thecorruptedfront

[thecorruptedfront]

Chapter 11: Finale

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Here we go!

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Chapter 11: Finale

As the feet of the corpses drag across the ground, the vines which held them up unraveled from around their necks. The corpses stumble, but don’t fall, revealing their undead nature.

[Carl: Zombies! How many?]

[DM: If you were paying attention, you would have known. There are nine of them, because there were nine corpses on the plant.]

[Alyssa: Ben’s got this, undead like zombies are a paladin’s specialty!]

Ben uses his channel divinity to turn undead, parting the trees above and shining a brilliant light from above. However, instead of the eradication of the zombies, laughter rings from behind the monster flower. The light begins to develop traces of purple in the center, rapidly turning the radiant light into a deep purple before fading entirely. By the time the light has dimmed enough to see through, the corpse flower has fallen to the ground, covered in bruises and burns. A portion of the monster was liquified and became a bubbling puddle on the ground. However, a hooded figure stands on its charred and bubbling remains, laughing. Strange symbols float around him and emit a dark cloud. The dark cloud spreads out rapidly, dying the landscape back.

“Welcome, recruits, to the newest front in our war against the false goddess’s ‘righteousness.’ Please, join me in the eternal embrace of ‘corruption.’”

As he says this, the zombies begin shambling towards the group. When they reach Barz, they’re met with his ax. However, Ben offers no such resistance, and the zombies walk right past him, meeting Bree and Brenda at close range.

Brenda draws her sword in a hurry, but can barely keep up with the zombies.

“Ben, what are you doing? You’re supposed to be defending us!”

In response, Ben turns around. His eyes are black as ink, and his skin is spiderwebbed with dark, frantically pulsating veins. Then, he responds in a voice far deeper and louder than his own.

“Ben? I don’t go by that name any more. My name is Alex, the one who shall conquer Mirewood forest, Stirra Keep, and eventually all of Virtua. Praise to our great king, our true ruler! Forsake the self-righteous goddess, advance the front of corruption.”

He draws his sword, and holds it up to the sky. The trees bend down to him and a black smoke erupts from his chest. Instead of spreading out, the smoke clings to Ben, covering his armor and weapon, leaving his face revealed. The hooded figure raises his hands and celebrates

“Hail! The dark general! Prostrate yourselves before him and he will give you mercy. Rise against him and be snuffed out with the light! Abandon your loyalty to your lowly king and goddess, and dye yourselves in the color of our true ruler!”

The party never returned to Stirra Keep. There were rumors that a strange party of a halfling, a half-orc, and a dwarf joined an adventurer’s guild on the eastern side of the kingdom. Other rumors suggest that a shadow-cloaked swordsman has been seen after several assassinations. However, nobody truly knows if there is any correlation between these people and the search party that went missing in Mirewood.

[thecorruptedfront]

Chapter 10: Feet on the Ground

Chapter 10: Feet on the Ground

——————————————————————————————————— Due to Covid-19, I actually had someone play the rest of this game out. For the rest of this arc, blame my brother for stupid decisions, especially with trees. He’s obsessed. ———————————————————————————————————

Streaks of blue flit through the air, and the party’s vision returns. They find themselves in an unfamiliar location, surrounded by strange trees. The trunks are smooth and dark, but composed of several thick vine-like structures. The branches peel off about ten feet in the air, then droop down to the point that there is barely enough room for Ben to walk without ducking. The trees are mostly leafless. The purple, needlelike leaves only sprout where the branches split, and the yellow-green flowers curl off of the ends. The ground is soft and covered in red grass.

[DM: Everybody roll nature]

<10,9,8,15>

Brenda notices the trees are swaying unnaturally, but nobody else thinks there’s anything strange.

[Delaney: Excuse me, what the heck does that mean]

Meanwhile, Barz goes to check out the why the trees are making Brenda uncomfortable.

<20>

Barz realizes the trees are one massive organism, and they pulse with some foreign beat under a unified will. In dwarvish he shouts “The trees are alive!” However, the party doesn’t understand particularly why Barz is so surprised about that so they continue on. Eventually, the party continues on the path and encounters a spot that seems slightly too wet compared to the rest. Brenda asks if it has rained recently. However, the party was underground, so they have to rely on signs of rain in their surroundings.

