This week, Padre continues to put his official stamp on the group while taking Probie under his wing. From there, we meet a creepy old woman, a mercenary named Stumpie, and some walking mushroom men. If this sounds like a big bad dream, rest assured, we have those this week as well. My name is Kent, I am your host, and Eric is your writer. Every week, I provide you with a video or two to compliment the literature. This week’s video choices have zero, I repeat, ZERO self serving purposes. It is a hit reality show called Puppet Enough from some amazing TV show called The Malarkey Show. This video looks like it was poorly transferred to VHS before getting uploaded, but you should enjoy the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQPPGYFu5kI&t=2s
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Tomb of Annihilation
Chapter 11 – Probie is on the Case
As the party walked away from the flying stone heart, they heard a rustle in the nearby bushes. Readying themselves for danger, they were surprised to find a young half-elven male emerging from the shrubbery. The young man, who appeared to be skilled in the thieving arts, explained that he had awoken in these bushes three days earlier, unsure of how he had gotten there. Afraid to step foot in the jungle alone, he spent the days watching for travelers why sustaining himself on the supplies he found within his pack. Seeing that the party was well armed and appeared to be comfortable in the jungle, he asked to join them.
Needing a skilled lock-picker in the party the group agreed to the proposal and Compassion asked the young man his name. However, before he could answer Padre spoke up and said, “As the former newest member of the party, who underwent days . . . er . . . MONTHS of hellish torture as a newbie, I will be taking over your onboarding into the group. Further, until I have decided that your probationary period has completed, you will be known only as Probie.” Not having any other choice, Probie agreed, at which point Padre handed Probie his great-sword and told Probie to polish it as they marched through the Jungle.
As the party headed in the direction of what they hoped would be Omu, they found the next few days of travel to be relatively uneventful. On the evening of their third day since leaving the stone heart, a frail old woman seemed to manifest out of nowhere and entered the party’s camp. Before the other party members could react, Padre handed Probie a clipboard and said, “Come Probie, we must run through the “Is this person a heretic questionnaire?’ to determine whether or not she needs to be smited.”
Upon approaching the old woman, Padre demanded that she, “state her name, age, occupation, marital status, and relevant homeland identification code.” The woman responded, “oh dearie me, let me think for a second and . . . YOINK!!!” Upon yelling “yoink” the old woman pulled a hair from Padre’s head and then disappeared into a puff of smoke. Any attempt by the party to discern her location or direction to which she fled failed completely. With no way to track the old woman, the party decided to hope for the best and continue along their set path in the morning.
That night, as Padre drifted off to sleep, he began to have a wonderful dream about his homeland of Purity City, where the streets are paved in white gold and stained in red by the blood of slain heretics. Much to his horror, in the middle of his dream a stunningly beautiful, nearly naked woman appeared offering Padre all manner of unearthly carnal delights. Being as dedicated to chastity as he was to smiting, Padre spent the majority of the dream running from the maiden while recoiling in horror. In the real world, Probie happily watched as Padre tossed and turned, appearing to have a truly terrible night’s sleep. Upon waking up the next morning, Padre felt as if some of his life essence had been drained.
The next day Probie, who was scouting ahead, saw a man dressed in red laying against a tree. Upon sneaking closer Probie saw that the man’s legs had been bitten off. Likely, the poor soul had been attacked by a dino and then clawed his way to the tree and died. At first the rest of the party felt bad for old stumpy until they saw that he was dressed like one of the Flaming Fist mercenaries, at which point they used the body to put on a puppet show while Probie looked for evidence as to whether the dino was still in the area.
As the rest of the party completed their play, Weekend at Stumpy’s, Probie returned to inform them that he found T-Rex tracks leading into the jungle in the general direction they were headed. While not particularly excited to fight a T-Rex that was not also zombified, they reasoned that they ought to try to set traps and ambush it before it came to eat them.
After tracking for a bit, they found themselves near the T-Rex’s lair. Forgetting just how big a dinosaur is, the party spent the next four hours creating a trip wire and digging a punji stick pit. Upon having Ducky make a “walking McNugget” roar to get the T-Rex’s attention, the T-Rex charged and . . . completely stepped over the party’s intricately laid traps. Luckily, T-Rex’s are notoriously weak against multiple lighting bolts to the face, and it did not take long for the party to slay the beast. They then took to the task of harvesting two-weeks worth of T-Rex meat.
That night, as they slept soundly with their bellies full of T-rex steaks, it was Hertz who had the strange dream. In it, he was completely tied up and gagged so that he was unable cast any spells. Before him on a pedestal was a burning candle. Being the smart and handsome man that he is, and thinking about what happened to Padre, Hertz closed his dream eyes, began praying to Talos, and actively tried to disbelieve the dream. The dream immediately ended and Hertz woke up mere minutes after he had gone to sleep.
After discussing with the rest of the party what happened, Hertz realized that the candle in the dream looked just like the candle he had left at Valindra’s place when he promised to return to her before the candle burned out. Realizing that Valindra was just trying to have a magical dream date with him, Hertz looked up, apologized, and promised to go right back to sleep to resume their date, however, much to his sadness, Hertz had no further dreams that night.
The next day a sad and mopey Hertz spent the entire morning of travel lamenting to anyone who would listen about how he had “ruined his date with Valindra,” and probably “doomed their relationship.” Eventually, the rest of the party got annoyed and Padre ordered Probie to act as Hertz’s sounding board far behind the ground.
That afternoon the party came upon some ruins. Within the ruins the party found a weathered, demonic-looking statue surrounded by bones. Upon closer inspection the bones varied from animal, to human, to . . . other. Seeing such a sight reignited Hertz’s passion for Valindra, and he pulled Probie and his clipboard aside to begin drafting a love poem.
While drafting the “epic sonnet,” Hertz and Probie failed to notice that the rest of the party had become surrounded by, and were then engaging in combat with, a variety of colorful enemies. Specifically, there were hordes of giant centipedes, a giant yellow mushroom with legs, and several humanoid creatures covered in yellow mushroom dust that were enslaved by the walking-mushroom.
Despite Probie’s insistence that they join the fight, Hertz insisted that Probie continue taking notes while he used the fight as inspiration. When Padre became covered in hundreds of giant centipedes, Hertz had Probie write that, “Valindra’s love was like being encased in a sexy necrotic aura.” When Ducky took a serious blow and fell to the ground bleeding, Hertz added the line that, “the first time I saw you, my heart felt like it was a dinosaur that had been punched in the face by a walking mushroom-man.”
Eventually, some of the enslaved yellow-dust humanoids made their way over to Herz and Probie. Probie immediately hid and watched as the humanoids tried to attack Hertz. However, being that they were unarmed, their attacks bounced harmlessly off Hertz’s thick armor as he continued to write. Probie shot arrows at the thralls from his hiding spot until they were all dead.
As the battle came to a close, a blood and bug covered Compassion came over to Hertz and asked to see, “the masterful love poem that he had just composed.” Thrilled at being appreciated for his talent, Hertz had Probie hand over the draft. Compassion then wiped viscous, black, centipede guts over each and every page until it was completely illegible.
Hertz resumed being sad.
Is the party close to Omu? Will a hag continue to drain Padre’s essence? Can Hertz overcome his melancholy and win back the heart of Valindra? Find out all this and more on the next exciting episode of Tales from the Plunderbund Consortium!
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm8Z060SkfE
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