Bridge to Destruction – A Bridge Two Far. Part 4

After recovering slightly from their ordeal with the prismatic hallway of doom (which I really must outline the rules for in a future post), Pöwër, Macbeth, Tobi, Wifi and Vincent (momentarily) mourned their fallen comrade, Robblesteinberg, wished he hadn't been carrying the rubies they'd found in the wight's tomb, and soldiered on.

Some exploration of the forest they found themselves in quickly led them to the elven township of Broken Glade*. They met with the leader of the town, Elrond Template-Barer, who explained that he knew of their quest, and had already sent for a passenger Roc to pick them up and ferry them to Rothaven. As the Roc would take a week to arrive, the party set out to entertain themselves. Pöwër, Macbeth and Vincent used some of their loot to take advantage of Jeff Rients' awesome carousing rules. Vincent failed his save, and we determined that he had falln in love with his latest dalliance. As Wifi's played is Vincent's player's girlfriend, it seemd logical that he fall for her. Of course, the rules also technically state that there's a 75% chance that the target of the character's attraction is already married. This turned out to be the case. This gave me a fun idea for later. Macbeth rolled a 20, and we determined that he had been so awesome, there was a 10% chance from now on that any elf he met had heard about him. During this mother of all parties, they met John Lenin, communist male prostitute/fighter, who had himself been questing for Serj Tankian's Beard, and who was determined to follow them to Rothaven, just as soon as he'd been paid by the elf ladies who had hired him (thus handily replacing the Beetle-nommed Robble).

*a lame pun that none of the players spotted.

Wifi and Tobi, having been absent for the part of the adventure where there was looting going on couldn't take part in the carousing, so they asked around for any quests to get more cash. As it turned out, a mad, chaos-mutated fungus Ent had been terrorizing the forest, and had a bounty on its cap, so the two girls went looking for it. After several days searching the forest, they found nothing, and returned back to Broken Glade just in time to see the thing attacking the town tavern. Everybody quickly joined in on fighting it, some more hung over than others. Vincent and Pöwër both tried to jump on the creature and attack it, but only Vincent succeeded. Pöwër got walked on and reduced to 0 hit points. Wifi tried to trip the fungus ent with her spiked chain, but ended up thrown into a bush for her troubles, while John Lenin and Vincent pelted the it with burning oil until it exploded. Tobi repeatedly failed to hit it with her crossbow.

(a group-rendered illustration of the mushroom ent. Don't ask me why)

The next day, when the transport Roc finally arrived, Macbeth and Tobi decided to stay on in Broken Glade, and wished their companions farewell. Pöwër then spent the journey teaching to the Roc how to rock.

As they flew over Rothaven, the group discovered they were nearly too late. The armies of Chaos were besieging the city, and a horde of assorted goblinoids, and a troll were trying to batter down the gates. The Roc pilot dropped them off on the gatetower, and epic battle was joined.

Pöwër finally donned Serj Tankian's beard, which glowed with holy rock power, and granted every one of the defenders a +1 on rolls and an extra 14 hit points. This proved to be invaluable, as numerous of the infantry on the city walls would have fallen without such aid. Many glorious actions were performed, but some highlights included:

• Vincent and Pöwër leaping from the gatetower onto the troll that was weilding a battering ram single-handed (if you don't count the 6 kobolds that were holding on to it for dear life),
  
• Vincent and Pöwër then attempting to stuff the troll's mouth with flasks of burning oil and acid... Vincent rolling a 1, and allowing the troll to make a bite attack on him... the troll then rolling a 1, and thus causing maximum damage as it's head exploded, and the dwarf and half orc raking it's back as they lept to safety. the smoldering corpse then tumbled into the moat.
  
• the defenders, bolstered by Serj Tankian's Beard, slaying hobgoblins left and right with volleys of crossbow bolts.
  
• Wifi leaping from the tower, and slaying 3 hobgoblins in one stroke of her chain
• John Lenin leaping from the tower... botching his roll, and landing face first between two bugbears.
• Vincent tripping over, being attacked from all sides and never once being hit from it.
  

Finally, sick of his minions being shredded, the orcish chaos warlord appeared to face the heroes: the dark lord Wayne... who turned out to be Wifi's husband. All four PC took him on, and it was only with the aid of Robble's force ghost (who revived Vincent from unconsciousness and gave him a flask of oil) that they finally defeated him. The armies of chaos were routed, everybody had one last Carousing roll, and we called it a game.