Cissy: It’s Cissy’s game!
Aliarra: No. Stop that. It’s never Cissy’s. Cissy is the least important character in all of this.
Cissy: (laughing) Jesus.
Hanzo: Ahem.
Aliarra: You just had this whole plot with the shogun and everything.
Hanzo: I had to cook it up! Over months!
Aliarra: You still had it.
Aiden: The subplot I created for my character is meeting his deviant father. The whole thing about my character being this weird deviant in his past became part of my character, and I’m fine with that.
Cissy: Wait, did you create it, or did the DM create it?
Aiden: It was a joke at first, and then I just ran with it…
Aliarra: Cissy is like the cardboard standie that laughs. Let’s see some awesome character development from her.
Cissy: Well, Cissy… was banished from her home.
Hanzo: By her uncle.
Aliarra: For blasting.
Cissy: It’s possible…
Hanzo: She blasted her uncle.
DM: I will make that true if she doesn’t.
Aliarra: It’s a combination of both our uncles. “I have betrayed you BUT I’M SO SORRY! Here’s a demon BUT I’M SO SORRY!”
Hanzo: The izual will all be evil uncles…

They had all camped out after the evening and retroactive shopping, and one of Aliarra’s mooks reports that Ignir has gone off by himself!

Hanzo: He’s gonna sneak into Jabba’s palace all by himself.
Aliarra: “Which way did he go?”
DM: “He went… east.”
Aliarra: Can I recall from the map what’s east of here?
DM: That is the direction you are headed.
Aliarra: He’s gonna sneak into Jabba’s palace all by himself…

Aliarra goes to Aiden to see if he has a divine spell that can tell them if Ignir is in danger. Aiden properly pronounced ‘divination’ to the shock of all. The DM angrily refuses to provide the answer to Aiden’s spell in rhyme, which leads to rhyming.

Aiden: Um… it’s Tyrgol, right? You’re confusing me! What’s his name?!
Aliarra: Ignir!

Loud music invades the game report, as Aiden is put on hold.

DM: “Fuck you, go back to sleep.”
Aiden: (cheerfully) Denerim is pissed!
DM: “Ignir moves on suspicion of recent events. As long as his skills hold out, he will be okay.”
Aliarra: Well, he’s off-camera, we know he’s safe.
Aiden: The DM has played Fallout. All of a sudden we see text at the top of the screen. “Ignir has fallen unconscious.”
Aliarra: “Who the hell is Dogmeat?!”

Cissy attempts to leave the camp with Ignir, retroactively, and no one cares. Everyone gets an amused image of Cissy being dragged behind Ignir like any number of amusing metaphors. They return to an uneventful sleep.

Hanzo: …Pan, did you just fart?
Pan: I’m not smart enough for 6th level slots.

A long silence.

Aiden: I’ll take that at as a yes.
Hanzo: I want that in the transcription. That a question about farts was answered with spell slots.
Aiden: I heard sluts. Spell sluts.

The party angrily demands Heroes’ Feast as soon as Aiden can cast it, but without such powerful magic yet, they’re stuck with house elf excrement. Off they set!

Aliarra: We lash a rope to Cissy’s ankle and have three of my servants drag her.
DM: I don’t think your servants would survive that.
Aiden: You are hairs away from drawing and quartering her. All of a sudden one of the headmen sees something. “Ooh, shiny! I’m going THIS way!”
Aliarra: But they’re all on the same rope… it’s only one rope and they’re all on it!
Cissy: I WILL start killing your followers.

They travel for a day without event, set up camp, and settle in for the night!

Hanzo: Should one of us stand watch with your followers?
Aliarra: I don’t see why…
Hanzo: Okay. (immediately snoring)
Aliarra: Wow, becoming daimyo has changed him.

Another uneventful night passes, with the exploits of everyone who’s more competent than them taking center stage. Aliarra attempts to scene-transition to something more interesting.

DM: ...You see Denelos organizing his tobacco collection.
Aliarra: Beats this!
Hanzo: Four beholders show up to smoke his tobacco collection. Roll for initiative.
Aiden: Oh no! The Izual of Cigars has come to steal his supplies him!
DM: Denelos rolls him up and smokes him.
Aliarra: I smoke izual in the morning, I smoke izual at night…
Hanzo: You’ll pay for this, Captain Izual! Smoking illegal humans is not the way…

Midday approaches our travelers, when suddenly a figure bursts from the snow! Aliarra once again pretends to have a looking glass.

