#shout out to this guy for infesting my brain for a week straight

[xamnade]

⚂ TRIVIA TIME !!!

[sanerontheinside]

y’all, i dunno... I thought I posted this shit before but I guess not anyway at some point I probably mentioned writing fanfic about my friend group from college  I can’t find that particular post tho which is probably for the better but I’m also an idiot who’s gonna post it now under a cut for, idk, shits and giggles. 

also, icky ricky is, legit, what they named the bathtub. he’s not a real actual person. that doesn’t change the fact that the spider who lived in Sangini’s room was Ricky’s pet. 

the worst part of this is none of the names have been changed yet and Alex=saner so spoiler alert I die real fast. blink and you’ll miss it. 

When the girls moved into their apartment that year, they joked about the bathroom looking like a murder scene. And it did: they assumed it was just rust staining the bathtub, and anyway their apartment complex had been on the short end of the list for renovations last year. Meredith was the first to move in. By the time the others had arrived she’d caulked and cleaned the bathroom, and given it a fresh coat of paint. All the while, as she was there alone, she kept hearing odd stirrings in the apartment - was it infested with mice as well? But she wasn't the type to get creeped out by murder scenes and odd noises in empty apartments, and decided the neighbours were doing the stirring. It was more logical than the reality, really.

It was when all four girls had finally settled in that things got a little bizarre. Everything seemed pretty alright at first. Noises were blamed on the neighbours. The bathroom - well, for all its faults, it was largely in working condition. But the lighter sleepers could tell you that apart from the drunk neighbours upstairs and the apartment assistant next door throwing loud-ass parties, the scuffling got louder at night. And it moved around. And sometimes - sometimes - the toilet flushed itself.

Sometimes it flushed itself during the day, too. Not that this wasn't a thing toilets did, as their friends assured them. It wasn't something you could call Housing about. Eventually you got used to it.

The bathtub, too, was something of a mystery. It happened that a couple weeks into the semester, it stopped draining. The girls called Housing Services, who sent a lady to give it a onceover. The lady assessed the situation, attempted to fix it, but was ultimately unsuccessful. The next day another guy came, but the tub, probably deciding it wasn’t worth the trouble, was by then draining just fine. It periodically had bouts of stagnation thereafter, but they didn’t seem to last very long.

Nobody thought much of the scuffling, or the random flushing, or the moody bathtub, or of the neighbours (nobody ever thinks much of their neighbours anyway) until the day that - until the night that - until the morning that Sangini blearily wandered out of her shared room with Khushbu and over to the refrigerator. The apartment upstairs was alive with staggering horses freshly drunk from some frat bar, the apartment next door had a spectacularly destructive sound system - so far as headaches go, a real menace. Not to say, sensitive heads, belonging to Comp-Sci majors who code by night, sleep by day, write essays by the crimson-gold of sundown. And so: at four in the morning a rather disoriented CompSci major with a pulsing head and a late-night gnawing stomach shuffled over to the refrigerator, stood in front of its dimmed light for a moment, staring at the packed inside, and reached over for the milk.

Her hand stopped a little short of it. She considered the situation, wondering just what was so odd about it. Sangini turned to the living room carefully and peered across it at the half-curtained window with a perplexed look on her face, then looked back at the refrigerator.

If there was no one in the living room, why had the refrigerator door been wide open? She hadn't opened it. In fact, if not for the little bit of light that snaked its way out of the the vegetables and boxes and eggs and bottles and things, she would probably have tripped halfway across the hall.

"Meredith?" She was certain that she'd left Khushbu asleep in the room, and aware that Meredith generally clocked out at ten or eleven and revived at five for a morning jog. "Neha?" Also unlikely. Two in the morning - maybe. But, four?

Whoever it was, they'd been here moments ago, since the refrigerator light was still on. Sangini shuddered, shook her head, and decided she'd opened the door herself. Milk, cereal, bowl, crunch.

Thump.

Okay - Sangini didn't have anything to do with that thump. She paused over her next spoonful, slowly raised her head, and peered into the darkness. "Uh, hello?" she asked the room at large. There was no answer.

