Last time in the Kalroth Reassembled game, the PCs had defeated the dread uncle thief on the Lotus Isle!

Hanzo: Did the castle explode?
DM: Almost did. Cissy hit it pretty hard.
Hanzo: You destroyed my castle, Cissy.
Cissy: “I was just trying to make sure the job was done right!”
Hanzo: Everything’s made of paper here.

The players continue to speculate why all uncles are evil. The DM points the finger squarely at them and their written backstories.

Hanzo: I just didn’t want it to be my dad.
Aiden: No one wants it to be their dad.
DM: Aliarra killed her parents off too, so uncles were the next best thing.
Hanzo: Oh god, Aliarra and Hanzo are more alike than I have been led to believe!
Aliarra: So it would have been my dad if he wasn’t dead?!
Aiden: My dad is still alive.
DM: You probably wouldn’t have fought him in the first place.
Aliarra: Man, that would have been a disappointing adventure. “Hi Dad, I’m back for the armor.” “Okay!”
DM: Yeah, it would have been just like getting the head. I still love that, I knew you guys were going to make it more complicated than it was worth.
Cissy: Where’d we leave off?
Aliarra: The DM was just summing it up! We had just beaten that evil demon servant of Drek’thelar who thought he was the shit but died to us in four rounds.
Hanzo: Four rounds is a lot for this table!

Aiden quickly begins tending to the shogun, while the rest of the group… is off in the wrong campaign.

Hanzo: “Who is the Gatekeeper, and why is he raising rates?”
DM: “Does our meat come from questionable sources?”
Aiden: Only the finest questionable sources.
DM: “These are grade A cats, what are you talking about?”
Aliarra: “These are fucking Persians, man, none of this domestic shorthair nonsense.”
DM: “And the dog? Rhodesian Ridgeback, all the way!”
Aliarra: “This cut comes with papers!”

Puns ensue and no one feels good. Aiden relates a story of hoodlums talking about Pokemon in thug voices.

Aiden: This cannot be my world. “I’m just gonna be smacking bitches up and down with my Snoreizord!”
Aliarra: Snoreizord?! (collapsing into hysterics)

They search the corpse, trying to find conveniently incriminating evidence, but come up completely empty. They furiously shove all the responsibility for dealing with this situation on Hanzo – his country, his problems! The shogun awakens, speaking in dub.

Cissy: Knowledge(bad Chinese movies). Crap, I rolled a 1. I’m convinced they’re speaking Klingon.
Aliarra: You’re convinced you’ve met Jackie Chan.
DM: “Ah. Beirut. It’s good to see you.”
Hanzo: “Is it? I thought I was coming home to be executed.”
DM: “If your uncle was still alive? Yes. But I knew… something was fishy.”
Hanzo: (unable to stop laughing at the corny dub acting)
DM: “A lot of unfortunate accidents have befallen your family and higher-ups. Eventually they found their way back, pointing at your uncle, and then your name came up as traitor. I knew that was incorrect.”
Hanzo: “I wish you’d instructed your bodyguard to let us through… you’re going to need a new one.”
DM: “Poor Matsuo. He was quite the bodyguard. But no matter… he gave his life fulfilling his duty. He died with honor, I’m sure.”
Aliarra: …no one pooped on him, right?
Hanzo: Cissy’s trying to hide his sword behind her back and it’s sticking two feet up above her head.

The party starts immediately rolling awesome Diplomacy checks and bowing while introducing themselves. The shogun is impressed.

DM: “You have such polite friends.”
Hanzo: “…they’re not usually this polite.”
Aliarra: “We don’t usually meet shoguns.”

Hanzo is promoted to daimyo with orders to finish what he started with this whole adventure, and the shogun’s promise on his own life to keep order in his absence. Hanzo starts stripping tapestries off the wall so they hit the proper wealth-by-level.

Aliarra: I wonder if you have an armory,
DM: With another suit of armor? Backup, just in case.
Hanzo: There won’t be anything here we have that’s better than what you’ve got.
Aliarra: But we can still sell it for profit.
Hanzo: You’re not looting my inheritance to sell trash drops.
Aliarra: You guys looted mine, let’s keep the chain going.
Hanzo: Who’s ‘you guys’?!
Aliarra: You looted the hell out of my armory.
Aiden: You were leading the charge!
Aliarra: Yes… so let’s keep up the good work!
Aiden: No, he’s not leading the charge in his own land.
Hanzo: We did not LEVEL your ancestral home in liberating from your uncle. Unfortunately my ancestral home HAS been leveled, if there’s anything worth selling here..
Aliarra: To be fair, my ancestral home came pre-leveled.
DM: I kinda have to agree with her there…
Hanzo: And your uncle’s still alive.
Aliarra: HE’S SOOOOO SORRRRRY!

