Last time, our 80s heroes had split the party, much to Kratin’s dismay, and as they sing about this they figure out just where they were in this whole debacle. For some reason, Mumm-Ra is hurled into a toilet. Kratin immediately makes a screaming retreat.

Bellrill: Krenalket Pop-a-Squat. Did I say that right?
Krenalket: No! It’s Cop-a-Squat, we’ve been over this. “I hope there’s no one in this other door, and they’ve all gone to the OTHER other door!”
Karmus: “Other other door? That’d be that door again!”
Krenalket: “That’s you!”
Karmus: “But the other door would be that door, where I’m at, so the other other door would be back to you!”
Krenalket: “No, because we’re at the other door, which is—“
Karmus: “How are we having this conversation?!”
Krenalket: “VERY LOUDLY!”

Krenalket hurries forward, while Bellrill stumbles on an infinjte cheese glitch, somehow.

DM: Krenalket is making shooing motions at you.
Krenalket: No. I’m making beckoning motions at him!
Bellrill: I back him up and continue forward.
DM: You…
Krenalket: Beep! Beep! Beep!
Kratin: The fuck, th – what?!
Karmus: No no, FIGURATIVELY, you guys, figuratively!
Krenalket: He is providing me with assistance and heading in to join me.

Some of the players reminisce fondly about a video game character who slapped his shield in the way Leonarus did. Although apparently that game had issues.

Bellrill: Karmus still died. He was like, “I’m on fire, I’m going into the water.” (mimes stepping into the water, which bursts into flame)
Karmus: “Man, this water sucks.”
Bellrill: There was an ability you could get to pat the other person out.
Krenalket: I like how that’s an ability.
Bellrill: You had to specifically learn in.
Karmus: You either help them get up, or you pat them out.
Bellrill: “Oh no, you’re on the ground. If only I could…”

Krenalket discovers that this is a game he owns, and is horrified. Kratin ponders his actions, considering a guy is aiming at him through the door and not conveniently coming through into mauling distance. The group attempts to persuade the DM that now that Kratin has left, no one cares any more, Skyrim style.

Bellrill: Someone needs to make that mod, where you shoot someone in the knee, they transform from a bandit into a regular civilian, then they go and find a town to live in.
Krenalket: No, a guard.
Karmus: “I’m off to Whiterun.”
Krenalket: If you’re good enough, you go back to Whiterun, and it’s like, full of –
Krenalket and Bellrill: Thousands of guys.
Krenalket: “I used to be an adventurer—“ “I used to be—“ “I used to be—“ “I used to be an adventurer—“
Karmus: And when you walk in they all turn to you in unison and say, “Let me guess. Someone stole your sweetroll.”
Krenalket: ‘It was madness! It was horrible, I tell you, but then in the midst of it all, one lone voice sang out above the confusion and tumult, and asked if I’d ever been to the Cloud District…”
Bellrill: ‘I ran into the safety of the lord’s hall, only to be greeted by a small boy.” “Oh, it looks like an another adventurer here to lick my father’s boots.”
Karmus: Lot of assholes in Whiterun.
Krenalket: There should be a mod so those two are switched.

Kratin attempts to taunt the guard by cracking his whip, and rolls absurdly well to do so.

DM: The crack reverberates across the stone walls. Karmus is still waiting for a hunchback to come along…
Karmus: “I’m not gonna whip him, I’m gonna cleave him in twain.”
DM: Nope, still an empty hall.

Krenalket’s group sees a spiral staircase to the left, a short hallway to the right, and double doors straight ahead.

Krenalket: Since we’ve located stairs going up, a 20 on my Knowledge(architecture and engineering) check to determine where corresponding stairs going down would be.

A long silence.

DM: What.

A very long silence.

Krenalket: I’m trying to determine, from what I know of the construction of this building, where the stairs down might be.

An incredibly long silence.

DM: You guess, based on your… (extremely skeptical) extensive architectural studies –
Krenalket: Yeah, my 1 rank in it.
DM: And your mushrooms…

Krenalket, long story short, advises heading for the center, straight ahead. Bellrill opens the door as quietly as he can, and they find themselves looking on a very large garden room with doors on the far side. Karmus holds his actions while Kratin sneaks in, only to discover there is no alarm and all is silence. The group abruptly gets confused over what is happening with the absent Pol.

Karmus: Damn it, Pol, throwing monkey wrenches into this.
Krenalket: She owes us an aPOLogy.

Silence.

DM: Fifty cultists appear in the garden room and start slinging eldritch blasts at you!
Bellrill: Kill me.