[DM: Roll nature]

<1,10,1,1>

[DM: Everyone assumes that there has never been any rain in this region, and you now you think this is what a desert looks like. Except Ben, he realizes that it was probably raining a few minutes ago, but the rest of the party is extremely confused. Also, as you approach, roll perception]

<11,16,16,6>

The party notices that the wet region is soaked in contaminated blood. The party investigates, and Bree actually recognizes that the blood smells faintly of the flowers of the trees nearby. Barz walks into the center of the pool of blood. Finding nothing, he continues on, and the party follows behind him. The party continues on the path until they notice a very large flower. Although the flower towered over them, what the party noticed was that it was holding onto nine corpses of halflings.

[DM: Roll Insight]

<13,7,19,12>

Bree recognizes these people and this flower. It was one of the flowers the forest that attacked her people. In response to seeing the flower laden with corpses, she swears her revenge under her breath, draws her bow, lights an arrow on fire, and begins firing.

[DM: Roll initiative]

<15,16,17,17>

Her arrow (as well as her follow-up volley) flies true, striking the flower through its central stalk with minimal resistance. Brenda joins her side with a volley of magic missiles before charging in with her sword drawn. However, the corpse-laden flower charges in itself, letting the petals droop until the corpses stuck to the ends drag their feet against the ground.

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Next up, the finale. I agonized over how to cut out a lot to get the finish in only one more episode.

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[thecorruptedfront]

Technological Issues

Due to my character-sheet storage website suddenly shutting down, I lost the character sheets for the characters. I have decided to recreate the characters on a new site. However, with the transition to online classes and staying at home, I have limited time available to do such things. I plan to upload a new chapter at latest on Thursday, assuming nothing else goes awry. In the meantime, I’d appreciate any feedback on my previous chapters. Also, due to these same constraints, I will be modifying the story to make it shorter, so that it may remain within the given assignment (yes, this blog was an assignment).

[thecorruptedfront]

Chapter 9

Chapter 9: The end of the break

——————————————————————————————————— https://tumblr.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/231855648-Replies ^ How to reply if you didn’t know, because tumblr is a little confusing

Also, please respond to the previous post if you actually care about the direction of this story. If not, I guess I’ll just write however it comes to mind. ———————————————————————————————————\

[DM: Welcome back to Virtua, everybody! Last time, you almost got killed by some ants, but it’s okay, because the queen decided to help you on your journey to expel the evil that resides in the forest. Oh yeah, do you remember what I told you after last game, Alyssa?]

[Alyssa: Of course, I have updated my character sheet for Ben as necessary. I also drew a sketch, but I forgot it at home]

[DM: So long as you remember, all is well.]

[Jason: Wait, what are you guys talking about?]

The DM completely ignores the question and begins to narrate the adventure.

After several months of helping the spell-weaver ant colony, the party hears a voice in their heads,

“Please come to the my chamber, it is time to leave. It is right here”

As the queen says this, Barz, Ben, Bree, and Brenda suddenly feel as if they know exactly where the queen’s chamber is located. Following the trail to the chamber, the party reunites and discusses the work that the ants gave them to do. Thanks to the magic imparted by the queen, they find the opening to the chamber easily.

Upon entering the chamber, the spell casters (Ben, Bree, and Brenda) immediately stop in awe of the intensity and complexity of the magic that permeates the air. A split second later, Barz is also stops. However, what stops him is not the magic, but rather the construction of the chamber. Unlike the dark, rough-cut tunnels of most of the nest, the walls of the queen’s chamber are cut smoothly out of glowing sky-blue stone, and the ceiling is a pure white design that looks like clouds

The blue-sky feel gave the adventurers a sense of nostalgia and a sense of freedom. They suddenly felt the weight of being stuck underground for such a long time lift from their shoulders, and they felt as if they would lift off into the sky. Actually, they even began to feel their feet lift off the ground.

After giving the party a moment to gaze in awe at the chamber the queen speaks again:

“Look at you, so defenseless, floating in the air. You haven’t even noticed that I’ve already cast a spell on you. You’re lucky I’m on your side…”

As she says this, gold, red, and blue streaks of flame begin to flit about the room. The stones begin to glow brighter. Four images of the queen form among the bright moving lights, stopping in front of each of the adventurers to reach out and touch their foreheads. Upon contact, their vision turns black.

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Huh? What happened? You decide!

1.) The party was immediately transported to the source of power

2.) The party was teleported outside the nest

3.) The party was given the ability to ignore the ant’s spells

4.) The magic went terribly wrong and the party all died!