The shogun abruptly becomes a poison vendor to simply everything, but then the PCs hear a commotion outside – terrified screams filling the area! Aliarra peeks out the blasted-out hole, to see that souls are being yanked out of the corpses around them and coalescing into glowing eyes!

Hanzo: If only it had formed into a spiritual door, you could go kick it in.
DM: Pieces of armor come into being—
Aliarra: I’m not joking about the charging…

Aliarra misses thanks to etherealness, while Aiden… wanders off to bake a pie. The enemy continues obstinately assembling itself, and Aliarra gets booted away by magic force about 20 feet or so. It’s the same giant demon again.

Aliarra: “How redundant.”
DM: And now he is much, much larger.
Aiden: “Y’all need help out here – oh shit.”
DM: “I see that Moresh’s accounts of your encounters before were not exaggerated. No matter. I will no longer underestimate. This will end now.”

Everyone gets a giggle at the weird inflection the armor puts on that word. The giant attacks the building itself by swinging its scythe to produce a force wave. The top floor tilts violently!

Hanzo: Ugh.
DM: And the third floor kinda has a slant in it now…
Aiden: Reflex is also my second-best save! Oh, did I say second-best? I meant worst.

Most of the PCs tumble fall, though only Aiden is threatening to fall. A couple of futile grabs go out for him, but then Hanzo blurs out, grabs Aiden, and rolls a quick Strength check!

Hanzo: …you have more hit points, so I’m going to try to land on you.
DM: One more Reflex to see if you can grab the edge. You might be able to save yourself.
Aiden: “Aaah! Why?!”

Somehow Aiden only takes 15 points of damage, having apparently hit an awning on the way down. This makes everyone ponder the history of people falling in the campaigns over time. Everyone begs Aliarra to trip it, but it’s too large. Her attack bounces off its armor, while Mrrshala does a careful jump down that results in her taking next to no damage (8).

Hanzo: Are any of us still hurt? You need your spells back, have a senzu bean.
Aiden: Shut up.
Hanzo: Where’s Golbez, I bet he could help us now.
Cissy: (slow clapping)
Hanzo: Ohhh, I didn’t go there.
Cissy: Damn it, I really want to put a slow clap in my game, but it’s been ruined forever.
Aliarra: 30 years after his illicit sexual encounter with that woman, Golbez is finally getting symptoms. It was the slow clap.

A chorus of groans.

DM: I actually liked that one…
Aliarra: I like how you tried to suppress a laugh, but you couldn’t.
DM: Yeah, I couldn’t.
Aliarra: “Must not dignify that with a laugh…”

Aiden rolls Knowledge(religion)… before using his move action to rise, which leads to some japes at his expense. He can’t come up with anything useful, but hopes a Dispel will function anyway…

Hanzo: Both fights he animated suits of armor. We need to smash all the armor here. There goes your trash drops, Aliarra. We’re gonna smash every – and then he’s gonna start forming inside YOUR armor, and you’ll be all, “aaaah! My blood’s boiling!”
Aliarra: “Eh.”

Aiden lobs his Dispel, but sees no visual changes. Nothing obvious was dispelled, is all they know.

Hanzo: He’s no longer doing vile damage, good work.
DM: “Aww, shucks.” No, I’m sorry… “Aww, fiddlysticks.”
Aliarra: He used all his vile, so he can’t swear…

Aliarra’s psion augments Entangling Ectoplasm to colossal-creature size and entangles the foe. Cissy once again tries to give her familiar a ranged touch attack to deliver, then despairs that she missed the foe with an Orb of Cold – before realizing its touch AC is currently 3. For some reason, the orb takes the form of a cube as it flies out to whack the foe. Pan is dragged back to the game and hurls a lightning bolt.

Aliarra: Aim below me, please.
Hanzo: And above me.
Aliarra: Well if he aims at you, he’s hitting the ground…
Pan: I’m pretty sure I can aim above your head…

32 damage ensues. Strange references ensue. Aliarra and Aiden argue over whether or not a 33 hits – not seriously, for a weird change. The giant grabs Aliarra, which isn’t really a contest thanks to size differences, since it has a baseline +16 to grapple… which Aliarra laboriously explains.