Krenalket confuses Heironeous and Haelyn for something like the seventh time. Kratin heads through the double doors he sees, to find himself in a direct analog of the garden room. He promptly blows a Spot check, but Karmus spots a seam in the wall on the far edge. The group realizes David has gotten completely lost, primarily OOC, and is promptly shoehorned with Karmus and Kratin.

David: I don’t want to be alone, because being alone – while I can be sneaky, being caught is instant death.
DM: You feel a tap on your shoulder. You turn around. A large red dragon with a fork and knife looks at you expectantly.
Karmus: But the fork and knife are human sized, they’re very tiny in his claws.
David: I cast Vanish and run like hell.
Kratin: The dragon sees RIGHT through your spell.

David, who is apparently Batman, grapples away. The group finally finds a pressure plate on the floor that triggers the secret door, although this search is inexplicably racist. Kratin desperately tries to apply trapsense of any sort as the door opens.

DM: As the door opens, you see a sight that I can best describe as Han running around a corner to see a battalion of Stormtroopers turning to face him.
Kratin: Oh thank God these are the retarded cloners.
DM: You see four, that’s as many abroad as the hallway will permit. You can’t exactly tell because of the cloth.
Kratin: This is going to be exciting.

To their dismay, pressing the pressure plate again drops lethal gas, apparently. The second group must make Listen checks, and hear a cry go up from shrubs on the right side of their room.

Krenalket: “Bellrill, shall we investigate that noise, or keep going?”
Bellrill: “Probably should.”
Krenalket: “D—but—there were two options!”
Bellrill: “Probably should… check out the noise.”
Karmus: “I’ll back ye up.” (making dragging noises)

Krenalket is accused of narrating his actions to Bellrill. The group complains about king cake for a while. For questionable reasons, Brave Fencer Musashi is brought up. The conversation is unfathomably random and rambling even for this group, which after years of play should REALLY SAY SOMETHING.

DM: But the soul still burns…
Karmus: AAAH IT BURNS!
Krenalket: Blud bluh sowel stuhl blurns.
DM: Bellrill, you will be going first…

Krenalket attempts to cast Web to end the combat immediately, but instead somehow manages to cast Armageddon and end the world. Krenalket makes a pun must have had a visual component to it, something about diet soda. Peregrinus abuses him during the ensuing silence.

Krenalket: Ah, my ass! I need that.
DM: For…
Peregrinus: Assing.
Krenalket: Poopin’ and sittin’.
DM: Pooping and sitting.
Krenalket: Hey, pooping and sitting are two very big components of my life.
Peregrinus: Oh god damn it, you just farted right at me.
Karmus; Revenge is a dish best served hot and steaming.
Krenalket: With traces of hot sauce.
Karmus: (apropos of nothing) My fist has a hairnet now. I won’t get hair in my victims’ faces.

Bellrill is up first, and the group is clumped up enough to make a toss highly advantageous. He moves forward and lobs a bomb into their midst, and rolls well!

Bellrill: It’s touch AC, by the way.
Krenalket: They’re denied their Dexterity.
DM: That means 10!
Krenalket: They could have fancy weird stuff. Magic. They could all have a level of wilder.
DM: Yeah, because I’m just chomping at the bit to roll up wilders for you to fight. Feeling the call of duty, you summon forth your explosive and pitch it headlong into the midst of the hidden assailants.
Bellrill: And being a Call of Duty NPC, it lands directly between the legs of some guy I barely saw.
DM: They look down, and also feeling the call of duty, pick it up and throw it back at you.
Bellrill: Ah ha, but because this is not that, when they pick it up it becomes inert. When someone picks up my bomb, it’s inert.
DM: ….for real?
Bellrill: Yeah.

The NPCs dissolve in acidy, Borderlands-y goodness, and the plant life dissolves horribly. The players note bemusedly that destroying plants in this DM’s campaigns is kind of a thing, till Bellrill sheepishly admits that the bomb was fire damage after all.

DM: Their acid burns heal, Wolverine style, then they catch fire spontaneously. Pere, now angry that someone went before him in the initiative order—
Peregrinus: Hardly.
DM: --now hardly attacks. Are you confirming your crit?
Peregrinus: I haven’t rolled to hit them yet…

Peregrinus casts Spiritual Weapon. Something hilarious happens, which is lost to the ether forever. The NPCs aren’t actually dead, just severely roasted. David fires off a sneak attack with his bow.

