GAME TIME! Nobix time?

DM: Nobix, with several knocks on his head.
Ellerian: It is… doppelganger time.
Nobix: Oh yeah, I forgot, I’m supposed to be loading my doppelganger sheet. Hold on.
DM: Shhh! Shut up!
Nobix: Oh, I wasn’t supposed to say that out loud, was I.
DM: Well, too late now.
Erik: I like the idea of everyone transforming into a mimic, and none of them know the others are mimic.
Ellerian: ‘Wait a minute, is ANYONE here a real adventurer?’
Nobix: I’m shooting the elf. You probably deserve this.
DM: I think even Sable’s beginning to change her mind about the elf.
Ellerian: What? He just said next time don’t go into the room the next time we say don’t go into the room?! Why does that make him a jerk? We took so much extra damage for that.
Sable: I think it was more the random Color Spray.
Ellerian: What do you MEAN ‘random’?! It worked PERFECTLY!
Sable: To quote Sable in her journal, I can’t wait till you get fireballed.
Nobix: Yes, I’m slightly mad about the Color Spray.
Ellerian: WHAT?! It solved EVERYTHING!
DM: That doesn’t mean it was a good idea….
Sable: How did it solve anything?
Ellerian: We identified the doppelganger and put an end to it, didn’t we?
Sable: It could have gone either way.
Ellerian: Out of character, yes. In-character, of course it couldn’t have.

Ellerian continues to defend his choice by virtue of the simple logic that a monster who copied Nobix would be better able to resist the spell than Nobix himself. Nobix curses him out and Sable congratulates him on roleplaying being an asshole. The DM finally recaps the adventure.

DM: Last episode, you had taken care of the doppelganger that tried to take over the appearance of Nobix.
Ellerian: Having solved the problem I realized that no one appreciated and next time vowed next to help.
DM: So says the elf.
Ellerian: So thinks the elf. Loudly.
Nobix: Yeah, you guys killed the doppelganger while I was sitting there stunned from the damn Color Spray.
DM: I believe he was unconscious…
Ellerian: Would you have preferred to take more subdual damage?!
C: (off in his own little world) From the Anuirean Archers? Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo dooooo!
DM: With their boxing-glove arrows?

The doppelganger is rich so now the PCs are. They throw him into the trapdoor to be devoured, apparently, since the DM is hostile. The virtues of interrogating the doppelganger are debated, since it is solidly unconscious. Sable produces an augur to drill a hole in the trapdoor, neglecting the fact that the dresser is atop it. The DM stabs Ellerian’s eye out for some reason. Sable opens a door to let Anda charge into the next room; they find a table that has been smashed by a chandelier. One door is heavily barred, looking as if it would take hours to clear; naturally, the players immediately begin pondering how to get through it. Ellerian tries to get Sable to put a hole in the door, leading to a huge argument over drilling vs. sawing.

Ellerian: If we can open a small breach in the door, I can use the magic of this wand to reduce our kobold friend in size.
Bex: Where’s consent…?
C: You couldn’t understand what he said.
Bex: That’s true.

The argument over drilling continues until Ellerian just blows up, to the amusement of everyone else, and Sable chides them for using adult language in front of the kids. With a little work, they drill in; Sable spots frames on a wall, with no distinct smell. Bees attack! The players fuck around for way too long.

DM: The hole begins to grow back.
Ellerian: Huh.
Erik: I’m gonna write my fanfiction about the Muggle who ends up in the school of magic because the owl got drunk on his trip.
Ellerian: I think Ollivander is the one who really loses out in that situation. “Why are none of these wands working for you?!”
DM: Ellerian taps his foot.
Ellerian: No I don’t!
DM: Okay.
Ellerian: I wait patiently!

No one does anything. Ellerian investigates the chandelier, hoping there’s a key in there, Maniac Mansion style. C finally gets bored and opens another door, finding a bar apparently? Sable continues to work on the door, but the rest of the group slowly spills into the next room. Ellerian finally looks up the lycanthropy rules to verify that yes, it sucks, you don’t get to control it. They wander through another door, finding themselves in a large open area.