[thecorruptedfront]

Chapter 8

Chapter 8: A Long-Awaited Break

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Quick summary, since this one went over semester break:

This blog is about a hypothetical game of D&D, which is the role-playing game featured in the first episode of Stranger Things. Basically, it’s the same as any other story in the fantasy genre except that:

Dice decide how well things go, a <1> is really bad, and a <20> is a miracle. Rolls are always done in the alphabetical order of character name.

There are players who decide what one character does, rather than an author. (In this case, it means that I ask readers a question at the end of the chapter and make the party do what they say.)

The story is mostly narrated by the DM; however, the players also occasionally speak with him out of the game. When the players are out of character, I use square brackets to separate that from the character itself speaking.

Previously on The Corrupted Front:

A party formed of Bree, a halfling rogue; Brenda, the half-orc “magician”; Barz, the dwarf barbarian; and Ben, the half-elf paladin. They set out into the forest to investigate and possibly destroy the evil residing within. There, they got trapped in the spell of a nest of spell weaver ants. They fought through the nest and encountered the queen…

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Not quite ready to trust the queen at her word, Brenda and the rest of the party take a moment to analyze the queens behavior to see if she is being honest.

[DM: roll insight]

<5,2,7,10>

Nobody in the party notices anything strange in her behavior. Nothing particularly concerning, but also nothing particularly telling that she was truthful either.

Ben decides that he would rather risk talking to the queen and failing than fight off the rest of the ants, so he calls out to her, “The spell your nest has made trapped us. All we want is to continue searching for the unnatural disturbance in the forest.”

Bree seems to recall something, but can’t seem to articulate it

[DM: Roll Nature]

<19>

She remembers that spell weaver ants are extremely protective of their territory. However, they defend it against anything that threatens to disrupt the ecosystem rather than anything that wanders in.

Bree chimes in: “I’m sure that, if you help us, we could return the favor threefold by disrupting the invasive species in this forest.”

[DM: You and Ben, roll persuasion]

<4,13>

Ben doesn’t quite seem to get it, but his silver tongue in combination with Bree’s pleas seems to get through to the queen.

The blue-plated ant takes a moment in silence before speaking directly into the party’s heads.

“Very well, since you seem to not be hostile, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to help you a bit. However, my ‘help’ will consist of food and time. Time is extremely dilated inside the spell, so you may find it useful to train here. We will also feed you, provided that you are willing to temporarily replace the soldiers that you so rudely slaughtered.”

[DM: Well, it is 6pm now, so I suppose the lot of you should head home for dinner. Level up your characters and I’ll see you next week, same time, same place.]

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Welcome Back!

This time, we get a meta question: What kind of action would you like to focus on? Magical effects and generally otherworldly things Combat Character interactions with NPC’s Player-to-player interactions Other (explain, may be a combination of the above)

[thecorruptedfront]

Chapter 7: A river of ants

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Time to explore the ant nest. Hopefully the party will figure out how to not be small. Rapid-fire posts part 3/3.

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Magic ant ichor collected, the party finds themselves lost in the tunnels far away from the point where Brenda detected the magic source. However, as it is their only landmark, they begin to wander the winding tunnels. The party has surprisingly pleasant conversation during the walk, which eventually devolves into the worst ant-based jokes and puns everyone can create in dwarvish, much to Brenda’s confusion and Barz’s delight (reminder that Barz only speaks dwarvish and Brenda cannot speak it). The puns don’t translate especially well, but the best Brenda ends up understanding is Ben’s complaint of

“how can ANTybody find their way around here? I guess it doesn’t matter though, because I sure can’t.”

The painfully forced puns and bad jokes continue for a surprisingly long time in the barren tunnels. It seems that at theist this part of the tunnel is mostly abandoned for some reason.

However, the party’s luck doesn’t last until they reach their objective. As Barz tells a particularly bad dwarvish pun, the party runs into a tunnel covered in smaller ants, with numbers so great that it seems more like a river of ants than a actual pathway.

[DM: Roll stealth checks]

<8,1,13,5>

[DM: Alyssa, this is your third critical failure that has to do with this tunnel, would you like to switch out dice? I feel bad.]

[Alyssa: I’m getting all the bad luck out now so that when we encounter harder enemies, I can actually be useful]

[DM: Well, I hope that works out for you. Also, make a dex save]

<20>

[DM: Ah, there you go]

Taking a minute to understand the hilarity of the pun Barz’s pun, Ben bursts out into loud laughter, causing him to lose his balance and nearly fall into the stream of magic ants. Thankfully, he catches his balance and runs across to the other side on top of the ants, so he isn’t overwhelmed. However, the ants notice his display, and a handful of them turn aggressive.