DM: Shrieking in pain from being on fire, one of their yells abruptly stops as you have put him out of his misery. You’ve actually done him a favor.
Krenalket: (clapping)
DM: You hear the sound of one gnome clapping.
Krenalket: (golf claps)
DM: You’re apparently at the Masters.
David: Hooray!
DM: And there it is. However, one of them who is still alive now has his turn. He points a fickle finger of fate… at you! An eldritch blast shoots forth and strikes you, David.

David attempts to bid Two-Weapon Defense to increase his AC, until it’s pointed out that he used his shortbow, so not unless he has knives tucked in his armpits. Karmus Charging Minotaurs a bitch, and comes under fire from one of the guards. He promptly loses several levels for no good reason. Kratin whips it good.

Karmus: Okay, Drusila.
Krenalket: Natural 1.

Kratin rolls his attack… and the table bursts into laughter.

Karmus: Did you really roll a 1?!
Kratin: Yes…
Karmus: That’s amazing.
Kratin: I tie myself up and fall over.
DM: You sling the whip back, throw it forward, and somehow yank yourself off your own feat!

The guardsman somehow becomes Scorpion, juggling and then administering a fatality. Then a Babality. Then a Friendhsip. Then an Animality.

Karmus: “Pretty cool, huh?”
Bellrill: You could always be Sub-Zero. “I’ll be back!”
Krenalket: He was never back.

The group reminds themselves just how terrible that movie was. The cultist recovers from Karmus slamming him into a tree, and --

Karmus: It should be, “Raiden as: Christopher Lambert.” Okay, I’m done.

Kratin takes an eldritch bolt for 8, and promptly goes blind as he fails the save. The group helpful contributes sound effects until the point the DM breaks down and bitterly accuses Bellrill’s ridiculous drinking of ruining the game. The players, much more savvy, admit they are ALL ruining the game.

Krenalket: Man, that chili was something.

Bellrill hurls some damage into the fray, I think from a javelin, but it might have been a bomb.

DM: One of the cultists yells, “Bullshit lag!” Another one yells, “Great, TPK”. The third one solemnly just lays down and burns. You wiped them, you assholes.
Krenalket: Lolnoobs.

They loot the place – well, except for Karmus, who attempts to stifle the bodies and rolls a natural 1 on Search.

Karmus: Rifle. That’s the word I was trying to use. But my cold-addled brain wouldn’t let me.
Krenalket: I guess it stifled your ability to use language!
Bellrill: This says ‘fancy ketchup.’ I was like, ‘yay, fancy ketchup’…
Krenalket: “I’d like another bottle of Heinz.” “Sir, I think you’ve had enough—“ “I’LL TELL YOU WHEN I’VE HAD ENOUGH!”

They collect their melted gold lumps, while Bellrill angrily grabs for any paper he can find.

Bellrill: Oh, these are important notes! I can’t read this, it’s some kind of hieroglyphics! Two plus two is 32?! (tearing paper our)
Krenalket: Ah! My notebook!
Bellrill: THIS IS NOT A NOTEBOOK! This is a notepad without the back!
Krenalket: Yeah, I do need a better note—Where’d the back go?! It had a back last time I saw it!
Karmus: It’s right there.
DM: He took it off!!!
Bellrill: (feebly hides it)
DM: I think Krenalket’s Spot check is outrolling your Bluff. And Sleight of Hand.

The DM promptly awards them two glaive-guisarmes, causing Bellrill to ragequit his treasure writing. They are now alone in the burning garden.

Krenalket: “Karmus, go in front of me! This way!” I point to the doors where we were originally heading.
Karmus: “Yes, burnin’ bush, I will listen.”
Krenalket: “Call me YHVH.”
DM: In the Hebrew, Jehova is spelled with—
Bellrill : With a PH! (a pause) Phahosa.
David: I didn’t take “Open Door” feat.
Karmus: Don’t worry, you have Karmus feet.
DM: You’re kicking open the door?
Karmus: I am NOT Aliarra. I point at the door, and say –
DM: “Gambling? I’m in!”

David checks for traps! He finds none, so they open it to find a dark hallway – with a light source above! For some reason Krenalket goes flying across the room, after which they hurry down the stairs they have found. The issue of light is briefly raised.

Peregrinus: I can give you a torch…
Kratin: I have a sunrod.
Krenalket: That’ll do. “Give me your sunrod!”
Kratin: “Say please!”
Krenalket: “Give it to me or we’ll all die in the darkness!”
Kratin: “Fair enough, here’s my sunrod!”
DM: Just like in Shadowgate, your torch goes out, you trip and break your neck five seconds later.