DM: You also see a door. In the wall.
Sable: Is all this happening while Sable’s drilling?
DM: Large picture frames adorn the wall. When you turn the corner you see a door on your right, with small objects being thrust in and out of it. Sawdust is falling on one side.
Ellerian: ….why was it sealed? This raises a lot of questions.
Erik: “You can probably stop now…”
Ellerian: Now if I was an asshole… ‘Minor Illusion!’
Bex: ‘If’.
Ellerian: The POINT is I’m NOT doing it, thus demonstrating I’m NOT the asshole you THINK I am.
DM: You’re the asshole we deserve.
Ellerian: Look, keep out-of-character commentary out of this.

Another door has been totally blocked by statues, removed from earlier in the manor. Drusila gives up on the carpentry, for obvious reasons, and they move to ponder plundering the statues somehow. Sable decides to see if she can move one, and for perhaps the first time, someone looks up their max drag.

DM: You make the statue move! You slowly and arduously drag the first one away from the door.
Ellerian: If this is straining Sable so much, what on earth moved it to begin with?
Nobix: I’ll help Sable by helping drag the statue.
DM: You aid her. It becomes much easier.
Ellerian: Oh, they magically become lighter when two people work together.

The DM vengefully drains Ellerian’s strength for some reason. Out here, they’re in the rear courtyard or something similar, so they vigorously check something for something (a direct quote). A door turns out to have no traps, but there’s a family mausoleum out here in the backyard!

Nobix: I’m actually curious, but I ain’t going in there alone.
Ellerian: Graverobber, I think very loudly. Who said I’m the asshole, I’m not the one all like, ‘let’s burst into this mausoleum and loot the place’.
Erik: Why are we gonna loot the place?
Nobix: I ain’t gonna loot the place.
C: No one said anything about loot.
Bex: We can look around, not steal anything…
Nobix: I’m not gonna start turning over gravestones and dumping out contents.
Sable: Why not?

Erik’s Scent detects human or humans within! C comes up with terrible Starburst luck and is plagued with strawberry. Bex investigates the door, hearing humans within as well, and the group begins debating whether these are undead, if someone else could have gotten in and holed up, or other possible perspectives. Deciding they must investigate, they then spend forever and a day debating how to open the door to investigate without enduring a withering barrage of attacks.

DM: The door is swung open! The smell hits you all as soon as the door opens.
Morzan: Sorry.
Nobix: You smelt it, you dealt it.
DM: If you could concentrate the city’s filthy beggars into one area, this is probably what it would smell like.
Ellerian: ‘I smell no difference.’
Bex: Have they noticed the door’s open?
DM: Steps lead down!
Bex: Okay. Nice. Um.

Bex sneaks down. Sable worries the statues are moving behind them, despite them being very heavy and nonmagical. A Pokemon battle erupts somehow. Bex moves down to a landing, spotting cloth-wrapped remains and niches with bones, but also a half-dozen humans just standing there in a daze!

DM: One of them, with a very lucky roll, lifts up a finger and points at you. “GuuuuuuuuUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHH!”
Bex: And sings beautifully.
Morzan: Did we hear that?
DM: Yes!
Ellerian: Shut the door, walk away.
Bex: Initiative?
DM: YOU need to roll initiative, the rest of the people are leaving you alone.
Bex: Oh shit.

Shockingly, the group does not abandon Bex to doom, although Ellerian is accused of being totally serious and already putting his plan into action. Nobix rolls a 4 on initiative.

DM: You sit down in a huff.
C: Only on his turn.

Ellerian rolls a 30 on initiative and infuriates everyone. To start the encounter off, he casts Light on his crossbow bolt, then launches it down the stairs. The DM vows to plague him with party-killing ricochets, to his affront, but in fact the bolt manages to illuminate the entire battlefield. The party begins piling down the stairs, with Sable launching the first attack.

Sable: 8 damage to the foe directly in front of Sable.
DM: What if I told you you didn’t hit?! It’s a lie, but what if I told you that?!

The DM adds 8 hit points to his mob’s max, but bone crunches beneath her arm. The humans look mindless, ambling towards the group aimlessly and launching slam attacks. Morzan takes 4 damage, thanks to a decent AC, and then they all spot a wizard down there! The necromancer lobs a Grease into their melee.

