D&D

**D&D** is a popular role-playing game for nerds.

While their usual hijinks in DbD and Siege were entertaining, and progress grew ever slower on the GTA heists and KTANE bombs, the LBG was looking for new ways of going about gam.

As luck would have it, Gene eventually convinced the others to try a game of D&D out, and so it came to pass. Sundays in Tabletop Simulator, behold the LBG's first ever game of Dungeons and Dragons!

The game stars...

* Gene as the all-knowing **DM**, and as a result he also plays every single character with the exception of...
* Jack as **Gralak of Senten**, a human man totally not based on Geralt from The Witcher series.
* John as **Robute Gulliman**, a dwarf man from a mountain town.
* Beecher as **Tedcrag of Hydraco**, a dragonborn. Because if Beecher can't be a dragon man, what the hell is the point of roleplaying?

A Timeline of Events can be Viewed Here

Below are the archived chronicles of the first game of D&D. Readers beware, because this page is going to get super fucking long with every session.

## Episode I: The Plight of Ben the Bandit

   It was an ordinary day in Pernimius. The plants were singing, the plants were dead, and the birds and the sun was

almost down from the top of the sky. In the humble town of Orsus, there lied an inn. This inn was the Gentle Lute; it was inventive inn, and inside the innards of this innocent inn was an interesting sight indeed held within. Three adventurers from different walks of life sat in the bar, not knowing of what fate had in store for them. They were the human Gralak, the dwarf Gulliman, and the dragonkin Tedcrag. There they sat drinking, when in barged a merchant desperately screaming about their missing daughter. The three adventurers paid little mind to him, but all of their ears perked up when he mentioned a gold reward for those who helped him. One by one, the three stood up and accepted the merchant’s request - to help save his daughter from a pack of bandits. Despite being of different races and backgrounds, the three formed a small party and set off into the night in search of the bandits...

Approaching the riverside, they found a fallen wagon. Using their investigative skills, they found some tracks and followed the path to the end leading to the riverbed. After an incident where Gralak stumbled and fell in the river, they eventually came across a lone bandit. Despite trying to hide, the bandit soon found them sneaking around, and battle had begun! Just as it had begun, however, it ended. Gralak finished him off by decapitating his arm. As the bandit screamed and bled profusely, he was then interrogated by the group. Unfortunately, he didn’t answer them and soon passed out.

The group then tried to awaken him by splashing him with water, but somehow lost all their strength and could not lift him up, even after several attempts. Eventually, they got him on the riverbed, but even the water there would not wake him up. It was then that the group came to a realization - the bandit had never passed out, but actually had just straight-up died. Their next idea was to throw him in the river and be done with it, but Tedcrag thankfully thought to search the body, and in his pockets found a slightly damp map. This map seemed to point to the bandit’s camp, and sure enough, after following it, they had the camp in sight. They again tried a stealthy approach involving signs and signals, but this too failed quite quickly. There were two bandits outside a tent, and one of them was ashen-haired. They spotted Gulliman, and were about to open fire when Tedcrag appeared from behind a tree. The sight of a looming red dragon lit by the campfire at night scared the living hell out of them, and after 2 or 3 attempts at intimidation, the group was able to get the bandits to surrender.

Interrogation was not the group’s strong suit. While they learned of the merchant daughter’s location - right inside the tent five feet away - they couldn’t learn anything else from the bandits. They let the younger one named Ben go, after scarring him for life with multiple questions about his past and several death threats. Shortly after, Gralak decapitated the unconscious ashen-haired bandit. Tedcrag and Gulliman were taken aback by this, and started yelling at Gralak. Gralak explained about how #triggered ashen-haired women make him, and told them they didn’t understand loss like he did. This prompted Tedcrag and Gulliman to also share elements of their backstories, showing Gralak that they did indeed understand loss.

They freed the merchant’s daughter (after terrifying her with the sight of a dragon warrior). But immediately after, a voice spoke in their heads the phrases “complete the circle…” and “the future is not set…”. Additionally, a shining relic inside the tent also showed them visions of each of their individual hometowns burning down, and of a fearsome creature bringing darkness with it. While startled, they regained their senses and brought the merchant’s daughter back to the Gentle Lute, where her father was waiting for her and thanked them profusely.

After a night’s rest, the group decided that their next course of action would be to investigate the cause of their shared vision. They asked the bargoers and innkeep, none of whom could answer their questions, and they all looked at them as if they were insane. Eventually, as if even God himself had grown tired of their incompetence, the innkeep suddenly started talking about a temple far away, one that might give them insight on the “future” that the vision told them about. As luck would have it, a traveler with a wagon was also at the inn, and was about to be heading towards the temple. He offered the trio a ride in exchange for protection. They accepted, and set off after some breakfast eggs.

The three unlikely heroes had rescued a merchant’s daughter, brutally killed two bandits, and shared elements of their completely original and non-cliche tragic backstories with each other. But little did they know that their adventure had only just begun...

## Episode II: Ted's Impotent Fire

   Tedcrag and Gralak were off to an early start the day they set out with Richard the farmer,

but something was amiss - Gulliman had been sleeping all day! After multiple efforts from Tedcrag and the DM, Gulliman finally regained consciousness and set out with the rest of them, heading out for the new city.

Along the road, they had some conversations with Richard. Richard was an old man with not much to tell, and his stories quickly bored the group. When asked what they were doing, they came up with a lie that they were traveling magicians, which he seemed to buy. They then made a bit stop at a store, and there they each bought rations as well as a map of the surrounding areas.

After more time on the road, events that could be described as unfortunate happened in what could be considered a series. First, the wagon’s wheel broke down. While Richard knew how to fix it, he needed some time, and it was then that a pack of four wolves attacked from the nearby forest. They attacked the group in pairs - two to Gralak and Tedcrag, and two towards Richard.

The first wolf deeply injured Gralak, who cried out in pain. On the other side of the wagon, Gulliman utterly destroyed one of the wolves, protecting Richard in the process. However, he was injured by the other wolf. Tedcrag gravely injured the one that attacked Gralak with his sword, then turned his attention to the other advancing wolf. Both wolves started attacking Tedcrag, but could not pierce through his strong armor. It was about then that the group started hearing menacing noises from the forest.

With Gralak finishing off the wolf that attacked him, Tedcrag prepared a deadly burst of fire towards a wolf. But much to his surprise, it came out short - only a small puff of smoke. This had never happened to Tedcrag before. Taken aback, he tried again, and was even less successful this time. As the other heroes gave him looks along the lines of “the fuck are you doing?”, Tedcrag took a deep breath and decided they were just an unfortunate coincidence. Fully preparing the flames inside him, he prepared to unleash a third fire breath attack…

… and this too was a dud. Tedcrag started cursing and shouting in anger, and Gulliman had to walk over and finish off the wolf himself. But there was one more wolf, an injured one who had been attacking Gulliman. After its three fellow pack members had died, it retreated into the forest. Richard took this chance to repair the wheel, and just as they got it fixed and were ready to go, from the forest emerged a terrifying sight.

A giant wolf appeared from behind the trees, snarling at the group. With it was a much larger pack of wolves, and at its side was the injured wolf who had escaped. Wasting no time, the group started driving off as fast as they could. The giant wolf began to chase, but it was not fast enough to catch them. Despite this, Gulliman braced himself and aimed an arrow at the beast, but this missed. The wolf then gave up the chase, and the group was safe from the danger.

They stopped at an inn close to the city, and it was there that Gralak and Gulliman had their wounds healed. Tedcrag, although physically uninjured, had suffered  a severe blow to his pride - the dragons’ fire breath was a point of pride among their society, and to have it fail was seen as a point of shame - let alone having it happen three times in a row.

The next day, our heroes finally arrived at the city. After parting with farmer Richard, they entered the city’s library. There they met a snobby receptionist, who seemed to always be talking down to them. The group failed to persuade him to let them in without proper passes, and failed several attempts at persuading him. Some gems included “I’m testing you!” and “There’s something behind you!” from Gralak, and Gulliman rambling something about germs.

Seemingly fed up with the group, the receptionist offered them an alternative. He would let them through if they retrieved a flower from a nearby mountaintop. They begrudgingly accepted, and set off. They started climbing the mountain, coming across a steep rock face. They climbed it with varying degrees of success, and oddly, they did in in turns. In fact, right as Tedcrag was about to reach the top, Gralak and Gulliman suddenly soared to the top as if they were flying and lifted him up the last step, all in the span of a second.

At the top, they were met with a closed door and a riddle. After thinking about the riddle in all the wrong ways, Gralak finally realized that the riddle meant the letter “e”. Upon this discovery, the door opened, leading to a dark area inside. In the seconds that followed, they saw a web of some kind, and what could only be described as “black fingers” reaching out.

Time was frozen then and there. Looking back, scholars will never know when or why time froze at that time, but estimated that it had something do with a supernatural phenomenon known as “babi”. When time eventually unfreezes, the heroes’ adventure will continue right where it left off. Find out next time on Dungeons & Dragons (Ball Z)...

## Episode III: The Dwarfshank Redemption

   Time unfroze, and out of the cave emerged an enormous spider (we’re talking Hobbit spider, not LotR spider,

*obviously*). The trio prepared for combat. Tedcrag prepared a devastating fire attack - and it worked this time! Unfortunately for him, the spider seemed to be impervious to fire. I feel the need to stress that - the fire *worked*. It did not fail. The spider just had immunity to it. I want to make sure that’s *absolutely clear*. Well then, moving on...

The spider then encased Gulliman in webbing. Useless at range, Tedcrag decided to instead free Gulliman using his sword. Miraculously, he didn’t hurt Gulliman at all and freed him. Not long after, the spider was slain. They entered a grassy shrine overlooking a desert, grabbing the flower they were sent for. Before heading back, they also looked inside the spider’s cave and found some chainmail, a new axe, and some gold inside a chest. Before leaving, Tedcrag and Gulliman sensed something incredibly dangerous - whereas Gralak felt completely serene and sat down. Fortunately, they got the hell out of there.

Back at the academy, they returned to the snobby receptionist, who told them to come back the next day for the headmaster. As they left, Gralak called him a jackass, which was the first sign of many of Gralak’s actions to come that would show his true psychopathic nature.

That night, they slept in shifts, and Tedcrag with the final shift slept in a little too long (reminding him a little too well of his days in dragon college). But luckily, they made it to the library just in time to meet the headmaster. He was an old man, but seemed mystically powerful. He gave off a very Gandalf/Dumbledore vibe if you will.

The headmaster offered to tell them about the creature they saw in their visions - if they did another quest for him: to go to Basdun and retrieve a goblin sample. At the mention of goblins, Gulliman started grumbling to himself, clearly agitated. They begrudgingly accepted. Before leaving, they met Armin in the library. He was not blonde nor was he [insert manga spoilers here], but he gave the group some info. Gralak did not shake his hand - and this was the second sign.

Disguised as mercenaries, they traveled with a group back to Orsus, and even got paid for it. At the docks, they met a dwarven merchant, and Gulliman sweet talked him into getting the group onto a ship headed near Mariven. There, they were met by some armed guards - Tedcrag blindly trusted them, but Gralak did not. They stepped inside where they were surrounded by a total of thirty dwarves. They then threatened the group with their numbers, throwing Gulliman and Tedcrag into cells.

Gralak did not want to cooperate - holding his sheathed sword, he was surrounded by thirty guards and very nearly started a fight he was sure to lose. But better reason took hold of him, and he dropped his sword. He was then subsequently tackled to the ground. Getting thrown in the cells, Gralak was *pissed*, and repeatedly started yelling “I hate dwarves!”... He was so pissed, in fact, that he took a shit in the cell - not realizing that this would inconvenience the group themselves more so than the guards. He didn’t have anything to wipe with, either. He asked the guard if he wanted to know what a human handshake is like, offering his shit-stained hand. The guard naturally refused.

Shortly after, Gulliman was taken away and interrogated elsewhere. They asked him what the hell he was doing, to which he replied honestly. In fact, he had told them basically everything about their mission - which is probably why they all got arrested in the first place. Gulliman told them the story of his family, and the next day his brother Horace arrived to release them - though only after a long, dramatic argument between the two brothers who could not come to terms with each others’ viewpoints. Horace flat out did not believe Gulliman, but nevertheless released him and his companions.

After being released, the group decided to proceed onward. They wondered what the next step of the adventure held in store for them. Little did they know the events that would soon unfold at a humble store and a lively bar...

## Episode IV: The Legend of the Tab in Mariven

    Asking the locals around, the group headed towards a tram that would take them to Mariven. After waking up a lazy conductor and sitting in some uncomfortable seats for a long while, they finally arrived at the dwarven city of Mariven. Immediately upon arriving, they could see a humongous iron door in the distance that would lead towards Basdun. Before heading there, though, they decided it would be best to purchase some illumination stones.

Heading through the merchants’ district, they found it worn down and almost abandoned, much to Gulliman’s dismay. Entering a store, they asked about the illumination stones. He would offer them… at 200 gold each. They were pretty sure they were getting ripped off, but they would have no idea just how badly until much later. After some haggling from Gulliman and intimidation from Gralak, they managed to get it all the way down to 25 gold apiece. They found this acceptable, and prepared to leave.

Just then, Gulliman seemed distracted with something. He fell asleep standing up, mumbling something about projects and “group calls”. Then, Tedcrag fell into a trance...

