20 years later! Man, has it been a long time since we actually gamed…. And there’ll be no gaming next week after this… sob…

DM: The morning dawns on a new day, and you all convene to your local meeting place.
Ellerian: The barracks!
DM: The barracks of Skeldric, where at least two of you stay.
Ellerian: (donning plastic butterfly rings and a stupid voice) ‘As a mighty wizard I possess rings of power.’
DM: Is that your new accent?
Ellerian: It is with these rings on…

Ellerian complains about the Thing Ring and all associated concepts. They head off towards the Orsovan manor without delay, finding the crowd to be normal and unimpressive. This is relevant, after all, given the hubbub and clamor over the upcoming opening of the Temple of Kalroth.

Ellerian: I have good news for Nobix.
Nobix: Yes?
Ellerian: Out of frustration for your refusal to speak any language but blasphemous Common, I decided to revisit some old lessons from back in my studying days, and have refreshed myself on the basics of the Dwarven tongue!
Nobix: Yeah!

A long digression on the nature and use of Linguistics occurs. Erik, concerned he’d neglected to give himself enough languages, checks his list.

Erik: Common. Dwarven. Elven. Draconic. Southern Common.
Ellerian: Southern Common. ‘He keeps saying ‘y’all’, I don’t know what this language is.’
Erik: He only speaks Southern Common.
Ellerian: Is EVERYONE a Yankee but you? Is that how this works?

Ellerian and the DM argue over what, exactly, is dreary, leading the DM to dub Ellerian as having the memory of a goldfish and Erik demanding he be thrown out of the game. Erik then wonders what languages he should be picking up, and on advice starts with the outer planar ones.

Ellerian: And then over time you might want to get the elemental languages, Terran, Ignan, Auran, and… what’s water? Stupid.
DM: Aquan?
Ellerian: Yeah, probably. Blub blub blub, that’s what it is.

C, who speaks the language of the blade, and its subdialect Wesley Snipes, shrugs at everyone else. They at last arrive at the gates to the noble district, only to find the Children of Skeldric have taken over guard duty, leaving the ordinary retinue sulking.

Ellerian: “Morzan, have you comment?”
Morzan: Uh -- they’re SULKING?!
DM: The REGULAR guards are off to the side, having been dismissed for the moment. In fact, as soon as the Children of Skeldric at the gate notice you, they greet you heartily and warmly, and wave you through.
Ellerian: They hardly greet us.
DM: They salute.
Ellerian: Well, it’s certainly a weird world in which I ended up in the graces of Skeldric.
C: Are you saying that in a language that--
Ellerian: Elven.
DM: The majority of the party understand?
Morzan: I don’t understand it.
Bex: I don’t either.
Erik: “Huh. Why did you originally come down here? Were you studying humans?”
Bex: Sure, you know what? I’ll be an asshole and I’ll do that. I will suddenly speak Elven. Fuck you, I can understand you now.
Ellerian: This was SO much easier than taking Common.
DM: ‘Everybody must learn my language!’
C: Actively hindering the party.
Morzan: I’ll just look confused.
Bex: “He’s being an asshole.” In Common.
Ellerian: I’m not being an asshole in Common, I’m being an asshole in Elven!
Bex: “He’s always being an asshole.”
C: Quickly unlearn the Elven language after you realize you’re not missing anything.
DM: Crayon in the brain, thank you!
Ellerian: “I came down here because of the whole Temple to Kalroth. Kalroth being the god of magic and of some important to our people, I wanted to see firsthand what was transpiring.”
Erik: “I don’t get to use my other languages often, this has been quite the experience.”
Ellerian: “Well, I’m certain soon enough you’ll be invoking things from the far realms that require you to stretch your tongue in any number of ways.”
Erik: “That’s what my language teacher taught me. He just kept going. I would be learning Elven one day and then he would be speaking Celestia the next.”
Ellerian: ‘You’re lucky, you have a short lifespan, so you learn everything faster. Took me decades to learn languages for some reason.’
Bex: Waah. Waaah.

Ellerian is shunned for breaking the fourth wall. Bex in particularly is ruthlessly a douchebag to him, but anyway, on they head! The local guards are not happy about the Children of Skeldric but are being professional about it. They reach the old Orsovan manor once again.

Ellerian: Underneath their mail, the guards all wear strips of cloth around their thighs. Their guarder belt.