Nobix: So that’s the penalty of failing Grease, you fall forever?
DM: Yes.
Ellerian: If this guy has a DC22 on a first-level spell, we walk.
Erik: Wasn’t there a spell, Illusory Pit or something like that, that makes you think you’re falling?
Ellerian: Yes. I used it on Wes. While he was possessed. It was great.
Sable: 19 to save against this Grease.
DM: That is enough to remain upright. He huffs. Anda, Erik, and Bex! The three of you have the same initiative. It’s annoying.
Erik: Mage Armor’s still active, I guess, because that lasted a few hours…
DM: I dunno, all that sawing… That was your dumbwaiter moment.
Ellerian: To be fair, WHY THE FUCK WAS IT BLOCKED OFF, DM?
DM: I actually have a reason. I mean a story reason.
Ellerian: I just imagine they were really stupid!
Sable: They hired a mage make zombies for their house, but he got out of hand. He just kept making more zombies. He was like, ‘More! More zombies!” They were like, ‘We only asked you to make five zombies, why are you still making zombies?’ ‘Because I love making zombies!’ They were like, ‘Screw this, we’re blocking off the door.’

Erik fires and misses, then the tomb placement dissolves into a Morton’s Fork and is hurriedly fixed. Bex stabs a minion as the group wonders what sort of control this wizard has over these apparently normal people. The game derails into a long confusion about adding Sneak to sneak attack, and where this came from I don’t know.

Bex: I don’t understand ‘ki’…
Morzan: Then why did you wanna be a ninja!?

The group wearily plans to allot time to teach Bex how to play his class. C buries himself in a tomb for some reason, and then Nobix moves up and grinds the game to a halt with his efforts to just shoot an enemy. Attacks fly!

Ellerian: Come down, look at the scene in front of me with disgust.
DM: Turn around, walk back up the stai.s…
Ellerian: “Really? Grease? You tried to stop my comrades with Grease?”
Erik: That’s what he did. He came down, made a smartass remark, end of turn!


Ellerian Enlarges C from his wand, while Sable ponders her luck on getting to the villain, or the danger of grease. Sable has a moral qualm about beating down the chumps.

DM: Tears stream down you face as you MURDER these people.
Erik: I feel like this whole part is – the DM’s got that Bethesda look in his eyes.

What he means by this is a mystery, as Sable beats down a dude with graphic description from the DM. Erik contemplates lobbing spells!

Ellerian: Definitely lob some spells into this shit! This guy – is TALKING like he’s a final boss.
DM: Look, I have printed-out page for him!
Ellerian: Oh shit! A page?! Get him!
Erik: The reason I didn’t do it the first turn is I just remembered this is a thing I have…

The group arbitrarily develops a D&D microtransaction: the box of Stat, which contains 4d6 obligated to one specific stat, and also edible. Morzan eats AOOs to fire at the boss with her repeating crossbow, which she promptly crits with.

DM: It pierces into his shoulder but you notice there’s a bit of resistance as it enters his personal area.
Ellerin: Heh heh, you shot him in his area.
DM: Some of the damage was warded away.
C: The urethra…

The wizard hits Sable with a Will saving throw, which she luckily beasts. She is not stuck with hideous laughter. Anda beats down a mook as a spider bursts onto the field courtesy of Erik. Bex shanks a dude, and the spider unappears as the casting time of Erik’s summon is accounted for. The DM openly salivates over depriving Ellerian of arcane pool points. Erik makes incredibly annoying noises.

Ellerian: Hey C, would you grab me a metal square out of the top of that bin, please?
DM: A bin square!
C: I politely refuse.

What? Morzan is Enlarged. Nope, Sable is Enlarged. The discussion gets wacky.

DM: Listen, catfolk miniatures are rare.
Erik: Listen, I’m not putting that search in my phone, that just leads to a lot of… furry community stuff.
DM: SafeSearch ON!
Ellerian: Yeah, because THAT works.
DM: You just get them in bikinis, that’s all.
Sable: I missed what happened when C attacked the robed figure in the back.
Ellerian: Nothing, because C didn’t attack the robed figure in the back.
Sable: Why not?