Krenalket reacts to everything with overblown gnomish shock and is chastised for it. Outside of a pair of double doors, he promptly wakes the Hive with his detect magic, but then detects magic! They crack the door open and Krenalket Listens!

DM: You Listening?
Krenalket: Yes, I encourage people with ranks in the skill to do the same.
DM: You’re crushing them!
Krenalket: I rolled a 20.
Kratin: 22!
DM: You’re outdone!
Bellrill: 25.
DM: Come on, Peregrinus, don’t let them show you up like this!
Peregrinus: 17, shut up.

David, surprisingly, rolls the best and hears what they heard – running water! What do they do…?

DM: You slam the doors closed so that you can kick them inwards!
Karmus: Off the hinges. My foot hurts!
Krenalket: I take the pins out of the hinges.
Karmus: (exhaling)
DM: Yes! Yes! 50 XP.
Karmus: That’s shameful XP, I’m not taking it.

Inside, they see a fountain. On top of this fountain, an altar with the priest they came to rescue!

Karmus: Oh, I thought he was planking on top of the water.
Krenalket: Wow, planking. That’s a bit of a date reference these days, don’t you think?
Bellrill: It’s coming back.
Krenalket: God damn it!

A mysterious figure stands above the priest, with many more on the ground! Someone jumps the shark for some reason. The cultists have yet to notice them because of their rapture in the ritual, so they quickly cast some buff spells – Mirror Image, for example. Peregrinus kicks off hostilities by hurling a Thunderstone into the midst of the cultists, which Kratin follows up on with another. Things rapidly get out of hand.

DM: You have anything to hurl, Karmus?
Karmus: Heh. No.
Kratin: Would you like an alchemist’s fire—
Karmus: No.
DM: The chamber echoes with the loud bangs and blasts of magic spells, thunderstones, and fire bombs.
Karmus: I have a sack.
DM: Karmus hurls a sack. Belatedly realizes it was the sack with the two lumps of gold.

…nothing happens for a bit, except the conversation gets weird…

Bellrill: Hashtag inabunkercoveredinpetrolonfire
Krenalket: That’s an oddly specific hashtag…
Bellrill: Hashtag wegottagivehanmoretime

Karmus takes some eldritch blast damage, so Peregrinus heals him of, or possibly with, 19 points of damage. Most of the cultists are completely ambivalent to the fighting.

DM: Duraz ardhul duraz ardhul alone one will stand blade and staff in hand Imhotep Imhotep….M
Kratin: If that’s the case, can I get up close to one of them to sneak attack them?
David: Okay, who needs to die?

Abruptly, Karmus tosses a lock he’d been working on opening back to Kratin.

Kratin: Wow, how’d you do that?
Karmus: Heh heh heh.
Kratin: ...that‘s not the code.
Karmus: Yes it is.
Kratin: No it’s not!
DM: It is now.

A long pause.

Kratin: Dude, that’s not good!
Bellrill: (cackling) He looks so disappointed!

David rolls a terrible sneak attack and delivers only 6 damage. Krenalket lobs a Cloud of Bewilderment on the boss guy.

DM: He makes a face atop the fountain. “What fool dares--!” Actually not followed by ‘…’, since it’s his turn!
Krenalket: If he hangs out in the cloud he has to make a save each round.
DM: But he can move out of the cloud.
Krenalket: Yes. Not complicated for him to move out of, but hopefully it will get his attention off of the ceremony.
DM: It has indeed! He holds aloft his magic staff and says, “By the Power of Grayskull!”

Silence.

DM: No one?
Karmus: “I HAVE THE POWEEEEEEER! Not ALL the power…”
DM: And he casts a spell! Striking a dramatic 90’s comic book hero pose…
Krenalket: I inform him he’s ten years too late.

Silence.

DM: Oh boy. Will saves, all around!

No one likes Will saves. Krenalket rolls to identify his spell and comes up with a fear effect, but luckily saves mostly succeeded. Bellrill whips out one of his bombs to take on the boss, while Karmus gears up a Charging Minotaur.

DM: Don’t roll a 1.
Karmus: Don’t say that.
DM: You charge into the fountain! No, Krenalket is the only one who can make that happen.
Kratin: You made that happen to me!
Krenalket: No, that was me who said ‘don’t roll a 1’.
DM: 14? That hits!
Kratin: Yay, mooks are easy to hit!

The players wade into the mooks, while the boss screams in agony because he’s on fire, but is still up high and thus not meleeable. The cultists mount no resistance.

DM: You bring your mace down on the back of one’s skull. It causes his chant to hitch. “DuuUuuraz Ar-arduhl!”