Dead silence. C finally musters up a sigh, and then another, as they enter the foyer and meet with Lieutenant Deerham. Morzan greets him and he informs them the ghoul nest is taken care of. They pass through onto their destination: the tunnel and ladder down to the cliff.

Sable: There was a stone box in the tunnel!
DM: Yeah, you haven’t got to it yet.

Down they go, the waves crashing against the cliff wall down below as they draw closer, and they reach the box with singleminded obsessiveness. Bex searches it, but finds no locks! It’s just a heavy concrete slab they need to slide off.

Bex: Slide that bitch open! Don’t fail me -- oh god.
Ellerian: Bex’s arms shatter!
Bex: 10, uuuurgh!
DM: Your small kobold arms are unable to muster enough strength to slide open the box.
Ellerian: Sable?
Nobix: I’m stepping in as a hearty dwarf to help him push the lid open!
Ellerian: ...Sable?
Sable: Nobix is trying!
Ellerian: Okay….
Bex: I rolled even lower.
Nobix: I’m not that much better, unfortunately, I got an 11.
Ellerian… SABLE… That’s it, I’m putting a Color Spray into all of you, whoever is still standing is the one to open the box.
Morzan: 17!

This finally gets it open. They find hay. And straw.

Nobix: Damn box! I didn’t train for this crap! They trained me to shoot stuff, not open damn boxes.
Ellerian: And yet you were in such a hurry to leap up and do it!

Bad jokes about ‘hay’ versus ‘hey’ ensue. Somehow Knowledge(nature) checks are demanded to understand that hay and straw are different -- only Ellerian is aware. Sable is an idiot. Erik starts sniffing the hay, perplexing the DM mercilessly. Ellerian makes one too many ‘hay’ jokes and the DM punches him hard; even he admits he deserves that. Erik demands a cloudkill kill everyone.

DM: Poison hay! That’s what I did! I used poison hay to kill the group. Shambling mound of poison hay.
Ellerian: That’s the last straw!

Dead silence.

DM: Another punch is coming, but I’m not gonna tell you when.

They decide this box was used to smuggle red herring (or Red Herring). At the cliff leading down, an old rope ladder awaits; they push it over, then make preparations to head down without dying horribly. Bex scrambles down first and begins searching the hell out of everything down there to no avail -- the ocean wipes away all traces. Anda climbs down, somehow… Nobix has a +0 to Climb, and so begins setting up a rope to climb down instead. The DM points out it is harder to climb down a rope than the ladder, so he clambers down the ladder instead and rolls a 16 after all that effort. Sable’s camera feed freezes in an absolutely hilarious way, and memes are immediately laid over the image. A slender ledge leans along the cliff, promising doom as soon as the tide comes in. They promptly make Sable go first.

Sable: I didn’t quite catch the description of where Sable’s going. Can you describe it again?
DM: No.
Ellerian: Thank you!
DM: You are down near the ocean floor. No wait. Not the ocean floor. Down by the ocean level.
Ellerian: I was not prepared for this…
DM: You are standing on what seems to be a natural formation that creates a ledge, and leads off onto the right-hand side.

Ready for combat, Sable head on -- as Ellerian questions what’s up with her hammer in actual roleplaying. Back to Sable memes.

DM: When you find out your flight is delayed three hours.

The path winds its way around to a large circular grate in the cliff wall! The bars are quite fine.

Ellerian: Perhaps Bex can find the key to this blockade.
Sable: Is there a way to unlock it? Is there a lock on it?
Ellerian: Well, perhaps BEX can find the key to this -- I’m done.
Sable: Is there a padlock or something?
DM: ‘When the DM farts again and again.’
C: See, you’re seeing the meme letters…
Erik: ‘That moment you rolled a 1, and then rerolled a 1.’
Ellerian: ‘When one of Ellerian’s NPCs uses a swordsage maneuver.’
Erik: ‘When you realize that vampires can’t be monks.’

The grate is moveable, if they just grab a bent area. Sable gets called away to read a story, but rolls a 19 to haul the grate away. They elect to go pull trash one down, and so head in. Nobic recognizes dwarven stonework, and they conclude this is a seawater intake that floods the new dwarven sewers at high tide!