DM: You get a looking glass and I give Death Note to Kalroth’s mind.
Aliarra: Only one of those is in the actual equipment lists!
DM: I’m a DM, I can make it.

Ignir brings them a report of another encampment an hour away, this one inhabited. Aiden is jonesing for some Greater Turning, but Cissy favors long-range blast spells, of course.

Hanzo: Out of character, Aiden, you have to agree with nuking the site from orbit.
Aiden: It’s the only way to be sure.

They send the mooks on ahead to prepare a camp while they divert slightly to deal with this encampment. Ignir warns them of a stone structure in the middle of the camp that seems to have foul purposes.

DM: “Yes, Baroness!”
Hanzo: Heh heh, you’re the Baroness.
Cissy: And may you ever remain… baron…
Hanzo: I forgot, it’s been several sessions since the whole baroness thing.
Aliarra: I didn’t ask for this!

Hanzo continues to sing about Aliarra’s title until Aliarra finally rolls for initiative. Feeling dirty about agreeing to Cissy’s plan, they nevertheless head forward to put it into play. They swiftly clear the table to draw out the battle! The transcription promptly gets screwed up, then derailed by Epic Rap Battles of History. The transcriber-that-was expresses his hopes and desires to get through his backlog of transcriptions during the holiday season, leaving the transcriber-that-is with no recourse but to laugh bitterly. The ST of the Werewolf game discovers all of his campaign notes, to the shock of everyone. The DM sets up two giant corpse piles on the battlefield. Cissy suggests an inappropriate miniature be used for Hanzo.

Hanzo: Why would you cast Enlarge on a ninja?
Aiden: Enlarged ninja! I like that. “SNEAAAAK ATTAAAACK.”

Cissy has found a new favorite spells, and rambles on about her desire to cast Cloudkill and push it around with a Gust of Wind. People push the idea of an Epic Battle of Roleplay. The discussion gets weird.

Aliarra: You guys have minotaur horns for drinking out of, now you want pimp cups?! What’s wrong with you?!
DM: As you encroach closer on the main encampment, this scene unfolds. What stands before you… the large structure to my left looks like a large pavilion-like tent, and in the center is a firepit. In the back are what look like large covered wagons, and in the middle is that structure Ignir was talking about. Just towards me is a few desks, with piles of paperwork.
Aiden: Damn undead, all this paperwork…
DM: Next to that is several tables people are working on, and the three central figures are minotaurs. Large undead minotaurs. Their fur is patchy, and they look like they have a bad case of mange.
Aliarra: Do they look stupid?
DM: No.
Aliarra: So they’re not minotards.
DM: They actually look like they’re in agony.
Aiden: You missed it. It’s terrible.
DM: Around them are undead, but these ones seem to have a mark of intelligence to them, as they are standing there with large boards, observing the minotaurs and writing things down.

Aiden cheerfully spins a tale of hard-working necrophiliac Joes, which Cissy takes to a really horrible place. Man, it’s been a while since I had to redact something.

Aliarra: All of a sudden you hear a ‘pop’, and then Cissy is suddenly very hungry again.
Mrrshala: Oh my God, Aliarra.

Cissy revs up an acid fireball, then realizes she can’t actually cast an acid fireball because Energy Admixture is a +4 level of adjustment. Somehow the discussion turns to the football game in the background.

Aiden: Pooping… on the offense.
Aliarra: Wait, is the pooping penalty called on the offense, or is he called for pooping on the offense as a penalty?
Aiden: Both.
Cissy: Damn it, it IS four spell slots higher

The DM forgets what the concept of ‘prestige class’ is called for a while. Cissy questions their terrain.

Aliarra: Do we have the high ground?
DM: You have slight high ground.
Aliarra: I cut off all of their legs and arms.
Hanzo: You can only do that if they jump at us.
Aliarra: They will.
Hanzo: Gee, if only Sidious had taught me that whole lightning thing, I might have actually won.

An incredibly-depressed Cissy lobs an ordinary fireball, while Aiden rolls unfathomably bad stats for a character. Aiden discovers something he finds hilarious!

Aiden: If only you were Marros the Warmage, because there is a Rainbow prestige class.
Cissy: Seriously?! Awwwwww.

