As Drengar jumps out into the hallway, he looks at the archer, he puts his hands together and brings them behind him and yells, “KA…. ME… HA…. ME…”
Cambrian: Drengar, are you gonna allow this to be described this way?
DM: I love this stuff – what? He fires a Kamehameha Wave… times 10—
Drengar: And then Drengar wakes up and says, “That’s nonsense.”
DM: The blast fires so hard against the archer, it actually knocks him back into the other warrior who’s standing there. The warrior, with dead body parts flying all over him, knocks him prone…

Davlamar, unable to do anything at range, moons the remaining archer for some reason. The archer ignores Davlamar’s hairy ass, instead critting the commander in the face. While Cambrian quickly fixes his crossbow, Lydanna takes out the second archer. Poor Connor again has no one to charge, leaving him to question his life choices and double-move. Cambrian blows away another archer when his turn comes around, leaving a warrior puking from a sickening blast running like hell. The commander… stabilizes.

Drengar: Hearty dwarf fortitude saves his life.
Davlamar: Give him a bandage, and now there’s no one to throw us back in jail.
Cain: There you go. Have a little bandage there…
Drengar: Yeah, it’s a long cloth and you tie it around his eyes.
Cambrian: He is bleeding from the face, so it probably is right there.
DM: “Sweet irony… Ach, irony…” So the dwarf commander is stabilized.
Cambrian : But the humans will kill him. I can heal him…
Davlamar: So heal him then. You’re Lawful Good?
Cambrian: I’m neutral good, but these guys did just kind of imprison me for some bullshit.
Davlamar: Well, what does your neutral stance on karma say here?
Cambrian: (despondently) I should heal him…
Davlamar: He’ll be fine if he gets treatment from his own kind.
Cambrian: His own kind are dying in droves around him.
Davlamar: If you stabilize him, the next human to come around will finish the job.
Cambrian: Exactly.
DM: He was supposed to do so much more. But that archer critted him right in the face for maximum damage. I had such high hopes for the commander in this battle…

Cambrian casts Lesser Vigor on the commander, bringing him back up. The commander thanks him, then insists they find the king.

DM: “Last I saw him, he was running to the kitchens.”
Davlamar: (maniacal laughter) He’s hiding in the oven!
Cambrian: Quick show of hands, does anyone actually want to find the king?
Cain: (from the kitchen) My hand is down! My hand is down.
DM: “I beg of you. He is a good man. Good dwarf.”
Cambrian: “My personal experience with him is just the opposite.”
Drengar: “Aye, it’s not great for me either.”
Davlamar: “If we find him, I could blindfold him.”
Connor: “Yeah, he’s gonna be great friends with us if we run to him.”

The kitchens are the way they’re going anyway, so they agree just to shut the commander up. Cambrian grimly points out that if the DM was playing in this game, his character would have immediately injured or killed a dwarf PC just to avoid retaliation from the humans. They advanced forward, immediately getting Connor shot for four points of damage.

Connor: I think he needs to die.
DM: You gonna charge him?
Connor: Yeah.
DM: How’s a charge work?
Drengar: He just charges…
Davlamar: Oh, I want to see that on the transcription!

Sadly, Davlamar’s request is denied. Lydanna is mocked for constantly wanting to have a feat to charge. Connor completely whiffs the charge. The PCs discover they’ve tracked a couple of guys into a dead-end, and move up to slay them. The line-of-sight rules come up again, causing the DM to bitterly declare he’s stopped caring. Connor takes seven damage in the midst of the fray.