**Épisode Un: C’est la vie!**

… Beecher s'est réveillé dans la France moderne. Il avait une baguette à son chevet. “Oh, mon dieu!”, il cria. En descendant, et a trouvé son serviteur Jack. Ils étaient affamés, donc Beecher a ouvert le frigo. Du frigo, est sorti un spectacle incroyable! Mille escargots sont venus déverser sur le sol! Beecher a sorti son salière et l'a versé sur le plat délectable. Mais il y avait un autre problème… Beecher était complètement nu! Il s'est précipité pour remettre ses vêtements. Le rituel quotidien français était sur le point de commencer. Comme à l'accoutumée, tous les Français devaient sortir pour le culte quotidien de la Tour Eiffel. Comme il est sorti, Beecher est tombé dans le coma…

**Fin**

… and Tedcrag woke up in a daze. Gulliman had also returned to the land of the living, and their adventure continued. This entire time, they had been standing in the poor merchant’s shop. Gralak walked over, behind the counter, and committed another psychopathic act. Whispering in the terrified dwarf’s ear, he muttered a strange seductive verse into his ear, then walked away. They had finally left the store after what seemed like an eternity.

Their next step was to go to the iron door and try to gain entrance. They talked amongst themselves trying to come up with a plan. Tedcrag came up with a convoluted “Help us out and Hydraco won’t enslave you!” plan, but fortunately for everyone involved, this plan was shot down. They eventually gave up, and then found a much less-guarded side gate, with only two guards posted there.

Tedcrag walked up to the two, and issued a spell to make them obey a one-word command: “*Unlock*”. Unfortunately, as is often the case with Tedcrag’s abilities, this seemed to fail, and the dwarves laughed at him. They laughed at Gralak too, after not buying his lie that he was an inspector. It was then that Gulliman came to the rescue, offering to buy the two drinks. They accepted, and the three dwarves headed inside the bar. The events that unfolded from there on could only be described as magical.

Arriving at the bar, Gulliman told the bartender to open up a tab. “A tab?” the bartender said. “You’re paying for the whole bar?” ...one of the guards chimed in. “Hey everybody! He’s paying for the whole bar!” ...and the bar erupted in applause. So much in fact that Gralak and Tedcrag decided to step inside and join in on the fun. Their main quest could wait - now was the time for free drinks!

Gulliman grew increasingly frustrated at these events. “No,” he yelled, as if to God himself. “A tab in Iowa City means that…” and so he rambled on and on about imaginary cities. As this went on, Gralak noticed a dwarf girl off to the side, who seemed to be mirin’ Gulliman. Gralak stepped over and asked her if she was into Gulliman. She denied, but then offered a proposal. She deduced that they wanted to get to Basdun, and offered to help.

They strike a potential deal and start heading outside, but Tedcrag and Gralak have a change of heart. The dwarf girl leaves and they stay in the bar. Meanwhile, Gulliman has gotten the two guards pretty drunk. Gralak decides that it is time he and Tedcrag drink. They go to the bartender, who gives them two glasses, with which they could fill at any table.

The two walked over to a table, but found the six dwarves there did not want to share. Tedcrag intimidated them with his size and the fact that he was a fucking dragon, and they handed over the pitcher. Tedcrag thanked them for being cooperative, and poured some into his glass. He then handed the pitcher over to Gralak, who succumbed to yet another psychopathic act. Instead of filling his own glass like a normal person, he drank straight from the pitcher, emptying it clean.

Enraged, the six dwarves stand up at once, all wanting to see Gralak suffer. As they prepare to fight, Gralak tries to talk his way out of it, but fails. Tedcrag steps in and intimidates them once more, and this just barely calms them down enough - but only if Gralak buys all of them five pitchers’ worth of drinks! Feeling like he may have just narrowly avoided death, Gralak walked with his metaphorical tail between his legs to the counter, bought them the drinks, and he and Tedcrag got the fuck out of there.

Back at the counter, Gulliman saw the whole commotion. As the other two left, he got up to follow, but the dwarves there were not about to let him go so easily - not without finishing his “tab”. In a panic, Gulliman got up and started running. He ran up to the second floor, and leaped out through a window, falling onto the stone ground below and injuring himself.

Tedcrag, Gralak, and the dwarf girl (named Gaz) witnessed Gulliman faceplant. After this confusing sight, Gaz caught the group’s attention by unlocking the gate. She offered again to help them - if they’re willing to pay her. After the harrowing events of the bar, the group was more than willing to agree with her proposal.

They spend the night at her place, and there they learn that illumination stones are actually incredibly common and worth almost nothing. While it could have been much worse, they had still been ripped off of 75 gold for three of these stones. While frustrated, they took the L, and on the next day, they headed back to the gate. Gaz talked her way past the guards, and her and our heroes stepped inside the cave on the road to the mines.

After spending an entire day at a store and a bar, a harrowing adventure to retrieve a goblin sample from Basdun was about to begin. Will Tedcrag have another French dream? Will Gralak commit more psychotic acts? And will Gulliman end up opening a tab for some goblins? Find the answers to these questions and more in Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.

## Episode V: Goblinophobia

    There our heroes stood, in the mines. Darkness ahead of them, a dwarven city behind them.

The road to Basdun was there before them. No dwarven gates to impede their progress, no spiders, and no bar tabs. Just a straight shot…… for about 50 miles. And so our adventurers began their trek. As they walked, Gaz spoke up, explaining some info about the mines and the goblins within. The group needed to come up with a plan to kill or capture a goblin without alerting the entire horde. They had no way of knowing whether the first group they came across would be a small pack or a large mob.

They brainstormed some ideas, most of them bad. These included cutting off a goblin’s hand, using Tedcrag’s command spell, trying to knock a few unconscious, and more. One thing they all agreed on is that, if need be, they would have to use the tram to escape back the way they came. Something called the “stone of Basdun” was mentioned, but our heroes would soon be a bit too… *preoccupied* later on to be worrying about mythical stones.

With not much accomplished by way of planning, the group came upon their first obstacle. There was a large crevice in the ground, with only a rickety bridge, but Gaz had a better idea. She led the group sideways, and showed them a narrow walkway. The group then proceeded to walk across this narrow path one by one, and managed to do so effortlessly! All was well, and they would have their mission completed in no time!

… is what I would like to say happened. What actually happened was much worse. So, *so* much worse. Gaz was the first to cross, and did so almost effortlessly. She beckoned the rest to cross. Gralak started to make his way, when he lost his balance for a split second. Luckily, he was able to regain his footing and make it across. He had knocked a few pebbles over, though, which angered Gaz for making noise. Gralak loudly retorted, which angered Gaz even more.

Tedcrag was next to cross. With his big fucking dragon feet, he had probably the least footing of all of them. He braced himself and stepped forward. He took his first step, and immediately lost his balance. He managed to pick himself back up, but he’d only made it about 5% of the way! He pressed forward, but with every single step, he would lose his balance for a moment before regaining it. There was one particularly awful step, where Tedcrag had only a single foot on the ground with the rest of his body about to careen off - it was then that he looked deep inside his own psyche and mustered his inner inspiration, saving himself in what looked like a sheer miracle.

After that close call, it was clear that he needed some help from this crisis. Gaz found some rope, took it out, and threw it to Tedcrag. Each end was wrapped around Tedcrag and Gralak. Gulliman did the same with his rope. These steps were done after that series of near-death experiences by Tedcrag, so that there’d be an option if he did fall. But Tedcrag never did fall. While that sequence of trips had only gotten him 25% of the way, he made the remaining 75% in one graceful stride, perhaps a show of mercy from the gods.

With the dragon man finally across, there was only one member left to go - Gulliman. The rope was also tied around Tedcrag, the largest and heaviest of the lot. Now, I know what you’re thinking. After that miserable display, it can’t get any worse, right? Surely a small dwarf such as Gulliman can handle that and not fuck it up so badly. Oh, how wrong you would be. You see, not a few steps on the narrow walkway, not only did Gulliman lose his footing - he straight up fell off! If not for the rope tied around him, he would surely have perished then and there. The rope did come in clutch, but just barely. Gulliman face-planted into the edge of the crevice. The impact caused some of the others’ footing to give out, and they all very nearly fell off - they survived thanks to a clutch display of strength from Gralak after Tedcrag’s and Gaz's strength had given out.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Surely the worst is over, right? They had just stared death in the face and barely survived, after all. Oh, how wrong you would be. You see, all those knocked over pebbles, and Gulliman swinging into a cliff face, and all those times Gralak had forgotten to whisper had all combined to make a lot of one thing: *noise*. As Gaz put it: “they *definitely* heard that!” And just as soon as they had made it across, a swarm of goblins was about to be headed their way.

The group made a run for it. Luckily for them, Gaz knew where to go. After Tedcrag’s misadventures back at the crevice, he was a bit short on stamina, and he actually lost the group a few times. Fortunately for him, he managed to find the right path via his intuition and catch back up. The group then came upon a large door. After failing to pull it open, Gaz’s next idea involved explosives. What could go wrong? Tedcrag lit up the wick with his fire breath. Once again, I will stress that the fire breath worked, and it did so in style. Just, again, want to make sure that's *absolutely* clear, since *some* people won't give the poor fire breath ability a break. You know who you are.

Gaz put the lit-up explosive on the wall, but didn’t factor in how close everyone would be to the blast. It exploded, knocking everyone but Gaz onto the edge of a nearby pit, with all of them barely hanging on. Tedcrag and Gralak pulled themselves up, and Tedcrag then helped Gulliman up. The door was blown open, but time was short. The goblins were close. The group could actually see them now - they were crawling on the walls, both from the pit below and from the ceiling above.

Our heroes ran through, and the tram was in sight. And, whether by sheer luck or simply mercy, there stood two lone goblins - the group’s entire reason for coming here, conveniently separated from the pack, and even right next to their exit! Gralak decided that he would take this chance, and the next one, and the one after that. He attacked the goblin, attempting to sever a limb, but only injured it. Gaz then killed it with a swift axe blow to the head. Tedcrag attempted to pick it up, but his dexterity had failed him yet again (an unfortunate habit of his ever since their adventure began - he probably should have spent more time building up his DEX muscles as opposed to just his STR muscles back in Hydraco).

The other goblin then attacked Gralak! Gralak knocked the goblin away, and it almost comically bounced off of him and fell to the ground, getting knocked out from the impact. What luck! Tedcrag’s strength came through for him this time, picking it up and tying it around his back with their spare rope. The group climbed the ladder, and in a group effort pushed the giant cart forward, and all managed to jump in.

Thanks to the cart and some illumination stones, the group just barely escaped! The goblins then retreated, and through the door they came in came an ominous presence, paired with roaring flames that even our group could feel from far away. Fortunately, it vanished. Our heroes escaping just before a dangerous being arrived had seemed to become a trend, what with the fiery presence here, the giant alpha wolf on the road, and possibly something in the spider’s cave as well. Hopefully they would continue to escape these dangers, but if Basdun was any indication, their luck would not last much longer...

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Now that they had escaped, it seemed their day’s journey was over… right? Oh, how wrong you would be. You see, this is already the longest synopsis by far, and I still have a few bullet points left on my outline, so strap in! On their long cart ride, Gaz was at first heavily scarred from that series of dangerous brushes with death. She wanted nothing to do with any of them in the future. Our heroes were also similarly in shock, including Gralak who gave an Oscar, Emmy, *and* Tony-worthy speech about how deeply those dangerous events had affected him. After some time, they all regained their composure a bit, including Gaz.

They still had one problem - getting back through the dwarven gate. They were literally in between a rock and a hard place… or, to be more precise, a mass of goblins and a dwarf place. The guards probably wouldn’t take too kindly to a human, dragon, and two dwarves carrying an unconscious goblin out... *from the inside*. They further bound and gagged the goblin, and made some plans including disguising Tedcrag and Gralak as prisoners. Eventually, they neared the gate, and Gaz hit the handbrake, but they all had to jump out as the cart was crashing for some reason. Everyone jumped out flawlessly except for Tedcrag, who injured his leg and took his first bit of damage in the entire campaign. Not only that, he had to limp for the rest of the way, and also still had the goblin on his back.

They hid by the gate exit, and waited for a patrol of guards to show up. They tried to sneak out, but got flashbanged by the guards from their illumination stones. They passed out, but weren’t bothered in this state, as the horde of goblins had caught up and started massacring everyone! They had killed the guards and were flooding into the city by the time they woke up, and Gaz was also nowhere to be found.

So the group continued forward, fighting their way through goblins as well as shoving panicking civilians out of their way. Yes, including the women and children - our heroes are all-inclusive in their complete disregard for others. They fought their way through, and escaped in the chaos. Gulliman mumbled to himself about how his hometown was literally being massacred by goblins, and Tedcrag and Gralak just continued to shamble forward, utterly broken by the day’s events.

    Pictured to the right is an artists' rendition of the group at this very moment. The group had fulfilled their mission, but nearly died several times in the process. They had also doomed a city to a plague of goblins, and all three of them from then on had grown a primal and deep-seated fear of goblins.

Will our heroes ever recover from Basdun? Physically, yes, but probably never mentally. From goblin hordes to dwarf flashbangs to brushes with death on the cliff, this was their realest series of dangers and their most treacherous leg of the quest yet. Who knows where their adventure would end up taking them next. Hopefully somewhere French, and hopefully these write-ups will start getting shorter instead of longer. Until next time!

## Episode VI: Grand Theft Book

    Dwarves were screaming. Goblins were killing. And in the midst of it all, our heroes stood on the edge of the city,

having escaped in the chaos. Immediately, the group got into an argument. Gulliman wanted to leave the group and save the city, but the other two weren’t having it. As if the city itself was refusing Gulliman’s help, the city actually managed to contain the damage and deal with the major immediate threat.

With that settled, the group headed forward - they had retrieved their goblin, but still needed to make a return voyage. They decided they would head back through the port city… yes, the one where they were arrested. Not the smartest idea in retrospect. They arrived at a huge gate, with swarms of pesky refugees in the way. Feeling they were above such matters, the group came up with a plan to get through.