DM: You have several hours before the evening tide.
Ellerian: And there’ll surely be higher spots inside if need be.
DM: Maybe.
Ellerian: If we’re heading into the sewers… The entire sewers aren’t below high tide level! There was not a drop of salt water when we were in there from the other side!
DM: Remember, the old human system is above the dwarven system.
Erik: 8 hours later, their corpses lay washed to the sea…

They zoom down a few hundred feet, questioning how their enemies could establish a base so quickly in the recently-constructed sewers. They reach an octagonal room, with steps on every other facet and massive pipes on the others. Bex begins searching doors for traps even when they don’t exist.

DM: If you don’t have darkvision, it’s pretty dark in here!
Nobix: What do I know about the way this is constructed?
Ellerian: Low-light vision, aaaaah!
DM: Well, you definitely know it’s more ornate. Unless you have some Engineering knowledge, that’s all.
Nobix: I rolled pathetically. 8.
DM: Well, you definitely know it’s a sewer system…

They can’t find any signs of tracks on the stairs, and Ellerian finally breaks down and casts Light to make the whole illumination question a nonissue. They enter a door and Bex follows steps upstairs, rolling Stealth CONSTANTLY, while vigorous searching finally finds some spots where some algae is a little thinner -- in the pipes! The stairs all lead up to valve handles, and Bex finds that the high-up areas get little water all told. He also finds a LARGE valve handle and a dwarven word!

Bex: I’ll go back down and go, “There’s some words up here. If someone could come read them, that’d be great. I don’t know them.”
Nobix: I would suspect that it might be something that a dwarf can read, ‘cuz this is definitely dwarven works here?
Erik: “I will go up and check.”
Ellerian: I wasn’t even going to say it!
Nobix: Screw you guys too.

The valve says ‘open’. Other ones say ‘unlock’ and ‘purge’. Sable shows back up, and asks all the questions everyone has already asked. A cat gets on the game table.

Ellerian: I’m starting to wonder if there’s some weirdass puzzle here where we have to turn some valves and not others.
Bex: Yeah.
Ellerian: I would -- I would hate that, DM.
DM: Me too.
Bex: So would Jasper.
Erik: (as the cat slams his head into the DM screen) Bring down those walls!

They find a list of 24 items which probably correspond to which area each valve or pipe drains, but are all normal -- no “villain lair” or the like to be found.

Ellerian: Maybe Faldoun was a traitor all this time, and he sent us down here to ambush us and get rid of us.
Erik: ‘He’s done a terrible job, we’re still here! Where’s the ambush?’ We seem some skeletons floating in…
Sable: The sewers will be flooded with poop!
DM: Poop will FLOW from the fountains of the city!

The DM calls for Perception checks. Erik fails, apparently too busy questioning why Anda has an anus.

Erik: Anda was paying attention, he rolled a 25.
Ellerian: An eyeball appears out of the brown star and sees everything.
Morzan: Euuuuugh.
Ellerian: Hey, hey! Hindsight is 20/20.
Erik and C: (exhaling their very souls)
D: You turn your attention to the pipe openings themselves.
Ellerian: Good work, DM. Soldiering on despite that…

One of the pipes has scratches in it, and the grate can be opened by a latch! The list tells them it leads to the lower nobles’ area, but the pipe is blocked! C wisely suggests they open the proper valve. Ellerian, staring directly into the pipe, sees the blockage clear as Erik turns the valve.

DM: Sliding out of the way in a very fancy fashion! The hole, like -- fft! (miming an iris)
Ellerian: Dwarves. Why would they do that? It’s just more prone to mechanical breakdown!
Erik: “It opening?”
Ellerian: “Oh. I understand. This is their way of scamming the humans out of more gold. When it inevitably does break down, they’ll say, ‘oh, well, only we dwarves can repair it’ and gouge the on the backend.”
Nobix: “I’m sorry, what’d you say?”
DM: What were you saying that in, Elven?
Ellerian: Yes!
Erik: Price-gouging dwarves!

They peer on ahead and find the pipe bends up ahead, but before they enter it, they try to find if there’s some way to lock it open.