Aliarra: So basically he has to roll a natural 1 and I have to roll a natural 20.
DM: Not a natural 1…
Aliarra: I rolled a natural 1.
Hanzo: Did Aliarra just break her own neck…?

The group continues to gleefully imagine Aliarra being used as an improvised weapon. Mrrshala whacks its armored ankle.

Aiden: Are we fighting the Jolly Green Giant? He’s summoning the sun… “TWO SCOOOOPS!”

For some reason, the giant’s crotch blocks a blow – I was listening to it and even I don’t understand. Aiden bemoans his lack of Freedom of Movement, then considers enlarging Aliarra.

Aiden: But will you die?
DM: Pieces of Aliarrs bulge out of his fingers…
Hanzo: Aiden didn’t know that what he cast was actually a fatality spell! A bunch of shinbones pop out…

Aiden casts Righteous Wrath of the Faithful on, basically, himself. Cissy fires a Prismatic Ray into the fray, while the psion flings rubble; both are terribly ineffective. The DM wonders what the damage on Alairra’s spiked armor is.

Aiden: He just dulled your spikes!
Cissy: Her spikes got bent.
Aliarra: Stop making up rules!

Aliarra gets squished for 22 crushing and 24 vampirically-drained. The group discusses rolling dice with the Pop-O-Matic Bubble just to see how the characters turn out. Mrrshala rolls well, but expects that the creature is undead and can’t be crit.

Aliarra: If he’s undead, you should turn him. The DM forgot to assign him turn resistance, I bet.
Aiden: I DO have a Greater Turn…

Hanzo stabs the thing, and somehow manages to make it fail a Reflex save, I’m not even sure what he was doing.

Hanzo: My last futile flails…
Aliarra: Well, you are a feudal lord.

Hanzo delivers a reaction so priceless that Aliarra can’t help but laugh. The creature is blinded thanks to Hanzo’s actions. Aiden rolls incredibly well on his Turn Undead, but not quite well enough, unfortunately. Cissy unloads a pair of lightning bolts, while Pan lobs a Magic Missile volley. The party continued to attack the giant creature, their combat firing on all cylinders. For some reason, the converstion turns towards vitriol over the Final Fantasy Tactics battle style. The DM abruptly reveals that the creature had DR all this time which he’d never mentioned, irritating the players immensely.

Mrrshala: Clearly we have to use Elder Mountain Hammer.
Aiden: I don’t know why you don’t use that all the time. It’s the best. Listen to the name! Elder. Mountain. Hammer.
DM: “You can not win this battle!”
Aliarra: “Doing all right so far!”
DM: His armor begins to reform. All the damage you’ve done to it so far seems to be reversed.
Aiden: (on the verge of hysterics) Somebody brought this up the other day: ‘Your cup runneth over.’ (laughing) Your cup runneth over. Your cup runneth over. Just constantly.

The rest of the group is baffled. Aliarra and Mrrshala hit it with Elder Mountain Hammers, as predicted.

Aiden: I know what to do, guys. I got this. I’m break out the towing cables.
Hanzo: Well if Aliarra would just try to trip it like I said…
Aliarra: I CAN’T trip it!
Hanzo: Tryyyyyyyyy! Hey, how did we beat it last time?
Aliarra: We – killed it a lot.
Aiden: We killed it a lot!

Suddenly, meteors surge out of the sky to slam into the armored figure – a product of Aliarra having used her necklace to call Denelos a short time ago.

Aiden: You guys realize that Denelos here is pulling a Tellah? He comes in and casts Meteo?
Aliarra: Hopefully it doesn’t kill him…
DM: His entire midsection is gone.
Aliarra: “You were a fool to fight us in the middle of the Leonides meteor shower!”
DM: Just barely through the midst of its midsection, on the other end, on a hill, you see Denelos packing his pipe. A little flame.
Aiden: We WERE gonna get a bunch of a cool experience on this fight. Now we get 2.
DM: You guys reached the damage threshold before he came in!
Cissy: Cissy’s still sitting here with her fucking Spirit Bomb…

Meanwhile, the psion manifest Psionic True Seeing just in case. Aliarra has to read off the entire list of what it sees through, because it’s extensive. Cissy hurls an Acid Fireball at the remnants of the creature.