Sable goes to attack the robed figure in the back, but has to Tumble through the thralls. While Enlarged. She manages somehow, Dark Souls style, and beans the dude, rolling the same damage with her enlarged weapon as she would have with the normal one. D’oh. Morzan cures herself.

DM: Sable! I need a Fortitude rolling save!
Ellerian: I love the DM’s rolling saves.
Sable: Um. Oh well.
Ellerian: Disintegrate!
Sable: 11.
DM: A poor roll, sadly.
C: Down you go.
Erik: You are dead.
DM: A beam erupts from the finger of the caster, hitting you square in the chest. You feel your strength drain!
Ellerian: Does this guy literally – he’s fucking copies my exact spell list!
Sable: It’s almost as if he lived in your house and could look at your stuff!
Erik: I guess the giant spider’s got nowhere to go… oh wait, it’s not that big.
Ellerian: Yeah, it’s Medium.
C: It’s not that big.
Ellerian: It is a person-sized spider, it still counts as giant. It’s not that really big one you guys fought in the cavern and refused to go after when it retreated.
C: IT WAS LIKE – IT WAS THE SIZE OF A FOOTBALL FIELD!
Ellerian: Wasn’t that big…
Erik: It was like, “NOPE!” We’re just moving on!
Ellerian: ‘Good battle, sir, good night.’ I loved that.

Anda lumbers through battle, incurring four AOOs that pretty much can’t hit. C is furious on the DM’s behalf, or his own, that Anda’s AC is so high. Erik cheerfully attempts to claim that Anda also has magic resistance and evasion as well. C’s bitterness creeps out slightly.

C: Make it a fucking psicrystal while you’re at it! Pack a psicrystal thrallherding summoned beast! Magebred ghost beast! Might as well have it cast Bless automatically when combat starts too!

And to think they want C to run his game again! Bex, I believe, cuts the wizard in half. Weirdass grunts of anguish and pain rise above the fray, out of character, as Bex fires a bullet into a thrall. Sable takes a hit, then doesn’t take a hit because her turn was skipped, so she conveniently steps away.

Sable: I will take a thunderstone and throw it in their midst. “Wake up, you fools!”
C: HA HA ! You’ve still got it! ‘Wake up, you fools, before Ellerian feasts on your souls!’

This just pisses off the thralls, although Sable wades into them with AOOs galore. Bex rolls terribly on damage and leaves a dude up. C unleashes a feeble ‘hi-yah!’ into the mobs and promptly fails to confirm a crit.

Erik: This one is dead, I’m pretty sure.
DM: Yes, that one is dead. Ooh, that one could die before Ellerin can get to him.
Ellerian: No! Why would you deny me?
DM: It’s FUN! Actually he WILL die. Unless you’re gonna suck him up right now.
Erik: You can burn your turn going to get it, Ellerian.
Ellerian: I don’t ruin YOUR class mechanics.
Erik: Um… I probably… could think of an event where you might have. I don’t know.
Ellerian: I’m listening. I’m curious to see what you come up with.
Erik: Just being you is enough to ruin people’s classes.

Nobix, misinterpreted, commits suicide?

Nobix: I think, um, a 1 makes a gun misfire or something.
DM: We’re gonna go with critical failures of Pathfinder. Uh, ‘Um, Oops?’ The attack deals damage to you instead of the target.
Ellerian: I WAS RIGHT! HE DID COMMIT SUICIDE!
Nobix: Um, 6 damage. I rolled pretty good.
Ellerian: If he dropped himself off of that, would he get a grit point? He would just be unconscious…
DM: I can’t imagine that being true.
Nobix: I have to bring someone to zero hit points.
Ellerian: Yeah!

Luckily, the subdual damage had been healed enough that Nobix doesn’t drop. Ellerian rolls a 2 again and wastes his move action trying to figure out why his crossbow can’t shoot straight. Morzan, as always, is in the bathroom, so everyone eats cannoli cake, except for Ellerian, who is forbidden to do so. C giggles maniacally over the consumption of steamed hams. They get the dud. Morzan FINALLY attacks for a whopping 6 points of damage, and then someone else finishes it!