As per their plan, Tedcrag walked up to the man in charge and weaved a tale of how he and the others were on a mission from the king himself to return the “package” (the wrapped-up goblin). They used fake names; Tedcrag was Prahringerr, Gralak was Ravix, and Gulliman was Raven. Surprisingly, the lie was bought and they were allowed through. But that was just the first step.

Now that they were in the port city, they still needed a boat to get back. Unfortunately, no boats were willing to let them aboard for less than 3000 gold… each. All attempts at bribery and deception failed as well. As a result, the group came up with a plan… a heist! They would rob a caravan full of gold, and use that gold to board a ship back. A harmless and foolproof plan to be sure.

Waiting in an alley, the group struck on an unsuspecting caravan. This one was guarded by a mere two soldiers. While they didn’t initially plan to kill, Gulliman went in bows blazing. He shot and pierced a guard through the jugular, killing him instantly. Noticing this, Gralak and Tedcrag attacked the other guard. Gralak from the front, and Tedcrag from behind. Gralak damaged him, and Tedcrag finished him off, brutally bringing his sword through the back of the neck. Pretty brutal way to kill an innocent guard just doing their job, if you ask me. Poor guy was probably only two weeks from dwarf retirement. This image would stick with Tedcrag for a long while after, giving him a strong feeling of guilt.

While the crowd around them ran in terror, the group grabbed the two chests and escaped. Opening the first chest, they found a whopping 14,000 gold, which they split evenly. In the second chest, they found some books. You’d think that wouldn’t be of much note, but you'd be wrong. They spent easily fifteen minutes just on this chest alone. First, Gulliman found an erotic book, and attempted to read it in broad daylight, but both of the others noticed him just standing there ogling the pages. Gralak nabbed the book from him and kept it for, uh, “safekeeping” and “research purposes.” The title of the book was Lusty Backdoor Miner Woman. It’s possible that the“e” in the title was an “o”, in which case Gulliman and Gralak were probably put on some sort of list. Minding his own business, Tedcrag grabbed a (hopefully) much less erotic book about spiders, and decided to hold on to it.

After Gralak ruined his sword by attempting to wipe blood off on a brick wall, the group headed to the boats to leave the city before they were caught. They managed to do so, buying their way onto one. Tedcrag stowed the goblin away, shoving it in the corner of his room. They all fell asleep, in severe need of rest. Gulliman and Gralak both had nightmares about the events in Basdun, and woke up. On deck, Gralak thought he saw something that looked like a cloud on the water. Waking up, Tedcrag noticed the goblin had awakened and was struggling to get out of its rope. Gulliman came in, and the two of them together in a single-bed room with the noises of the goblin gave one of the other passengers a shocking misunderstanding.

Gulliman tried to knock out the goblin, but then it stopped breathing! Panicking, Gulliman cast a spell to heal it, and this thankfully kept the goblin from dying. Gralak then came down and talked about the cloud, which triggered Tedcrag, as the way he told it made it sound like it was the fog that had taken his father’s ship so long ago. After a small sidequest to retrieve some rope for restraining the goblin (including Gralak’s attempts at theft in broad daylight), the boat finally arrived in Orsus. But they still had one more trek to make before they would return to the academy. To do so, they found some travelers and offered their services as bodyguards.

Arriving at the academy, they greeted the snobby receptionist once more, and then met the headmaster. The headmaster revealed to them that a dwarf girl - definitely Gaz - had arrived with a sample of her own earlier. But the group fortunately could one-up her, with an entirely intact and living goblin. The headmaster levitated it away to somewhere else, to do god-knows-what with the poor goblin. The group did not pay this much mind, and the headmaster discussed their reward. He paid them handsomely in gold, as well as with a book detailing the creature they saw in their vision. Apparently, it was called a lich. And while they certainly would probably be feeling the wrath of this lich king soon enough, for now they were content to simply study the book.

The book explained that the lich is a magical being of immeasurable power, and showed where it is located along with the fact that its goal is to destroy the world. But the page that would explain how to destroy the lich was ripped out! They asked the headmaster about it, and he told them about the previous person to use the book - a dragon man like Tedcrag! He told them of another copy of the book, but one that was very far away, in King Ludwin’s library in the twin city of Gamalius.

Murdering two dwarven guards aside, the adventures of our heroes this episode had been rather peaceful. But that was likely to change soon. The goblin quest had been very personal to Gulliman, so perhaps the headmaster’s mentioning of the dragon was a sign that the next leg of their journey would end up being personal to Tedcrag. Or perhaps an ashen-haired woman will appear out of nowhere. Only time will tell...

## Episode VII: UnBEARable Prices

    Our heroes start this episode in the academy. The headmaster had offered them a mage to accompany them on the next leg of their quest. However, he hadn’t told them where to find him, so they returned to the headmaster to seek him out. Arriving at the headmaster’s office, the wise old man offered them some tea. Tedcrag requested some strange Hydraconian blend known as “Arnold Palmer”, named after a famous dragon from his country. This fascinated the headmaster, who had never heard of such a delicacy.

After some time, the mage appeared at the headmaster’s summoning. His name was Esir, a 6 ft. human(oid). He was a top student at the academy, and explained that he could defend himself with spells but was better off in more of a support role. After meeting him, Gralak and Gulliman decided to search the library. Gralak attempted to do something secret, but was not successful.

Before heading out, the group collectively decided that it was time for the most exciting part of any quest: shopping! Specifically for weapons and armor. Arriving at the middle-rate armor shop, Gulliman bought a stronger version of his battle axe - though he would have to wait for it to be custom built for a dwarf. Tedcrag then bought steel armor, and Gralak bought a platinum sword and a golden crossbow. But with all this new loot, they needed to lose some weight. They headed to the poorer forge.

Arriving there, they tried to sell off their items for a decent price. First was Gulliman with his old battle axe, then Tedcrag with chain mail, and finally Gralak with his old sword. During these exchanges, all parties were utterly horrible at haggling. This was doubly true for Gralak, who got in an argument and somehow managed to haggle his selling price down. Arguing their way out the door, the group abandoned the forge.

After buying and selling items for upwards of an hour, the group was finally ready to set out! Meeting with Esir, they set off, but not before the headmaster gave them two vials of an elixir that he said could bring them back from certain death. They finally left on horseback, with Esir navigating.

They arrived in a forest, and things seemed peaceful. Then out of seemingly nowhere, a bear appeared! It started by attacking Gralak and dealing him severe damage. Esir leapt into action attacked the bear using an offensive spell. Getting off his horse, Tedcrag did the same and attacked it with his sword, but he missed and his sword fell in the mud. Gulliman was next to attack it, and severely damaged it.

Now was the bear’s turn to attack. It seemed to have a burning hatred for Gralak, as he continued to attack him. It kicked Gralak with its hind legs, but fortunately for Gralak did not do any damage. Tedcrag then finished it off with a sword slash to the neck. It died standing on its hind legs, and its body fell down towards Tedcrag, who just barely managed to dodge out of the way in time.

With the threat subdued, Gulliman attempted to skin the bear for its pelt, but failed miserably at doing so. After several minutes of this, he eventually gave up, and the group pressed forward. Arriving in elvish territory, they were stopped at the gates by several guards. Esir and Gralak talked them down by speaking Elvish, while Tedcrag and Gulliman just stood there twiddling their thumbs.

Negotiations succeeded, and they were allowed entry. Once inside, the group rested before setting out on the rest of their quest. Besides the encounter with the bear, it was a fairly uneventful part of the journey. But every good show needs a breather episode before the action picks up again. Until next time!

## Episode VIII: The Wampas Are Coming!

We leave our heroes in the snowy mountains. Walking along the path, it was getting quite frigid, a word which here means cold. Tedcrag was the first to feel the chill, but he pushed through it. Gralak was next, and he wasn’t so lucky. He succumbed to the frostbite, falling off of his horse. The rest of the group stopped and got off their horses. They decided now was probably a good time to set up camp and start a fire.

And so they did. Gralak sat by the fire, and Tedcrag and Esir took naps. Gulliman decided to be a bit proactive and adventurous, if a bit overly so. He set an alarm spell around the campsite, and then set out a lone trap a quarter mile out. Lacking any meat, he put bread from one of his rations in the trap. Because wild mountain animals are best known for their fondness of bread.

The next day, Gulliman returned to find that his bread trap lay there untouched. He went to disarm it, but ended up setting it off and injuring his hand! Cursing to himself, he returned to the camp, where Esir used his medicinal skills to heal his wounds. Well, Esir must have woken up on the wrong side of the tent or rolled a nat 1, because his attempts at healing ended up making things worse for Gulliman’s hand and injuring him more, which the rest of the group scolded him for.

After that ordeal, the group continued on horseback. Gralak started to feel cold again, then saw a pair of yellow eyes behind him, but no one believed him. Later on though, Beecher ended up seeing the eyes too. They rushed for cover in a nearby cave, which had branching paths. It is decided that Tedcrag and Gulliman would explore the paths while Gralak and Esir guarded the horses at the entrance.

Exploring the right path, Gulliman and Tedcrag encountered claw marks and a putrid stench, and they immediately noped out of there. The left path was much more promising, with a pristine cove of water. As the two stood inside this peaceful area, they then heard horrifying shrieks. Like, Alien Queen level of horrifying shrieks. They then heard Gralak yell “Come back!” and so they raced back towards the entrance.

Back at the entrance, Gralak and Esir were shooting the shit when a giant beast (which we will refer to as “the Wampa”) emerged and ran towards them with violent intentions. Before they could react, it punted Gralak into the wall, who started bleeding profusely. In retaliation, Gralak tried stabbing the Wampa in the neck, but missed. Esir then attacked it with a spell of its own, dealing minimal damage.

Then, like a true hero, Tedcrag came racing out from within the cave. Seeing the danger, he raced forward and slashed at the Wampa, putting a gash in its arm. This pissed the Wampa right the fuck off, and he stepped back and Wampa Punched Tedcrag with devastating force. Tedcrag was flown back into the cave wall, taking his second damage in the entire campaign. Then Gulliman came from……….. *behind* Tedcrag, like a true rifleman. He, along with Gralak and Gulliman, attacked the Wampa, with varying degrees of success.

Standing up with his back to the wall, Tedcrag gripped his sword and slashed once more, this time stabbing it right near the heart. This pissed the beast right the fuck off once more, and he smashed Tedcrag with a fierce Wampa Uppercut, knocking Tedcrag into the ceiling, giving him his third damage in the entire campaign. Gravity did the rest, and Tedcrag collapsed onto the ground.

The battle raged on, with the Wampa knocking Gulliman’s helmet off and his head into the wall. Tedcrag tried to rise, but could not lift himself from the ground after sustaining so much internal damage, and merely lay there coughing up blood. Seeing his friends in such peril awoke something deep within Gralak. With precision and fury he leapt onto the Wampa’s back, violently stabbing it several times with his sword. Climbing to the very top of the beast, he then plunged the sword straight through the Wampa’s head, killing it instantly. The beast collapsed.

    After going full Shadow of the Colossus, the bloody mess that was Gralak triumphantly grabbed his sword and stepped off. Esir surveyed the scene. Gulliman had only suffered small injuries, but Tedcrag and Gralak were both gravely wounded. Esir healed Gralak, as his injuries were far more visibly apparent. Tedcrag was fortunately able to heal himself with a spell.

The danger behind them, the group set up camp by the cove. Esir made a troll illusion for a trap, which fooled the group at first. They decided to take sleeping shifts. After Esir was done it was Tedcrag’s turn to stand watch, but he fell asleep. This was the second time in the campaign he overslept, hopefully it wouldn’t become a recurring habit. Once everyone had woken up, they fed their horses and set out. While they felt a bit of chill on the last leg of the mountain trek, they finally made it to the end.

Where will the adventure of our heroes go next? The road to Gamalius likely still had some surprises and terrors in store. Perhaps the long-awaited Épisode Deux? We may never know...

## Episode IX: An Ode to George

Our adventures continued their journey and finished up the mountain top. This leg of their journey put through a two-week hiatus, in part due to general slowness but also due to a giant gate made of gel. After getting past the talkative lawyer and the awkward hooded man who had made themselves home there, the group was ready to continue their adventure!

The first order of business was hunting! They would need furs to get through the upcoming winter season. After Gulliman laid some more bread traps and caught some small animals, the group eventually came across a herd of bison! Gralak decided to take a nap, but the other three went on a hunting party with their horses. Esir managed to kill one, and then Tedcrag came up with an ingenious idea of getting to the front and stopping them with a pillar of flame. They toppled over into each other, and Tedcrag and Gulliman were both able to kill one before the rest escaped. With three bison, they were able to make enough to cover the whole party, including Gralak who had just woken up from his nap. Gulliman also grabbed to a skull to wear...

... which utterly terrified the next person they came across. This unfortunate soul was named George. An innocent, peaceful man, he asked them to help with his wagon. Tedcrag obliged, lifting the cart up so George could get his head under. Then Tedcrag’s strength gave out.

    There was a sickening crunch. George’s head split open like a coconut. Gralak threw up on Tedcrag’s shoes, and then immediately looted George’s corpse (further cementing his psychopathic nature). Tedcrag grabbed George’s remains to take him to bury. Esir then burned the cart, enraging everyone else who immediately leapt into the cart - including Tedcrag who just dropped George on the ground. Esir seemed to have a fundamental rule to not take the belongings of a dead person, but he was overruled by the other three.

They held a vigil and sang an Aragorn song for poor George, and carried on their way. In the night, Gulliman placed some gold on his eyes for some symbolic reason. In contrast, Gralak said “No one will remember you”, as if he were Thanos’ even crueler twin.