[DM: Roll initiative]

<4,2,18,6>

Four of the larger ants begin to rush towards Ben. However, most of the other ants scatter and leave the formerly bustling tunnel completely desolate, save for one of the ants Ben had previously landed on. Bree, who was the only one who had been successful in hiding, dutifully comes out and begins unleashing arrows.

Her second arrow manages to hit one of the ants in the thorax, which seems to hurt it quite a bit. However, that doesn’t stop four of the ants from charging at Ben, who is too busy sticking the landing to notice that the battle has already started. He takes stings from two of the ants, but the poison doesn’t seem to stick into him. However, a third sting catches him off guard, leaving him vulnerable to several bites and stings, which combined, bring him to his knees, where he barely hangs onto consciousness while the poison from the several stings courses through his veins.

Barz, realizing the situation, flies into a rage and leaps towards the one-sided melee. He uses the stunned ant as a stepping stone to leap at the ants. His axe begins to slash aggressively towards the ants, immediately smashing one, and leaving another half dead. Brenda adds her support by waving her arms to cast magic missile on the injured ants and one of the others. Her attacks take down the two injured ants, and barely touch the hide on the third one.

Bree continues her lethal volley, loosing two arrows to finish off the last two ants which remained standing. However, upon their death throes, the party hears a feminine voice inside their heads.

“Why do you slaughter my people? Why do you invade my home? Tell me what you seek before we destroy each other.”

As she says this, a massive sky blue ant approaches with an army of drones.

“I expect an answer other than violence”

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Finally, the party encounters some kind of boss however, she doesn’t seem particularly hostile.

Does the party: 1. Attack 2. Try to convince her to break the spell 3. Try to tell if she is being honest before deciding ———————————————————————————————————

[thecorruptedfront]

Chapter 6: Fighting Ants

Chapter 6:

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Time to fight weird ants. Maybe the party will figure out how to not be small. Rapid-fire posts part 2/3.

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The party faces a set of three ants. Due to the party’s shrunken state, the ants stand at an equal height, with equal preparation to fight. Barz and Brenda, however, are slightly faster to begin their assault.

Barz rushes forth, brandishing his ax with a shout of “these don’t seem to be those safe gopher tunnels that you were talking about, Ben!” He activates rage and slashes down towards Ben, cutting deeply into the ant that Ben had slid under. This covers Ben in clear-yellow ichor, much to his dismay.

[Alyssa: Disgusting! Did you have to attack the one ant above me? ]

[Jason: It was closest, and Barz was mad that you deceived him, so yes]

Brenda decides she wants to stop the goo from accumulating on Ben, so she casts Fire Bolt on the same ant.

<20>

[Delaney: Crit! 29 damage!]

Brenda blasts the ant with a mighty ray of fire. However, instead of stopping the ant from dripping goo, it causes the ant’s midsection to explode, fully covering both Ben and Barz with the mucous-colored goo.

[DM: Ben, make a Wis save]

<12>

Ben notices that the goo from the explosion is magically charged, and is slowly recovering his magical abilities. However, he does not get much time to do anything about it as the two other ants climb over him to attack Barz. However, only one attack connects with his shoulder, so he seems unfazed.  

Bree takes out her longbow and begins launching arrows to great effect. Her first arrow lodges itself into the ant’s eye, and it lets out a screech of pain. Taking advantage of the ant reeling back a little bit, Ben pushes the other one off of his chest and manages to get up amidst the chaos. Barz continues to slash at the ants, chopping the head of the unwounded ant clean off. The final ant begins to try to flee but is targeted by Brenda with a second Fire Bolt spell, which misses. Bree takes a shot with her longbow, which catches a weakness in the ant’s hide and takes it down with surprisingly little ichor, compared to the other ants which had sprayed ichor all around the room.

Ben thanks Bree for not letting it escape. He also apologizes for giving incorrect information. Then, he asks if anyone knows anything about these ants.

[DM: Everyone except Ben roll nature]

<6,4,11>

Brenda explains that she thinks that they were spell weaver ant drones, which explains the shrinking spell around the nest. In addition, she mentions that their ichor is incredibly useful for magic research, so she would appreciate if everyone would collect some for her. After a short deliberation, the party does. By far the most successful was Bree, who took the last ant and bled it similar to the prey she hunted in the forest. The least successful was the team of Barz and Ben, who focused mostly on trying to get the ichor off each other, rather than out of the exploded ant.

