We begin our adventure in the town of Red Larch, in the country of Waterdeep.
Our heroes are found, where else, in a tavern. This tavern goes by the name of the Swinging Sword (ladies’ nights on Tuesdays, and you’ll see where it got its name when their famous dancer, “Captain Helicopter”, shows up for the entertainment).
The story begins as the bard known as Lucas begins to start an awesome lute solo, but plucks the wrong string (he really needs to learn to stop huffing moon dust before a performance). This sounds the warning signs of a coming cataclysm: earthquakes.
Most of the people ran to their homes to put their furniture back upright and rehang their dreamcatchers, but our heroes are the idiots of any typical horror story and actually seek to find the source of it rather than running the hell away.
They awkardly introduced themselves in an attempt to make sense of the confusion.
The heroes are as follows:
- Phantar, a dastardly wood elf rogue ready to slit the gullet of everyone until the earthquakes stop.
- Faetra, a dainty forest gnome with druidic powers, rather curious as to what’s going on.
- Kinkladze, a mountain dwarf monk with a completely unpronounceable name. We all just call him Kink.
- Titus, a huffy human sorceror and closet pyromaniac.
- Lucas, an easily amused human bard who’s along for the ride strictly for the entertainment.
After getting some information from Kaylessa (whose name bears a very uncanny resemblance to a well-known queen of dragons), they learn these earthquakes are rather recent, and the rumors say that an evil sorceror might be causing it. That’s right, just blame some arbitrary “evil” sorceror. It’s not like they have feelings. Classists…
Kaylessa tells the group to talk to the children of the town. Titus assumed he could find them at the creek playing games such as “floating turd race”, which for all we know had a niche following under whatever rock he crawled out from. But, if anyone would know, it’s the children, because apparently the adults are all morons.
Unfortunately, it’s late at night, and all but the tavern have closed shop for the night. Also, as we all know, monsters show up at night, so children are rather scarce as well.
They did, in fact, find one child, scurrying about in the dark trying to hide.
Titus, the all-knowing genius at getting children to talk, decides to lay down the finesse on getting information out of this child, but wound up getting conned out of 2 silver coins. What that kid will spend it on, the gods only know… But in the end, even money apparently doesn’t talk.
Lucas faired slightly better by bringing up the child’s dead father. This elicited a most dwarvish quality from Kink: impatience with bullshit. Kink threatened bodily harm, and that seemed to change this kid’s tune pretty quick. He coughed up some details about a cave down the road near Lance Rock that might house the sorceror.
That’s our heroes, folks… all courtesy and tact.
Now that our heroes had their itinerary figured out precisely (“Yeah, 11 miles down the road… somewhere… kinda… yeah, around there”) ahem, precisely, they pondered whether to travel at night, or wait until day. Most decided travelling at night was better, since they’d be harder to spot. It was a rather uneventful 11-mile hike, save for the wonderful slingshot y-shaped stick Lucas found to keep himself amused. Lucas furiously played with his stick until they happened upon what appeared to be a figure in the distance…
The figure was getting closer and closer at great speed. Who was this figure? And did they want to play with Lucas’s stick?
The figure finally was discernable… was it a party bus? Was it that horrible scary wolf thing from the Neverending Story? Nope, it was a big dumb berserker brute with a club the size of a tree. Lucas immediately had stick envy.
Lucas initially tried to reason with him, but this guy wasn’t in a talking mood. How rude. Lucas gave the guy an effortless insult, and it was enough to make him feel self-conscious. Enough to the point where he completely missed Faetra. Super pissed off, he walloped Kink to the ground, and swung again at Faetra, cripplingly wounding her.
Seriously, what an asshole! Try to talk to the guy, and he starts beating people with a giant log. The audacity of some people. This pissed Lucas off so much that he decided to taco this guy’s head with his longsword. The battle had been won, with wounds suffered, but nothing more satisfying than leaving your sword stuck in a guy’s head as he lay there on the ground.
So what did this guy have on him? Anything good? These are normal questions by any normal group of adventurers… but our group was more like “well that was fun, time for a nap!” They just left the guy laying there dead with a sword sticking out of his head (albeit Lucas has no memory of actually letting go of the sword when stabbing the guy… but somehow the story was forced onto him that apparently he did).