David’s 13-damage strike takes out this cultist and whips out a Star Wars parody. Krenalket attempts to take out the boss with Grease.

DM: Ninja die is doing its thing tonight.
Krenalket: Stop being Peregrinus!
DM: He deftly puts a hand down, swipes all of the grease away!
Krenalket: Eventually he’ll run out of space to stand up there and he’ll have to come down to our level.
DM: He’ll never stoop to YOUR level…

The NPC easily makes the Balance check for the Grease, but as Krenalket predicted, he’s out of space up top and has to move down a tier.

Krenalket: Excellent! I’m slowly pulling him, guys.
DM: Curse you and your AOEs!
Krenalket: I’m running out though.
DM:Yes! USE UP your spells.
Krenalket: On the boss. Seems like a good idea.
DM: Assuming he’s the boss. What is your touch AC?
Krenalket: Depends, is he attacking me or he is attacking one of my mirror images?

The debate on exactly how the mirror images work erupts as is inevitable, as the caster fight erupts. He passes a Fort save, while Karmus is depressingly low on targets right when he wants to use Steel Wind to attack two and is forced to simply lop one in two. It gets weirdly graphic, and the remaining cultists begins to rise from the ground.

Karmus: “They’re finishing, guys, they’re finishing!”
Krenalket: “I’ve been trying to stop them, but noooo, you guys went right into the mooks!”
Karmus: “I can’t reach that dude!” You cunt.

Peregrinus whacks the leader with her Spiritual Weapon, and David barely misses him with an arrow. The leader realizes he’s a target! Kratin, meanwhile, makes a lasso…

Kratin: That’s my action, though, right? Move action to get it out…
Karmus: Standard action to tie the knot.
DM: You’re just gonna—I know what you’re gonna do. That’s ridiculous, Kratin.
Kratin: What?
DM: He cracks his head on the fountain as you pull him off the altar…

Krenalket, who is running out of practical skills, lobs a Glitterdust. This one the villain finally fails.

DM: Blinded and cursing, he takes the staff in both hands, and speaks a brief incantation—
Krenalket: (miming snapping it over a knee)
DM: No. Yeah, he snaps it across his knee, all of you take 40… 40…
Krenalket: 400 points of damage.
DM: Whatever. A purplish-red bubble emits from the staff. The dust and your grease and your stinking cloud all vanish, as if they had never been.
Kratin: Awwwwwww.
Bellrill: It’s okay. He just pulls a you.

Karmus climbs the fountain, while all the cultists have stood and turned to face the PCs. David puts an arrow into the fray for a stellar 2 damage, and then Kratin deploys his lasso! No one knows how the hell to work this, but he misses anyway, so the question is moot. Krenalket, out of spells, fires at the boss and promptly misses.

DM: Another nick in the fountain.
Krenalket: Is the fountain black and white, or colored?

Ominous silence.

DM: If I answer, it’ll just give him more pun ammunition.
Karmus: Yeah, it’s an obvious trap.
DM: No fodder for you.
Krenalket: I’m just saying—
Karmus: Shut up. SHUT UP!
Krenalket: You generally only see black-and-white if it’s a nick at night.
Bellrill: (bursting into laughter) I’m sorry! That was pretty funny!
Karmus: You’re tired.
Bellrill: He didn’t go where I thought he was gonna go with that.
Kratin: Still a better love story than Twilight.
DM: The cultists still on their feet begin making beelines for you, and with the daggers in their hands, they plunge them into their own hearts. Moments later, large bursts of elritch energy burst forth, as their lives end.
David: Hey guys. This sucks.

Reflex for everyone in melee, and a fairly difficult one too (which Bellrill mocks by rolling 28). Bellrill finishes the leader with a javelin, and Karmus finishes climbing to decapitate their cleric friend in a fury at being too late to engage in melee with the leader.

Karmus: I’ll pick up the Bell-Ringer, hoist him over my shoulder, and then slip in the grease that frackin’ Krenalket left up there. And I fall!
Bellrill: No, no, remember, he dispelled it…
Kratin: “Knowing the power of this staff, I don’t think it’s such a good idea to give it to Loki.”
Peregrinus: I’m picking up that staff! I’m claiming it in the name of my god.
Kratin: Yeah, but remember, Loki wanted that staff.
Karmus: And we agreed to collect it for him.

The group debates pissing off Loki by not giving him the staff, then remember to check on their priest friend! The game has gone late, however, so the DM promises the closing scene next time, along with XP, treasure, and possibly a level gain!