——————————————————————————————————— Weird ants have been fought. Now to explore more deeply into the nest. Expect one more episode posted by midnight tomorrow as an apology for missing the last two weeks and posting the post before these on the wrong blog. I’ve made a lot of mistakes I think. ———————————————————————————————————

[thecorruptedfront]

Chapter 5: Small Talk

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It’s been two weeks. There are two reasons that there hasn’t been a post. 1. I got sick and could barely think. 2. There wasn’t a single response, and this is meant to be CYOA style, which means I’m really not supposed to be the one deciding what the characters are doing. This may have been my fault since I posted the last episode to the wrong blog.

What does this mean for everyone? Expect three chapters to go up this week, but only the third one will have a question since they all will be released rapid-fire. So… yeah Also, the roll order is going to be <Barz, Ben, Bree, Brenda> ———————————————————————————————————

Chapter 5:

Ben comes up with a solution.

“Let’s drop a stick and go whichever way it falls, let fate decide.”

The stick falls to the right.

“Any opposed?”

There is no response, so the party begins to walk to the better-illuminated right path. However, Bree quickly notices that something is amiss.

“These trees don’t belong in this forest, I’ve never seen this type before.”

[DM: Everyone roll nature]

<3,5,2,9>

[DM: Well… nobody recognizes these trees I guess… how about perception or arcana, whichever is higher?]

<2,4,12,5>

Bree notices that the further they go, the taller the trees have gotten. In addition, everything else seems to be getting larger. By the time Bree notices, the grass is already well above her head, reaching to Ben’s shoulder height. Concerned that they have been caught in some kind of trap, she stops the party and warns them about the growing terrain. When the party stops to investigate, Brenda turns around and notices that the path behind them seems to have been equally as large, even back to the clearing, which she can barely see at this distance. She makes the connection.

“We’ve been shrunk, does anyone have the ability to break spells, or will we have to try to find the core of this spell?”

[DM: nobody has a counter-spell powerful enough to break this spell, I won’t waste your time]

“If we can’t break it from here…” Brenda stops. She casts Detect Magic, which points her to a few feet off the trail. However, the center seems to be underground.

The party begins to try to find the magic core. However, the grass inhibits their progress, and they feel like they’re only getting smaller. Once they get sufficiently close to the point Brenda detected, they notice a tall hill made of sand. Climbing over it, they notice that it has a hole in the top.

[DM: Before you inevitably jump in, roll nature]

<8, 1, 4, 4>

[DM: Wow, more low rolls]

Ben believes that he recognizes the hill as an abandoned gopher den, and recalls that they rarely return to their old dens. Therefore, it is likely safe inside the den. He convinces the party that his misconception is accurate, and they leap in without caution. Rapidly sliding down the tunnel, they slip through an incredibly complex series of tunnels, before slamming into a creature with a dark, chitinous hide.

[DM: Well, all parties are surprised, roll initiative normally. Also, take 1d4 falling damage from the impact.]

<17, 1, 8, 13>

[DM: Alyssa, I’m so sorry you’re getting these rolls, I hope things get better soon]

The party rushes into battle positions, with the exception of Ben, who was knocked over and slid under the ant.

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Rapid-fire episode 1/3: Next time, the battle begins

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[thecorruptedfront]

Chapter 4:

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Whoops, I posted this to the wrong account....sorry for the late posts

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Chapter 4: Enter! (Rolling Multiples of Five)

Barz picks up the gold plate and begins inspecting it.

{DM:  You have advantage, roll knowledge} {Jason: I don’t have any memory though}

{DM: This isn’t the kind of knowledge your… situation would cause you to forget} <10,20*>

Barz notices something strange about the metal. Although it is obviously not a natural-formed object, there are no signs of mortal craftsmanship nor imperfections in the metal. Instead of having signs of being worked with, there was an eerie perfection to the metal. He tries to ascertain the origin of the metal, but he cannot. Instead, Ben uses his Divine Sense to try to detect if it has an innate alignment with the universe. For Ben, his Divine Sense detects generally good as a pleasant smell, but evil as a rancid odor.

{DM: Alyssa, roll a CON save}

<5>

Ben is completely overwhelmed by the residual twisted will on the object, and he immediately vomits. As he does, some vomit gets on the plate. In response, the plate vibrates and flies toward him!