Ellerian: We don’t want anyone to lock it behind us. Like Faldoun’s minions.
C: Break the handle off!
DM: Sadly, no.
Erik: Are we gonna RE7 it, just take the valve and hide it somewhere else in the mansion?
Ellerian: Hey, Disable Device is still a thing!
DM: Are you going to try to break the sewer system?
Ellerian: Not break it! Disable it!
DM: It’s coming out of your pay! You have been hired by the city.
C: This is a secret sewer system.
DM: It’s NOT a secret sewer system!
Ellerian: We’ll just blame dwarven workmanship, with their overcomplicated valves!
C: Yeah, it’s supposed to be a sewer system, not a series of tubes.
DM: It’s not the internet!
Sable: If this is a sewer, where is the poop?
Erik: “Let us make our way in.”
Ellerian: Wait, were there 12 or 24 valves?
DM: 24.
Ellerian: All right, 24 is composed of the numbers 2 and 4. The average of that is three, and these are VALVEs, Half-Life 3 confirmed.
DM: How long did it take you for that one? On the fly, or…
Ellerian: Yeah.
DM: I hate how good you are with those fucking things.

Erik misunderstands the idea of ‘walk three abreast’, but the pipe requires the tall folk to hunch and walk slowly. In they go! C and Nobix make the Mario pipe sound in exact sync, which is pretty weird. They roll initiative against the Bloopers. As they travel in, they come into long room, and see bodies at the same time they hear clashing steel from further ahead! Sable hurries forward to investigate.

DM: You make your way up to the front of the area. The Banglasharan that holds the dagger in the chest of one of these attackers is grey and spotted. It takes you a moment to notice your brother-in-law, Simon Murlock.
All: (Murlock noises)
DM: As if your presence made him aware, he cracks an eye open, and gives out a ragged cough.
Ellerian: (soul-suck noise)
C: Oh god--
Ellerian: No.

Everyone gets a horrified laugh out of this.

Erik: Jesus. ‘Force of habit!’
Sable: Sable is scrambling to get a Cure Light Wounds potion off her belt at this point.
Ellerian: Oh, roll initiative Sable!

They debate his hit point total, determine it is zero, and Ellerian sucks his soul.

DM: I hate you so much. You tip the Cure Light Wounds potion down his throat, and instantly his eyes flutter open fully, though one seems to be nearly swollen shut.
Sable: “Brother, what happened?”
DM: “We tracked them down here. Didn’t expect to see so many of them. Jack and Ragnar chased the others down. You have to help them!”
Erik: “We have to move quickly. What direction?”
DM: He points out the only exit to this room.

On they head! The DM rolls out the battle mat as they shove the cat aside, with some effort. Sable drags her injured brother-in-law into the fight and then drops him roughly, apparently. The battlefield is a series of platforms, separated by deep trenches with water in them. A long search for minis occurs. Also, mini placement.

DM: Can you put him between those two guys? That one… not quite on the corner? No, the corner. Other corner. Other corner. Other corner.

The cat displaces C out of his chair. Initiative occurs and everyone rolls stupid-high. They face wererats and humans! Ellerian enlarges Morzan. The group at last discusses their long-running house rule that enlarging only increases range by five feet, not double. C calls out one of their foes, drawing his attention and forcing him into a duel!

DM: He turns to you and says, “What?”
C: You guys are idiots.
DM: And he turns and he’s obviously going to come face you. But he can’t go yet.

People move up without much action. Nobix fires, very sadly, from three range increments away, but hits! Bex laboriously rolls to shoot, and manages after some time and effort to do a whopping single point of damage. Someone burrows through Sable’s torso? This combat is, for whatever reason, IMPOSSIBLY slow -- at low level against opponents with good DR, damage is miniscule and the terrain makes it hard for more than one person to engage an opponent. That being said, Ellerian shoots and kills a human!

Erik: “Anda wishes to inform you that you stole his kill.”
Ellerian: “No. I gave Anda the opportunity to kill more.”
Sable: Slick-talking elves…
Ellerian: It’s not my fault I have a Charisma score, SABLE. Sable the Ugly.
DM: Sable’s got a pretty decent Charisma. She rolled pretty good for Sable’s stats.
Sable: I did! And her Charisma, which is…um… pretty ordinary, I think,

C deploys his scouter, declaring himself a ripoff of an anime character, and promptly lands a hit. Sable bashes with her hammer, then Morzan somehow fails to confirm a crit, alarming all concerned. Cissy is mocked for some reason. It gets weird.

DM: Why would you slurp a buttery biscuit base?

