Kiss My Knits!

GM Vaschon: ok! When last we left our intrepid and gifted adventurers…
Palin: Is he talking about us?
GM Vaschon: oh wrong group
Palin: heh
GM Vaschon: Your party discovered the hidden treasure chamber and managed to beat the odds in the deck of many things.
Aleanghi: Boyandhow.
Torkal: Might I remind you all?
Torkal: BATTLEDOG

GM Vaschon: Your party now rested sits at the mouth of the cavern facing west. There is a 50′ drop to the ground. The nearest mushroom is 7′ away and 2′ up from level.

Palin: Are there mushrooms leading downard?
GM Vaschon: Looking outward, you can’t really tell. However, Veracity reminds your group her raven noticed something.
Veracity: She does?
GM Vaschon: The raven gives Veracity and incredulous look.
Palin: “Veracity, what did your raven see?”
Veracity: Veracity makes a “Well, WHAT?” face at the raven.
Veracity: “I’m sorry, Spot, the chest of many things kind of distracted me!”
Palin: Spot. You named the raven Spot.
Val: she’s doing drugs
Veracity: “Because he spotted. Something.”
Palin: “Of course.”
Torkal: Torkal glances at his dog. Then the raven. It’s obvious which he likes more.
Palin: Palin nods in agreement.
Veracity: The raven makes sarcastic sounds. Veracity says, “Oh, right, right. Off over that way…” she waves southeast, then continues, “…there are mushrooms in a long stairway rising right up to here.”

Those mushrooms are far out of reach. We’re going to have to get to them somehow. Our mage is really hot to cast this spell she knows.
Aleanghi: Aaaaaaaaaaanyways, I have this spell, see…
Aleanghi: And it lets me levitate a rope.
Aleanghi: The rope leads to an extra-dimensional space, too, which is kinda nifty.

Given our luck, we’re not too keen to go on an extra-dimensional stroll, so we mull over other options.

GM Vaschon: To describe what you see when you look out the cave…. You see a series of mushrooms… you see a large stone bridge roughly 100′ away. 50′ down, you see the watery ground.
Palin: I’m not sure I like the sound of watery ground. The really high-end places don’t water their ground down.
GM Vaschon: This is the hood.
Torkal: It’s kinda…
Torkal: I saw two dudes in my building today. Full ghetto. Trousers around knees. Caps plus dorags. And they were rollin’ out of the place.
Torkal: And one had this tiny terrier dressed in pink under his arm.
Torkal: And I laughed. That’s what this cave is.
Val: Val looks at his rope…then looks at his grappling hook. Then, looks at the dog….then back at his grappling hook.

The wizards in the party really want to try their rope trick, but we decide to try an old fashioned grappling hook first. Val and Palin both have grappling hooks, but Val lets Palin try.

Palin: Palin lines up her shot and hurls the grappling hook at the appropriate mushroom.
Val: I am not so sure that we want to try to climb up to a mushroom with a grappling hook that can actually get into the mushroom..
Palin: That’s a good point. Before we climb, we can all pull against it to see if it will hold our weight.
GM Vaschon: Do you have rope handling?
Palin: I have a bonus of 4 in Use Rope.
Palin: It seemed prudent after the misadventures of last year.
Veracity: Veracity says to Aleangi, “Who ever thought there actually might be a good use for Feather Fall after all?”
GM Vaschon: Palin twirls her grappling hook and tosses it over to the nearest mushroom. It lands on the mushroom.
Palin: Palin pulls against the rope to see if the hook has dug in.
Torkal: (She’s hooked on shrooms!)
GM Vaschon: Palin pulls on the rope and manages to dig a prong into the mushroom.
Palin: Palin looks smug.

Everybody pulls on the rope to be sure it’ll hold.

GM Vaschon: As your party pulls on the rope, a section of mushroom is removed and the grappling hook dislodges.
Palin: Palin begins to gather up the rope.
Palin: “Next?”

To be sure we’re not missing anything investigate the magical seeming wall of the cavern and find nothing. We even try to look under the chest, which won’t budge. Veracity casts Detect Magic on the wall.

Palin: Hey, Torkal, make your dog sniff the wall. Maybe it has magical sniffing abilities.
Torkal: My dog is totally mundane.
Torkal: It’s sad.
Palin: Don’t diss Mr. Snugglypoof.
Palin: Palin breaks a small piece off of her hunk of cheese and gives it to the dog.
Aleanghi: Mr Snugglypoof, Spot, Flambe, and our occasional visitor, Rollo. What a cast of animals (magical or mundane).
Veracity: Don’t forget the Celestial Owl, Hooter.

We decide to tie one end of Palin’s superlong rope to the chest and have Bentein climb down to see whether we’d sink into the soggy ground. Palin rolls a 1 on her rope check, so Val re-checks it.

Val: “Something doesn’t seem right….do you know the basics of knot tying?”
Palin: “Um… well, I’ve been tied to many things.”
Palin: “Miners. Flames. Myself. You know, the usual.”
Aleanghi: Aleangi stifles a laugh.
Aleanghi: “You do certainly have more experience with rope – or experiences, at least – than most of us.”
Aleanghi: Aleangi whispers to Palin – ‘unless Veracity has been using ropes in her little exploits.
Palin: Palin smirks.
Aleanghi: She grins to Palin.
Veracity: The raven squawks.
Veracity: Veracity sits down on the lid of the chest and pretends not to hear anything.
GM Vaschon: Val ties the rope around the chest and appears to secure it with the grappling hook.
Val: Val gives the rope a good tug and nods to Bentein.
Palin: “Okay, Bentein. Go on down and investigate.”

