(no subject)
Our game begins with Aibghalien singing the Pokemon battle theme.
Rhuann: Shut up.
Aibghalien: No!
Because this finale to our epic saga has been delayed months on end, the DM has lost his notebook! The group grimly roots through piles of waterlogged documents and old character sheets to find it. Eventually locating it, the group spends a moment trying to remember exactly where they had left off. As a refresher for those too lazy to go one tag back, they had just defeated the villain in a pimp hat, detonated his facility, and returned to Aibghalien’s castle.
Devlyn: This is the game where Aibghalien turned on us and we shut him down.
Aibghalien: Yeah, Jesus Christ! “Ha ha, Wall of Fire!”
Devlyn: “Yeah, Frostbrand.”
Aibghalien: “What the -?! I’ll fly away! Dispel Magic.” (smacking his hand on the table) “What the-?! Wall of Stone!”
Rhuann: “Transmute Rock to Mud.”
Wes: It’s like… it’s like you’re Megaman, but all 8 of the robot masters are coming at you at once.
Devlyn: (noticing Saikon’s pile of papers) The wax paper character sheet!
Saikon: I don’t remember, how did we end up back in the castle?
Aibghalien: We teleported the fuck out after I jammed the missile launch with a forcecage.
Wes: Yeah, I teleported us all through the fire!
Saikon: Did the priestess disappear? Was that annoying? That was annoying.
Looking out the window, the PCs see ominously dark skies. Some jackass screws with the microphone. Seriously, guys, this is painful to listen to . Ow. Ow. Goddammit ow.
Saikon: Saikon is going to try to contact Avani, to see if this change of events has freed her.
Aibghalien: If you’d like to make a call, please hang up and try - ohhh, dear.
DM: You start to cast the spell deviation--
Aibghalien: DIVINATION!
DM: Devination -
Wes: NO!
Aibghalien: I’m sure that Saikon would love to do some deviations with his goddess but that’s for another time!
DM: (glaring at Saikon, who is looking up the spell) Don’t look at the spell, just cast the spell! Don’t make me remember what it’s called.
Aibghalien: Saikon, the point is that it doesn’t matter what you actually do.
Saikon: Fine, I cast deviation, what does Avani say?
DM: Darkenss engulfs your mind. It is cloudy and murky. In the distance you see a light. A soft voice… but nothing.
Aibghalien: Cast the spell through the sword!
Saikon: I attack the darkness!
Everyone takes 10d6 damage, which works out to 66 damage, but that doesn’t actually happen. Saikon continues to cast through the magic items.
DM: Casting through the different magical objects had an effect on the others. The others begin to swarm around you.
Aibghalien: Did we ever glue the frickin’ crown back together? I don’t think we glued it… I memorize Mend.
DM: It matters not now, because the pieces have reformed.
Saikon: “Avani, come back! Return to the world!”
Aibghalien: “And bring the other gods with you, no actually don’t do that. Oh no, I knew that ‘neutral’ part of his alignment would come back to bite us in the ass someday.”
Saikon rolls a Wisdom check. The spell goes out of control, transporting the group to another realm.
Wes: What? What? I ain’t going nowhere!
DM: It’s a pity you were there at the time.
Wes: It’s a PITY you were there!
Aibghalien: “Once again this day seems intent on challenging my scrupulously maintained atheism.”
Wes: Saikon casts a spell and I’m like Turtles in Time.
The group is on another plane. Saikon briefly confuses Birthright and Shadowrun…. Somehow. Aibghalien starts singing the theme song to “Bucky O’Hare.” The PCs are watching a massive battle of the gods, dueling with all their power, far above the land of Cerilia.
Aibghalien: Okay, so how does this work, one item for each of us to make us the Gorgon’s equal?
Saikon: “I believe your folk know what to do with this!” (miming handing something to Aibghalien) Sword.
Silence.
DM: Nooooooo?
Aibghalien: Try agaaaaaain.
A long silence on Saikon’s part.
Aibghalien: You get the hammer…
Saikon: Go on, go on.
Rhuann: I think he wants the staff.
Aibghalien: You remember the staff, that the evil copy of me was holding? The SECOND evil copy of me?
Saikon: Not this one?
Aibghalien: I’m the evil original, thanks, I mean the “good” original.
Wes: Surely you would not deprive an elf of his walking staff.
Saikon: And of course the ranger is the king, so he gets the crown.
Aibghalien: Wait a minute… that doesn’t make any sense!