Later on in their journey, the group came across a friendly group of lumberjacks. Short on food, the group accepted in exchange for a large supply of rations. Oh, how naive they were, and the unfortunate events that follow will explain how. They ate a bad dinner, which looked like some leaves a reptile had spit up. After being wide awake for a while, they went to sleep in the miserable mill, then found themselves in an austere situation. They were bound and gagged, then thrown into an ersatz prison cell. It smelled vile in there, and the group suspected that the lumberjacks had hostile intentions.

Tedcrag managed to escape from his bindings, to see a horrible sight. There was a long corridor of dead human remains - it quickly dawned on him that these were a group of carnivorous cannibals! He puked on Gralak’s shoes then blamed it on an imaginary slippery substance dripping from the ceiling. He freed Gulliman, who upon seeing the situation they were in, puked all over Gralak’s back.

After being freed, Gralak realized the grim situation they were in, and what followed was something befitting of preschoolers instead of full-grown adults. Gralak got a handful of the puke on his back and smeared it on Gulliman’s face, then spit on him for good measure. As Gulliman was about to furiously retaliate, Tedcrag convinced the two to stop acting like literal children.

They needed to escape the peril of this situation, so in the end a decision was reached. They would reenact a plan called “Get help” (from a play in the Pernimius Theatric Universe) where one yells “Get help” then throws another into the approaching foe. They attempted it, but the guards were less than sympathetic. Gralak insulted his mother, which immediately provoked the guard. He slammed open the door, and Tedcrag threw a whole Gralak at the guard, pinning him down.

    Gralak stole the guard’s sword and proceeded to kill him with it, but a large swarm of guards were coming one-by-one. Tedcrag took a sword slash to the chest from one of them, taking his fourth damage in the entire campaign. Gulliman threw a rock at him, and then Tedcrag remembered the Wampa from the mountains and uppercutted the cannibal, crunching his jaw.

What followed was another unfortunate display of fire attempts by Tedcrag. Each time, he initiated it with a fire-related one-liner. His fire didn’t work the first time. Or the second time. On the third time, it messed up and slightly injured Tedcrag himself, taking his fifth damage in the entire campaign. Finally, on the fourth try, it came out in a blaze of glory, burning at least ten of the cannibals to death. At this point, Gralak had escaped by hopping the fence (a common practice by immigrants from the country bordering south of Pernimius), and Tedcrag and Gulliman then followed suit in the ensuing confusion. A cloud of fog from Gulliman sealed their escape.

They ran all the way back to their camp, woke a very confused Esir up, and rode off into the night. Where would their adventures take them next? Would it be before or after Gralak has a month-long dream of the eastern continents? Only time will tell.

## Episode X: An Unexpected Friend

It was the dark of night. Our heroes rode through the darkness, likely being chased by the bandits. Eventually, they reached a point where they thought they were far enough away. It was decided that Gulliman would keep watch, but he soon fell asleep on the job. Later, he and Esir both happened to wake up, and saw three armored men patrolling. They waited for them to pass, woke up Gralak and Tedcrag, and rode off once more.

A couple nights later, they set up camp elsewhere. This time, Gralak was keeping watch. He pulled out his copy of *Lusty Backdoor Miner Woman*, and fell asleep reading its pages. After several hours of snoozing on watch, Gralak was awoken to an unpleasant sight. Someone, who he immediately recognized as one of the cannibals, had grabbed him with a knife to his throat.

The others awoke to see this situation, as the cannibal slowly backed away with Gralak held hostage, rambling about "the natural order" of things. As the others tried to reason with the man, Gralak had… another idea. He considered headbutting the cannibal to get free. But, given the knife at his throat, he spent a long time weighing the odds. And while his nature compelled him to headbutt, he managed to find within himself some inspiration to restrain himself. Seconds later, Esir used a spell to put the cannibal to sleep, no one but Gralak knowing how close Gralak had potentially come to death.

Realizing that more cannibals were probably in tow, they set out once more. Not long later, five of the cannibals started chasing them on horseback! It was a chase like no other. First, Gralak’s horse ended up slowing down, but he managed to pick speed up again before getting caught. Tedcrag’s horse did the same, but then Tedcrag then turned around, whipped out a one-liner, and attacked the bandits with his fire breath. Miraculously, he was able to summon his fire breath on the first try.

    As one would expect, they did not take to the fire very well. The first horse reared up, causing its rider to fall off and impale himself with his sword. Ouch. The second and third horses saw the fire and were like “fuck this shit” and bailed to either side, ignoring their riders’ commands. Finally, the last two horses, with the leader and second-in-command atop them, rode through the fire like badasses, as if the fire wasn’t even there.

Unfortunately, the good luck of the fire breath working immediately came with its equivalent exchange of bad luck. Tedcrag’s horse reared up in fear, and Tedcrag fell off, rolling on the ground and taking his sixth damage in the entire campaign. Esir quickly shielded him, and the group prepared for battle! Gralak dropped his sword to kick things off, then Esir showed his prowess by simultaneously killing the second-in-command and injuring the leader. Finally, Tedcrag managed to scare the leader away through just yelling.

The danger behind them, the group arrived in a strange village that was populated by only women. They stopped there to stock up on some food. But the villagers seemed to be terrified of the dragon, dwarf, and two humans waltzing through their town. This was only made worse by Gralak deciding to “flirt” with one of the white-haired villagers by *chasing them through the village*. Yikes.

They met a terrified merchant named Beatrice, and were able to purchase some rations from her and her mother. As they prepared to leave, Tedcrag addressed the elephant in the room by asking “Where are the men in your village?”, which was only met with an ominous “Please leave.” While a more noble sort might have stayed and investigated further, and while it definitely seemed like there was some sort of side quest that might have come from with this village, our heroes felt they had better things to do and left then and there.

Finally arriving at the royal city, the group started to look around. Eventually, Tedcrag was approached by another dragon, calling him by the name of his father Iorveth. After a dialogue, it was revealed that this was Tedcrag’s father’s old friend in the fleet Olgierd, who had previously eloped with his lizard wife Iris before Iorveth went missing. Olgierd offered them to return to his house and they obliged. It seemed Olgierd was doing quite well for himself. As they sat together drinking Arnold Palmers, they exchanged stories. Olgierd told the group of his brief encounter with Iorveth - who had seemed to be going insane but having had similar visions to our heroes. Tedcrag then explained the details of their adventure, including their run-in with the cannibals.

Learning of their goal of the book in the library, Olgierd devised a plan of taking them to court disguised as his squires and then improvising from there. With the plan in motion, they all went to bed to sleep before their mission to find and infiltrate the library, in the season finale!

## Episode XI: "We're Bad", D&D Edition

Well, here we are. I advise you take this opportunity to grab a snack and a drink, get comfortable, and strap in, because this is going to be a doozy. I urge you, reader, to look away, as this leg of the tale in the lives of our heroes is one of their lowest. It won’t reach the imminent dangers of the likes of Basdun, but will make up for it by going wrong in so, so many other ways. I'm warning you, this will rival Episode V in length. If you’re still about to read, then god help you.

Our group woke up to a beautiful morning. They all got out of bed simultaneously, which was a bit weird. After exiting his room, Gralak decided to investigate other rooms, as you normally do in a stranger’s house. He opened up one door and in it was Olgierd’s wife Iris. She shrieked, and he quickly closed the door. She had slept naked, and Gralak had caught a glimpse of her lizard-woman titties, a sight that he found deeply confusing.

Olgierd rushed up and comforted his traumatized wife, and Gralak formally apologized. It’s lucky this is a fantasy world and not a modern day one, as otherwise Gralak would probably be put on a variety of lists between episodes like this and the white-haired villager a few days prior.

They ate breakfast and then all finalized the plan. Esir would not be joining them due to him having some sort of moral compass. They would go in as squires as previously discussed, but would also present a book as a gift to hopefully see it taken to the library. They really didn’t think things through as much as they should have, but we’ll get into that later. Olgierd then took Tedcrag into a room and had a private discussion. And I, as your unbiased narrator, will not divulge the conversation that happened between Olgierd and the best character in this campaign Tedcrag.

Right as their conversation ended, Tedcrag suddenly passed out onto one of Olgierd’s sofas…

**Épisode Deux: L’habit ne fait pas le moine.**

… Beecher s'est réveillé. Il a couru au sanctuaire pour adorer la Tour Eiffel, mais il n'était pas assez rapide. Les nuages se sont formés, et la foudre avec. Beecher est tombé au sol, se cassant la jambe. Un globe oculaire géant est apparu du ciel. Une voix rugit qu'il n'avait pas réussi à se rendre à la Tour Eiffel, et il devait être puni. Emmanuel Macron est apparu du globe oculaire et est descendu pour exécuter sa punition...

**Fin**

… Tedcrag woke up, visibly scarred. Mumbling something about macaroni, he returned to the group and the plan was set in motion! They went through into a beautiful courtyard, and into the grand hall. Finally, Olgierd and Tedcrag arrived in the throne room. After some time, the king appeared with his royal guard. Waiting for the right moment, Tedcrag stepped forward with a rehearsed announcement of Olgierd, then handed over the book as a gift. He watched as it was put into a gift pile on the table.

Olgierd spoke to the king, including telling everyone of the cannibals and urging action. Unfortunately, there were no “Library This Way” signs so Tedcrag decided to slip out with some help from Olgierd. He told the other two that he had no idea where the book was going. They decided they would search the castle through some side rooms. One by one, they snuck inside thanks to the guard doing a predictable routine.

Sneaking through, they found a balcony. Naturally, the only discourse here was for Tedcrag to throw Gulliman onto the roof to get a better view of where the obelisk might be. While Tedcrag had seen the obelisk *in the throne room*, he didn’t think to chime in here. Wow. Anyway, he compounded his failure by not being able to throw Gulliman up three times in a row, at which point they heard someone coming up the stairs. They quickly bolted into a nearby room and hid.

The guard followed their sounds into the room, and Tedcrag issued a “Quiet” command, which seemed to work at quieting him but he was still visibly about to get violent. The group attacked to defend themselves, ending with Gralak tackling the poor guy to the ground. Pinning him down, they interrogated him to give up the library’s location... but he didn’t know. Done with him, the group decided their only recourse was to knock him out. With the spell wearing off, the guard started screaming for help. Gulliman had had enough of his shit, and hit the guard in the head, killing him instantly. Gralak took his armor, and then they very ungracefully slipped him under the bed and covered the pool of blood with two pillows. The perfect crime.

    After learning and accomplishing nothing besides murdering an unfortunate guard, the group kept looking through the servant’s quarters. This path eventually led them to a door into the throne room, now empty and with only two servants inside. Tedcrag looked, but the book was gone. The group switched their attention to the giant obelisk behind the throne room. Thankfully, no one asked why Tedcrag had never mentioned this before.

They tried many ways of opening it, but to no avail. This included saying a bunch of phrases found on the throne, including the headmaster’s password “Nucer.” After many failures, they went back the way they came, and now brace yourselves for this wild goose chase: back in the servants’ quarters, two servants led them back *past* the throne room and into the guards’ quarters. In the guards’ quarters, they went through every goddamn room in the area. This included a large bedroom where many guards were trying to sleep. No one questioned why several guards were sleeping in the middle of the day, but perhaps they were the night shift.

In the very last room, they found the head guard’s things. There they found nothing of note, and then somehow came to the conclusion that the servants from earlier had led them into an elaborate trap, so they ran down to an outside door, and escaped the castle. It was there that the campaign abruptly ended.

At least, that’s how it would have gone if God hadn’t stepped in. Our three adventurers felt a strong premonition telling them to keep looking in the room, and there Tedcrag found a note saying “Passcode: Nucer.” They had found a way inside the obelisk! Now wait a minute, you might be asking, they had already said “Nucer” in front of the obelisk. But *no*, they said it in addition to a bunch of other useless words. Quite foolish of them.

They went back to the throne room for the *third time* (fourth for Tedcrag), but now there was a guard there. Gralak tried getting past him diplomatically, but he wouldn’t budge. Tedcrag, disguised as a humble servant, spoke up, and got slapped for his trouble, taking his seventh damage in the entire campaign. Gralak was forced to kill him, and he did so almost effortlessly in one stab to the face. “That’s the way the cookie crumbles,” Gralak said with a sadistic smile.

Saying “Nucer”, the obelisk finally opened after literal hours of running around and two completely avoidable deaths. The trio agreed to never speak of this again and went inside. Inside was an enormous and spotless white room, with stairs in the center. Climbing those, they entered… the library! And there was even a shiny ledger stating where to go. They found the book’s row number in the ledger, but oddly no index of where in this maze of a library each row was.

They started looking for the book. Well… not exactly. Gulliman and Tedcrag started looking. Gralak decided to hang back and fuck around in the lobby for some reason, I guess to stand guard? Skip forward two paragraphs to see how that ends up working out for him. Anyway, the other two heard some weird metal-on-metal noises. Staying the fuck away, they kept looking, but eventually Tedcrag tripped, which made a lot of noise. The metal noises got closer, and with them came a gruesome sight: an enormous clockwork monstrosity!

“Hmm, if this plays, the machine is recharging the magnetic coil,” it said. Or maybe that was just in Tedcrag’s head. It attacked the duo, but they managed to swiftly dodge its assault. They tried to fight back, but were just as unsuccessful in landing hits, including yet another failed fire breath attempt. Gulliman put down a fog spell to get away, and he and Tedcrag inadvertently split up and started to hide while also searching for the book.

Meanwhile at the entrance, a platoon of guards entered the library, clearly having seen the mess in the throne room, seeing Gralak hiding behind a small desk. Trying to escape, Gralak tripped and the guards drew their swords. Gralak had no choice but to surrender, and they took him further up in the obelisk and threw him in a pitch black cell.

