This week is a long one. We get all sorts of things, but it’s mainly a continuation of the main story, with one big exception. Still, the group experienced some Edge-Lord poetry, dealt with some poison traps straight out of Home Alone, a pimp robe is involved, and hell, even Big Bird may or may not have been involved. But the end scene, that is where it gets interesting. Griff IV appears to be in a game of life or death. It was like watching a SAW film, well there was no torture, but I like Saw and that is my analogy damnit! Thanks to Eric for writing this up. Send the man some love. Okay, not necessarily man love, unless you’re into that, but rather nice kind words or Slim Jims. Anyway, here’s a Home Alone compilation. You’re welcome.
____________________________________________
Tomb of Annihilation
Chapter 18 – House Hunting
After camping for the evening, the party awoke to find that Rix had died during the night. Hertz, using his skills in medicine and consulting Talos, determined that the cause of death was Mega Syphilis. Not wanting to leave Rix’s tainted corpse out in the street, Padre and Tempest planned to take the body to the jungle and burn it.
With nothing to do until they returned, Hertz, Compassion, and Xilix decided to ransack some of the local homes for loot. Upon finding some nice loot in the average homes, the group decided to ransack what looked to be a noble’s home. While the home appeared to have already been ransacked, Xilix was able to locate a secret basement outside the home. Sending Gryff IV in to investigate, Xilix learned that the basement contained a solitary Vegipygmy (mold-man) sitting in the dark in a purple mist hugging a silver statue and acting crazy. Using his knowledge of drugs, Xilix assumed the purple haze was causing the mold-man’s strange behavior.
Wanting the loot in the Vegipygmy’s possession, Hertz cast Gust of Wind into the basement to clear out the gas. Unfortunately, Hertz was a bit too hung over from drinking at the campfire the night before and the wind went in the completely wrong direction. Compassion, not wanting to see the poor mold-man suffer, covered his mouth and ran into the basement. Resisting the intoxicating effects, Compassion was able to grab the mold man and escape from the dungeon.
Using the Helm of Telepathy the party had won from the King of Feathers, Compassion learned from the Vegipygmy’s thoughts that it had no idea what the purple mist was doing to it. Compassion also learned that, even being outside the crazy mist, the Vegipygmy still believed that the silver statue was its best friend/lover. Engrossed by the cuteness of the situation, the three resolved not to rob and/or murder the mold man to obtain the silver statue and sent him and his best friend on their way.
Bored of looting houses, the three decided to scout out the general area. Heading north, they came upon a cave with various statues and obelisks outside. Considering the creepiness of everything, the cave might have well had a sign hanging over it saying that it was “The Evil Cave of Extra Bad Evil.”
Despite the obvious warnings, the three decided to go inside to investigate. Luckily, there were no monsters waiting to eat them. Instead, on the walls was inscribed a bunch of Edge-Lord poetry and dark riddles. There were also 8 square niches in the walls, which were obviously intended to hold eight puzzle cubes. Realizing they were still a number of puzzle cubes away from entering deeper into the tunnels, the three left.
With Padre and Tempest still missing, the three decided to head to the nearby abandoned market. While ransacking the remaining stands, they failed to find anything of real value. What they did find, however, was lots of pots filled with poisonous substances that were triggered to fall on their heads when they went into the stalls. Hertz and Compassion both avoided these traps, while Xilix wound up inhaling toxic fumes from a pot full of green slime. Luckily, Xilix’s years of drug use allowed him to easily shake off the effects of the fumes.
As they were searching, and finding nothing, Compassion saw a Kobold attempt to sneak into a nearby tent. Following after the Kobold, the three found the tent empty. Searching the room, Xilix was able to find a trap door into a hidden basement. There, they met the King of Kobold’s who was sitting upon a pile of treasure looted from the market.
Wanting the treasure for themselves, the three attempted negotiations with the King of Kobolds. These negotiations quickly broke down when the Kobolds realized that Xilix was wearing feathers that obviously came from the King of Feathers. Having been a big fan and patron of the King of Feathers, the King of Kobolds ordered the group’s death. Hertz proceeded to blow most of the Kobolds up, as Compassion used his lance to pin the King of Kobolds against the wall.
After aggressive negotiations, the three decided to take all gold and art objects from the pile, while leaving any copper and silver for the Kobolds who had done all the work to acquire the treasure. As the treasure pile contained multiple jewels, Xilix used his magic to create a pimp-robe made of garnets.
Wanting to show off his bitching new pimp-robe to the gentry, Xilix insisted the three of them head to the nearest temple, despite missing their other compatriots. They quickly found what appeared to be a temple dedicated to Big Bird, later identified as the god Poposital. Upon entering, the temple was empty, however, dust tracks and various other markings made it clear that someone had been in the temple recently.
Even though it was clear that the temple had already been looted and the puzzle cube was likely in somebody else’s possession, Xilix and Compassion insisted on solving the temple’s various puzzles and word cyphers. Hertz, having no interest in mind games or doing non-profitable things, took a nap. About an hour later the two had solved all the puzzles, only to learn that the puzzle cube had been removed from the pedestal that raised from the ground. Xilix insisted that the true reward was strengthening the brain muscle through the intense brain trials posed by the temple. Hertz told Xilix that if he wanted to think, he would just ask Talos what to do.
Upon leaving the temple, the three decided to head back to the camp. Unfortunately, on the way back they took a wrong turn and wound up in the back ally of Grung Town. They were quickly set upon by a gang of frog-men who wanted their valuables. Hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned, Hertz, Xilix, and Compassion ran for their lives.