Saikon: Whaddya mean, it’s a Lord of the Rings reference.
Aibghalien: Except you have two frickin’ monarchs right here!
Saikon: Oh, that’s true…
A cloak appears, which no one quite remembers, but never mind. Items are distributed. Aibghalien forms the head.
Wes: I already had the crown, I don’t want it any more.
Aibghalien: I’m not using it for evil this time! To be fair the crown was giving you all sorts of awesomeness till I cast feeblemind on you.
Wes: I’ll get you back for the Illusory Pit somehow.
Saikon’s god appears to give them a pep talk.
Saikon: “Avani? Is that you?”
DM: “…no shit…”
Aibghalien: Where are the other gods? Are they just doofing around? “Leave it to the mortals!”
Wes: For all the good those gods have done us so far.
Aibghalien: Elf! Elf!
Saikon: Like a good worshipper, Saikon falls to his knees and throws his arms up. “Oh Mistress of Knowledge Oh Sunlight of Cerilia!”
Aibghalien: “Saikon, we got things to do, this can wait!”
Saikon: “Right, right, I’m sorry.” One last prostration and he gets up.
Avani sends them off, despite Wes getting lippy with her. The group heads to the darkness and immediately encounters Reflex saves.
Wes: What?! Out of nowhere?!
Aibghalien: He’s been playing my game too long. Listen check!
Aibghalien and Wes fails but the elf has a chance to cast a spell thanks to the power of the staff. A massive back is falling on them, the essence of the gods dissipating as it does so. Aibghalien casts forcecage, shielding them as the god dies.
DM: Before you, the death of a god.
Aibghalien: I steal its blood power!
Wes: What? You killed a god just now?!
Aibghalien: No! Unless I impaled it through the heart somehow.
The group argues over which god it was. The DM doesn’t answer. The items continue to pull them forward; Aibghalien dismisses the forcecage, but speculated on what would happen if he hadn’t.
Aibghalien: The pressure builds up, all of a sudden you zoom out to a far scene and you see everything just, like, collapsing into a hole… “Oh, divided by zero.” Yeah, I’ll just dismiss the forcecage…
Violence grows around them as they advance into the darkness.
Saikon: “Some holiness is needed here!” Saikon produces a scroll of HOLY WOOOOOOOOORD.
Aibghalien: …use that on SOMETHING, not the DARKNESS.
Saikon: All right, Saikon produces a scroll of Celestial Brilliance!
Aibghalien: I already got that cast on this rock here, where have you been?
Saikon: Well I’m gonna take out this medium-sized crystal, and…
Aibghalien: Amplify it a few hundred times?
Wes: I’m gonna cast “Shield My Eyes.”
Producing the crystal has unexpected results, however; the crystal absorbs the darkness, the raging weather, and all. Aibghalien calls for experimenting. The crystal continues to suck in energy.
Aibghalien: Did we ever figure out what happens if you overload this crystal too far, because I just remember it creating a giant mind control crystal. In fact, let’s move away from this crystal.
The crystal reveals the landscape, as well as the massive Gorgon slaying and feasting upon gods. The crystal shoots towards the Gorgon, stopping before him. He consumes it.
DM: “I see. The creatures’ little gifts.”
Aibghalien: See if you can imbue one with Holy Word and send that for him to eat.
Wes: Something nasty, so when Perfect Cell eats it, instead of getting stronger…
Saikon: Dispel Evil, Dispel Evil, Holy Word, Hallow…
DM: Knowing what you’re planning to do, the god places his hand on your shoulder. The crystal glows as his own energy fuses with it, killing himself in the process.
Aibghalien: Wow, the was the best two-for-one I ever came up with. You have no idea how happy I am about this. This is the best day ever!
Saikon: Shut up.
Rhuann: You’re a horrible person.
Wes: Elf! Elf! Now you exist and I don’t…
Saikon: “Come on, elf, less cackling and more good-aligned spells.”
Aibghalien: “The crystals don’t work this way for me, remember?
Saikon: Oh. …Seeing a god has committed himself (or herself) to this plan which before Saikon thought was only marginally likely to succeed, he casts every good-aligned spell in his repertoire in it, as much as it can contain, until it pulses with energy.
DM: The holy power radiates beyond measure.
Rhuann: Yaaaay.
DM: Now it waits.
Saikon: “Why don’t you munch on… THIS!”