Faetra and Kink were pretty well messed up, and needed a good rest. Titus and Phantar took turns for guard duty. You’d think that a 4 hour sleep would go on rather uneventfully, but unfortunately, nothing ever goes as planned. Lucas was suddenly roused from his sleep to find Titus and Phantar beating 2 zombies to a pulp. Titus was unleashing fire and brimstone like no tomorrow, and Phantar was slashing ‘em up like a mad man. Lucas decided to let Kink and Faetra rest, but somehow was able to scream out some blood-pumping lyrics to Titus to increase his burning potential without waking them.
So, after some industrial metal inspiration, the 2 zombies shambling around got their just deserves, and the party was able to go back to sleep. Lucas would’ve gladly joined into the fight, but, damnedest thing, he couldn’t seem to locate his sword. Oh that’s right, he left his sword in somebody a couple hours ago. Where was that guy again? Right. Just laying on the ground about 15 feet away. This dude had been killed most heinously, and they just left him to rot, sword still in the guy’s head and everything. All courtesy and tact, folks.
So now that no more zombies were about, Lucas took the time to go retrieve his sword.
Phantar was left to guard the group for the rest of the night. Then suddenly, another figure appeared, charging at the party. No wait… two! They’re coming right for ‘em! It’s two more brutes just like the one they fought earlier. Oh no… not another fight, and with two of them? We’re screwed! It looks like the end for our heroes, folks! The brutes got closer and closer… and then…. Disappeared. It was a mirage.
…
Phantar, ya need to lay off the sauce, mate!
So… after… that, the heroes awaken and continue into Lance Rock. They discover a cave, and enter cautiously. They’re greeted by a room full of blood, gore, guts, and entrails everywhere. Lance Rock is apparently a gateway to Silent Hill. Our heroes were immediately on edge. There wasn’t much in the room to interact with, but it did lead into a narrow hallway.
Phantar decided to get sneaky, and enter the hallway to see if anything threatening was there. He snuck slowly…
Slowly…
Carefully, and slowly…
Slow enough to make the plot impatient, because another earthquake rumbled, this time sending rocks down on top of the heroes. Phantar took a rock to the back, but reasoned that the hallway was clear of traps, and the next room had no one waiting.
Must be totally safe then, right? Right?!
The moment he walked through the entryway, 2 zombies pushed over a box of rocks. Phantar narrowly avoided them by jumping forward, but now the fight was one with these sneaky intelligent zombies that apparently are smart enough to set up ambushes. How we went from shambling, mindless, slow, and dumb zombie to wily ambush rock-dumpers, I’ll never know. Something’s really off with the zombies around here. And if you thought that was strange, wait til the heroes get to the next room.
The heroes quickly dispatched these 2 zombies, and were met with a crossroad. There were 2 passages they could traverse: one that had no blood and gore, and another that did.
Hmmmmmmm… Which would the heroes take…
This would take some logic. Here’s the heroes’ “logic” for this genius decision: “Well, the blood and gore seems to be a trail leading somewhere… Like a yellow-brick road, only it’s red and full of random bits of fleshy goo. That’s bound to lead to the heart of the issue!” Right… Let’s continue following the trail of death. What could possibly go wrong?!
The next room displayed probably the most all-time weirdest thing ever. It was a room with a puppetmaster, controlling 3 zombies, making them dance. The zombies were wearing a bear suit, a princess dress, and a jester outfit. There’s a sentence I didn’t think I’d ever say.
Well, we know zombies are bad, so Phantar snuck into the room and attempted to go to town on the zombie in the bear suit. The puppetmaster laughed maniacally and ran away down the corridor at the end of the room. We’ll get you yet, you giggling little prick.
Titus put the other 2 zombies to sleep. Lucas took one look at the two zombies and thought “Dear diary: Jackpot! Giggidy!” That’s right, you all know what Lucas was thinking… Isn’t it obvious? Lucas has a bit of a problem… every time he sees sleeping zombies, he gets this urge to cover them in oil, and do things to them…
Lucas had the two sleeping zombies covered in lamp oil, and he got himself ready, but Titus unleashed one final fireball that set all 3 on fire. Lucas watched, dazed… his only chance… gone… Now they were all ablaze. Titus… what a cockblocker.