Connor: I shall slice him up.
DM: As long as you roll over a 17, he’s dead.
Connor: You act like I can ROLL, sir. Nope.
DM: Jeez, okay. Dammit, I’m gonna need more space here…
Cain: I can’t make more table.
Drengar: We’ll forge a new table.
Cain: We have the technology.
Drengar: The Six Million Dollar Table. Oh my god we are so fucking in debt…
DM: I’ll make my dungeons a little smaller…
Cambrian: (holding out a die to Cain) Now I shall teach you to look beyond the illusions of gaming. You must snatch the d20 from my hand.
Drengar: He just grabs it. “I wasn’t ready!”
Cain: (grabs the die)
Cambrian: You have FAILED! I told you to look BEYOND the illusions! That’s a 20 sided d10! The d20 was in my other hand!
Lydanna: You asshole!
Cain: You also closed that hand!
Cambrian: Yes! You were supposed to notice that’s not a d20 and interrogate my further, but you have failed! Your knowledge of the game is weak! You are no longer a member of this dojo!
Cain: WOOOHOO!

Their foes run away, and the players sing about Brave Sir Robin in response. Cain advanced forward, then changes his mind and watches the rear instead! They charge after the fleeing humans.

DM: You see a luscious, and what could have been a lavish, but has been damaged by combat, blood and dead bodies and guts, feces and everything else you’d fine in the horrible carnage of war, a dining room.
Drengar: Yay, max damage, 6!
DM: Poof!
Drengar: He dead?
DM: Yes, he is a smoldering corpse.

The DM grimly regrets a session of nothin’ but huge dungeon, especially since he has another one coming. The line of sight rules come up AGAIN, this time driving Cain to madness and causing the game to descend to bitterness and recrimination all around, at least until Cain kills the archer who’s giving them all this grief.

Drengar: The kitchen is ours! Yay!
Davlamar: Is this… hallway, or just more…
DM: That’s hallway.
Drengar: Awww.
Curain: Your way or the hallway.
Connor: Ha ha, funny.
Cain: Don’t encourage him. Do we see a puddle of pee anywhere? Maybe the king peed himself…
DM: At this point you don’t see too much in the way of combat. You do see dead bodies here and there… you hear combat and massive battle throughout the other parts of the castle.
Cambrian: The king is so delusional about how secure his castle is, that he’s actually mentally imagining the humans as really tall dwarves, and he thinks they’re here to celebrate his greatness.
Davlamar: He’s just feasting in the kitchen.

The group stumbles down into the kitchen at last! Giant, boiling vats of oil stand between the group and a raging conflict between numerous humans and a few loyal bodyguards protecting the king in the corner.

Connor: It’s the vat of boiling oil room!
Davlamar: It’s the fondue room.
Cambrian: It’s the dwarven baths. As creatures born of stone, they don’t bathe in water… You know how you need to put oil on a knife when you’re honing it? Same with a dwarf when you’re cleaning it. We’re gonna pull the king out of there, and he’s going to be deep-fried, and the DM’s going to use a piece of fried chicken to represent him.
DM: A half-eaten piece of fried chicken. Because it won’t make its way to the table before I take a bite.

Davalamar is first into the room, with neither enemy spying them. To best continue this secrecy, he seeks out cover!

Davlamar: I’m gonna hide in one of these vats.
DM: They’re filled with boiling oul.
Davlamar: I’m gonna hide in of those vats.
DM: Roll your damage. Wait, seriously, you’re heiling – you’re seriously hiding in one of those vats?
Cambrian: You’re heiling in one of those vats.
Davlamar: How many points of damage per turn do I take?
DM: …2?
Davlamar: That’s it? It’s boiling oil, DM!
DM: I didn’t really expect you to had inside the vat. You will take… seven points of damage per turn.
Davlamar: Okay.
Cambrian: Are you openly committing suicide?
Davlamar: I guess not.
DM: It sounds like t.
Davlamar: They’ll never look for me in there!
Cambrian: Yes, and after two rounds they won’t NEED to!

The group debates their options, which mostly are “leave the king to his fate”, before Cain hits on the idea of pushing the oil vat over. Davlamar protests his Strength is not up to the task.

Cain: Dirk it, man. Fucking Dirk that shit.
Davlamar: I’m not Dirk.
Cain: Dirk the shit out of that shit.
Davlamar: Dirk’s a fighter.
Cain: Dirk the shit out of that shit that shit Dirk did.
Davlamar: Anyway…

The DM calls for new initiative. Cain rolls a natural 20!