Deep in the library, Tedcrag went full Metal Gear Solid and snuck past some clockwork guards, then miraculously found the long-sought-after book! He snagged it and prepared to head back. But sneaking back, some of the guards appeared and spotted him. While he pretended to be an innocent hostage of Gralak’s, and might have even convinced them of that, they took no chances and threw him in a cell anyway.

Finally, Gulliman found himself back at the entrance. Seeing all the guards, he figured the other two were goners and that he had to escape downstairs. He briefly entertained the idea of going up because *maybe* they had taken the other two prisoner and *maybe* the prison was upstairs, but then he rolled a 1 and realized he had no idea where they could be and went back to his original plan of escaping. He threw a book to distract the guards (a clever ploy), and ran downstairs, but came across an even larger platoon of guards. Like a Frenchman, he surrendered, and was thrown into the cell like the rest.

One by one, the three were interrogated. Gralak feigned his identity, but was forced to come clean and he explained the whole story of the lich and the visions. It was quite the same for Tedcrag, but he also inadvertently ended up name-dropping Olgierd in the process. Hopefully he didn’t end up screwing over Olgierd in doing that. And Gulliman? Well, he just came clean from the get go.

Weeks passed as they sat in their cells and ate shitty prison food. After about two weeks, they were taken out of their cells and sent before the king himself. The king had heard everything, and even seemed willing to *help* them. Perhaps they should have talked to the king from the get-go instead of devising an improvisational heist, but hindsight is 20-20.

After some pleas from our heroes, the king was not 100% convinced but would consider helping them. The more pressing matter was their punishments for breaking and entering as well as murdering a guard… but the king only mentioned one guard. It seemed the poor guard-under-the-bed had yet to be found. The king decided he would think upon their punishments and that he would give them later. Maybe the next day, or maybe in a month or two, who knows.

What will the king's punishments be? And what will *Macron's* punishment be? Find out next time in Season 2!... Or, uh, maybe Season 1: Volume 2? We’re still working that out. Until then, stay tuned! Fuck me, that was long

## Episode XII: Heads, Hands, and Balls

It’s time for a story. Three men walk into a prison cell. One a dwarf, one a ~~witcher~~ human, and one a dragon man. Little did they know that soon, among them, a few of them would lose some… *vital* body parts. But what happens in between? Well, get comfortable, grab a snack, maybe get a sip of some Arnold Palmer Iced Tea™, and think happy thoughts. Why? Because if you think this story has a happy ending, you haven’t been paying attention.

One month passed in the dark, dreary, dank, and desolate dungeon cell. Our three criminals didn’t talk much, just realized the horrible circumstances they were in and ate the shitty prison slop. But on the 30th day, they were summoned from their cells into an audience with the king.

The time for punishments had come. And while our heroes had been sitting in the dark, dreaming about international travel, summer jobs, and whatever the hell Gulliman thinks about, the king had spent this month deeply contemplating what cruel ways he would punish them. After much deliberation, he thought of the ultimate punishment, and as he decreed, all three of our heroes would have to play Knights of the Old Republic! But the king was not satisfied - none of the three reacted to Malak’s orders on Taris! As such, he immediately devised even crueler punishments.

As a quick aside, it has grown wearisome to repeatedly refer to the group as “our heroes” or “the adventurers” for paragraphs on end. So from here on out, we will often refer to the trio as the “Lich Burning Group”, or “LBG” for short.

    The LBG’s charges were vast - murder, attempted murder, breaking and entering, treason, and theft. As a result, so too were their punishments: each of them would get 150 lashes, have their nails forcibly removed, get a “Traitor!” brand on their chests, and one of them would be castrated. They allowed the trio 10 minutes to deliberate, and Tedcrag came up with the bold gamble that this was a test, and that if they specified no one, no one would be castrated.

He could not have been more wrong. The king immediately sentenced them all to be castrated, but it was here that Gulliman made the ultimate sacrifice and volunteered himself as tribute. He persuaded the king, and was taken away into a nearby room. For the sake of Gulliman and for the sake of you readers at home, what happened next will not be written down here. It is something best left to the imagination, as no words can truly describe what Gulliman went through that day.

Tedcrag and Gralak both admitted to Gulliman that they owed him a great debt - Tedcrag even went as far as to say he owed him two, one for each testicle. And while it was nowhere near the same level, he did what he could by successfully convincing the king that he would take Gulliman’s lashes for himself in addition to his own. The next day, the LBG each individually received the more general punishments. They were all branded, and they all had their nails removed in the most excruciating fashion. They had been through the worst of it, they thought. The lashes would suck, but after that they would hopefully be sent on their way.

They could not have been more wrong. The lashings would be *public*. Tedcrag and Gralak were tied up, and lashed in front of an angry mob. Not just with a regular whip, either, it was heavily barbed, because why the fuck not. Gralak was lashed 150 times, and barely managed to stay conscious through it. But he had made it through.

Tedcrag braced himself for the 300 to come, and for the first 150, he held his ground perfectly, barely flinching. But he had the additional weight of Gulliman’s 150, and halfway through these he finally gave out, falling unconscious around 225 lashes but still getting whipped for the remaining 75. The damage was so severe that the two of them each lost some of their permanent health, Tedcrag especially. But it seemed they had made it through intact. The damage had been done and scars had been made, but with the exception of Gulliman’s jewels all their wounds would eventually heal. Right as it seemed the sentencing was over, Tedcrag’s red dragon face turned white. To his absolute horror, he saw Olgierd and his wife Iris being brought up on stage.

As the king’s speaker told it, for his crimes Tedcrag would have to cut off Olgierd’s left hand. He was handed a sword to do the act, and Olgierd wouldn’t even look at him. Time seemed to stand still for about 10 minutes for some reason. In this time, Tedcrag weighed his many options. Go through with it? Cut off his own hand? Drop his sword? Lunge towards the king? But deep down, he knew that the only way he and Olgierd would survive this is if he followed through with it, and so he did. “Olgierd… forgive me,” he said.

I would like to say that this is where Tedcrag’s and everyone’s ordeal had ended. I truly would. But life (and sadistic kings) have a funny way of really getting their point across. The king’s speaker spoke again, and the command was passed that Tedcrag would have to lop off Iris’s *head*. Olgierd started writhing in a mix of anger and desperation, and time once again came to a standstill for several minutes. For the briefest of moments, Tedcrag thought of a storm, a butterfly, and somebody with blue hair, and he raised his right hand in front of him to try to manipulate time.

But alas, it was a fool’s wish. There would be no strange or life-altering abilities to save him from his fate. Once again, Tedcrag weighed his options. Go through with it? Target one of her hands? Cut off his own hand? Drop his sword? Lunge towards the king? And after much thought, he decided within himself that regardless of the outcome of his decision, he could not make the choice to willingly end another person’s life, even if it was to save that of many others from the storm that would be the king’s wrath no longer being at bay.

And so he did. He dropped his sword, and what followed was a blur. Iris was swiftly executed, and Tedcrag’s left hand was then immediately placed on the block and swiftly cut off. Tedcrag howled in pain, and before he could even come to terms with the loss of his hand, Olgierd had freed himself of his gag somehow and started cursing Tedcrag with everything he had. For some reason, he was cursing the guy who just did the only thing he could to try to save Iris, instead of the people who treated her as nothing more than a price to be paid by somebody else and then senselessly killed her. But he probably wasn’t thinking very rationally, to be fair.

    With that, the punishments were finally over. The three were kept in their cells for six more days, then swiftly exiled, with only 300 gold, a weapon each, and 3 books (the lich book that they had just been through hell for, the spider book that will inevitably be vital to the story, and most importantly the LBMW). They weren’t even given food, and were told they would be executed if they ever returned. Before setting off, they took a look at the book and read the missing page to see if it was worth all that pain and loss. The page spoke of 5 magical rods that would be needed to defeat the lich, and the location of the master rod (heh) that was in a library of the southeastern desert. They had no idea if they would run into a giant human-hating owl spirit inside of that library in the desert, but regardless they started heading off in that direction.

Along the way, they conveniently stumbled upon Esir. Esir explained how he escaped Olgierd’s estate before everything happened, and the LBG explained their brutal plight to him. They decided that they would return once they had found all the rods, with Esir checking for them the 15th of every month. He gave them some food and gold, and they exchanged farewells. The LBG was off to save the world, in search of the rods, and after much traveling, they eventually arrived in the city of Mon Durahl...

## Episode XIII: Gulliman's Bar Adventures, Vol. 2

Here in Mon Durahl, the gang decided to go and get some bevs at the local tavern. Tedcrag, still in a sort of shellshock after the traumatic events surrounding Olgierd and Iris, put it best: “I need a drink.”

At the tavern, Gralak and Gulliman ordered some nice, safe, regular drinks. But Tedcrag knew that wouldn’t be enough. He asked the bartender for the strongest thing they have. And what the bartender gave him was some green, murky shit that looked radioactive. Gulliman seemed interested, so he let Gulliman have a small sip; he proceeded to pass out instantly. After Gralak slapped Gulliman awake, Tedcrag took an enormous swig. He too passed out instantly, and when he came to, he had forgotten the entire past month, including the execution.

Attempting to splash himself back to his sense, Gulliman instead smacked himself with his own mug. In his search for water, he started drunkenly stumbling over to the bar counter, and somehow made it. He asked for water, and ended up paying 9 gold, far more than the usual price, due to being duped in his drunken stupor. On his way back, though, he stumbled and fell, spilling his beer all over another table with some dwarves seated there.

It wouldn’t be an LBG visit to a bar without pissing off a table of dwarves. This time it was Gulliman, and the dwarves were out for blood. There was no reasoning with these guys, and they prepared for attack. Gulliman immediately hauled ass, and before they could give chase, Tedcrag (who was also drunk as hell) offered them some of his drink. He and Gralak proceeded to convince them to try it out as if they were selling some snake oil. The dwarves took the bait, and all drank it and then fell to the ground, out cold.

Then, for some reason (the details of that night were cloudy thanks to all the alcohol Tedcrag consumed), Gulliman was arrested! Gralak and Tedcrag left the bar not long after, and eventually found out that he was just being held for the night. They had the choice of leaving him there for the night, or paying bail and having him released immediately. Like the true friends they were, they let him sit in the cold cell all night, and took a nap right next to the building in the meantime.

The next morning, Gulliman was released. Tedcrag's memory had mostly returned now. After some talks, the gang realized that after losing almost all of their money thanks to the king, they were in desperate need of some gold. As such, they immediately signed up for some miner work. It was cheap labor, and unfortunately the miners hadn’t formed a union, so their reward was minimal. But it was enough, and they did this for a few weeks. After finishing their final week of work, they decided it was time to buy some equipment with their hard-earned gold.

Before they could start their purchase however, Tedcrag, likely feeling the aftereffects of the drink, had a brief episode and everything went dark…

**Épisode Trois: Qui Vivra Verra**

Beecher s'est réveillé. Macron est descendu. Pour punir Beecher, Macron décida d'envoyer Beecher au travail. Beecher est retourné à sa ferme, mais a vu que toute sa maison était en feu! Là, il a vu un spectacle horrible. Tout en apprenant simultanément qu'il avait une femme, il a vu que sa femme s'était transformée en escargot géant! C'était le vraie punition. Soudain, du sang sort du nez de Beecher. Une aura mystique de français apparut et sa femme revint d'un escargot à un humain. Cependant, le feu brûlait toujours et menaçait de les brûler tous les deux vivants s'ils ne s'échappaient pas!

**Fin**

Tedcrag woke up, and for a second thought he smelled something burning. He snapped out of it, though, and the gang proceeded to go and buy their chainmail. After some negotiation, Tedcrag bought a battle axe, one light enough for his one hand but still strong. The whole group got some chainmail as well.

They now needed to head to Bizkor. It was a 4-day ride, and after arranging some travel, they waited the four days as cheapskates by eating food off the streets and sleeping in alleys. They then traveled, and made it there quite peacefully. In Bizkor, they saw water flowing everywhere. Now, they needed to find the library, but no one they asked knew where it was. In LBG fashion, they headed to the bar.

While they didn’t learn about it, they did realize that there was a three-way gang war going on. They did their absolute utmost to avoid this blatant sidequest, and for the most part succeeded. They asked a fisherman, one who looked like he could run pretty fast, about the library, but the fisherman did not know anything about it.

The group then found a scholar, who seemed to be the type that a guard would be more likely to arrest, and asked him about the library. He did seem to know about it, but wouldn’t tell them in detail. Gulliman told him the whole truth of their plight, and persuaded him in the most convincing manner possible. He told them about the library, and even agreed to get them started on finding it. Before that, they would need to set out for the nearby college, which was located in the middle of a huge lake...

## Episode XIV: The Last of Us

The Lich Burning Group traveled onward with the scholar, who introduced himself as Timothy Balthor. Before heading to the college itself, Timothy took them to his manor, quite the lavish and extravagant one for someone of his… anyway, they explained the whole story to him as his servants fed them. Soon after, they set out on his sailboat to the college.

The College of Bizkor was huge, with a dome-shaped tinted glass ceiling, and it was all held together by large amounts of obsidian. Inside, they saw it stood four stories tall, with many doors leading off to other areas. They were swiftly taken to the headmaster, who resided in a smaller glass dome, with marble floors and obsidian columns.

They began to speak with the headmaster, once again explaining their story. Gulliman tried to communicate one simple sentence, but when attempting to do so seemed to lose the ability to speak several times over, which confused the headmaster and had Tedcrag laughing hysterically for some reason.

In the end, they did manage to persuade Headmaster 2: Electric Boogaloo to help them find the library. Jenny, his assistant, gave them some help as well. Gralak tried flirting with her, after which Tedcrag reminded him of the ashen-haired girl, to which Gralak mumbled something about his dick. Gulliman didn’t say anything, but he shed two tears for some reason.