Light. Yes - light would be nice. Right now it was dark outside and the blueish moon was doing its best to round the corners of the Richardson Apartments, but the complexes were packed together with the occasional tree in between, and the moon wasn't getting anywhere - the struggle was too damn real. Sangini cautiously walked over to the door, hit the light switch with a lightning jab, poised defensively at the rest of the seemingly empty living room. But there was no one there.

Sufficiently creeped out, she picked up her bowl and spoon and withdrew the heck from the living room. Whatever was digging through their packed refrigerator, it could have at it. Would be nice if some of the food in there got unloaded.

The next day was largely uneventful, in terms of scuffles. Khushbu had a co-op, and a moderately heavy day of classes. Sangini, as usual, slept in, then headed off to class herself. Neha shared certain classes with Khushbu and preferred to study at the library. Meredith, after her morning jog, also came back to the apartment only briefly. And Sangini happily forgot about the creepy thing.

Nature took its revenge on the close-packed campus in the winter, triumphed in spring, waxed vengefully hot in the summer, celebrated its victory over Rutgers humans anew in autumn. Now, after spring break, the weather was a bit more cheerful, and the ice was gradually receding as Nature entered its refractory period after pounding the natives with cold, wet, slushy dirty squelchiness, and decided it liked nice weather after all. It was the perfect week to celebrate Neha's birthday, and that evening the group got together at Henry's, the diner on Livi.

At least three separate conversations meandered all over the table of approximately ten people. Neha ordered a caramel coffee straight away, and set about weighing the vegetarian options on the menu - a limited number, but a pretty decent selection. Neha Sikka - not Sangini's apartment mate - was doing sugar shots in the corner by the window next to Ian, who was encouraging her. Sangini and Ben and Kriti were warring over pasta choices. Alex suggested coffee flavours and dessert choices, and punched Ben in the shoulder whenever he said something she didn’t like. Sanjana and Ashwini pored over the menu in search of something they hadn't tried yet. Bethann looked for someone with whom to split the Bruschetta, and was trying to convince Khushbu at the moment. Pooja, who lived on Cook-Doug and whom they almost never saw, joined them about twenty minutes into the meal. Aditya ordered quickly and went back to discussing comics and computers with Ben. Jeff ‘the Ninja-Crow’ presided silently by the windows.

Eventually Alex started talking about that time she couldn’t fall asleep for half the night, heard something clanging in the suite that sounded a lot like the heater was broken. She’d come out and found Sam cutting up a kiwi over the sinks. Sangini instantly remembered the creepy thing.

“Guys-guys-guys-guys!” she hissed excitedly down the table.

Ben answered with his predictable ‘What!’ [-do you want from my life-, unspoken], Alex immediately devoted her attention entirely to her salmon, Neha and Kriti were busily splitting and sharing their dishes. Really, trying to get everyone’s attention was more than a bit like herding cats. “Guys, I think there was someone in our apartment last night. At, like, four in the morning.”

“Ben, did you sleep there?” Alex asked quietly.

“No.”

“Did Matt sleep there?”

Sangini shook her head. “Nobody slept over.”

Alex wasn’t giving up. “Jeff, did you come in through the window?”

“Nope.”

Alex shrugged. “Honestly, your bathroom flushes itself, your bathtub plays games with you, and you think there is someone in your apartment at four in the morning. Maybe it’s haunted.” Not that she believed in ghosts. Although, she seemed to entertain the idea of friendly, mischievous spirit-gremlin-type thingies.

“Yeah!” Ben half-shouted, and returned to his previous conversation.

Sangini persisted: “No, but I’m serious, I’m pretty sure I heard breathing in the living room. And the fridge was open before I got to it. Alex? Come stay with us?”

“Overnight? I can’t, I have a long day tomorrow. But I can go back with you guys.”

Alex wasn’t particularly afraid of ghosts, and it was nice to think that if there was a ghost, she could beat it up and scare it back to the Netherworld. Almost in jest, she took the precaution of enlisting Khushbu’s help, however.

But when they all got back to Richardson, they opened the door to a pretty bizarre sight.

He'd been coming out of the bathroom - they could still hear the toilet flushing - and hadn't had enough time to duck into Meredith's room. Sangini had immediately pushed Alex to the head of the crowd, between herself and the intruder.

"Uh," he said. "Uh, hi," he thought to add.