Cackling maniacally, Cissy wipes all the small undead off the map.Pan follows up with his own fireball, rolling quite nicely and wiping out a bunch more.Then, initiative is called for! Aiden rants angrily about the lack of a Final Fantasy 7 remake, while Aliarra waxes graphically poetic about how angry she is about Breath of Fire moving cell phones.

DM: The figure in the middle casts something, and solid ice appears into a dome.
Aiden: (rolling Spellcraft) 23!
DM: He cast Wall of Force! No, that’s good enough. He cast Wall of Ice!
Hanzo: So his nemesis is room temperature.
Aiden: “MY ONLY WEAKNESS!”
Cissy: I’m going to cast Evard’s Black Tentacles!
Aliarra: That doesn’t melt ice!
Hanzo: It grapples ice…
Cissy: Is this an object or crystalline creature…?

The PCs begin advancing forward to close ranks with the caster, while all the wuss-tier undead with enough brainpower to do so run like hell. The wall of ice hangs out.

Aiden: I’m going to try to drop a fireball from above. Extra nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way to extra be sure.
Hanzo: Cloudy with a chance of fireballs, that what we had today.
Cissy: Trying to decide if we should put these minotaurs out of their misery.

Forward they march, increasingly questioning where the trap is. Hanzo begs someone to cast something, and although he probably meant ‘to detect the trap’, Cissy leaps on the option to lob another fireball.

Cissy: Wait, I rolled one extra die. Uh, since we dropped the one last time, you pick, DM.
DM: The middle one.
Cissy: Drop one of the fours.
Aliarra: I guess the ‘fours’ wasn’t with you.
Aiden: YOU GAVE IT TO HER! You! Gave it to her! That terrible pun over there, I’m still riding on the high of an awesome trailer, and she ruined it. She hates all things good in the world.
DM: The little guys are incinerated. Ash blows gently in the cool wind.
Hanzo: And the guy in the middle doesn’t care because he’s got two big piles of bodies to replace them.
Cissy: I’m really hoping he brings all those things alive, because I really, really want to drop another fireball right there. (indicating the center of a corpse pile)
Aliarra: You fire it in, there are so many corpses you don’t even see it explode. Just, ‘pff’.
DM: But it goes down a little further because they all melted inside.
Cissy: Are we upwind or downwind?
DM: Downwind.
Cissy: Oh shit, it’s going to smell so bad…

They finally reach the battle, and the minotaurs finally notice them and lift greataxes. At last, initiative is properly rolled!

Pan: I rolled for initiative, but I will keep it a secret.
Hanzo: Then you can drown for four turns, like Brunt.
Pan: 23.
Hanzo: (nearly choking on his own tongue) HOW DID YOU BEAT MRRSHALA!? WHAT!?

As is probably inevitable, the group discusses the virtue of casting Wall of Fire around the Wall of Ice, with the tradeoff being the loss of visibility. Pan hurls a lightning bolt at the zombitaurs, while Mrrshala deploys Sapphire Nightmare Blade. Alliara uses White Raven Tactics on Mrrshala, then whacks a zombie with a Covering Strike/Elder Mountain Hammer combo. This takes out the wounded one. The transcriber takes a moment to note that the gaming table is populated by the noisiest damn eaters in the world. With her initiative up again, Mrrshala kills the next one.

Aiden: When a zombie gets killed, it comes back to life.
DM: “Thank you!” Aiden!
Cissy: “Anybody need healing…?”

Aiden, possibly feeling a little impotent, fires a Searing Light into the third minotaur, dealing 39 points. This gets weird.

DM: You sear it with the light of Denerim, that shines from your groin, no doubt.
Hanzo: Turning them.. and… adjusting them!
Cissy: You put your hands on your hips and THURST your crotch toward your enemy!
Mrrshala: Give it to them raw, and wiggle it.
Aiden: The searing light is extra-bright.
DM: You blind your comrades.
Cissy: Good thing I’m behind him.
DM: Searing light spills from your…. Hand.
Aiden: I don’t have Unusual Casting Method. They would never let me heal them. “Listen, I can heal you, but I have to rest my balls—“

It gets racist. And sexist. Not necessarily in that order. Ignir lobs a javelin as people step up, then the DM attempts to skip Cissy entirely.