DM: The mausoleum is yours! Bury your dead.
Ellerian: (slurping noises)

They search the wizard, and discover prophecies EVERYwhere – but really, several sheets of paper! They’re all written in Old Orsovan.

Sable: Fuck, we should’ve bought a dictionary from that guy.

None of them are legible, though Ellerian does find the spellbook he sought. The DM tries to stress that the people they fought were enthralled locals, not the undead or anything like that; only time will tell if he succeeded in communicating this. Erik discovers how mean it is to steal a wizard’s spellbook.

Erik: You would have done it to me or the DM, but you never would’ve done it to C unless you never wanted him to play with us again.
Ellerian: C was a warmage, that’s different
Erik: I’m just saying, if he ever played a wizard, for whatever reason.
Ellerian: There’s one BIG problem with your statement right there.
Erik: I’m just saying, IF he ever played one…
Ellerian: That’s like saying, IF he played an artificer.

A stepladder leads down into a hole, which leads to a tunnel! They may now have an explanation of how the manor was breached, so they send Bex to investigate with his mighty Stealth. Hitler eats a baby so the group can get back its route. Bex winds up peering out a cliffside opening, where a rope ladder shows where people have come from! Down he goes, with a natural 20 on Acrobatics!

Ellerian: Pretty soon you’re gonna have to walk across a giant crimson canine, like it’s a river.
Nobix: Now if you find any enemy crabs you should attack its weak point.
DM: For massive damage.
Erik and C: Massive damage.
Erik: Crab battle!
DM: Now which way you heading now? East or west?
Erik: …Should we eventually follow him?
DM: Bex is gone!
Ellerian: Go walk across the canine!
DM: Where are you going with that?
Ellerian: Cliff-ford the Big Red Dog.
Morzan: Oh god.

Bex goes back to the party, leading Erik to kill himself…?

DM: I’m working on a city map. With straight arrow points.
Erik: (bursting into laughter and applauding) Yes! Yes!
Ellerian: Which way do they point?
DM: All over the damn place.
Erik: None of them point to north. He’s just got northeast, southeast…
Ellerian: Is the city oriented precisely north? By law?
DM: Yes.
Ellerian: Excellent. Nothing else is acceptable.

The group admits that had they known they were close to cliffs from the beginning, they would have suspected it from the beginning. Having found this, they consider their answer supplied – they know now how outside forces were getting into the Orsovo manor. They wonder if they should go up to the second floor, though – do they still have unanswered questions?

Erik: Why the zombies? Why the thralls? Why not more zombies?
Ellerian: Man, I complimented you guys during the fight, I’m gonna get no credit from that. Be all like, ‘oh he’s an asssshole.’
DM: You make your way back towards the house.
Nobix: Don’t remind me of the whole ‘kind’ thing. I was told my kind doesn’t belong at Denny’s.

This breaks Ellerian for some reason, as Erik laboriously explains how a cat has a poopy butt directly into the microphone, apparently. Back in they head, flinging open door to find a room of smashed crates and crap. Up the stairs they go, with Ellerian deploying Merlin’s magic from the Sword in the Stone to clean up the manor.

Erik: Thank god D&D has limits to transformations…

Ellerian bemoans that C always ends up the punching bag in his campaign by virtue of random luck. On the top level, they find a hallway with several doors – too many doors, as this is apparently where doors spawn when the DM fails to draw them. Sable, after about an hour of looking, determines that no, she can’t find a decent catfolk mini. Picking a door, they find a large bedroom, which apparently opens into a world without zinc. Or a lot of dust. Bex, with a 22 Search, finds a small gem and vows to share it with the group, with many suspicious mentions of his alignment… Next room!

Ellerian: I hear weird noises from inside, guys.
Nobix: Oh no, more stuff.
DM: No, that’s your DM being weird…
Erik: Oh shit.
DM: Inside is the DM being WEEEEEIRD!
Ellerian: Inside: ‘Hey guys, my name is Quirion!’
Erik: ‘I ask for two dollars for a hamburger today, I will pay you back tomorrow…’
Ellerian: Oh, shit, J. Wellington Wimpy, CR 17.

The game stats of Wimpy are debated. They fling open the next door and find a library!