Aiden: You look over at Aiden. He’s a girl. “No, my secret!”
DM: The field is yours!
Aliarra: She’s going to attempt to focus her sight onto the Ethereal Plane, too.
Aiden: You see an orgy of gods. You are disgusted.

Surprised at Denelos’s appearance, they quickly meet with him. Denelos names their foe as Turgoth the Pure, one who inhabits suits of armor the way Moresh inhabits living bodies.

Aliarra: Okay, she’s going to manifest an augment Trace Teleport.
Hanzo: Where do you pull this stuff from?!
Aliarra: The Psionic Handbook!
Hanzo: I know that… No one’s ever heard of it befoooooore! What’s her name again?
Aliarra: Ehlorra.
Hanzo: No, it’s Utility Belt now.
Aiden: I was going to say Broken Game…

The players encourage the DM to quit, then encourage Ehlorra to go Thrallherd. Denelos contemplates talking smack about mind powers.

Hanzo: Denelos looks down on enslaving…
Aiden: All of a sudden a wheelchaired individual rolls out. “Did somebody say ‘mind powers’?” “Get back in the cage, Xavier.”
DM: “I must ask, the wizard we apprehended who teleported you here was keeping his mouth quite shut. How did you end up here?”

Silence.

Aiden: “Uh. I was asleep at the time? I was definitely asleep at the time. …that’s right. These bastards kidnapped me. Officer, I will tell you everything that happened.”
Aliarra: “It was all in a good cause, and it was a favor by someone who appreciated our work.”
DM: “Hmm.”
Aiden: “He’s not buying it. Start running.”
Aliarra: “I’ll see you guys when I’m done ‘meditating’.”

Aliarra delights in Cissy’s character losing a grasp on her voice, while Denelos assures Hanzo he made the right choice.

Denelos: “Or should I say, Beirut?”
Hanzo: “I’m grateful for your ability to pronounce my name correctly.”
Aliarra: All we had was it written, lay off!
Hanzo: “Let me finish. But since all present considered me a friend while I went by the name Hanzo, I would like it if you would continue to refer to me as such.:”

The DM cheerfully fills Hanzo’s clan with old people to be his butlers. Aliarra gets 72 petals stuck to her armor as they wander back through the sakura tree, and they are swiftly transported back to the College of Necromancy!

Aliarra: Hey Aiden, if you’re gonna do some Ecstasy, you’re gonna need this.
Aiden: An eyehole?
Aliarra: Yeah, eye before E.
Aiden: It hurts! It brings a pain right here…
DM: How long did it take you to formulate that up?
Aliarra: Not terribly long.
DM: Oh my god, that’s what’s sad about it.

The players congratulate themselves on their focus during the battle, which had gone oddly smoothly. Then, as if on cue, they get massively distracted. It gets really, really weird.

Aiden: That explains why Gandalf is gay!
Aliarra: Because Hanzo’s well-endowed?!
Aiden: I just imagine wizards, that’s all they do.
Aliarra: Stare at wangs!?

Denelos warns Hanzo about M.B., cautioning that he was a student long ago and that Denelos does not trust him.

DM: “Capital!”
Hanzo: Capital! Come and play with THESE nuts! Sorry, it’s Kalroth Poop now.
Aliarra: What’s the next artifact we need to get? PINGAS PINGAS PINGAS PINGAS—
Hanzo: Vampong… vampong…

The group gets a good rest, recovering their spells and hit points, to their delight. Aliarra is chastised for very poorly air-guitaring to The Touch. Morning dawns with many weird themes to indicate the fact, and an exhausted page encourages them to come to breakfast.

Hanzo: “What’s for breakfast?”
Aliarra: (as the Circle of Life plays in the background) Zebra.

They wander down through a flood of flavor text, to a feast laid out before them. As they begin inhaling it, they give a quick report to the headmaster.

Aiden: I do miss the opportunity of me and my dad going to the Banglasharan place and them going, “You!” and then we just both throw our hands up. “You too?!”
Aliarra: “They’re after me! They’re after you?!”
DM: Speaking of which, on the other end of the table are seated the elven rangers, including your father.
Aiden: It’s not awkward any more. Much.

Roleplaying happens, but Aiden and Cissy are close to the microphone and discussing a tablet game, so who knows what’s actually happening… Aiden and his father exchange awkward words.

DM: “Good luck. May the gods smile upon you.”
Aiden: “We’re gonna need it!”