"And who are you, exactly?" Ben supplied, as Alex still seemed to be running through swear words un her head so that she didn't say them aloud.

“Nobody,” he mumbled.

“Got a name?” Alex drawled, having finally hit on the part of her brain that didn't require a censor.

"Uh," he said, "yeah. Rick. Name's Ricky."

"Ricky," Ben repeated flatly. He nodded. "So, what’re you - how did you get in?" The man just stared back.

"Were you here last night?" Sangini called out finally.

"Uh, yeah. Yeah, the guys let me live here last year, I sorta don't have a place to go, so -"

It was the first coherent sentence he'd spoken, and it got away from him by the end, but at least he spoke. Alex walked forward to a chair - Ricky shrank back as she did so.

"So you've been living here since last year?" Ben asked, as everyone followed Alex's example and filed into the room.

"Yeah. I lost my job, and, uh - well I used to be a plumber here, so..."

"What, have you been living in walls?" Neha asked in disbelief. Snark popped out of her when she was nervous or worried.

"Under the couch. Sometimes the beds. Depends."

They all jumped as the buzzer rattled in the ensuing silence. "Somebody has to let Ashwini in," Khushbu said quietly.

"Uh, should we?" Jeff asked.

"Would it change anything?" Neha pointed out. "We're all freaked out anyway."

So Khushbu ran out to let Ashwini into Richardson. Ashwini pointed out, in a timely fashion, that Khushbu was looking more worried than usual, which of course only flustered Khushbu more. Ashwini was finally getting around to asking her what was wrong as they walked through the door. She stopped dead at the sight of Ricky, who was grinning a somewhat nauseated grin. The poor guy honestly looked terrified.

“What the hell?” Ashwini stuttered out a breathy, nervous laugh.

“‘Shweens! This is Ricky. Ricky, this is ‘Shwini.” Sangini made the introductions, for all the world like this sort of thing happened every day.

‘Shwini, as usual, didn't miss a beat. “I thought you named your tub that.”

There was an awkward pause. Ricky, thankfully, didn't notice. And anyway, Alex immediately distracted him with a very enthusiastic - “Hey, you gotta show me how you hide!”

Ricky blinked. “Uh, okay.”

Alex was suddenly excited and jumped up. “Seriously, there's no space here, I want to know how you do it.”

Ricky stared at her looking a little shelled, said “okay” again, and turned around and walked back down the hall into Sangini’s room. Alex darted after him, grinning madly, while everyone else tried to explain - badly - what the heck that was about to Shwini.

By the time Alex got to the room, though, she’d nearly lost Ricky in the dark. He hadn’t turned on the lights, not in the hall and not in the room, and Alex pretty much blocked the better part of the dim light from the hall.

“You sure you wanna do this?” Ricky asked, awkward as before. “I mean like… not everybody wants to go through walls ‘n stuff.”

Alex laughed. “You kidding? I’ve always wanted to walk through walls.”

Ricky brightened. “Oh, yeah? Cool. This way, here - see? This part of the wall kinda feels funny, like it’s buzzing, yeah?” He ducked over to the window at the head of Sangini’s bed and put his hand beside the frame.  

Alex pressed her hand against the cinderblock gently. “Yeah, sure. So you just… go through?”

Ricky nodded enthusiastically.

“Okay then.”

Ashwini was not to be distracted, and not really one to be unnecessarily polite. “So who was that creepy dude?”

Ben perked up from across the room. “Who, me?”

“No, Jeffrey,” Ashwini deadpanned back at him. “Why is there a creepy guy in Sangini’s room?”

“He’s the creepy bathtub,” Ian clarified, though it offered absolutely no clarity.

“Come on, guys, I’m serious!”

Ben shrugged. “Hey, where’s Alex?”

“Alex?” Sangini turned and called down the hall. “You guys coming back?”

Alex wandered out of the room, looking pretty cheerful. “Nah, Ricky bailed. Said he saw a guy coming over whom he didn’t like.”

Someone buzzed the door again. “Oh, I think that’s Matt!” Sangini exclaimed, completely missing the sudden hush as she twisted around and booked it for the door.

Alex snickered. “No situational awareness, that one,” she sighed, as the door shut.