Cain: Oh wait, I have to do the Davlamar thing where I get angry that I rolled a something that’s not an attack.
Davlamar: Yeah, on a Listen check. Great. How often do I roll 20s, Cain?
Cain: All the time.
Davlamar: On Listen checks.
Cain: All the time.
Davlamar: In combat.
Cain: Never. Back when you had a crit range of 16-20, you were critting all the time.
Davlamar: That wasn’t a 20. What was that, six years ago? I wasn’t technically losing my hair yet when I was rolling 20s.
Cain: Do you think your hair is – are you Samson? Is your hair directly tied to your ability to roll?
Davlamar: I dunno about that, but it was a Pre-Cambrian era of D&D…
Cambrian: You bet Jurassic was.

Silence.

Cain: Cambrian, just fart yourself to death. Fart yourself to death, Cambrian. Fart yourself until there’s nothing left.
Drengar: Prove Wikipedia wrong!

The DM describes the oil as having an ‘opposed check’ of 10, leading the players to imagine the oil pot vigorously pushing back against Cain’s efforts, or actually countertipping him. Every human turns just in time to see the oil crash down at them. Seven points of damage goes through the humans ranks.

Drengar: My athlete’s foot! It’s been cured!
Cambrian: Now hypothetically, what if someone were to light this oil on fire?
Lydanna: Whaddya mean, hypothetically?
Drengar: There’s no exit, it’s kinda like a wall of fire.
Davlamar: You’d be dooming the king to death.

Drengar moves up, complaining that it smells of deep-fried mold. The PCs begin slaughtering their way through the pathetic mooks, who have little ability to resist. The mooks help them out by rolling 1s and shooting each other in the back of the head.

DM: The warrior that is right there, he pulls out his weapon – Jesus Christ, I am NOT doing it right tonight – he pulls out his weapon as he sees you in front of him. He swings mightily, but he swings over your head with such force that he spins around in a circle and lands face first into the smoldering oil on the ground. He’s dead.
Davlamar: What a way to go.
Cambrian: Humans! The only holes in the ground you’ll occupy are your graves. Die!
DM: Cain, the last archer has hit you for six points of damage!
Cain: Ooh. …I didn’t take the six points of damage. My pencil doesn’t work any more – aww, someone handed me another one!

The audio craps out for a bit, and comes up on Lydanna casting Color Spray into the fray. At their level, this takes out a crapton of people. This is so effective Lydanna starts reconsidering her desire to retire the character.

DM: She said, “I bring you peace!”
Cambrian: Carebear STARE!

Connor remains unable to charge, but he moves forward and actually manages to hit! The excitement is only marred by his failure to kill the guy, but nevertheless, it’s progress. He ruins all the good will he’s built up by this by dissing Exalted, despite not knowing what it is. Cain shoots a dude.

Cain: 24.
DM: Your bow fires across with such precision, it actually passes between his eyes and with perfect clarity, it just leaves a little hole in the middle of his forehead as one drop of blood runs down his nose, and he just crumbles.
Cain: I like the idea that his brain is the only thing that slips out the back. And there’s no hole. It’s just out of his head.
Cambrian: And you just slap another brain in. “Good work, I’m sure he’ll make it.”

Every death keeps getting more over the top at this point, until at last the field is theirs. Suddenly, a dwarven soldier runs in!

DM: “My lord… ACH!”
Cain: (moving a mini to represent this dwarf… right into the oil vat on the map)
Drengar: Knocking over the other pot, boiling the king alive.
DM: “My lord, the humans are pulling back! They’re leaving the castle.”
Cain: I’m surprised that’s happening. They were losing up to this point, it’s so awesome that they started winning.
Davlamar: “Prime did it. He turned the tide.”
Cambrian: Now they send in the nukes.

The dwarves recognize that they can’t survive another attack… except for the commander, who slaps the soldier and insists they will live. The PCs look awkwardly at each other as the battle officially comes to an end.

Cambrian: The king and his elite guard now turn to us and say, “Now we need to blindfold you.”
Cain: Shut up, I was going to say it…