The elven rangers depart – and the headmaster has a gift waiting for them outside . A pair of snow sleds, though with no sled dogs…

Aliarra: Poor Ignir, you see where this is going, don’t you? One over one shoulder, one over the other…
DM: “We thought your slave could take it.”
Aliarra: We’re horrible people…
Hanzo: “Ignir, I know how this is going to sound…”

With much joking around, the group fondly remembers Aliarra’s miserable history with cold weather. The DM questions if Aliarra has an open slot for a magic item.

Aliarra: My throat slot is open, if you don’t count the Denelos necklace.
Aiden: Never say that again. That’s what she said. “Are you ready, bitch?” “My throat slot is open!”

Everyone gets an item of Endure Elements. There’s a box of stuff! With this new mode of transport, the players huddle on how to proceed without outpacing the army.

Hanzo: Can we rendezvous with the army in about a day’s time?
DM: Nooo, you have half a continent to go through…

Combat erupts as their travel games of I Spy become tedious and they come to blows. The day is uneventful, except for another sled appearing out of midair with Aliarra’s mooks on it.

Hanzo: Mook sled. That’ll be the one that takes a hit and goes down in flames.
DM: It runs into a tree and bursts into fire.
Aliarra: Eaten by Ewoks…

Aiden gleefully envisions a real-life Team Rocket which died horribly after their first blast-off, then demands to how Gary Oak had ten badges.

DM: Ignir abruptly stands up on his feet.
Aliarra: And falls off.
DM: No.
Aliarra: “What is it, boy?”
Aliarra and Mrrshala: “Timmy fell down the well?”
Mrrshala: God damn it.
DM: “Something in the distance.”
Aliarra: “Look, a mirage!”
Mrrshala: “I’m telling y’all it’s sabotage.”
DM: “An encampment or an outpost. Something.”

Manifesting Clairvoyant Sight, the psion relates a description of gore and an empty village without any activity. Empty canisters and chains lie around.

Hanzo: “Well, it’s obviously a trap. Do we go through it or around it?”
Cissy: “I say we go through it!”
Aliarra: Man, your voice doesn’t even bother me now.
Cissy: (trying harder to achieve the proper Cissy voice) “If we know it’s a trap, then let’s go at it!”
Aliarra: That’s a little better, but still. Man. My Christmas present came early.

Ignir offers to go scout off alone, but they refuse to allow him on the basis of too much potential disaster. Shrugging, Ignir hauls Cissy out of the snow she had fallen into.

Cissy: “Thank you, Ignir! The rest of you can burn in hell…”
Hanzo: There’s our Cissy.
Cissy: Cissy’s about to cast Fireburst around her to melt some of this –ing snow.
DM: Tenser’s Floating Disc. As you get closer and closer, you see what your psion saw.
Aliarra: I pick up the saw.
DM: There is a saw on the ground. It’s caked with blood.
Aliarra: I cut the bucket in half, two halves make a whole, I crawl out the hole, and that’s how I escape the room. That’s how it goes, right?
DM: No!

They examine the empty canisters, with Hanzo’s experience telling him it’s something horrible but not a poison, precisely. He pops it open with his kama.

Aliarra: …Snakes?
DM: Anyone in close proximity, I need a Fortitude save.
Aiden: You just released the zombies from Return of the Living Dead. Good job.

Aliarra has her psion whip up some Object Reading, which identifies the last owner as an evil male undead, 237 years old, who created it and placed it. They pause to fire off a divination for hope on where to rest safely.

DM: “Not here.”
Cissy: Good answer.
Aliarra: (the dirtiest of looks)
DM: “Distance is the safest.”

For some reason, the conversation wanders off to Thundarr the Barbarian and his Wookie that wasn’t a Wookie. They put several miles between then and the encampment before dusk.

DM: You all die in your sleep. Good night!

They consult the Mind of Kalroth, which thinks on the matter for a minute, then declares it to be experimentation on the minotaurs, but with an unfamiliar substance..

DM: The evening passes without incident.
Aliarra: How many mooks are dead?
DM: None.
Aliarra: How many mooks are undead?
DM: None.
Aliarra: How many mooks are dominated?
DM: None.
Aliarra: Charmed?
DM: None.
Aliarra: Evil?
DM: None.
Hanzo: Asleep?
DM: No, they’re all awake.
Hanzo: Poisoned?

…The players never do get a satisfactory answer on that one, but the night is late and the game is done. With ominous threats of undead minotaurs lurking in the back of their minds, the group prepares for the next encounter…