“Yeah!” Ben shouted, and went back to playing Cards Against Humanity against Aditya, Pooja, and both Nehas.

personally, the highlight of my night that year was the ddos attack on Rutgers, probably the first of three, which was eventually determined to be caused by bots based in Russia, and why they picked RuTGeRs UniVerSIty of all places is still a fucking mystery my dudes. 

Then they lost the Internet.

Alex had been relaxing, quietly writing her fiction, discussing something with Ben. The conversation could have been mildly disturbing for the uninitiated.

The moment the Internet blipped out, she scowled and asked what was going on.

"Apparently a disgruntled student has launched a DDoS attack," Jeff remarked flatly.

"Wait, for real? Shit," Alex muttered. "Dunno about disgruntled students, but this clown is disgruntling me and my not-yet-downloaded thermo hw and practice problems."

“Yeah - meanwhile, you’re writing fiction,” Ben smirked. Instead of hitting him for pointing out the obvious, though, Alex shrugged.

"Yeah - no, guys, that may not be true," Sangini interjected quickly.

"Well if it is true, if I fail this midterm, and if I find this joker, I will tear out his throat in a most disgruntled manner," Alex said lightly, as if commenting on the weather.

Aditya had been keeping tabs on emails from the university's tech office and soon discovered a Twitter account that claimed to be the hacker.

[asylum-miniatures]

Entry 8 - Progression and changes

Last time we had just escaped the city for now and were hiding out in one of ninja-sans safehouses until we were all set to go to the next city as part of our ongoing mission to prevent a coup.  We had spent this time buying new equipment, training new skills aka levelling up stuff.

Session 8, part one, the level up

I (Jaune) gained my next level in ninja and had gotten my hands on various supplies such as various alchemical weapons, a few potions, and plenty of new clothes for disguise purposes.  For more magical equipment I finally got my hands on a ring of protection and an amulet of natural armour to bump up my AC, a masterwork kusarigama for twf/reach, a belt of dex and headband of Cha for stats and a sleeve of many garments for more outfit choices.  My most important item was the circlet of persuasion, which combined with my level seven feat of deceptive meant that my face skills went through the roof.

Occelot had gotten his hands on an endless bandoleer and a beneficial bandoleer covering most of his gun needs.  He also got his hands on a revolver and rifle (home ruled advanced firearms with only one range increment touch AC) meaning he could finally fire multiple times a round without reloading and have some ranged options respectively.  Aside from these he got a hand of the mage (in another game this item ended up breaking the game slightly so he really wanted it) a set of boots of leaping a striding (making his jump in the 20’s) and ammunition.  As for his level seven feat he chose far shot, meaning he could shoot at ridiculous ranges with his rife and still get pluses on his rolls.

Draspher had initially really wanted to get craft wondrous items, but upon reflection he found that the list of items he could make was really limited as a sorcerer, so he instead went for lifeless gaze, both for the boosts and in character the horrors he had both seen and been blamed for had taken their toll on him.  He went for a ioun torch, the travellers any-tool, a ring of spell knowledge (to get unseen servant), bracers of Armor +1, a hat of disguise (to hide the mad bombers face), a ring of sustenance, a headband of Cha and a handy haversack.  As for spells, he finally got his hands on some fire spells in fireball and burning hands with summon swarm for more harassing spells.  He also still has most of his cash to the DM’s annoyance.

Yurion retroactively got the noble scion feat giving her Cha to initiative.  She also got a few pieces of equipment, most notably a ring of revelation, giving her, the brain drain ability for interrogation, and the lore keeper ability from oracle level up giving her Cha to knowledge checks.

Sim got a few items.  She followed my lead with a set of boots of the cat, a belt of str and a headband of wis to boost her stats up, a handy haversack for storage and a cloak of elvenkind to help her stealth score.  Most of her focus went to her new feat, brew potions.  She spent most of her free time making cure potions and any other ones we requested (for the cost of making of course).

Part two, the setup

One morning about a week after we had arrived ninja-san approached us at the breakfast table.  He was in the awkward where he had been asked for help but all his own operatives were too busy to do it themselves.  The fact that he was approaching us, as I pointed out, despite our track record was a sign of how desperate he was.  A short trip from the safehouse was a mountain with a nature preserve protected by a few druid sects.  The problem is that the druids had seen the signs of poachers but despite their best efforts they had not been able to locate them, nor how they had been getting in and out.  Ninja-san wanted us to go in and try to sort the problem out.  We would also not be going in alone

A new Player has entered the game!

