Life Sucks. Get a Helmet.

[The following transcript was taken from an early portion of the Recordings of Blahg, a demon tasked with making an accounting of the deeds, good or ill, of Artmoth, Paladin of Hieronymous, Sign of the Rose, to document his faith in the face of adversity, to lay to rest questions of his fitness to purpose. Blahg has been Artmoth's constant companion for approximately three years at the time of this excerpt.]

Hey, everybody! ( I'm Blahg'ing this! )

Day 44: Whack-A-Troll

Okay, being dead was exciting and all, and we did eventually go back into the Barrow and finish mopping up after charming (Pinky, Baldy) and/or terrifying (me, Big Green) the townsfolk into providing us with a nice pile of health potions after they brought me back from the great beyond. 

Who needs charisma when your ribs stick out at eye level to most folks?

It was kind of an anti-climax, actually; seems that the guy who laid me out was the real badass of the bunch, but I will give credit to some shambling undead for having the sneakiness to pretend to be asleep in hopes of suckering us into getting too close.

Also, tossing Fritter into a bunch of stinky mushrooms (with a hearty "Go check for traps, sneaky") did as much to make me feel like I was back to my old self as anything.

Day 48: Playing For Keeps.  Okay, Singular Keep.

While not a true heroes' welcome, our return to Iaria (fine, thanks for asking) was the occasion for an epic shopping trip and an audience with the big cheese.

Yes, I'm aware my new gauntlets are magenta.  Please bear in mind that they give me plus two to whoopass.  This ends the public safety announcement.  Fritter bought a Cloak Of Sneakiness.  Stumpy is playing some sort of Poke-Thee-Mon collectible gear game, and completed his set of great weapons by getting a club to go with his sword and axe.  Sybs was eying a wand to go with her chemistry set.  Pinky was generally not enthused by a Charming Cloak because it wasn't shiny, so she just bought some conjuring trinkets.

So, it looks like property values in our part of town are on the upswing, what with civilians not being mauled by hordes of this, that, and the other.

However, since I tend to -be- a horde of this, that, and the other, and easily prone to boredom despite Red's ample charms, it was probably just as well that we were asked to inflict some cleansing justice on the city keep at the mouth of the river.  The poison river.  I'm sure it will make a lovely summer home, because Honcho McHoncho said we could keep it once we drove the critters out.  Whatever.

I like the welcoming committee, consisting of one dead elf with a cryptic note.  Klaatu, verata something or other.  It made the magic girls scratch their heads, and we'd left the drunk and Gang Green home to relax, so there wasn't any insight to be got.

"Sneaky, check the door for traps!"  He walked over, touched the door, and it fell apart.  Well, I guess there weren't any traps.

A whole lot of not much in the courtyard, though Baldy did do a pretty nifty re-enactment of the final running scene from Chariots of Fyre, though we had to hum the music while he did his recon sprint. 

Off to one side was an old barracks, populated by the spirits of a departed Emo Movement, or something, given all the ineffectual wailing.  Scared the crap out of Sybs, anyways... and Stumpy tried to make smalltalk.  Well, it kept him out of trouble for a minute, but Sybs and her guard-eunuch (Baldy) got jumped by some skeletons and zombies (not the welcoming committee I'd employ, but it's not my house yet), and we were just getting warmed up for some good chaos when Sybs blew them all to dust.  I don't think anyone was more surprised than she was, either.

Okay, great.  Newly-dead undead dust piles.  More with the looting, thanks.

Which was a great way to pass the time before a hell of a ruckus kicked up... blocking the only exit.  Orcs, and lots of 'em.  We laid a few to waste, when from parts unspecified, a cool dozen undead shamble out and start kicking Orc ass, too.  Well, hey, no sense getting poked here, let's let them duke it out, and then mop up the weakened victors.

Baldy, perched on top of the wall, gets bonus points for taunting the Orcish horde, but loses several dozen for good judgement by leaping down and tackling one as they retreated.

So, yay, prisoner interrogation.  I got nothing useful out of the guy, other than they were coming in to get us, and didn't know about the undead.  In hindsight, I could have been far more persuasive by, I dunno, putting one of his feet in my bag of devouring and asking what it felt like, or something.  I need to work on my interrogation skills.

But I did lop his head off, which made Baldy lose his lunch.  I don't think it was the gore, it was deep spiritual malaise over the fact that I didn't untie the fucker first.  Oh well.  At least Bahgtru and Ilneval probably approved.

And, yes - magenta does go with black and bloody quite well.

Day 39: Beware of Old Men Who Beg

You'd think that after all the crap splattered around in and under our part of Iaria, a trip to the countryside would be a breath of fresh air. Not that I'm one of those tree-hugging (or, in Garg's case, tree-wielding) losers, but a change of scenery is nice every once in a while.