Aliarra: You got Brunted!
Cissy: I did…

Cissy gets ready to hurl yet another fireball. A side conversation goes off in a horrible direction.

Aiden: Once we have the house, you can have as many satellite speakers up as many assholes as you want.
Aliarra: Interesting. Including yours?
Aiden: Just know that while I’m not home, you won’t be using it.
Aliarra: You’re going to be my rear tweeter.
Mrrshala: (wheezing) God damn you, Aliarra.
Aliarra: I’m sorry, DM, you’re more manly so you’re going to be my rear woofer.

The baffled DM just gives Aliarra a look, then turns back to the game. Cissy’s fireball melts just a little of the ice wall, but then the DM realizes he’s misheard the rules.

Hanzo: Ugh, magic. A great way to put a combat in neutral.
Aiden: Shut up, Hanzo!
DM: He’s absolutely right…
Aiden: Wes’s damage was a good way to put a combat in neutral!
Hanzo: That’s because I’m a retard, not because the system is broken.

The psion peers inside the wall, but the figure inside is missing! He abruptly reappears right at the corner of a pavilion and lobs AOE damage into the assembled heroes. Pan fires lightning right back at him. Aliarra charges, which is not the cool kind of charging that a Saiyan does.

Aliarra: 26. 28. 30. 31.
Aiden: You’ve gone over.
Cissy: Now it’s missed.
DM: His eyes widen in fear as you push forward. “Aaaaah!”
Aliarra: Is it my uncle?! Is it Hanzo’s uncle?! Aiden, is this your uncle!?

Mrrshala zips forward, but has no good charge line, so she whacks away with an ordinary blow. 33 points of damage ensue. Aiden realizes he had better heal Pan, but instead angrily quits the game due to a bad joke on Aliarra’s part. The players realize all this time that there are barrels around the battlefield, and bemoan their own failure to detonate said barrels first-person-shooter–style and thus render the combat moot.

Cissy: Oooh, Search. I hope those chests are full of gold.
DM: I would like to point out that these are undead doing experiments on other undead. You think they’re really full of gold? What would they need the gold out here for?
Aliarra: Alchemy?
DM: Shut up.
Cissy: It’s filled with all the wealth and stuff that all the minotaurs had?

As seems to be the bizarre pattern tonight, the conversation gets racist and really, really weird.

Aliarra: Whoa, whoa, whoa. I’m down with the French homies.
Cissy: Unacceptable! UNACCEPTABLE!
DM: You notice the stone structure seems to be almost humming, and the etchings on it seem to be almost glowing.
Cissy: A dire bear pops out in front of you!
Aliarra: Do you have Speak with Dead memorized, Aiden?
Aiden: …maybe. No. Why you guys making me have that thing permanently on standby?
Aliarra: Because we keep killing things we’d like to interrogate.

The minotaur corpses start reassembling themselves and surging back to unlife, as the stone structure moves ominously. A mysterious voice speaks across the battlefield.

DM: “No, no, no. That won’t do.” The stone plates all around the structure and the middle slide downward.
Aiden: Just catching your foot. Grinding it to pastes.
DM: Out of a ball, unfolding itself, stands a being of pure energy. The plates seem to hold it in place.
Hanzo: Izual!
DM: His eyes bear down on you.
Hanzo: See, even as a daimyo I was ineffective.

Ignir hurls a javelin at a corpse, re-slaying it, while Ehlorra casts Psionic True Seeing. Pan hurls a fireball into the fray, annihilating some of the ice wall as collateral damage. Thanks to a maneuver from Aliarra, Mrrshala scoots around the lingering remnants of it to get to the izual, though lacks enough movement to reach it. Aliarra moves by her side, and then it’s Mrrshala’s turn proper.

Mrrshala: And I’ll size up him, and he’ll size up me.
Aliarra: Go attack it!
Mrrshala: I am gonna go attack it, I’m just being silly. Everybody else gets to be silly but me.
Aliarra: Yeah, ‘cuz you get to roll all the 20s.

Aliarra mentions through the amulet that they’re fighting the Izual of Necromancy, figuring Denelos might care.

Aliarra: Somewhere, Denelos hides and poops himself.
DM: “Sorry, you’re on your own!”
Aliarra: “Nishe knowing you!”

