Saturday, September 12, 2015

Dungeons and Dragons, Part 8



Ok.  So, a week ago last Saturday we played DnD, but I didn’t write it up because I was feeling lazy and stuff.  This account might be shortish, on account of me not remembering stuff.

When we left off, Ulfgar, The Bard, and Dragon Man got teleported by Makana into random parts of the city.  Realizing that their companions were likely inside of Makana’s tower, Ulfgar and Dragon Man quickly figured out their locations and made their way to the tower, arriving at the same time.  There was no sign of The Bard though, on account of Eric deciding not to show up.

Ulfgar and Dragon Man made it to the tower, and found Makana outside it.  Makana quickly teleported them into the tower, and then four of the members of the Golden Party were inside. 

Each of the party members found themselves in a black empty space, devoid of form.  For each of them, a pattern of gears formed of differing hues of light appeared, as well as a rod, which was also made of light.  Each of the party members had to examine the gears and determine which direction to use the rod to turn the last gear that so it would move a bar towards a smiley face instead of an exxed-out dead face.  Each of the members, after careful consideration (or taking a fifty-fifty chance) managed to turn the gear in the correct direction.

Each of the members then appeared in an empty stone room together, and they were happy so find that, minus the Useless Bard, they had all been reunited. 

A portal of magenta colored light opened below them.  After trying to scout it out by lowering Ulfgar into it, it turned out that you really just had to allow yourself to be teleported to another place once within, and the rest of the party just jumped in. 

They found themselves along the bank of a boiling, greasy river, with a ship nearby, surrounded by grey, gloomy hills.  The party got in the boat, and started heading down it, getting more despondent as they went.  An air of subtle unreality hung over the whole place as they went, but that feeling did little to lessen their gloom.  Eventually, they came to an amethyst portal on the river, and passed through it.

They then passed through several portals on the river, taking them through various levels of what felt like hell.  There was a gloomy hell full of giant worms, and Hannah and Dragon Man turned into worms!  But when Nory and Ulfgar killed them, they turned into shades that were returned to their proper forms in the next realm.  There was a realm full of cages packed with damned souls, and gates across the river.  One gate had a lock made of Adamantium, and Hannah shattered her great axe trying to break it open.  Another level was a river of fire, and the party was attacked by a suspiciously ineffectual Pit Fiend (Well, in comparison to normal Pit Fiends, that is). 

Eventually, the party arrived out of the interminable stream of hells along the river (which someone pointed out was likely the River Styx) after passing though an indigo portal.  The river ended here, and the party got out and began traveling over land.  They eventually came to a sleeping giant, and Dragon Man, being Dragon Man, walked up and attacked it.  This initial sneak attack allowed the party to defeat the giant, and after he surrendered he moved aside a boulder revealing another portal, an emerald one.

This portal took the party to some kind of Beast Plane, where they rested for the night after having been pretty beaten up by the previous realms, and ignored any plot hooks that may have been dangled in front of them while they were trying to sleep, such as Polar Bears dying in the night.  Remember, Dungeons Masters, never bother dangling plot hooks when the party has decided to long rest.  Parties who are trying to not die are not going anywhere. 

Next was a gold portal that took them to the Mountainous Plane of Celestia, where, to get out, the party had to praise the god Tyr to an Angel.  Ulfgar came up with a chorus that went something like this:

O Tyr, Tyr, Tyr!
Thinking of you removes my tears!
In light of your justice, I lose all fear!
My heart does warm when you are near!
O Try, Tyr, Tyyyyyyyyyyr!

An orange level here took them to a land of contentment, and the party rested among trees bearing fruits and nuts of plenty and slept.  Hannah didn’t want to travel through the Saffire Portal they found, and planned to stay there forever, even though the rest of the party knew that kind of thing never worked out in places like this, so Nory agreed with her and tricked her into walking through the Portal, telling her it was actually a green curtain.  Because Hannah is very stupid. 

The Saffire Portal took them to a realm where they saw two fighting elves, and they convinced them to fight each other instead of them and then placed bets on who would win.  The one Ulfgar bet on won. 

Next was a Saffron Portal that took them to a land of straight trees, which was so orderly that chaotic little Nory went stir crazy and ran off the path and got in fights with animatronic guards that looked like they’d been assembled out of bits of Humpty Dumpty.  But he got better.

After that was an Amber Portal taking them to a land that was wilderness on one side and civilization on the other side.  They passed by a pair of birds digging in the middle of the trail and spent a day messing about in the city, then went back and found a Silver Portal in the hole the birds were digging. 

The silver portal took them to a stone room that seemed to lack the vague unreality of the various lands they had just spent several days passing through.  It housed an enormous telescope-like device filled with lenses that matched the colors of the various portals.  The room was also filled with many bookshelves. There were no doors or windows.

One book sitting out had a passage that allowed the party to deduce that there was a way out by placing the lenses in a specific order in the telescope thing.  The party then rummaged through the books and found scraps of paper that related a journey through  the  various Planes.  If the scraps were put together in the proper order, they figured, that order would tell you the order to place the lenses in order to get it to work. 

At this point we stopped playing because we had been playing for over four hours and everyone was tired. 

After putting us through that, though, one thing is for sure:  the party now really, really, really wants to kill Makana.