The Gorgon devours the crystal, which explodes in a burst of light in his mouth. Much of his energy counteracted, he begins to shrink until he is a mere ‘much bigger than us’, fifty feet tall. The party girds for battle.
Aibghalien: Probably the worst time for me to try to figure out how to empower this staff to make things better, but let’s try.
DM: “Mortals.. .continuing to get in my way.”
Aibghalien: “No, staff, no! You’re on our side now! Oh... that was him.”
Rhuann: Idiot.
Wes: Snap it. It’ll destroy everything around. Kill poor Mal.
DM: “You must understand the power for yourselves… it is not so simple.”
Wes: What?
Aibghalien: He’s saying we actually have to DO shit with these things, we’re not gonna figure it out unless we try.
Saikon: I know what to do with a hammer!
Wes: It’s a sword, I’ll try stabbing him with it.
Aibghalien: Well I don’t intend stab - hmm, a pointy end.
The DM calls for initiative. Saikon rolls a 6, which the DM arbitrarily changes to an 8. Rhuann changes into a dire bear; Devlyn, trying to figure out how to use his item, wraps himself in it and laughs jauntily.
DM: You’re not the thief from Quest for Glory.
Saikon: You stole my hammer?
Devlyn: No, I wrapped myself around the cloak, trying to use it. How do you use a cloak?!
Saikon: You run and then you pretend it’s a cape.
DM: “Just do what you normally do.”
Aibghalien: QUICK! INFILTRATE A BASE!
DM: You find yourself in the inner working of the Gorgon. His spleen to his right…
Devlyn: Let me avoid his immune system…
Aibghalien: A white blood cell tries to shake you down.
DM: You kill the white blood cell, do you disguise as it? You find yourself in the elevator that is his nervous system.
Aibghalien: “Hey buddy, how’s your mitochondria doing?”
Devlyn: Low count.
Aibghalien: “It’s oddly empty in here, where am I - oh, the BALLS, this explains so much!”
Devlyn: No wonder he’s so goddamn angry.
Wes charges forward; his swords glow and he pretty much teleports over. Wes shouts about being the Juggernaut, but it’s only the sword’s swift-movement ability, a free action teleport.
Wes: If only I had backstab or something…
Aibghalien: You’re WES! You have FRONTSTAB and it does JUST FINE!
Wes rolls a full-attack. Rhuann finds herself transforming into a more powerful form.
DM: Instead of the usual dire bear that you expected… the DM must now pull out the Monster Manual, as I’m trying to figure out…
The transformation explodes the final gem on the crown, turning her into a great wyrm dragon. Aibghalien points out that red dragons don’t exist, so the irritated DM changes it to a Cerilian dragon. Wes starts crittin’ as he rolls.
DM: “Remember what you are good at, besides infiltrating bases.”
Wes: Brain farts!
Aibghalien: Working for me on Wes’s payroll!
DM: “Do not listen to the talkative one. It’ll be time for the elf race soon…”
Wes: Coooooold fish.
Aibghalien: “I don’t know, I think there’s a FEW more of us left than there are of you!”
DM: …I don’t remember what your character DOES, Devlyn.
Aibghalien: Nothing. He doesn’t do anything. He’s a sad pathetic sack of - I mean hi - oh, no, I’m dead.
Shadows envelop Devlyn, transmitting him to the perfect position to strike through a chink in the armor. Wes grimly predicts death at the Gorgon’s first counterattack. Wes finally works out that he hits six times and three are crits. The blows smash his armor clean off.
DM: “I need not armor to crush mortals!”
Aibghalien: “This is only my first form!”
Devlyn hits three weak points with the power of the cloak. The Gorgon rages!
DM: “You fools stand before me! Envelop the light - uh, envelop the darkness within! Darkness Explosion!”
Wes: He just used three bars, didn’t he.
DM: An explosion races across, enveloping them all, killing many of the sol-many of the troops below, I will never use that word.
Wes: Did he kill our tank? Isn’t Karl in the tank?!
Everyone rolls saves against their highest save. Most people succeed handily. Aibghalien fails, apparently poking himself in the eye with his own staff. However, despite the failed save, his staff allows him to cast a spell as a free action. He burns off a bunch of crystal energy to cast Tactical Teleportation, sending all the PCs behind the explosion and the Gorgon into it. The DM irritatedly revokes all the damage that he’d dealt out this far.
DM: “You think you’re slick, huh? I welcome this darkness into myself!”