Jenny gave them some improved armor and weapons, including giving one of them a platinum sword. They spent the night there in a single room, and were awoken by another girl named Ellie. She seemed clumsy and shy but in an endearing sort of way -- there’s got to be a TV trope for that, right? Ellie gave them their weapons and revealed that she would be accompanying them on their journey.

Unlike he did with Jenny, Gralak did not start off by flirting with Ellie. But instead, they noticed her seemingly mirin’ Gralak. Because as far as they knew, Ellie wasn’t a lesbian. If she was, it might have caused an overblown controversy over something completely harmless and something people already knew about 4 years ago. But fortunately, this world was not one with such moronic things, and luckily such a world did not exist…

Anyway, back to the point. The LBG, with Esir 2: Judgment Day in tow, set out on a boat. Remembering her staring at him earlier, Gralak tried to flirt with Ellie, but stumbled with his words and she ended up walking away. Gralak did what no one should do and followed her to try again. Here is Attempt #2, in all its unedited shame:

“It’s a beautiful view from the boat… but not as lovely as you.”

As one would expect, Ellie had nothing to say in response and walked away again. This time, Gralak gave up. They arrived at the port and carried on through Bizkor. Along the way, they were stopped by four men with black hoods. The men claimed that they did not like men who didn’t take sides. That’s right, the dodged sidequest had come back to haunt them. Battle began! Gralak did a sick charge attack, killing one and severely injuring another. Tedcrag prepared a fire breath, but as usual he had performance issues.

Gulliman then plunged his axe into one of their heads, decapitating them. The men still alive ran in terror. Moving on, they headed off through the desert, with Ellie as their guide. Along the way, Gralak spotted an obelisk, which made Ellie’s face go white. She did not want to talk about it, and they pressed on. Setting up camp for the night, the LBG managed to convince her to talk about the obelisk. She explained an urban legend of Bizkor that it was a sign of things out there in the desert that take people away.

Later that night, Gulliman’s spell alarm went off, but nothing came. Looking into the distant dark, Gulliman then saw three dunes, and two red glaring eyes off in the distance. He stood alert, but nothing happened for the rest of the night. At daybreak, they set off again, and eventually arrived at a structure that had to be the library. Ellie said she would wait outside, and the trio headed inside. There, they were overtaken by a blinding mist! The three were separated, and each saw a vision…

***Tedcrag’s Vision***

Tedcrag pressed forward. The mist felt like soft silk. Opening his eyes, Tedcrag was in a luxurious bedroom. Like the kind you see in rich mansions in movies, with the big bed with curtains and everything. It was a very fancy place, and looking out the nearby balcony, he saw it was thirty stories tall. He heard someone from the doorway calling him “Prince” and telling him to come down when he’s ready. After getting a view of the balcony and seeing masses below, he realized that he was in Hydraco's royal palace. He headed back to the door that he heard the voice from, and then a white flash consumed him...

Now, he was in a big religious temple, surrounded by nobles from Hydraco. There was a woman dressed in a red silk gown - he recognized her as Saskia, his mother! She beckoned him over to sit next to him, and though confused, Tedcrag followed suit. A ceremony had begun. In walked a procession of people, with his father Iorveth (with an “I”, though some Hydraconians have an inside joke of referring to him as “Lorveth” with an “L”) behind them all! He stepped to the altar and kneeled, where he was granted a crown.

All of a sudden, the entire room burst into flames, and everyone, with the exceptions of Tedcrag and Iorveth, vanished. The temple that had once been lit and in an honorable ceremony had been replaced with a bloody scene engulfed in flames. Iorveth, too, looked different, standing up looking bloody and menacing. Turning to his son, he said “This could have been prevented!” He pulled out his sword, attacking Tedcrag, who was forced to defend himself and dodge his father's blows.

Telling his father that he didn’t want to fight didn’t do Tedcrag any good; Iorveth didn’t seem very responsive. Tedcrag reluctantly struck him, trying not to do any severe damage, but he somehow cut open Iorveth’s stomach and his intestines started spilling out. Unfazed, Iorveth kept taunting and insulting Tedcrag, saying things like his death/disappearance was all Tedcrag’s fault, and that Tedcrag was a failure. All the while attacking his son, who was only barely dodging his attacks. Tedcrag realized that this wasn't truly his father, and went all out. He swung his sword with killing intent. There was also another failed fire breath attack thrown in the mix, but we don’t need to get into that.

With a decisive strike, Tedcrag swung his sword straight through his phantom father, who disappeared in a puff of smoke. Looking around, he realized the fire had consumed the ceiling. As a large piece of roof collapsed on top of him, Tedcrag woke up, back in the mist, and saw a door! He reached out for it...

***Gralak’s Vision: SOLO: A DND Story***

Gralak emerged from the fog, having lost his teammates, and found a forest. He looked down and saw that he was dressed differently than when entered the fog - he was wearing his rangers clothing that he had not worn for five years. Ahead, he saw a dimly lit mine. He heard the mine... calling him, almost. He ventured forward and entered the dark and damp cave. He picked up a torch on the ground and, upon him picking it up, it lit immediately. Strange. Suddenly, he heard screams and moans. Feeling uneasy, he explored the mine and found a chasm.

Across the chasm were thousands of torture devices - and I mean literally thousands. Gralak started hearing the bloodcurdling screams inside of his head and felt pained and tortured. He saw barrels next to the torture devices. They were full of a mysterious liquid, and upon closer inspection, he determined that it was... blood. He felt sick seeing the mass quantities of blood present. Suddenly, a fog appeared again and shrouded the torture devices. Gralak heard an infant crying....

He turned around and was faced with a giant orc - immediately Gralak recognized him as one of the orcs that attacked his hometown, Senten, all those years ago. It attacked and luckily, Gralaks nimble ranger skills helped him dodge it. He failed two attacks in a row, but finally managed to slash it. Upon a brutal slash, the orcs intestines spilled out to the ground. It lunged at Gralak, but he dodged it and stomped on its head - killing it. Gralak sighed a sigh of relief as he thought the ordeal was over.

Suddenly, the crying returned. Gralak turned around and saw a baby's crib in front of him. He was taken aback. What was this doing out here? He slowly and cautiously approached it - inside the crib was a disgusting and mutilated infant. He collapsed to the ground and began to weep, for he realized what it was he saw. It was his baby brother, Endlas, who he left with the orcs all those years ago when he and Nesi escaped. He realized this must have been what became of his brother after the orcs had their way with him. Suddenly, he felt a piercing pain. He looked down and saw a sword protruding out of his chest.

The sword withdrew from his chest and he collapsed to the ground. The crib was gone, and he looked up and saw the figure that stabbed him - none other than Nesi, his childhood love who has been missing for many years. He tried stammering out words - but, Nesi stabbed him in the neck and said something along the lines of "this is all your fault".

Gralak suddenly snapped BACK TO REALITY OH THERE GOES GRAVITY - and noticed that he was fine - no wounds were present. He saw his comrades and approached them...

***Gulliman’s Vision***

After much frustration and deliberation on how to get the god damn door open our heroes finally succeeded as the great stone hulk lurched open. Gulliman stepped in and was instantly surrounded by a veil of mist. He looked left and right to find his companions but they were nowhere to be found. What was more strange though was the change of scenery, although he barely stepped a foot into the door it seemed like he had been transported into a whole different realm. This realm was familiar, yet cold, dark, and a sense of dread and forelorn. It was Mereven but with two things different, it was quieter and the only inhabitants were goblins. Gulliman had to move about quietly in order to not alert them. He was able to traverse the roofs of the city via conveniently placed tightropes, eventually after nearly falling once, he came upon a strange brick wall with one door. He opened the door in anticipation of a goblin jumping out and eating his guts but instead, something... different loomed ahead. After opening the door Gulliman saw the damp and burned out remains of his home, destroyed after that faithful day. But in a blink of an eye color returned and he felt warmth as he heard a familiar comforting voice. "Oh Robute its time for dinner". It was his mother, Gulliman was home he could feel it. Perhaps what happened was all a bad dream and life could continue peacefully as it should have. This however was too good to be true, as Gulliman entered the kitchen everything turned dark and all he could see were the bodies of his family being devoured by some sort of creature. Gulliman fell back realizing the door was using his past memories and his fears to manipulate him. He filled with rage as he took a chair and attacked the creature only to be pushed back as it turned around. Then Gulliman's face filled with horror as this...creature was a zombified version of his brother. As it lunged at him everything went white and Gulliman woke up in a sweat on the floor of the library. He saw the others in a similar condition and approached them to talk about what the fuck just happened.

## Episode XV: "The Door Stays Closed..."

Regaining their senses, the trio emerged from the fog one by one. They proceeded to explain to each other one by one their own visions they had just had, which are cataloged above.

After the three had finished sharing stories, they walked forward, but very soon they came across a lone obstacle: a humongous green glass door. Now what I’m about to detail is one of the lowest points of our heroes’ journey. Usually in stories, the lowest point would be a traumatic event or the loss of a loved one. But here, it's just one door boi. I beg you, reader, to skip this section and get to the actual plot. After all, the door does not open for people who read this, but it does open for people who skipped this.

The door began to speak! It spoke but a simple phrase. “Many throughout the ages have tried to gain this library's knowledge, however, some scholars were turned away while others were not. Why was this?”

And so it began. They asked who could and couldn’t enter. The answers seemed inconsistent, varied. Tedcrag and Gralak could not enter, while Gulliman could. And while Gulliman could, dwarves could not. It seemed like there wasn’t any pattern to it at all, but they kept trying more names. They tried different races. Locations. Objects. Possessions. Ideological concepts and theories. But they couldn’t find the connection. The door would not open. Every attempt at solving the riddle was met with “The door stays closed” or “The door does not respond.” All seemed bleak and hopeless.

They realized that Gulliman was the key to all of this. Since he was a funnier character than they had ever had before, they used him as the constant and started going all scientific theory in this bitch, trying different variations of Gulliman. Then, the small hamster wheel inside Tedcrag’s brain started to spin. He tried looking for patterns in the lettering. He thought maybe it was a vowel, and tested it out with the ingenious name “Tedcragcregcrigcrogcrug”, which was still not allowed in.

Looking through the name “Gulliman” in his parchment, Tedcrag finally saw it - the two L’s in quick succession. He asked the door if the rule was repeating letters, and the door swung open. Their long nightmare was over. Moving past the big green glass door, they found themselves in a big green glass hallway. They found the library in all its glory. In it was 467 volumes of history tomes, among other things. There, they discovered a small little artifact. The rod, perhaps?

Gralak and Gulliman hesitated, but Tedcrag immediately picked it up. He immediately started seeing visions - he saw five, each seeming to point to one of the Chaos Emeralds… I mean, the Infinity Stones… I mean, the Dragon Balls… I mean, the five Rods that would defeat the lich. Yeah, that’s what I meant.

The first vision showed the one he was holding now. Second, a city with ships, spices, and gold. Third, an area with mountains, trees, and a large structure surrounded by elves. Fourth, human men with women in their laps, men in chains outside, and seemingly a pirate ship. And fifth, a dwarven mining area with flames nearby...

Tedcrag returned to the real world, and shared what he saw with the others. The other two also took hold of it and downloaded “rodvisions.mp4” to their brains. After deciding they had had enough of SolarRod, they discussed their findings. They managed to identify two locations definitely - the second one was Gralak’s hometown Senten, and the fifth one was Basdun, the location of their traumatic goblin encounter.

It was decided Tedcrag would hold onto the rod for now. Before they left, even while Tedcrag was starting to feel sleepy, Gulliman decided to search the entire library up and down. They then found one last small little thing, and this taught them about the Day of Black Sun and how to defeat the Fire Nation. Confused by this information, the group shrugged it off and headed back outside.

And that was that. One rod down, four to go. Given how long it took our heroes to find a fucking book page, who knows how long it will take them to find the four remaining rods scattered throughout the continent. Only time will tell… until then, in case I don’t see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night.

## Episode XVI: Fenceposts Look a Lot Like Dragons, Okay?

No, I totally did not forget that I was behind on a synopsis. Get out of here with that fake news.

We left our heroes exiting the library. Next, they had to get to Ba Sing Se and go through the Serpent’s Pass, but it would probably take several months for that episode to come out. God damn Nickelodeon. Anyway, they were met outside by Ellie, who didn’t look so good. The girl had surrounded herself with three black rings. While Gulliman questioned why there weren’t any *white* rings, the group also noticed that were also some black rings under her eyes as well.

She only met them with blank stares, and the only thing she said to them was “We need to leave.” They started heading back, and eventually night fell and they set up camp. Gralak, being his usual Gralak self, attempted to flirt with her again. But instead of her usual shy response, Ellie pulled a knife on him and called him a pig, clearly sick of his shit. She still refused to talk about what had happened to her, leading them to theorize that she was under some sort of spell. The LBG decided they would keep an eye on her and be on guard.

Gulliman woke up later in the night, to find Ellie still with a thousand-yard stare. Gulliman prodded, and eventually got her to come clean. She explained that while they were in the library, those ominous things she had seen had come for her. She didn’t go into any detail beyond that. Eventually, they returned to the city, and Ellie decided it was time to part ways. They exchanged some curt farewells, and Gralak and her had a heart-to-heart, where he apologized for some of his blunt behavior and she explained she had a fleeting attraction to him. She kissed Gralak on the cheek and left, to which Tedcrag gave him a *crisp* high-five.

Later on in the city, they started looking for transportation in the merchant district. There, Beecher found… a fencepost? No, another dragon! They shared some stories, had some great laughs, and reminisced over memories of Hydraco, but then the dragon left before Gralak and Gulliman could see him. How unfortunate. Gralak was *very* insistent on seeing this dragon but Tedcrag strongly persisted that he was gone.