The DM refuses to allow Izual to be crit, and the players fail to bargain or cheat him out of this stance. Aiden fires up the Greater Turning, nuking the undead who just got back up. Aliarra makes a horrible comment about characteristics Cissy’s player possesses.

Aiden: You are horrible.
Aliarra: Wait. Wait. I crossed the line? I crossed the line?
Aiden: You are a dirty hippie. A dirty unshaven hippie.
Aliarra: Hey, hey, I shower regularly. The rest of it I’ll cop to. “Who’s scruffy-looking?”

Hanzo Tumbles up to try to avoid an AOO, and much muttering ensues as he tries to figure out exactly how much damage he’s doing. It turns out to be 26. Then the game gets hung up on an interaction between magic items, but Hanzo determines solidly that he can full-attack with full sudden-strike damage thanks to his Belt of Battle. Cissy fires off an Orb spell than promptly splatters off the Izual’s spell resistance.

Hanzo: Guys, kill it before its turn comes uuuuuuuup!
Cissy: I’m not every useful against this creature…
DM: It waves its hands around, and a wave of fatigue goes out over you. Hanzo and Mrrshala, you are fatigued. There is no saving throw on this.
Aliarra: You guys are useless!
Hanzo: I knoooooooow. The fatigue spell just enunciates it.

Mrrshala whips out Iron Heart Surge, leading to the usual discussion about putting out the sun or annihilating the concept of fatigue. Cissy suddenly discovers the Wild Mage prestige class, terrifying everyone. Ehlorra flings a Dispel Psionics at the izual, but there is nothing to dispel.

DM: It’s pure izual, baby! …now he’s gonna start buffing up.
Aliarra: I can do it again!

Pan flings a Magic Missile at the izual, but it bounces off the SR. Aliarra whacks an undead, while Aiden whips out a Flame Strike.

Aliarra: There’s no overkill in an izual-fight.

Aliarra abruptly discovers a minotaur is large, which was not immediately obvious from the minatures, but it incurs an AOO as it advances on her and then misses her. Aiden’s spell breaks its SR at last, and he deals 45 damage, but it saves. Hanzo Ghost Steps straight through the wall of ice, but fails to hit it (or crit it, I’m not sure). Cissy Sudden Maximizes and Sudden Empowers an Orb of Fire, then almost blows the attack roll. Aiden reminds her to add her attack bonus and Dexterity, then reminds her she has an attack bonus in the first place.

Cissy: 111 points of fire damage.
DM: Save for half?
Aliarra: No, it’s an orb.
Cissy: The save is for the secondary feature, to avoid being dazed. And there’s no Spell Resistance.
Aiden: I’m glad I’m a healer, I’d feel bad about my lack of damage.
Hanzo: (muttering) Guaranteed damage. Can’t do much about that.
Aiden: That made Hanzo close the book. Almost leave.
Hanzo: He did like over 150 points of damage, at 5th level! Fuck that shit, I AM walking away from the table.
Aiden: When he closed the book, I was like, “Oh my God, he’s just leaving!” Just gonna walk out the door. If you had done that, I would have been done. Literally done. Just died.
Aliarra: “Is there game next week?” “No. There’s never game again.”
Aiden: We look outside, Hanzo’s still sitting in his car.
DM: Fortitude saving throw.
Cissy: What, from me? Heh, 10.
DM: Your heart stops beating.
Aliarra: He Shang-Tsunged you!
DM: You drop to -8 hit points.
Cissy: My gem automatically pops out of my armor and does 2d8 healing to me. I’m healed for 13 hit points.
Aliarra: Well-played…

Cissy pats herself on the back for a while, while Aiden threatens to stand ominously over Aliarra’s bed in the middle of the night. The magic turns out to be an armor property, not a crystal, and not as cheap as advertised. The izual disappears, having teleported somewhere. The group remembers Ignir several rounds too late…

Hanzo: At the nearest pub, Ignir and Brunt swapping stories. “We should be dead!”
DM: I’m skipping my own damn character, that’s what sucks…

Ignir slays an undead! The psion manifests Clairvoyant Sense above a corpse pile to seek out the izual, and notices the pile is moving!

Hanzo: Is he Katamari fucking Deadbodying us?
Cissy: I knew it! I should have cast a fireball into that frickin’ pile of bodies!

The game has run super-late, though. On this dramatic shift of fortunes, the battle is suspended, to be picked up… next time!