{DM: Now roll a DEX save, with disadvantage}

<20,5>

Reacting with nearly inhuman speed, Ben attempts to block the plate but fails to react to its trajectory changing mid-flight. As a result, it flies straight into his chest plate. It seems to vanish upon contact, and there is no mark left on his chest plate. Wary, Ben takes it off to see if there’s anything on his shirt or skin. However, there is no sign of the plate leaving any mark. As such, he puts his armor on and makes a mental note to have the head priest look him over once he gets back.

Slightly shaken by the strange display, the party reforms and then walks the rest of the way to the forest. Upon entering the forest, Bree initially takes the lead, saying that she knows this forest well enough that she could tell you if a single tree were to be missing.

The party begins to forge into the woods. However, they are rapidly halted by the fact that Bree is taking paths that are made the size of a halfling. As larger races, Brenda, Barz, and Ben have to cut a path for themselves while following Bree. After what feels like an hour of walking, the party reaches a relatively small clearing with two cleared paths reaching in opposite directions.

At the request of Bree, the party takes a break in the clearing. They decide that they should continue without going through any more terrain that required clearing their own path. In addition, Barz and Brenda take time to sharpen their weapons, since they were dull from cutting the vines and branches. The party is ready to continue, and they look to Bree for guidance.

However, Bree takes a while to answer and seems nervous. In response, Ben asks, “What’s wrong Bree? Is there something we’re forgetting?”

“No, but either there’s something I’m forgetting, or these paths are completely different from how they were last week.”

The party is left without navigation. To the left, there is a path that heads into the denser, darker forest. To the right, there is a path that leads into a brighter section of forest, with taller, thinner trees.

—————————————————————————————————— *I actually roll these things, the numbers divisible by five are completely coincidental

The party (finally) enters the Hawthorne forest!

Should the party go left or right?

[thecorruptedfront]

Chapter 3: Cleaning Up

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First Chapter —————- Previous Chapter ————- Next Chapter

There was a grand total of 0 votes! The dice say <2>, so that’s how this is gonna go Just a friendly reminder that literally anyone and everyone can vote, and it is incredibly helpful if you comment. Thank you! ———————————————————————————————————

Chapter 3:

Ben manages to touch the two combatants in combat, however, he ends up disrupting them, leading to Barz taking another hefty blow to his shoulder, rendering his arm nearly severed and generally useless. In addition, the robed cultist launches a fireball towards the group. However, before it reaches its destination, Ben casts thunderous smite in order to give his allies some respite. The shockwave generated knocks back the first cultist, and the fireball is blown into the air, where it detonates into a 120-foot radius sphere and causes a brief lull in the combat.

Barz drops his ax and lets loose a slew of unimaginably vile dwarvish curses. He then grumbles, “you’re lucky that I can’t use my ax arm right now, or that spell could very well have been your last.” Ben, embarrassed, looks down before he begins to use Cure Wounds to reattach Barz’s arm. Needless to say, Ben takes utmost care to not further provoke the enraged dwarf during the treatment.

While the two males on the team were taking care of that mess, Bree finds an opening in the robed cultist’s defense. She immediately looses two arrows in hopes that the robed cultist is at least temporarily too drained to block them.

<17,20>

With extreme accuracy, the arrows fly unimpeded directly into the robed cultist’s eyes, snuffing out the light of his eyes. In addition, the arrows pierce deep enough into his brain to extinguish his life. However, as one thing is extinguished, another is ignited. Black energy seems to race across his skin, covering it and tinting it gray. Once the black reaches his eyes, he catches on fire and is consumed by black flames. Within seconds, he is reduced to ash.

Meanwhile, Brenda is facing off against the one remaining cultist, who, despite being severely lacerated in at least five parts of his chest and having a charred left arm, is showing the same level of combat prowess as he had at the beginning of the fight. However, he still seems to be struggling to keep up with Brenda’s ferocious flaming strikes. After a few seconds of exchange, the cultist’s body falters and Brenda makes the fatal blow.

As soon as the final cultist collapses to the ground, the black pulsing on his body quickens. His body begins convulsing, and it bursts into black flames. Soon, the party realizes that the bodies of the cultists are gone. All that remains are the robes they wore.

The first to break the reverie is Barz. In good health now due to Ben’s Cure Wounds, he begins to search the clothes for anything valuable. To everyone’s surprise, he actually finds a gold plate with a purple beanstalk design engraved in it. ——————————————————————————————————— The end of the first encounter! Next episode, the aftermath. What should the party do? 1. Take it 2. Leave it 3.Inspect it before making a judgment 4.????? ———————————————————————————————————

[thecorruptedfront]

Chapter 2: Encounter!