Before he could ask further, they were approached by five people. That’s right - the gang war sidequest was upon them once again! They approach them to potentially hire them for their gang, and at first, it seems like the group might negotiate their way through the conversation. But these guys hated neutrality so much that they felt that the proper punishment for apathy is death. Combat began once more, Tedcrag opened up with his signature “Charge Fire Breath and Fail” attack, but then redeemed himself a bit by fending off three attackers at once. Gralak killed one with a dual attack, and then Tedcrag charged and tripped on a pebble, clearly being the comic relief of this fight. Gralak and Gulliman went to town on the rest, including Gralak slicing one’s jaw off.

With the fight over, the group headed back to the merchant district, and found a merchant named Jeremiah who would give them the transportation they needed. They set off with him, and traveled uneventfully. Arriving at Milvol, they heard talk of the “Pirates of Siren”, including a huge rally going on. At this rally, Gulliman almost got drafted into the cause, but was saved by the others. The group was about to leave, but thanks to a little wink wink nudge nudge from God, the group realized that these might be the pirates from the last rod vision, and realized this would be the next step of their journey.

And that’s all folks. With the LBG regularly rotating vacation and work schedules, full gams are rare and D&D sessions even rarer. But eventually, D&D will return in all its glory. For now, we can consider this the midseason break. So stay tuned for Episode XVII, coming eventually™.

## Episode XVII: Young Love

Well, no episode thus far has crossed the 2000-word mark, but this episode joins the pantheon of stupid-long episodes shared by V and XI, so strap in.

It was time for Gralak to get ice cream! But in a surprise twist, it was actually clam chowder! Tedcrag found it delicious, given that it was a delicacy from Hydraco, and went under the impression that “ice cream” was just the country’s name for clam chowder. Gulliman also did some anti-metagaming by being not mentally present during this exchange, so he actually did not know it was clam chowder until he was told as much.

They asked around for some help. Gulliman asked an old man, who informed him of Bingo Night, of which Tedcrag and Gralak were eager to go to but were shot down. The two also yelled into the crowd how to get to “Milvol”, but no one answered. They went back to the drafting board and almost got drafted by disguising Tedcrag and Gralak as Gulliman’s servants, but decided against it.

The LBG said “fuck it” and rode off for Melvo. They found a camp, but did not scout it, said “fuck it” once more and rode further. There, they found a town. They found an inlet with a rock where they set up camp, and decided to scout and do recon for a while. This town highly resembled the one from the vision, with the pirate ship and everything.

During their scouting, the topic of Tedcrag’s fire breath attack came up, and Gralak decided to poke the hornet’s nest by calling out the fire breath attack’s unfortunately low success rate. Tedcrag’s response was a simple “Watch your back.” Gralak escalated the matter by shoving Tedcrag. Well, at least attempting to shove him - Tedcrag didn’t budge an inch. Tucking his metaphorical tail between his legs, all Gralak could muster was another “Watch your back”, and then God thankfully intervened by distracting them all with some developments at the town!

There was the pirate ship, with shirtless men on it and the sails down, chained people boarding the ship and getting whipped, men being executed, and more slaves carrying big containers onto said ship. After several more days of scouting, the group briefly considered manning a 3-man assault on the town, but thought better of it. While they didn’t have the rations to make it back to any major town, they could head back to that first camp that they had skipped for some reason.

Arriving back there, they were met by some dwarves. These dwarves were setting up to attack, but did not have the men they felt they needed. The group tried to convince the dwarves to help them, but they needed some convincing of the group’s abilities. The LBG of course thought of no better way than showing off Tedcrag’s fearsome fire attack… which of course failed the first time. The dwarves were about to walk away, when Tedcrag convinced them to give it one more shot, and this one thankfully worked, lighting a pillar of flame above him.

The head dwarf watching was in awe, but still not convinced that they could spare the men. In jest, Tedcrag recalled a memorable quote from a Hydraconian play, saying “I just need twenty good men!” And somehow, this set something off in the man, who suddenly agreed to give them twenty... no, *thirty* good men immediately. These men were led by Sgt. Banner, and they made plans with him to attack the town. They took particular care not to anger this sergeant, as they had heard rumors that making his blood rate rise would turn him into a giant green monster.

They made a plan to attack involving a series of timed torches from the LBG, which would be a banner to signal the charge from Sgt. Banner and his banner of men. At nightfall, it began. The three moved into position, but before Gulliman could reach the final torch point, he was spotted by a guard. He attempted the Drax method of standing still to hide, but to no avail. He threw his torch, and Gralak and Tedcrag then followed suit with theirs.

The guard and two of his companions charged towards Gulliman, who braced himself. After this, Gralak snuck up and backstabbed one of the guards. As you all know, backstabs are instant death, and it was so successful that the guard’s heart fell down to the ground. Gralak the Ripper continued his assault and killed the remaining guards threatening Gulliman. Meanwhile, Sgt. Banner and his men were charging into the town to attack, and hearing the commotion, Tedcrag intercepted and then joined their charge.

Moments later, Gulliman happened to be looking in the direction of the pirate ship and saw a peculiar sight - aboard the ship, there appeared to be an ashen-haired woman leading the other pirates, with a whip and foil. Dropping everything, Gralak made a beeline for the ship, cutting through every pirate in his way. Tedcrag and Gulliman followed suit, but not before Tedcrag banged his knee attempting to jump on top of a stable.

They arrived at the ship, and without thinking through the consequences, Gulliman immediately threw a torch onto the ship. Gralak stepped to the end of the dock and yelled out one word - “Nesi!” And moments later, he heard a confused but angry “Gralak?” as the ashen-haired woman indeed turned out to be Gralak’s long lost lover. Nesi stepped onto the bow of the ship to face him.

She had her whip and foil at the ready, and was clearly in charge of the pirates. Ignoring this, Gralak just gave a chill “Long time no see” which was met by an enraged “You ruined everything!” Nesi leapt down from the ship and attacked him. And thus, the most intense lovers’ quarrel had begun.

Her initial lunge attack severely wounded Gralak, but he fearlessly retaliated by disarming her foil. Nesi retaliated back by whipping him ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) and shouting that he abandoned her. Gralak, coughing up blood, refuted this claim saying he had spent years upon years looking for her. He ended it by calling her a “silly girl”, which seemed to have the opposite of the intended effect. She started literally foaming at the mouth in fury, hitting him with her hand-axe and whip, gravely wounding him once more.

On the brink of passing out from blood loss, Gralak reached for one of the elixirs that the headmaster had given him and drank it, which fully restored him to peak condition. He tried to persuade her, but once again failed, but thanks to some inner inspiration managed to recover it and convinced her to back down. Nesi fell to her knees and started screaming and crying, as a storm fittingly started.

Gralak tried calmly talking to her, but failed to notice her drawing a knife. Before anyone could react, she had slit her own throat. Gralak collapsed to his knees in shock and horror, all thought leaving his mind. Gulliman fortunately kept his wits about him, immediately bursting forward (knocking two dwarves aside) and taking out another elixir, giving it to Nesi. It seemed to be just in time, as although she was out cold, her wounds healed themselves and her heartbeat returned to her.

Gralak was extremely thankful like he had never been before, saying over and over that he could never repay him. To this, Gulliman chuckled, looked at Gralak, and said “What can I say? I know young love.” Without missing a beat, Gralak flatly replied “I’m 37.”

After a few moments of awkward silence, with Tedcrag nearby dying of laughter, the group’s adventure for the day seemed to be over. But then the trio could have sworn they heard the voice of God suddenly boom out “You forgot the rod, you dumbshits!”

This whole time, the dwarf vs. pirate battle had been going on around them, and flames had further engulfed the ship. Gulliman and Tedcrag leapt into action, as Gralak carried off Nesi to take her to someplace safe. For some reason, their sixth sense told them that the rod was aboard the ship. Gulliman spotted a hole at the bottom of the boat, and he and Tedcrag dropped their heavy armor and swam into it.

The first floor just had boxes, which all apparently just had spice in them. Running up to the second floor, the flames were too thick, but Gulliman cleared it away with his fog. On the third floor, they found several rooms. They adopted their trademark “breach and clear” strategy as they burst through doors and went through each room one-by-one. They found a safe in the final room, but no method they tried would open it.

They finally climbed up to the top deck, with the last three remaining pirates on the verge of exhaustion about to surrender. “Hey, bitch boys!” Gulliman yelled out. “Give us the rod and we’ll spare your lives!” The bitch boys immediately surrendered, and Tedcrag explained that if they open the safe, their lives would be spared. While they didn’t have the key, they agreed to help carry it out. While Gulliman freed the remaining prisoners who then jumped ship, Tedcrag lead the bitch boys downstairs. The safe was too hot, but they then got some gloves from the floor below and were able to carry it off, and somehow make it back down to the dock safely with the safe in tow.

Gulliman kept to his word, and convinced Banner to spare the three… or so he thought. The sergeant then gutted all three of them, maximizing their suffering and anguish. He said “No mercy for pirates!” or something along those lines. After exchanging some words with the dwarves, Tedcrag and Gulliman took the safe off to the side and opened it somehow. Inside were two rods. One jet black with glowing squares, and another that was the rod they were looking for! There was also 20,000 gold, six rubies, a shield, a dagger, and three cloths that they soon learned were essentially invisibility cloaks!

While Tedcrag and Gulliman had had their swashbuckling adventure aboard the pirate ship, Gralak had been at Nesi’s bedside, watching over her. She eventually woke up, and the two had an intense heart-to-heart. She claimed that she could never be forgiven for what she’d done, and that she’d done too many things since they had last seen each other. Through all of it, Gralak simply said he did not care and was just glad to have her alive and with him. With some convincing, Nesi eventually caved and decided to go with Gralak, at least for the time being. The two had a tearful and emotional hug, and then they went outside and found the other two by the safe.

After what had happened to the three pirates, they decided it would be wise to keep Nesi away from Banner and his men. They gave her some different clothes to look less like a pirate, grabbed the rods, the gold, and everything else in the chest, and the four of them quickly set off without another word.

Stay tuned for next episode, in which we’ll no doubt get the remaining three rods uneventfully and easily defeat the lich.

## Episode XVIII: Papers, Please

Alright you shits I have three episodes to write, so strap in.

After the exciting events at Pirate’s Cove, the group realized that they had to get Nesi the fuck out of there. If they didn’t, Mr. Banner might hulk out on her for being a pirate. They sneaked out, then realized they had left all their horses back there. Gulliman and Tedcrag sheepishly returned to the base and retrieved their horses. They started riding north, then realized they didn’t have any rations. Gulliman sheepishly returned to the base and asked for some rations, but since it was the middle of the night they needed to wait for morning to talk to Banner. When Gralak decided to be his smart-ass self upon learning this, Gulliman threw one of the rations at him. Gralak proceeded to stomp on it, wasting food and further causing the others to question his sanity.

Tedcrag had a peaceful slumber, dreaming of familiar, nostalgic sights at home.

The next morning, Gulliman sheepishly returned to the base and asked to purchase some rations. Banner obliged, saying that while he was sad he would never get his own movie again, he was grateful for everything the LBG had done, and gave loads of rations for free. Gulliman returned to the group with the rations in tow. He had something to tell them, but opted not to tell the group all at once.

Instead, he went for an ancient art of communication called “bush whispering”, where you repeatedly pull people over to the bushes one-by-one to tell them all essentially the same thing. This proceeded to piss Nesi off, so much that she eventually bolted off on a horse. Gralak rode off after her, rambling about mystical rods and causing her to once again question his sanity. After some talking, they convinced her to travel with them.

But Nesi wasn't done yet. She went off on Gralak, complaining about how he had never looked for her. He refuted this claim, saying he’d been looking for her for 19 years. But Nesi wasn’t convinced. Apparently, she had been right under his nose in Senten. It was news to Gralak that Senten had been rebuilt. Almost two decades had passed, and he hadn’t realized his hometown had been rebuilt. He had even had a vision recently about Senten and still did not put two and two together.

Gralak and Nesi’s spat continued. The conversation eventually turned over to the rods quest. While initially skeptical, Nesi was eventually persuaded by being given the rod visions (falling off her horse in the process), and by reading the lich book. She agreed to tag along, but only for the money. While coming to terms with the fact that the girl he had spent nearly two decades looking for was a gold digger, Gralak pressed on.

After 55 days ride, they arrived at Miraven’s gates. They waited in a 5-hour line, using false identities such as Rivers Cuomo and Wario Luigi, but learned that they needed IDs. Nesi suggested they steal them, but Tedcrag the Paladin told her that they ain’t about that life. But Gulliman *did* have an ID, so they waited in the 5-hour line *again*, much to Nesi’s frustration. Upon reading the name on the ID, the person working there called over the guards, and the group had to run for their lives. They just barely managed to escape.

Much to their terror, the gang realized that they had a 500,000 bounty each for the terrors they had wrought upon the town in their last visit. Tedcrag and Gralak found this offensive. But Mariven's people were convinced; when humans and dragons send their people, they're not sending their best. They're sending people that have lots of goblins, and they're bringing those goblins with them.

With no other option, the LBG allowed Nesi to do her thing. In a short time, she managed to acquire and forge some fake IDs. Gulliman, or should I say “Tim Hiddle” led the disguised group back into yet another 5-hour line, giving his fake ID and sponsoring the rest. They made it in with no issue.

Inside Mariven, they found complete squalor and devastation. People were living on the streets, and it was just generally a bad time all around. The gates to Basdun had been heavily barricaded. But they saw a recruitment notice for people to fight the goblins. The LBG would soon be returning to their favorite goblin hangout!