Draspher IRL had gotten a new girlfriend.  She is a nice girl, a bit anxious but with a perverted sense of humour.  Needless to say, we all immediately took a shine to her.  Our DM had a few sheets prepared (so that we could just pick one and jump straight back in if he did kill us) so she chose one she liked and got stuck in.  Introducing, for your reading pleasure, Vex Shinesword, Half-Orc Paladin/Samurai.  The DM made this character initially as the samurai class, but after deciding that its class features sucked so badly he just made him a paladin with samurai armour, and a katana and wakizashi for twf.  She is also notable for being the only party member aside from Draspher who likes fumbles the raccoon.  IRL I got Draspher a raccoon plush and he has enjoyed taking this with him to the sessions.  This time it spent the entire session alternating between sitting on Draspher head and being cuddled/petted by Vex.  She also has a perverted sense of humour.  Although she is but a Padawan in comparison to my mastery of the perverse side, we played off each other well (to the horror/irritation of the rest of the table).

Part three, steam boat Ocelot

After re-acquainting ourselves with our old guildmate, we get to logistics.  We decide that, as we will be mostly dealing with nature and druids, Sim should be in charge for this mission.  We find that the best way to the mountain is to take the boat upstream directly to a lake at the base of the mountain.  (Truth is I don’t think this lake or river was originally supposed to exist.  When the DM drew the mountain Draspher started pointing out that the way he had drawn it there should be a lake there.  I think the DM just added it then ad-libbed it into the story).  As we are riding along we quickly spot dark shapes in the water.  We ask the captain and it turns out there have been sahaguin (water lizard/frog people) attacks recently, but we should be fine.  Don’t start killing them unless something happens.  Ocelot spends this entire trip staring down the sights of his new rifle.  At one point an eye looks out above the water, so he takes a pot shot.  Unfortunately, one passenger was on the poopdeck, by which I mean two planks of wood off the edge of the boat with a gab in between and a guard rail enabling them to “relive themselves” directly into the water.  This guy was not expecting the gunshot, and falls straight between the gap into the sahaguin infested waters.  Sim and Draspher try throwing a rope to him, but flub there rolls.   Just then a dark shape comes up under the water, grabs him and they both disappear.

Occelot, immediately upon seeing this holsters’ his rifle, pulls out his dagger pistol and uses his insane jump score to dive in after him, downing a potion of water breathing he got off sim.  Vex uses her +1 enchanted +5 compound longbow to fire upon the creatures in the water and hits one.  I decide to run over to the captain to let him know what’s happening, (since, as I jokingly put it, what kind of idiot would jump in the water to fight opponents that have such huge advantages over them in such conditions) and he stops the boat and engages the man overboard protocols.  Yurion decided it’s not worth bothering over and never looks up from her book the entire time and Sim starts planning.

Upon jumping into the water Ocelot is confronted by two regular sahaguin’s, one with an arrow through his shoulder and one diving down lower with the poor guy heading towards the bottom.  The two healthy ones engage Ocelot while the shot one decided to go after the annoying people on the boat, jumping up onto the deck.  Draspher successfully summons a dolphin which charges past the first two sahaguin, going after the one with the one with the captive and successfully knocks him out of his grasp.  Sim seizing her opportunity, jumps off the boat and transforms mid fall into a giant squid, then uses it jet ability to charge 100’ straight at the poor sap, grabbing him in her tentacles before just managing to stop herself hitting the riverbed.  Seeing this, the first two sahaguin break off their planned attack on the one in the water and go after the squid stealing their captive.  Luckily Draspher still has spells and uses one to summon a smaller squid to occupy them.  Ocelot meanwhile has just had a great idea, and positions himself for next turn.

Meanwhile the first sahaguin is eying up the weak and squishy crew when he hears a voice shouting at him “hey you stupid calamari, why don’t you try picking on someone who can fight back”.  Turning to face the ninja running towards him, he fails to notice the large samurai half orc come up behind him before his head is removed from his shoulders in what you could call a single ‘critical’ blow.  As his head hits the floor, the last thing it hears is the ninja saying “well I didn’t necessarily say that meant me”.