Which it was, until we ended back in a tunnel underneath a boneyard, up to our loincloths (okay, my loincloth - Fritter was snorkeling in the shit, as usual) in dead stuff.

A little backtracking, I guess. Seems that word of our merry band of miscreants' prowess is spreading, because this wild-eyed human wouldn't take no for an answer when he started beating down our door looking for help with something terrorizing his village, abducting people in the middle of the night, strange fires, horrible screams, you get the idea.

Okay, so I wasn't completely annoyed by the idea. Baldy, Sybs' weapons-not-included lackey didn't even want to get paid for it (I offered to take his share if his honor was so goddamned besmirched. I'm helpful like that).

Let me say this right now - the shambling, soulless undead are really annoying. It's not that they're tough, or even that they smell like Garg's leftovers, it's just that they plod and stare and keep going until they're so much grey-green goo. Except when Sybs puts the fear of her god in 'em, in which case, they hide like a pile of the ugliest shrieking schoolgirls you ever saw.

Pinky's happy, though - one of the sarcophagi had a comb or something girly in it, so she had a little shinygasm over it. Then Fritter had a (much calmer, since he was, once again, nearly fucking killed) shinygasm when we found a magic dagger, though none of us know quite what flavor it is yet. Oh, he wants me to say something about me and Garg also getting nearly-dead, but I'm getting to that. I'm holding on to the dagger for the time being, which means the twitchy little bastard is always about a foot away from my knees, and he isn't getting any stealthier. I'm tempted to pin him to the ceiling with a knife through his cloak and let him dangle like so much fruit so I can get ten minutes' sleep without him trying to pilfer it.

Country orcs are just as pathetic as city orcs. We got the drop on them playing Big Dungeons, Scary Monsters, for crying out loud, and it was just a quick web-and-torch party before we relieved them of those pesky heads and all that heavy gold they'd been dickering with.

But, yeah - weird critters that hang from the ceiling and have really long arms nearly turned Gang Green into dog chow, until Stumpy the Wonder Dwarf became a decent substitute for a projectile weapon. They're right - dwarf-tossing is fun. And then Pinky unloaded a light show that pretty much blew their minds before we chopped 'em up.

Hey, what's that? A room full of chests. Fritter did soil his tunic when he opened one with a ton of gold in it, and I got the one that was a goddamned parlor trick, because it grabbed me. Bastard was sticky; wouldn't let go of my axe, wouldn't let go of my arms, wouldn't let go of Stumpy's sword, and took a hell of a beating before it let go and smelled really, really bad.

Day 14: I said "duck," didn't I?

Sybs was cleaning house with Stumpy the Wonder-Dwarf while the Wizard just about peed himself over the book we snagged from that elven asshole, and she wasn't at all happy about needing to mop that up.  Pinky got the web wand, and was all kinds of happy that she can use it as a walking stick at her size.

We're really trying to get the slums cleared out, but there are a thousand nooks and crannies in this part of town, and most of 'em are full of two things: jack, and shit, and jack left town.  The shit tends to smell bad whether it's moving around [zombies and skellies and kobolds go *splat* real good] or not [though the rat was eyeing the dead guy like Garg looks at ducks strung up in the market].

Of course, some of the not-moving shit hides moving shit, as Fritter (or whatever the rogue's name is) was so quick to discover, in the case of some bugs, which promptly jumped his ass.  I guess he's allergic, because he squawked once, and then fell over bleeding and twitching.  The rest of us made pretty short work of the bugs, and I stopped his bleeding before we found out what was so exciting. 

Apparently, it's a Sword of Chilling, because it gets cold, and then becomes a cool breeze when you try to hit anything with it (more on that later).  It's funny watching the halfling two-hand a shortsword that Big G could use for a toothpick.

Sybs was decidedly less happy when we brought in a mostly-dead rogue and she was obligated to perform her cleric-ly duties.  By the fourth healing spell, she was saying something about either letting him die next time (more on that later, too) or maybe going to some kind of devotional training to get closer to god.  There might have been some bestiality overtones in the poem she was muttering, but I really can't say for sure, though Reznor might be an Orc I'm just not familiar with.

Day 17:  No, really. Duck this time.

I led us around town, securing the gates [why the guards can't get their sissy asses off the wall to close 'em in broad daylight is beyond me], and we got jumped by three furblogs in the northwest corner.  Fritter wants to try out his Magic Sword of Chilling, and charges in.  Okay, there are some style points there, minus several million for good thinking.  He swings, and misses.  Then he swings and misses.  Then, for variety, he catches an axe in the crotch that picks him up and lays him open and knocks his diminutive ass out cold.  The rest of us actually make contact, and dispatched 'em pretty quick, and then I scraped up halfling and furblog guts and patched him together.  Again.