Morzan: Suddenly Ellerian is hard and he doesn’t know why.
Erik; He’s like, ‘Everyone else out!’ Closes the door. ‘Go explore the other doors!’

Ellerian discovers hilarious and epic ad copy for shampoo and body wash. They rummage through the mostly-wrecked books, with Ellerian looking for knowledge and Sable looking for… adventure stories. Ellerian rolls many checks, and the DM… is silent?

Ellerian: I assume you’re searching the internet to see if I can do that shit. ‘I don’t believe Ellerian at this point…’
DM: No no no no no…. You find a couple volumes on the Faldric Rebellion—
Ellerian: Stupid humans.
DM: You find a few pages of what possibly was a book of the family tree of Orsovo…

Sable is bored with her finds, but Ellerian comes up with a volume called ‘Demonic Visions’. This gets everyone into rolling!

Bex; My Perception is a 21 and my luh, Logistics—
Morzan: Linguistics.
DM: Linguini-istics.
Bex: My Languinistics is –
Ellerian: No! My brain! That actually hurt it!

Erik attempts to produce flame where flame should not be. The book they found is like a primer on demons, and it seems accurate as much as anyone can tell.

Ellerian: Intriguing! Perhaps I shall keep this and it will give me a +2 circumstance bonus for an excellent tool on Knowledge(the planes) checks from here on out.
DM: Maybe! But probably not.
Ellerian: PERHAPS THAT WOULD BE A VERY APPROPRIATE THING FOR IT TO DO…
Morzan: And the DM says, ’Ellerian! Kiss my white buttocks!’
Ellerian: Again?
DM: You forgot the ‘hairy’ adjective.
Nobix: Did I miss what Nobix got?
DM: Um, you did not find anything. Those were the only books I had written down. Everything else is wet or useless.
Ellerian: I load up my backpack with all that is not wet or useless.
Morzan: Yay, I’m in his backpack!
Ellerian: Morzan, around my magical might, you ARE wet.
Morzan: That’s what you think.
Ellerian: Prestidigitation!
DM: Give me one more, since you were looking more for books than anything else. I’ll let you have a second roll.
Ellerian: 23.
DM: Amongst your kid-in-a-candy-store moments—
Ellerian: VERY DIGNIFIED kid-in-a-candy-store!
DM: Not saying your hands weren’t behind your back. You notice that the pacing in here seems to be slightly off, in terms of the west wall.

A hidden door?! Ellerian sweeps the shelves and finds a lever, which lets the bookshelf roll back. A nook has a ladder leading downward; they descend to a small room where Bex tugs on a latch after much laborious trap-searching and explaining. Sable ultimately discovers it leads into the backyard.

Erik: All these fucking secret passages to the backyard!
Ellerian: Well now we know how they got in here.
C: Yes, it’s a Dark Souls dungeon.

Someone ends up on the roof for reasons I don’t understand. Then Sable ends up there too. The session has gotten just a bit confused at this point, but the house has been thoroughly explored! So naturally they go to check the barricaded trapdoor.

Sable: Yes, kitty victorious and quite proud of herself, is Sable, will move the dresser and take a look down there.
DM: You throw the dresser aside, being as strong as you are. You open the trapdoor with the strength of a thousand kittens.
Ellerian: Huh.
DM: That’s a lot of strength, man, a thousand kittens?
C: How many nine-year-olds?
DM: A lot.
Erik: She has the attention span of a thousand kittens.
DM: One femtosecond.
Ellerian: Ooh, very nice, DM.
DM: You open the latch of the trapdoor, and it’s dark down there. You have low-light vision?
Sable: Yes.
DM: With the surrounding light sources that you have at your disposable – heh, disposable – you can see what seems to be a writhing mass of bodies down there.
Morzan: Ew.
C: So it’s either undead or it’s an orgy.

Bex is aggressively horrible. Sable slams the trapdoor and rebarricades it, electing not to go into the ghoul pit for some reason. With every last inch done, they go to gather the doppelganger and head out! The DM doles out their assembled loot, which somehow works out really mathematically nicely.

DM: Next time, reporting back! And deciphering things!

On that note they fail to level up because the group is too large. Whoops!