And so he does. Palin passes the time carving a sharp point onto a spear handle she has among her possessions. Everybody’s gotta have a hobby. Back at the cave, something about the nearest mushroom has captured Val’s attention. Maybe there’s a bridge between us and it that we can’t see? Bentein reports back as Val is contemplating the mushroom.

Bentein: “The water is about eighteen inches deep, there at least.. and I heard a wailing sound about ten feet above the water level. Couldn’t figure out where it was coming from, though.”
Palin: “Wailing?”
Bentein: “But anyway, I don’t think the water is necessarily a bottomless ocean.”
GM Vaschon: Val kicks at the air in front of the mushroom. Nothing appears to be there, but maybe it requires a leap of faith.
Palin: Do not taunt Val into jumping!
GM Vaschon: I’m impartial!
Aleanghi: LOL
Palin: Palin picks up the wood shavings from her carving and throws them at the space in front of the mushroom.
GM Vaschon: The wood shavings fall helplessly to the ground.
Palin: “There. Don’t jump.”
Aleanghi: (::applause:: Nice, Heather!)
GM Vaschon: Palin is awarded 50 xp points.
Palin: WOOT!
GM Vaschon: Now, what is your party going to do?
Val: Okay…I guess its time to take the plunge.
Palin: Did you not see the shavings?
Val: Not that plunge.
Palin: Oh. Whew.

Yes, Aleanghi finally gets to do what she’s been dying to do all night – cast her rope trick spell! Yay!

Aleanghi: ‘Does anyone have any shorter rope?
Palin: Do we still have the bits that got hacked up when we had to cut… uh… certain party members loose a while back?
Aleanghi: ‘I need something about half the length of the 50 foot rope.
Palin: I don’t suppose we can fold it in half.
GM Vaschon: heh. Palin, the arch mage.
Palin: I’m on fire tonight!
GM Vaschon: Soon
Palin: Yikes.
GM Vaschon: Ale cuts her rope down the middle and stows the remainder in her backpack.
GM Vaschon: I need the order, including any pets that will be using this.
Palin: Oh my God. How are we going to get the dog across?
Bentein: Put him in Bentein’s backpack. It’s mostly empty.
Veracity: Veracity looks extremely dubious.
Torkal: The dog goes in Torkal’s pack.
Veracity: ‘It’s….a REALLY BIG dog.”
Torkal: It fits. Torkal’s dog is a pimp.
Palin: We’ll run a line between the raven and the bat, and suspend the dog from it.
Bentein: They’re chunky, not huge
Torkal: A complex system of levers and pulleys.
GM Vaschon: Bentein loads the wardog in his pack.
Aleanghi: Aleangi casts rope trick on the coil at the cave mouth.
Aleanghi: Aleangi puts the rope coiled on the ground. “Once we get some folks across, we could toss a rope back to the others, and tie anyone who needs to ride over.”

One by one, we all climb up the rope and disappear from view. We are now above the mushrooms.

Aleanghi: “Now, we should be able to descend partially and jump onto the mushroom. Since we’ll be jumping down and over, not trying to jump up and over.”
Palin: This is the weirdest thing we’ve ever done.

Aleanghi: I guess I’ll go first. I want to climb down about halfway, then jump over to the mushroom. That should still put me above the mushroom, right?
GM Vaschon: For sake of advancing the adventure, sure.
Aleanghi: …………
GM Vaschon: Heh
Val: wooo
GM Vaschon: Ale drops down and hops to the nearest mushroom.

We work out who’s going where.

GM Vaschon: Ale hops west, Torkal hops over and Palin drops down.
Veracity: I am playing a mental movie of all this. There is a cloudy sort of a thing, with the rest of us peering down, and Aleangi doing this Wonderland Hop thing, and all the mushrooms look like something out of Disney and have red and white spotted caps, and there are things in the water far below with big, nasty, pointy teeth. And a bat and a raven flying around in midair looking seriously skeptical.
Palin: I picture us playing Q-Bert.
GM Vaschon: There is a mushroom west 3′ and down 2′ a mushroom north 5′ and 1′ up and a mushroom south 3′ and level.

Please note at right the artist’s rendition of Veracity’s vision. Several loyal readers have suggested tales of our adventures would do well as a webcomic. I think the illustration at right shows the drawbacks to that plan.

We continue on in a line, which makes us more Centipede than Qbert. Torkal discovers a ladder on one of the mushrooms. Val descends to the floor, comes back and tells us it’s safe, and down we all go.

GM Vaschon: Your party climbs down the ladder.
Palin: And then I’m probably going to have to go to sleep. For reals.
GM Vaschon: The water is 2′ deep in your position. There are stones dotted all along the floor and a forest of mushrooms all around.
Aleanghi: I know, I’m kinda drifting, even without a Snuggie.
Veracity: Only we could take an entire evening session to climb down from a ledge.
Aleanghi: (well, actually, we weren’t taking the entire session to climb down. We were taking the entire session to try everything BUT magic)

Back on solid ground, we decide to call it a night. And that’s it for November 3rd – I’ll try to post the next week before this coming week’s session!