Meanwhile, Padre and Tempest were finally returning to Omu after disposing of Rix’s STI-infused corpse. As they were walking through the streets, they were beset upon by yet another red wizard and his guard flunkeys.
The red wizard began giving a menacing speech about how they should give up their puzzle cubes or die. Tempest responded, “Let me offer a counter punch-posal” and proceed to sucker punch the red wizard in the face. Enraged, the red wizard attempted to stand and cast Fireball, only to immediately be trampled into the ground by the still fleeing Hertz, Xilix, and Compassion. With the red wizard incapacitated, Padre proceeded to “redeem” the hired goons who were acting as bodyguards.
Fearing death, the red wizard cast Fly and attempted to soar away. Xilix and Hertz then proceeded to hit the wizard with “all the magic.” The intense magical power caused the red wizard to explode like a piñata and drop the puzzle cube he had been carrying.
Feeling pretty good about themselves, the reunited party continued exploring the city. Eventually ,they reached a span of rushing water. A 100 foot long, 20-foot wide log lay across the span. Identifying this as an obvious trap, and knowing that there were safer ways to enter that part of city, the party turned around, only for Tempest to immediately be shot in the chest with a poisoned crossbow bolt, leaving her unconscious and bleeding on the ground.
Knowing that Tempest was close to death, Hertz knelt beside her body and began healing her with his magic . . . until he was also struck with a poison crossbow bolt. Luckily, Hertz was able to resist most of the poison, and was able to cast a healing bubble of protection spell to protect Tempest and himself from any further assaults.
As Tempest and Hertz were doing their best to not die, Compassion, Padre, and Xilix mounted Ducky and proceed to charge at the ruined home from which it appeared that the crossbow bolts originated. As they approached, they could see a Tabaxi (cat-man) in the home who appeared ready to flee.
After a brief discussion, the three decided that this Tabaxi was too dangerous to live, and there would be no capture and interrogation at this time. Upon reaching the home, Padre, Compassion, and Ducky each guarded a possible escape route from the home. Seeing that it was fight or die time, the Tabaxi loaded another crossbow bolt . . . only to have Xilix use his magic to drop the roof of the home on his head, crushing him to death.
After searching through the rubble and finding the Tabaxi’s things, it didn’t appear that he was an assassin hired to kill the party. Rather, it seemed that he was just a crazed hunter that was hunting the most dangerous game. Finding that to be lame, the party decided that the Tabaxi was, in fact, Hooded Lantern’s illegitimate son, who had sworn vengeance against the party for allowing Hooded Lantern to be eaten by the King of Feathers.
To finish off the day the party hit up two more temples. The first, the snail god temple of Unk, had a relatively easy puzzle. Basically, the party had to combine six temple keys into one big key, and then find the matching smaller key in a pile of hundreds of keys that had teeth marks matching the super-sized key. Of course, before being able to obtain the temple keys, the party had to fight a bunch of undead jerks, because Omu’s gods are dicks.
Finally, the party entered the temple of Obalaka, god of snarling bears. There, they found a puzzle involving darkness, torches that needed to be moved between various torch holes, and two teleporting pools of water. They knew the price for failing this puzzle was steep, however, as the puzzle cube room contained a red wizard that had been petrified when he attempted to pick up the puzzle cube without correctly solving the puzzle.
After narrowing down all the possible solutions to two options, the party realized that if they chose the wrong one then one of them would be turned into stone. It was then that Hertz, master strategist that he is, came up with plan, “have Gryff IV do it.” Xilix was totally not into this idea, having already lost Gryffs I through III, but he eventually gave in to peer pressure, reassured by the fact that there was a 50 percent chance Gryff IV would come through unscathed.
Upon the party placing the torches in what they believed to be their proper positions, the brave little Gryff IV puffed up his chest and flew straight for puzzle cube, not wanting to die, but also wanting to show Xilix what a brave little familiar he could be. Gryff IV struck the puzzle cube with all his might, trying to push the cube from the pedestal on which it rested.
Alas, rather than removing the cube from its perch, Gryff IV began turning to stone from the feet up. Turning to Xilix, Gryff IV gave a tearful goodbye, as he completely turned to stone, fell to the floor, and shattered into hundreds of tiny stone pieces. As Xilix left to mourn, the rest of the party completed the puzzle the correct way, and they claimed their newest puzzle cube.
Exiting the temple, an emotionally distraught Xilix introduced the party to its newest member, Gryff V.
How much more tragedy awaits the party? How long will this Gryff last? Death and destruction await you next week on Tales from the Plunderbund Consortium!
____________________________________________
Here’s a compilation of all the Saw endings. I love Saw. Don’t dismiss this brilliant franchise, and do not ever use the term “torture porn” around me unless you want your face punched.
While there is a video about Big Bird attacking an autistic child/puppet, I didn’t find it funny at all. It seemed like some nonsense that millennials would find funny. This at least had some charm to it.
____________________________________________
You can find us at the actual 9 Deuce website where we have the archives as well as other content such as horror movie reviews, wrestling blogs, podcasts, and some other material. We’re on Facebook, on Twitter @official9deuce, or Tumblr @ superkent92 or Instagram at Official9Deuce . Share this, like this, write us an email with a question or a comment at kent@9deuce.com. Hell, you can subscribe via RSS. Facebook and the website are probably the best bets. Thank you. Also, I don’t own the rights to any of these music videos, obviously. You know who the owners are and they deserve all the credit.