First Chapter ---------------- Previous Chapter ------------- Next Chapter

After a moment, Barz stops thrashing about and sits down, out of breath. He begins to speak something in a language that is full of hard consonants. Brenda begins taking off his chains and explains, “He doesn’t know common, but I can translate his dwarvish for you.” {DM: Who here has dwarvish listed as a language?}

{Jason: Considering it is my only language, I do}

{Alyssa: Ben took Dwarvish as an elective, so yes, but not particularly fluent.}

{Carl: I do, not that I know why she would know dwarvish}

{DM: Really? Everyone knows dwarvish?}

{Delaney: …I don’t…}

{DM: … so you can’t translate dwarvish for them}

{Delaney:…}

Eventually, the party comes to the conclusion that Barz is irritable because of his memory loss, and as long as they left him alone, he would be fairly tame. After taking a while to get to know each other, they grab their equipment and set out for the forest.

The walk is only about a mile, but about 100 feet before the forest, a group of people riding in a carriage ride up behind them. As soon as the people in the carriage pass them, a man in a black robe jumps out and draws an obsidian dagger. Suddenly, two large men step out of his shadow.

{DM: Encounter! Three cultists, roll initiative!}

<Several rolls> Reacting quickly, Bree jumps back and begins chanting Cordon of Arrows. As she does, four of the arrows in her quiver float into the air and point toward the cultists. She also draws her bow and knocks an arrow. Brenda and Barz step forward and draw their greatsword and battle-ax, respectively.

Before Ben can react, the two large cultists shout and burst through their robes, revealing over-muscled bodies with black veins pulsing frantically. They charge forward toward Bree, causing her arrows to launch towards the men. The men make no attempt to dodge, and each takes two arrows directly to the chest. Undeterred, they continue charging forward until they are met by Brenda and Barz, who manage to parry their strikes.

Soon after, Ben snaps out of his surprise and comes to the aid of Barz. However, he fails to bring himself to actually cut into his opponents. Seconds later, Bree begins to launch arrow after arrow, focused on the cultist that Brenda is struggling with. However, the cultist continues his assault unfazed. In addition, the black-robed cultist begins launching blue bolts towards Brenda.

In response, Brenda begins casting a spell of her own, burning blade, which lights her blade on fire, pushing back her enemy. However, it doesn’t give her the opening she needs, so she ends up taking 3 bolts of energy to her right arm, right leg, and chest.

Seeing Brenda’s injured state, Barz flies into a rage! He swings at the cultist in front of him.

<20>

The slice decapitates the cultist, and Barz immediately runs to the cultist next to Brenda, embedding his ax into its chest at the cost of his own arm getting in between the cultist’s ax and its original target.

Ben rushes towards the rampaging dwarf and tries to calm him, but in his panic can’t recall even the simplest phrase of Dwarvish to calm him. In lieu of calming him down, he decides to use Lay on Hands to heal the two combatants.

<1>

{Alyssa: Oh no, this isn’t going to end well}

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Things go terribly wrong! We have our first critical success and failure in the series! How will the group overcome this issue?

1. Run for their lives 2. Keep going, it’s just off to a bad start 3. Make your own solution!

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[thecorruptedfront]

Chapter 1: The Party Gathers

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I’ve actually enabled comments, so everyone should be able to actually comment to influence the story.  From now on curly brackets { } will be used to denote players’ speech, and <> will be used for the outcome of rolls. ———————————————————————————————————

This story begins with Ben Silverbranch out on patrol. It’s a clear day in late spring, and he stands at the boundary between Hawthorne forest and Stirra Plains. He looks into the forest and notices nothing other than the variety of deciduous trees and dense bramble, which is characteristic of the forest. There’s a rustling in the underbrush, which piques his attention. He calmly walks over to investigate.

Suddenly, a minuscule humanoid bursts forth and slams into Ben. However, Ben is nearly six feet tall, whereas the character running into him was roughly only three feet tall. The small, green-clad figure stumbles back a few steps before catching herself. She promptly draws two daggers from her belt and throws them blade first into the ground in front of her.

“My name is Bree Herbfinder. I know this is sudden, but please, save my people. The forest has turned on us,” she asks, with her arms open, showing that she is disarmed.

Startled but curious, Ben asks, “What do you mean? Has something entered the forest without our knowing? If so, allow me to take you back to Stirra Keep. It’s nearby, and I’m sure we’ll need some kind of help if whatever it is can actually threaten the skilled Herbfinder clan.”