Wes: Yeah, I knew he was just gonna eat his own energy…
The Gorgon gains some healing from this blast. Rhuann points out she’s the Gorgon’s size, now, at which Wes grimly predicts his stomping death beneath the feet of a kaiju.
Saikon: “Well, let’s see what this hammer can do!” Since Saikon can’t think of anything to do with a hammer except to smash with it…
Wes: Maybe Aibghalien will come up with some crazy empowerment that will make your hammer into Thor’s Hammer.
Aibghalien: It kinda already is Thor’s Hammer.
DM: Anyway, Aibghalien goes first.
Aibghalien: First I cast Reciprocal Gyre on him. For every level of spell or spell like ability affecting him he’ll take 1d6 damage, Will save for half, maximum of 25d6. Then he also needs to -- (interrupted by the group laughing at the look on the DM’s face)
DM: Maximum of 300 points of damage? No, no, that’s 150 points of damage.
Aibghalien: If he fails his Will save he has to pass a Fort save or be dazed for 1d6 rounds.
DM: What’s the save?
Aibghalien: For me?
Wes: Ridiculously high.
Aibghalien: Uhm… 27.
DM: 10d6. …14, I’m sorry, 14d6.
Aibghalien: It’s per level, so if has like a third level spell, a fourth level spell, and a fifth level spell, he takes 12.
DM: Oh, okay then, 20.
Aibghalien picks up 20 d6s and hurls them.
Aibghalien: I rolled no fours, what are the odds? 75 damage.
DM: As you cast the spell the darkness in his aura appears to attack him, crunching, trying to constrict him. “Rrrr! You will not turn my magic against me! RAAAH!” He brushes it off, but you can see that he was weakened by it, but he was not dazed.
Aibghalien: I quicken another one. Rrrr, I can’t keep that one up, though… Let’s see here… 73.
DM: Once again, as he shatters the darkness it begins to envelop him again. “Rrr, once again you turn my magic against me. And you will fall, like the gods before you!”
Aibghalien: Saikon, I think he looks like a nail!
Saikon attacks with the hammer and strikes. He misses one attack, but the other hits.
DM: The hammer glows, and grows, to a giant… heaven-sized hammer, smashing into him!
Saikon: All right, a heaven-sized hammer! That’s big!
DM: The hammer itself… the only way it could aid you enough to hit stuff is to become the size of the sky. Otherwise you would surely miss.
Wes: It’s Mario’s hammer, and the Gorgon’s just a big barrel.
The Gorgon continues to rant as initiative cycles over. Rhuann rolls 24d10 for her breath weapon attack.
DM: “Mortals… DARKNESS BARRIER!” The darkness continues envelops him.
Wes grumbles that his protection from evil isn’t helping against darkness at all. The Gorgon decides to slay Aibghalien; the elf is pleased that he’s considered the true foe. He deploys finger of death, which Aibghalien counters by hiding behind a wall of ice. The spell travels past him and ricochets off the mirror-walls of their arena to strike him. He rolls an 18 for a Fortitude saving throw. The staff shields him, but his health is decreased by half. 1200 points of crystal power shatters. Devlyn starts hewin’ and crittin’, and the cloak makes him move even faster. Wes pitches in some smackin’ too. When the dust clears, the Gorgon is noticeably smaller.
DM: The light of heaven now shines upon the world. The gods now, their power being restored, the Gorgon not defeated though. “Followers of the Gorgon, I call to you now! Send me your dead! Die for your god and send me your power!”
The Gorgon absorbs power from his worship on the planes below. The god advises them to call to their own allies.
Wes: “Dogs! Lend me your strength!” That’s just what you hear coming out of the burning bush. “Dogs.”
Aibghalien: “Okay guys, cover me.” (lifting his arms above his head) “About five minutes or so oughtta do it!”
Wes: “MISTAH SATAAAAAAAN!”
DM: What are you doing for your actions?
Rhuann: Devlyn and I don’t have realms.
Devlyn: ”Time to take some retribution from the forest!”
Rhuann: “EARTH!”
Devlyn: “And ALSO Earth!”
DM: You fight over the trees’ power!
Rhuann: I said he could have the trees. I’ll take the earth.
DM: It’s a pity the planet Earth doesn’t exist.
Saikon: What do you call the dirt?!
Aibghalien: Cerilia.
Saikon casts a buff spell or two to aid the party, but the hammer transforms it into a massive dome of protection. Aibghalien casts keen edge on Wes’s blade. The Gorgon continues to grow. Devlyn, oddly, blows his Horn of Valhalla.