Thing do not look good for the captive though.  It was shocking enough when he was dragged under, being punched out of the sahaguin grip by a dolphin didn’t help and then being grabbed and dragged by a giant squid was the last straw before he lost consciousness and began to drown, so the heroes are going to have to act quickly.  Realising Ocelots plan, Sim angles herself before launching full force at him.  Thanks to a slight miscalculation though, rather than passing by him, grabbing him and leaping clear of the water, she instead slams into his stomach before launching him and herself out of the water.  Ocelot, pulling back his composure, lands gracefully on the floor in a daring pose.  Behind him, the unconscious man falls with a thud, followed by a giant squid with a splat.  We all gather round and all utterly fail at CPR.  Taking matters into her own ‘hands’, sim slithers over and uses her tentacles to perform chest palpebrations and brings him round.  Upon one look at his rescuers oversized squid pupil he immediately faints, but he is alive.

The trip back is relatively quiet after that, except for Yurion deciding she wants to dissect the sahaguin for any information she can gather about it (none) and Jaune standing alongside with a bucket, picking out any good-looking parts to cook afterwards.  Ocelot realises his powder and ammo is wet, and so Draspher offers to dry him with magic.  Vex turns to ask her old friend Draspher a question, but sees him rubbing his hands all over Ocelots body, and decides to ask later.  A little while later, Ocelot realises he should check his guns, make sure nothing got water damaged and Draspher offers to magically repair them.  Vex goes looking for Draspher, deciding that he must have had enough time to finish whatever he was doing before.  She now finds Draspher rubbing his hands up and down Ocelots ‘shaft’, and turns away.

Part four, the wooden bar in the wood

We finally make it to a small town at the base of the mountain next to the lake.  We decide the best place to start is the inn.  We go in and find the place mostly empty.  It has an unusual style, the bar is a tree chopped in halve vertically, and the only person in there is a barmaid with a spring of mistletoe in here hair.  I had previously mentioned to sim that we should try to keep on the down low and find out as much as we can about the druids without letting anyone know we were here about the poachers.  Ocelot immediately announces we need to meet the druids since we are here to stop the poachers.  (OOC he apparently is just enjoying being the one to get us in trouble this time round rather that Draspher, I have decided to go for him in his sleep one day).  This actually works out for us, turns out the barmaid is a low-ranking druid in one of the local groups, and she recognises that we must be the guild they requested help from.  She doesn’t know all that much, just what we had heard before, but also that some of the druids were setting up to look after nests near the top of the mountain.  

She can contact one of the other members to escort us up there though, so we wait around for a few hours.  Draspher keeps pestering the barmaid about whether she has any cups or other items to mend (he wants to feel useful, failing to realise that as a druid she can do it herself) until I walk over, take a wooden mug and smash it on the floor, telling him he can repair that.  Ocelot get bored and: Ocelot – I shoot the eagle DM - …….. Ocelot – ok, not really DM – the eagle flies down and lands, shapeshifting into a woman Jaune – oh, hahaha, you nearly shot the druid Turns out that it would have been a terrible idea, since the eagle lands and turns into the druid, also the barmaid’s sister.  With that crisis barely averted, we set off up the mountain.

Part five, mountain scaling encounters

As we begin the trek Ocelot has an idea.  Sim has now gained the ability to turn into large creatures, so she turns into a giant vulture to scout above us.  The DM turns down his plan of ferrying us two by two up the mountain as the transformation wouldn’t last that long and splitting the party like that is a bad idea.  Instead, he uses rope to tie himself to the back of Sim while he carries his revolver so he can shoot freely from his back.  This works for the most part except for one thing.  We are all traveling up a mountain so high that the top is constantly covered in snow and blizzards.  We haven’t gotten that high yet, but the two of them are traveling much, much higher so Ocelot starts getting dex penalty’s for not having warm enough clothes.  Luckily, he had a dex boosting potion that sim gave him, so he chugged that to compensate.