The pair walks back to Stirra Keep, discussing the concerning fact that the plants in the forest have animated and are assaulting Bree and her other halfling clan-mates. It was only her great luck that allowed her to escape the forest she has called home for her entire life up to this point. Approaching Stirra Keep, Bree gets her first taste of elven construction. Rising from the tall grass of the plains, dense forest stands majestically. However, unlike natural forests, the ancient oaks and glittering Silverwood of this forest bind together high walls of stone. The combination is both elegant and effective, considering Stirra Keep has held for well over 300 years.

Upon entering the keep, Ben walks up to a muscular man wearing a great sword on his back. They greet each other with a hug. The two begin talking and Ben describes the situation to him.

{Alyssa: “I try to persuade him to help me”} {DM: Roll persuasion}

<17>

Ben thoroughly convinces the man that the situation is serious; however, the man says,

“I’d love to come and help, but I have to stay here with the other commanders and make sure the new recruits know their place. I can give you a little help though. Hold on a moment.”

The commander gets up and walks out of the room. About thirty seconds later, he walks back in with a half-orc, dressed in black robes. She’s holding a book, but a sword hangs at her side, leaving her position ambiguous between a warrior or a wizard. Behind her is a furious dwarf, who is bound in chains and making generally angry comments. On the other hand, the half-orc introduces herself,

“I’m Brenda, an aspiring wizard, but,” she gestures to her generally intimidating form, “no matter how I try, it’s far more effective for me to use a sword… The angry dwarf is Barz from what we can tell. He doesn’t remember much and is prone to fits of rage. He’s surprisingly good in a fight though. I’m sure he’ll be a great help. That is if you’re willing to bring him”

——————————————————————————————————— The party gathers! The question is, do we trust this dwarf? It’s up to you! Vote in the comments! (closed)

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[thecorruptedfront]

Chapter 0

A voice, calm and deep, begins:

“For millennia, the land of Virtua remained peaceful and undisturbed. This peaceful era created a diverse world of many wonders. Stout dwarves, elegant high elves, and adaptable humans inhabit most of Virtua. These races built majestic strongholds, carved fine art, and smithed weapons strong enough to split mountains. Recently, however, there have been a number of strange occurrences around Mirewood Forest. Unattended, they could threaten the peace of this land. Heroes, I gather you today in hopes that you can find the root of the problem.”

Five people, three of whom are male, two female, sit in a mostly empty room. In contrast to the barren room, the table is covered in papers, dice, and a board covered in miniatures.

After a brief pause, the man changes to a lighter voice, “I guess I should have done this before we got started, but since this is the first time we’ve met, why don’t we introduce ourselves a little bit? I’m James, better known as the DM. I look forward to seeing this group come together as a party.”

The first to speak up was a man with a mop of blonde hair.

“I’m Carl. I’ll be playing Bree, the halfling rogue,” he said excitedly.

Then the girl to his right, with hair bleached blonde spoke up,

“I’m Delaney. I’ll be playing Brenda, the half-orc ‘magician’ for our party”, she said, with air quotes around the word “magician.”

On the other side of the table, a boy with dark, curly hair chipped in,

“I’m Jason. I’m playing Barz, the dwarf barbarian.”

Last to speak was the girl in the corner with dark, curly hair that formed an afro twice the size of her head. She was drawing, and only looked up after a few seconds of silence. Realizing that she was the only one left, she righted her papers and introduced herself.

“Hi, I’m Alyssa. This is my character, Ben. He’s the half-elf paladin with the cutest smile in the world.”

The DM smiled.

“I’m glad that seems to have worked out. Now to explain some basic rules in for those of you who are just starting their first game. There are three steps to playing this game. First, I describe the world of Virtua to you. Second, you tell me what you do. Third, I tell you how that goes. We repeat that process until either I decide that this session is over or everyone’s character dies. We will use dice rolls to determine how well you do when attempting anything. Rolling a one means you fail in the most entertaining or miserable way while rolling a twenty means you succeed in the best way possible. If there aren’t any questions, let us begin.

——————————————————————————————————— Author’s note: Welcome to “The Corrupted Front” chapter 0! In future episodes, this is where you will get a few options to vote on as to how the party will progress. This chapter, as an introduction, hasn’t reached any critical juncture to vote on. Instead, I would appreciate if you would take the opportunity to ask any questions about anything story related.

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