Erik launches a silver arrow into a wererat. C judges Ellerian for his class mechanics.

C: I used poison ONE time, and I don’t hear the end of it, meanwhile Shang Tsung over here is just like, ‘it’s fine!’ (slurp) ‘What’s wrong?’ (slurp)

An NPC breaks his bow. They discover a cat doesn’t like the Wilhlem Scream? Ragnar takes heavy abuse from the NPCs, then crits! An NPC dog gets dismisses as a beagle before Ellerian discovers that the Dire Corgi is a thing, grinding the battle to a halt.

C: I actually DON’T want to directly provoke the wererat…

The group encourages Sable to kill Ellerian, then Nobix. Sable abruptly realizes which mini represents her, to her ongoing shock. The DM discovers Sable’s AC is 28, and is infuriated.

DM: Yeah, he’s nowhere near hitting you. On a 19.

Ellerian discovers that using Acrobatics to dodge AOOs now goes against CMD, having gone to look as Sable blows a tumble. CAT ON THE BATTLEMAP! CAT ON THE BATTLEMAP! Bex tries to figure out how to do anything -- unsuccesfully. Nobix does much the same, and swaps for less murderous ammo.

Ellerian: That’s not a hit!
Erik: THAT’S a wasted silver arrow!

Anda, however, has much more success in his attacks, but far less damage because wererat DR negates everything.

Ellerian: After this battle, I want you to send Anda to walk on the beach and then attack me so I will get magic items.
Bex: The fuck?
Ellerian: Sandy Claws brings presents.
Erik: (pained sigh) Man.
Bex: That went over my head, but I’m okay with this.
DM: Thank Christ it did, holy shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhit I want to throttle you.
Ellerian: (maniacal cackling)

They spend a while trying to explain it to Bex so he can suffer too. He refuses. Sable fails Fortitude saving throws.

Erik: Oh, shit, she’s stricken with SOMETHING.
DM: Okay, thank you!

Ragnar continues to get whomped on, but Jack takes nothing. A lot of not really much interesting happens – small exchanges of damage, and Sable drops someone to -10 so Ellerian can’t gain power from him, and everything laughs at him. Nobix fires into the fray.

C: Don’t shoot me.
Nobix: And I’m not using my paper, I’m using normal.
Erik: You have silver rounds?
Nobix: Yeah, but that’s not loaded.
Erik: Next time.
Nobix: Well, I have to sacrifice a round shooting to load a silver round, which is unfortunate.
Ellerian: That’s weird, the silver bullet shouldn’t slow you down.
C: (a sigh as if he is dying)
Nobix: It takes a move action to load a gun.
Erik: …meanwhile, don’t listen to him. Just get your shot off and then next round you can load up a different round.
DM: Was that a Coors reference?
Ellerian: Yes.

The battle continues to churn along. The narrow paths are keeping everyone from engaging except one at a time and blocking all spells with any AOE. Ellerian fills the air with jokes of increasingly questionable quality (compared to his usual, not any absolute standard).

Morzan: Okay…. 22 points of damage.
Erik: Sweet Jesus!
DM: Excellent crit, as you cleave the wererat in twain!
Erik: (weird cat noise)
DM: It’s not a cat.
Erik: That’s the sound of a squish.
DM: Okay. If you say so.
Nobix: I will load my silver bullet and blast the rat.
Erik: It’s dead…

Not for the first time, the group reminds someone that the DC to jump 30 feet without a running start is 60. Two enemies run off the map from a position so far away the PCs have no hope in hell of catching them, leaving just two dudes wailing on Ragnar.DM: Ragnar might go down!
C: Noooo!
DM: Wow, I rolled a 3 and a 6. They ain’t hitting nothing. Ragnar came prepared – wow, Ragnar’s rolling pretty well…

Sable’s laptop battery has died, so she switches to her phone – leaving her a tiny afterthought on the telepresence screen next to the massive looming of Nobix. Giving up on the melee, Sable runs off the map after the escaping guys

Erik: What’s the difference between 11 and 10? …against this wererat.

The DM takes immense pleasure in watching them expend WBL in the form of silver weapons. Abruptly, Sable’s laptop reconnects.

C: Oh! They’re back!
DM: Oh my goooood! We got Double Sabled!

With the last foe finally dead, they end the game immediately, because boooooooooooy did it run late.