Aibghalien: Two fourth-level barbarians appear.
Devlyn: We’ll see how right you are.
DM: Once again the cloak aids you -
Aibghalien: As it leaps forward and stuffs itself into the horn. Words appear on it. “Do better than that, you moron.”
DM: The cloak uses much of its power to do what it’s about to do -
Aibghalien: You used up the cloak on a Horn of Valhalla, you moron!
DM: The horn shatters in your hand as the sound ends. But before you the most powerful barbarian in the world appears.
Saikon: Wes?
Wes: I’m already here!
DM: A perfect double of Wes made out of energy. Without the cloak, he wields two powerful blades.
Wes: So we’re like side-by-side.
DM: Yes, you’re literally beside yourself.
Aibghalien: Good work, Devlyn, you used up all of your own awesome to make Wes more awesome.
Saikon: The Weses start fighting because they have to determine which one is the stronger barbarian.
Devlyn decides to sit back and watch. Wes hews and hews, but the Gorgon continues to be smug. Aibghalien asks who Devlyn works for, now that there are two of Wes, all while pointing to himself.
Wes: Two of us and he’s STILL working for him.
Devlyn: “Does this mean I get double wages?” They both say ‘no’.
DM: The other Wes knows what Wes REALLY knows what to do as he turns and charges Aibghalien!
Wes: I’m living vicariously through myself.
Aibghalien: “Fuck you second Wes!” I cast feeblemind on second Wes!
DM: In his feeblemindedness he grows more powerful than ever before.
Devlyn: Not even milk can stop him now.
Aibghalien: …Ernest Scared Stupid?
Devlyn: Thank you!
The DM rules that they’ve been in the darkness too long and are stricken by rickets. Aibghalien flees a grue. The DM wonders why Aibghalien hasn’t cast Illusory Pit, but Aibghalien knows the Gorgon has final boss immunities. Saikon delivers a glorious speech on his action, but deflates when he realizes it isn’t his turn. His turn finally does come around; he begins speechifying grandly to the followers of Avani. A pillar of light appears around Saikon and begins fighting the Gorgon’s dominance. Aibghalien calls on Anuire and deploys his blood power, Greater Light of Reason, to create a glow of sunlight around him. The pillar of light becomes a sun as the Gorgon’s darkness is dispelled. The characters go to town on the Gorgon for abstract damage.
DM: I’m telling you right now, this final battle is very much inspired by Aibghalien’s final battle.
Aibghalien: Yeah, I hadn’t notice.
DM: I wanted to make it a little more epic, but I didn’t want you guys rolling a thousand points of damage here.
Aibghalien: I love the DM’s motivation here. “I’m going to do Aibghalien’s final battle. Better than he did.
DM: Yes!
DoppleWes duplicates Wes’s attacks. The Gorgon drops to a knee.
DM: “This cannot be… for what I see… when I see… will die. SIGHT OF DEATH!”
Saves are rolled. The shield protects them as well. The DM attempts to rule that saves roll over to 1 if they go too high.
Aibghalien: “Your mistake was not turning us to stone, Gorgon.”
DM: “No. Why?! I can s-“
Rhuann passes a massively high Fort save and watches the gods rip apart the Gorgon, showing up to take credit for the kill, the bastards. The group reappears in Aibghalien’s throne room, with weak items lying in place of their sacred items. In addition, the crystals have vanished.
Aibghalien: FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF-
Saikon: …uck?
DM: Taken by the gods themselves.
Aibghalien: “All right guys, we’re going back up there and getting those things back!” Son of a bitch, I had like 300,000 points of crystals.
Avani tells them they needed the power back to repair the shield. But the land is safe, and all but one of the people who came from the outer world had been returned. Karl remained, but the priestess was banished.
Aibghalien: “So, just to pass the word around, which of the gods up there aren’t there any more?”
DM: “You’re just going to have to find out for yourself, elf.”
Aibghalien: …the gods are jerks, man.
DM: “You don’t believe in us, we don’t believe in you.”
Saikon: “Oh, she told you!”
DM: All of a sudden you feel in yourself something slightly different.
Aibghalien: Huh. A gaping chest wound, courtesy of Av - aww.
Avani moves to leave. A victory celebration ensues… and Aibghalien finds one big crystal still in his lab…The DM describes the massive swath of territory the two of them now control and tells them to start making domain actions. Wes begins organizing a caravan to salt the earth of the Gorgon’s crown. And, another magnificent game has come to a fond end.