Since it wasn't even lunchtime yet, and Fritter wasn't bleeding out anymore [besides, there was plenty more blood to dump in him all over the street], the drunk picked up the sword for safekeeping, and we kicked in the next door, and a whole boatload of kobolds wet themselves.  Well, except the one that Drunken Master tried to light up with the Scimitar of Eternal Whiffing, which spent more time going into the walls, and floor, and anything -except- the kobold.

Sybs got to pretty much resurrect the halfling again when we dragged his sorry ass back to the house, and was doing some hardcore glowering and muttering. 

Dumpy the Dwarf giggled a lot.  I don't think we're going to let him fish with that sword, though.

Shedding and shredding any pretense that I can't emulate the finest flavor of geek around, I went to the trouble to find a gaming/geeking icon that is actually a painted version of my own D&D miniature. Mine, in a display of both my stubborn nature and lousy fine-motor control, will remain unpainted.

Forthwith, what follows may be the first in a series of gaming recaps from the perspective of Grok, the half-Orc thug who is, fortunately or unfortunately, a good chunk of both the brawn and the brains of the crew running in critus' campaign.

Please imagine that the following is written with a very large, very blunt pencil in a weatherbeaten journal.

Day One: Walken in a Wetter Wonderland

Being on a boat sucks, but there's no adventure to be had back home.  "You, brainkid, go make us proud.  Come back as meeter (The word is liaison, Nert), earn mate."  My brother, the genius.  At least there's mead, and whatever wine's made Captain Walken so goddamned talkative. 

The other party members. . . oh, gods.  At least they're all small.  And they get the point when I pick them up and glower at them.  The human and the elf wizard don't shut up (what do we need to know?  All I need is someone to point me at the thing that needs hurting and move), the ranger drinks more than I do, the halfling rogue has no subtlety whatsoever, and the dwarf is trying to fish with a sword, for fuck's sake.  The pink gnome thing has everybody wrapped around her finger.

We're heading to Iaria, which has apparently been overrun with a serious case of Creeping Evil Bullshit.  Or maybe it's Rupuglican Taint.  I kind of tuned out, because I'm still pretty excited about being away from home, and that I earned Grand-pere's double-axe.

At least nobody's been seasick.  Yet.

Day Two: Iaria (Fine, thanks for asking)

Between my intimidation and the pink thing's cuteness, we figured out where we're going.  The human and the wizard found somebody who talked as much as they did, which presumably makes them happy.  The rogue smells like a dolphin's asshole for some reason, which has the dwarf in hysterics.  At least the elf got us good seats at the bar.  The local jerky is pretty good.  I don't care if it is smoked wharf rat.  The others got suckered into paying 1gp for a bath.  The dwarf at least had the sense to let me throw him in the ocean... away from where the poison rivers flow in, I think.  He wasn't any dumber when I pulled him out, but at least he smelled better.

Pinky charmed the guards by lighting up my loincloth.  That'd be a great trick back home, but I have no idea why the phrase "Disco Balls" made the human turn green.

Day Three: Finally, We Kill Stuff

Helping old codgers for fun and profit has taught me two things: one, I hate magical creatures, and two, there's a lot more to be made doing this than just honor and scars.  Goddamned were-rat got teeth-marks on my new mail shirt, not to mention drooled all over me.  Also: full-blood city Orcs are even dumber than the guys back home.  Richer, but dumber.  And weak, my gods, they're weak.  They did get a few pokes in (flying rogue theater was my favorite), but nothing we can't take care of with a couple days of R&R. 

Note to self:  Keep collecting heads.  It makes the pansy guards nervous, but they still pay in scrip for the kills.

The old guy was happy we got his painting back for him.  Why anyone would want a couple of old farts in front of a farmhouse holding a pitchfork is beyond me, but, hey, he let us keep the house.  I think I'll make the wizard clean it.   Lawful good my ass, he's an anally-organized ninny.

I'm going to see if there's a fighter's guild in town to practice some new moves.  If nothing else, if the dwarf joins, I can see how far that fat bastard will bounce when I catch him with the flat of my axe.

Day Seven: Boys in the Hood

Any shopkeeper who keeps a wolf in their store to discourage looters is good by me.  I think we'll buy a lot of provisions at the Stefan Elefan.  I'll make the guy famous; he can open shops all over the place.  The neighborhood flophous, on the other hand, ain't.  "No weapons allowed"?  Whatever, bub.

We ran into the local bad element, some guy named Codpiece or Starfish or something.  His mates said some things to Pinky that only I get to say, and I had to teach him some manners.  Bastard caught me once, but it was all downhill for him after that, and they dragged his sorry ass out all wobbly.   They won't want to play another round of "Fuck the Orc" anytime soon.  I kind of hung back and let the others clean house as we swept the neighborhood, which was probably for the best - Sybs (the human) caught a lucky shot and nearly bought the farm, and we finally see why the dwarf is here - the fat bastard is insane.  Leaping on counters and beheading gnolls, taking three at a time.  I guess Fight Club is paying off for him, too.