This week, I don’t feel like giving away too much. I will say that we learn a valuable lesson. That lesson is that zebras are friends and that lions are dicks. Don’t act like you was expecting something more profound. There’s also an evil monkey statue and a puff ball. There’s a lot going on this week as the quest to collect cubes continues!!! As is tradition, I want to thank Eric for writing this up. I’d also like to thank YouTube because I just wasted an hour watching videos instead of posting this blog. Fear not, I will share with you the videos that mattered most to me soon. But first, let’s have a video about a zebra and a video about a lion to kick things off. Seriously, the zebra video needs to be watched all of the way through for all of it’s genius.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfHAiIq-Yeo
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Tomb of Annihilation
Chapter 17 – More Like Monkeys, Less Like You
As the quest for puzzle boxes continued, the party found a disc-shaped rock surrounded by dying foliage. When they lifted the rock, the foliage began to return to life, only to immediately die again after a small, black, puff-ball like creature sprung forth from the ground. Upon looking at the party, the small creature ran away.
Having had such great luck chasing a small, magical creature in the previous session, the party began chasing after the black puff-ball. Once they had it cornered, Padre attempted to communicate with it to determine whether the creature needed to be purged of sin. To their surprise, the creature spoke broken/squeaky common. It turned out that the puff-ball lived in the rock, and that the party had stolen its home. The party attempted to negotiate intel in exchange for the return of the rock, but it turned out the creature had no information of use. Not wanting to be jerks, the party returned the rock-home to where they found it.
Underwhelmed by their meeting with the puff-ball, the party continued on, eventually finding the temple of the monkey king. Thinking they should provide an offering to the god, the party split up to search for bananas. Despite being in a jungle ruin, between them they were only able to find one banana peel. Not believing that to be a good gift, the party entered the temple empty-handed. As they had the peel anyway, on the way in Padre rubbed the peel into his skin, in the hopes the scent would improve the disposition of any evil monkeys.
Speaking of which, upon entering the temple the party immediately came face-to-face with a giant evil monkey statue. After inspecting the walls of the temple, the party learned that they had to solve a puzzle to determine which giant, evil monkey appendage should receive a gift of water. The puzzle required the party to determine who was the monkey’s friend. After putting their heads together for a good two hours the party was able to unravel the clues and determine that the zebra was the monkey’s friend. They also learned that the lion is a dick.
As the zebra was represented by the monkey statute’s right foot, Compassion took some of the party’s magical canoe water and poured it over the foot. Compassion then heard in his head a voice that can best be described as, “the type of voice an evil monkey would have.” The evil monkey voice thanked Compassion for the water, but told him that if he wanted the puzzle cube he would either have to curse a member of the party or fight his minions. While many of the party members are jerks, Compassion decided they are not they kinds of jerks who should be cursed by an evil monkey god, and he chose combat.
Compassion told the party to suit up as they were about to be assaulted by an unknown number of evil monkey minions. Descending from the ceiling, four monkeys made up of mostly darkness and tentacles assaulted the party. At the end of the day, however, a monkey that is both evil and has tentacles is still a monkey, and the party handily wiped the floor with them. Disgruntled, the evil monkey god statue offered up the puzzle cube.
With yet another puzzle cube in hand, the party continued north to the amphitheater. This was where Hooded Lantern informed the party that they would find the King of Feathers. Still unclear as to what the King of Feathers was, they soon discovered that it was some type of magical ninja tyrannosaurus with bird feathers glued on it.
As the King was asleep in its new home, the party debated whether it was wise to mess with a magical ninja dinosaur. To speed along the decision, Hooded Lantern nocked an arrow and shot the King of Feathers in the eye. Roaring in pain and enraged, the King sprang up, ran over to Hooded Lantern and bit him in half.
Engaging in Team Tactics Formation B-3, Padre and Compassion, as the heavily armored front-line fighters, positioned themselves in the entrance to the amphitheater to prevent the King from reaching the back line spell casters . . . and Tempest. Safely behind their meat shields, Hertz and Xilix began raining bolts of lighting down on the King.
After finding his teeth were not sharp enough to penetrate the two front-liner’s plate mail, the King, using his magical dino-powers, began to turn to mist. It was his plan to cast Misty Step, teleport to the back line, and eat them. Seeing what was about to happen with her Monk Vision, Tempest used the martial art technique Hugging the Mist is Not Just a Metaphor, and grappled the King while he was still in mist form. With the teleport not yet complete, Xilix cast Counterspell, sending the King back to his original position.
Even more enraged, and confused, the King began to gather the magical energies to once again cast Misty Step. As the King concentrated on his spell, Compassion and Padre nodded to one another, as it was time to unleash the secret technique they had been perfecting over the past month, the Compadre Cross Slash!
Padre, with his great sword, jumped on Ducky’s tail and was launched by Ducky high into the air, 20 feet above the King of Feather’s head. Compassion, wielding Bob the Battleaxe, jumped up from Ducky’s head while positioned under the King’s neck. As Compassion ascended, and Padre descended, the two met at the King’s neck, where they proceeded to cut the magical ninja tyrannosaurus’ head off from both directions.
As the King’s head fell to the ground, Compassion and Padre landed and proceeded to perform the pose they had worked on to follow up their team attack. Unfortunately, as they hit the ground one of Compassion’s horns got caught on Padre’s belt and they proceeded to tumble to the ground.
With four puzzle cubes in hand, what awaits the party on their quest to complete the set? What new attack will Team Compadre innovate in the future? Will the party be haunted by the ghost of Hooded Lantern? You know what you have to do to find out these answers and more!
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None of these videos are relevant to the blog, but they all Kentertained me. So we have 2 Al Bundy compilations and the greatest player in Price is Right history. There, that should get the hits!!
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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.