We end up approaching a small cliff in a sparse woodland area, with the only way forward being a small valley that leads to the higher area, only about 20-30’ long.  As we come out of the bottle neck, two arrows smack into me and the druid who were at the front of the party.  Luckily Sim had spotted six figures in the tree above us and made to attack (Ocelot failed his roll, mostly distracted by how cold he was starting to get), three to the right, two to the left and one right at the back.  Combat had begun.

I turned invisible and went to ambush the nearby archers on the right I could see while Vex decided to shoot back after dropping a lay on hands on the wounded druid.  The first archer is very satisfied with his shot, up until a giant vulture and drops on him, tearing out a huge chunk of flesh before getting grazed by the bullets of the top hat wearing guy on his back.  Just as Sims cheetah moves up to join in Yurian drops an obscuring mist on their position helping stop further arrows from coming in.

By this point, the other two on the right gather their wits and start shooting at the massive bird, so Sim starts to take a beating, but she kept on ripping into the guy while Ocelot just keeps firing at them.  Draspher meanwhile has some trouble deciding the right thing to do.  After both my own and the DM’s reassurance that starting a wildfire up here is virtually impossible (IRL I start playing psychotic jiminy cricket to him, telling him “this entire game you have been ridiculed and had the crud kicked out of you, its time you started kicking back”) he strides out of the mist, takes careful aim at the bandit at the back and proceeds to blow him to hell with his newly acquired fireball spell.  He is both horrified at what he is becoming and astounded at how big a blast he pulled off.  I just carry on the jimmy cricket part, “Pinocchio, you want to save your friends and family don’t you?  The only way is to burn the whole world down”.  He survives but the tree he was in sure didn’t, and getting blown away by a fireball into a 10’ drop certainly makes an impression.   As the second bandit on the right turns to see this massive explosion, he gets one of his own in the form of a flask of alchemist fire to the face, curtesy of the already disappearing ninja.

Vex also decides now is the time for action.  She charges at one of the trees to the left and in a single, you could say critical, blow she rends the tree and the bandit has to leap to safety from his now falling cover before facing the samurai.  It’s at this point the DM realises what he’s done.  When the DM made this samurai, he wanted to give him some damage output in combat, so he decided to, against my own advice when we were talking about it, give her a +1 keen katana and a +1 wakizashi for duel wielding.  He failed to realise the effect giving someone a 15-20 critical range, especially a strength based fighter, would have on combat prowess and damage output.  This is made even clearer when her next blow on the bandit is a non-confirmed critical.  Every attack roll she has made so far with this sword has been a crit, and it doesn’t look like it will be ending any time soon.

Part six, you have got to be kidding me

The DM starts asking for perception rolls.  Sim and I are the only ones who get high enough, and so he passes us both a note with only one sentence written on it.  “You hear a loud rumbling in the distance”.  Turns out that he had rolled survival rolls for both Sim and Ocelot but both had failed to realise any loud noise could set off an avalanche, and the combination of gunshots and fireball explosions had been enough to do it.  Sure enough, over the last few turns, a few of the bandits start breaking off and just legging it along the mountainside.  I shout out “run for it avalanche”, and make to follow them.  Only a wisdom roll tells me that I won’t make it, and the bandits won’t either.  Our best bet is to get to the bottom of the cliff, let the initial part of the avalanche flow over the top of us thanks to the lip, then try and dig our way out afterwards.

I shout this to the others.  Yurian takes the druid down the valley and starts planning.  Myself, Draspher and Vex quickly follow.  Ocelot cut himself loose of the ropes, and leaps for the very damaged bandit we had been attacking previously.  He tells him that if he comes with them he will live, hoping to use him for interrogation purposes.  He and his new friend also follow us down the valley to the cliff.  Ocelot, Draspher and myself all pull out equipment and latch ourselves to the cliff.  Yurian pulls off her own plan, to levitate the druid, sit on top of her then use the extra Hight to get grabbed by Sim and flown over the avalanche.

Days on mountain – 5 Disasters blamed on Draspher – 1, DM gave some lip service about how it was Ocelots rapid gunfire that did it, but we all know who still has blame on his plate Incidents caused by Ocelot – 3.25, he got a guy dragged overboard, he blurted out our plans immediately to the first person he met (.75, malicious intent but it worked out), nearly shot down our guide (.5, malicious intent but didn’t go through with it) and helped start the avalanche