The heroes got their bearings and continued into the final chamber of this adventure. It was a rather large room, with many tables covered in human body parts, and one table with lots of tools on it. Tools such as bone saws, and drills… There were 5 zombies in this room… 4 of them were mulling about in a group at the far end of the room, and the other was dressed in a robe, poking at a pile of limbs with a bone needle. There was also the little zombie leader from the last room awaiting.
Phantar decided to attempt sneakery again… except this time he decided to try sneaking by making as much noise as possible.
It might work, you never know! These zombies are rotting, so who’s to say that their ears still work? They might’ve rotted away, you don’t know!
Oh right… that Lance Rock prick can hear… Drat. And y’know, that incorrigible little snot sounds a lot like that little kid that conned Titus out of a few coins earlier on… But maybe that’s just due to the lack of voice acting talent in this adventure.
The leader alerted all the zombies to the presence of the heroes, and immediately ran for the exit on the far side of the room. 5 zombies, 5 adventurers. Oh this was going to be good.
Titus focused his efforts on the robed zombie. It seems every zombie’s got a weird costume, and this shit had to stop. Titus blasted him with a well-aimed fireball, burning it off completely. There! Now the zombie is naked! Because that’s what we all wanted to see! Thankfully, the fetid nekkid zombie was cremated before he could unleash any attack with his rotting nards.
Lucas immediately ran for the group of zombies at the far side of the room. A few of them hit him, but he was ready. He blasted all 4 of them with a thunder wave.
Faetra saw this particular tactic, and decided to get in on the action as well with a thunder wave of her own. These zombies were hurting pretty badly. Don’t underestimate the power of the thunder twins! “Thunder twin powers, activate!”
Moving on, before the humor gets any drier, Faetra is a good luck gnome. I know this because of how the zombies act around her. She slashed at one zombie, but missed. The zombie was so off-put by this that he tripped and actually fell on her dagger! Then another zombie just spontaneously melted… bones and all. Faetra is a god! Or she’s just god damned lucky.
Lucas had taken a bit of a beating, and slinked away from the fight, hurling insults instead. Unfortunately, he tried to insult the only zombie in the world that was sentient enough to actually talk, and did a poor job of it. Seriously, how would one insult a zombie? I mean zombie is pretty much as low as you can go… The bar cannot possibly get any lower. Everything else is insulted by an insinuation that they are a zombie… But trying to make a zombie feel insulted? It’s damn near impossible! Almost nothing you can say would make them feel insulted! And even if you could insult them, they’re too brainless to even understand you!
So naturally, Lucas fumbled on a good zinger, and to add insult to injury, the zombie had a far better comeback. Lucas was at a loss for words, and instead reached into his backpack for burn cream. Lucas didn’t have a retort to the zombie’s zinger until after the zombie was killed, further adding to the awkwardness…
Poor Lucas…
As if this fight couldn’t get any funnier, Kink fell victim to a rather strange phenomenon. He felt a hand on his shoulder. Well, it’s good to know someone cares. Wait… whose hand is that? He turned around to find no one, but the hand was still on his shoulder!
Kink immediately threw this hand away, but I cannot figure out why. Try and imagine all the wonderful uses a sentient living hand could have. Foot rubs, shoulder rubs, take out hot things from the oven, epic “talk to the hand” insult, (various dirty things…), and Kink’s just throwing it away!
I guess he already has a collection of his own.
With the hand gone, and the zombies destroyed, the heroes had to take a rest.
This adventure has been dirty as hell. Let’s reflect on this adventure, ok? Lucas has been playing with a stick, and is pouring oil all over sleeping zombies. The Lance Rock puppetmaster is engaging in some odd fetish with zombie roleplaying in oddly-assorted costumes. Titus is burning the clothes off of zombies, resulting in zombies prancing about like ninnies waiting for their privates to go blue. And Kink’s got Bruce Ash Campbell’s hand in his trousers.
Oh boy, I can’t wait to see what the hell happens next!
Stay tuned for the next adventure of: The Princes of the Apocalypse!