Oh, and Gulliman’s brother was on trial or something.

## Episode XIX: #NotMyBrother

Okay, so this episode was a bit of a fever dream. I don’t remember parts of it, and sometimes question if it even happened. I hope you like business negotiations!

Gulliman inquired about a digging quarry, and the man there led them on a tour. I will spare you the finer details, so you don’t fall asleep while reading this, but it eventually ends in a secret talk with the mayor, where Gulliman discovers permits in his office.

Armed with this knowledge, the group sneakily concocted a plan to steal the permits at night, at which Nesi continued to judge them for their ever-shifting morality. The LBG bought some black clothes, and Gralak used his nonexistent lockpicking experience to get inside. He did this three times, also using his very convenient locator spell to find the permits. All in all a very useful day for our friend Gralak.

After much reminding, Gulliman remembered that he had a brother that was on trial the next day. They sat at the trial, and poor Horace was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Gulliman wanted to free him, but Gralak and Tedcrag were repeatedly mumbling “not *my* brother", and Nesi wasn’t having any of it. She asked for an exorbitant amount of gold in return for helping jailbreak the brother, but just as they were agreeing to a good price, Gulliman decided perhaps his brother could wait a little while. Nevertheless, they gave her some of the money upfront for her to free him at some point later.

Some time later, Tedcrag passed out.

**Épisode Quatre: Mieux Vaut Prévenir que Guérir**

Beecher s'est réveillé. Sa femme était morte. Lui et Jack se tenaient dans un champ. Un étalon blanc apparut et un homme descendit. En plantant un drapeau de la République française, il a condamné Beecher: à exploiter des baguettes dans la mine de Baguette, dans le sud de la France, jusqu'à l'âge de quatre-vingt-dix-sept ans.

Beecher se souvint qu'il était nu. Il a ordonné à Jack de lui donner ses vêtements et Jack l'a fait. Ensuite, ils ont entendu le roulement de milliers de roues. Le Tour de France! Lance Armstrong mène la charge et Beecher essaie de lui donner un coup de pied et de voler le vélo. Il a échoué et a été piétiné par les vélos.

Jack est venu à la rescousse. Il prit une baguette, l'attacha à une corde et la jeta à Beecher. Beecher le saisit avec sa bouche. Jack ressentit psychiquement la douleur de la baguette et jeta Beecher hors de la route. Beecher a volé dans le champ de vin voisin. Il a commencé à boire le vin en grande quantité et à retrouver un peu de santé. En buvant le vin, il a perdu connaissance...

**Fin**

After having another strange dream about oddly-shaped bread and magical two-wheeled wagons, Tedcrag was mentally drained for the rest of the day. He had a hard time taking in everything that happened. As he understood it, the three of them were getting coached on how best to head into Basdun where they would lead some dwarves. Well, that was the gist of it at least.

The trio entered Basdun. They did not know what horrible sights awaited them this time, but hoped they would fare better than last time. It was time for Journey to the Center of Basdun!

## Episode XX: Fly, You Fools

Well, two down and one to go. After the buildup of the last two slow episodes, this one is a hell of a payoff. You might want to prepare yourself by watching or reading The Fellowship of the Ring, which few people know is actually a story that was heavily inspired by this chapter of our heroes’ adventure.

After a million years, it was time to enter Basdun once more! They received some illumination stones, and headed on in. They had to start things off by walking over a flaming pit; Gralak lost his footing for a moment but managed to recover. Once fully inside, they met their battalion of dwarves. Gulliman prepared a speech for them, introducing himself using his real name. As the dwarves around him gave each other shocked glances and prepared to lynch Gulliman, Gralak whispered to Tedcrag about it, and Gulliman then managed to use some of his mental inspiration to time travel back ten seconds and reintroduce himself using a fake name.

The March of the Dwarves began. They began a slow and tedious process of walking three miles, stopping, building a wall for a week, and pressing on. That night, Tedcrag had a happy, peaceful dream. But then he had a nightmare immediately following it, one involving the lich atop a tall mountain, and with a snap of its fingers it burnt down a whole forest (and probably half of the universe’s population). It then headed towards a giant obelisk.

Tedcrag woke up in a sweat, and the next day told the others of this dream. It seemed to be a vision of the lich expediting its nefarious plans, and the LBG realized that they could not afford to wait around for the dwarves to keep doing their weekly episodes of Home Improvement. Tedcrag came up with a plan, which involved motivating the younger group of dwarves who were looking for action with a rousing speech. Gulliman gave the speech to his countrymen and succeeded, and the LBG plus the six dwarven warriors gathered some supplies, then pushed forward far beyond the 3-mile limit.

It was not long before they reached a familiar sight - a giant pit, a broken statue, and the start of the broken tram line from their first visit. Gralak used his increasingly convenient tracking spell to locate the rod, and led the group further inward and down a flight of stairs. This dark area had lots of enormous water jugs and ballistas, definitely seeming like a unique area for a boss battle. Ignoring those signs, they walked along a narrow stone bridge and arrived at the altar holding their third of five rods.

They grabbed it and left Basdun. 3 down, 2 to go! Find out what happens next ti-- but before the outro could complete, a piercing shriek came out from behind the altar, and a giant flaming hand the size of Tedcrag's whole body emerged. Out of the pit came an enormous Balrog, standing three stories tall, complete with a cleaver, a whip, and everything. I told you this is what inspired Lord of the Rings.

The Balrog, oozing bloodlust, menacingly stepped forward. The nine heroes ran back across the chasm, but in the panic, two of the dwarves tripped and fell into the abyss. No inspiration or saving throws for you! Gulliman managed to damage it somewhat with his fog spell. As everyone else ran back into the room with the water jugs, Gralak paused halfway across the bridge for a moment to think.

He turned around, looked at the Balrog, and yelled “you cannot pass!” but the Balrog wanted to pass. Gralak continued to mutter to himself “I am a servant of the secret fire, wielder of the flame of Anor, the dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udun! Go back to the shadow! YOU SHALL NOT PASS!”

Or, at least he said some of those things; it all happened so fast. Gralak the Grey took out one of the lightning rods from before. He slammed it into the earth, and a bolt of blue lightning burst out. It pierced the Balrog’s chest, gravely wounding it. But it wasn’t enough to kill it, because the Balrog took a page out of the Erwin Strategy Book and continued its advance.

Not to be outdone by lightning and fog, Tedcrag had an idea. The most brilliant of ideas. An idea so hype that if it had succeeded, it would have been the best moment of the campaign. He confidently faced the Balrog, used his knowledge of the Infernal language, and yelled at it with his one-word command spell: “Die!”

The Balrog looked extremely conflicted. For a brief moment, it looked back across the chasm and contemplated its life. Should it join its Balrog brothers and sisters in the great fiery beyond? Or should it continue to defend some mystical stick due to the will of some black monster? The Balrog remembered its days in therapy, talking to his therapist about when his Balrog wife left him for a minotaur, and wondering whether or not it should keep on living. But after much contemplation, the raging fire in the Balrog’s heart intensified to where it matched the flames that surrounded its body.

“I choose life!” it snarled in a language that no one understood, and shrugged off Tedcrag’s command. It pressed forward. But the time it had spent paused had bought the rest some time to prepare. Gulliman knocked one of the giant water jugs over, and it crashed down on the beast, seeming to damage it, since Water attacks are naturally super effective against Fire types. Angry, the Balrog swung its cleaver at Tedcrag, who it only managed to graze but still enough to damage him significantly. Taking its whip now, it flattened one of the redshirt dwarves, leaving only three remaining.

Gulliman and Gralak, ever the resourceful ones, both manned ~~ballistas~~ Bastilas and shot at the demon. Both connected, with one even going through the neck. Tedcrag, not to be outdone, kept using the “Die!” command, but at this point it seemed completely ineffective. He tried to use a Bastila, but it didn’t work, continuing Tedcrag’s streak of uselessness. After taking turns cleaving and shooting Bastilas, the battle came to a close. One last Bastila shot, this one coming from one of the last three dwarves, finished it off. It fell to its knees and perished..

… but it had one more trick up its sleeve. Like any self-respecting demon, it set itself to self-destruct upon its death, and it exploded in a ring of fire. Everyone managed to dodge the blast radius... well, except Tedcrag. He fell into the burning ring of fire. He went down, down, down, and the flames went higher. And it burned, burned, burned, the ring of fire, the ring of fire...

Tedcrag survived though, albeit looking much worse for wear. Gulliman held onto the rod. Looking annoyed and unsatisfied, Tedcrag hobbled over back to the altar. There he found a giant hammer of thunderbolts, which had the power to potentially one-shot giant creatures. He decided to hold onto it. He had earned it after his hard battle of running away and shouting at the Balrog.

Tedcrag rejoined Gralak the Grey, Gulliman the White, and their three traumatized (but alive) dwarf friends. With three rods collected out of five, they set off to wherever their misadventures would take them next. Senten, perhaps?

## Episode XXI: Doctor Troubles

It was done. The gang had just defeated the Balrog and obtained their third rod. But there was no time to revel in their victory. They heard a great rumbling, and instinctively knew that the horde of goblins was no doubt going to make a break for them. The LBG and the surviving dwarves snuck out the way they came, and this time remembered to close the door behind them. The rumbling eventually ceased.

The dwarves were troubled after what had transpired, but Gulliman took the time to give them a heroic and epic speech... in text form. It remains a mystery as to what everyone spent their time doing while waiting several minutes for Gulliman to write out multiple paragraphs of his speech. Nevertheless, it served to motivate the survivors. They pressed on back to camp, encountering zero goblins on the way back.

Back at the camp, Gulliman explained what had happened to everyone there… using another long and written speech. With their rod mission completed, the LBG made up some excuse and headed back to Mariven, but Gulliman brought one of the survivors with him, a lad named Brandy.

In Mariven, the businessman there was surprised that they were back so soon. He was so surprised that he kept calling Tim Hiddle “Gulliman”, but Tim of course did not associate himself with such a heinous criminal. Tim left everything in hands of the businessman, but not before giving him some advice on the pacing of the march, as well as making sure Brandy would receive a well-deserved promotion.

Free of obligations with the dwarves, it was time to head out! Gralak used his increasingly convenient locator spell to find Nesi, and they set off to meet her. She had freed Horace, but reminded Gralak that she still wanted that tapestry from Senten as a reward. Gralak was unsure why it was so important to her, especially because he himself had trouble remembering that it even existed. But this is the same man who didn’t realize Senten had gotten rebuilt, so you never know...

Gulliman and Horace had a heart-to-heart. As all siblings do, Gulliman lied to his brother’s face and claimed to have no part in the actions of their first visit to Basdun. He was somehow able to convince Horace that it was *another* trio of a dwarf, human, and dragon who had unleashed the goblins that ravaged the city. Furthermore, Gulliman told his brother of the rods and their mission. Horace was skeptical, and unlike Nesi didn’t see anything upon touching the rods. But he didn’t want to make the same mistake of not trusting Gulliman he had previously, and agreed to help.

Horace proved his usefulness even more; just from the description Tedcrag gave of the visions, he was able to discern the location of the other rod, besides the one in Senten. This was the ancient elvish city of Baştir. They all agreed to head there, and Horace joined the group, joining the prestigious list of “RPG party members” of the campaign alongside Esir, Gaz, Ellie, and the still-present Nesi.

Unfortunately, leaving the city was no easy feat. They had to disguise themselves, and when you’re a six-and-a-half-foot dragon man in steel armor, wielding multiple weapons including a lightning-imbued hammer, not to mention *missing a hand* it’s hard to pass yourself off as someone else. He managed, though... that is until his cloak got snagged on something on the way out, coming straight off and revealing him to the dwarves.

The guards, racist and xenophobic as they always are, immediately ordered Tedcrag to come with them despite having no idea if he was the dragon in question. He was, but that's besides the point. Fortunately, Gulliman came in with the clutch save, passing Tedcrag off as one of his servants Draco Malfoy. The guards weren’t having it, but Gulliman went one step further and intimidated them using threats of the Ministry of Finance. “Wait till my father hears about this!” Tedcrag snarled as he headed back to the Slytherin dormitories. The dwarves let him be, and the group was free to pursue the next rod.

Their next point of interest was a nearby town by the river, to get a boat towards Baştir. Tedcrag, still feeling burns on his arm from the Balrog explosion, went to a nearby doctor to get it fixed. The rest of the group commissioned some small boats, avoiding themselves from getting conned a high price in the process.

Meanwhile, Tedcrag had an ordeal with this doctor, a lousy folk by the name of Dr. Scott. As everyone knows, you can’t trust people named Scott, so Tedcrag was naturally suspicious. Dr. Scott gave him ointment and bandages, and only made him pay 250. But a nagging feeling inside Tedcrag felt like something was off. First, he demanded to see the back room and investigate the lotion he had been given. When the doctor refused, Tedcrag had a brilliant plan. He stepped outside for a moment, snuck around the back, perfectly stealthed his way inside, and found two ointments - one yellow, and one with a skull and crossbones! Enraged, Tedcrag grabbed it, walked back around to the front, slammed it on the counter, and accused Dr. Scott of poisoning him!

Dr. Scott was naturally bewildered at this sudden turn of events, then it dawned on him that the ointment was his own and became outraged himself. Dr. Scott reached for something under the counter, and Tedcrag made him sleep with his command spell. He was so angry about the whole situation he failed to realize it was the first time that spell had actually worked.

The rest of the group came in, and Tedcrag acted like nothing had happened. He ripped off the bandages, got his money back, and rejoined the group. They set off on the boat, and set sail down the river for Baştir!

## Episode XXII: Hammer Time

Further down the river, Tedcrag’s arm grew increasingly uncomfortable. Investigating, he noticed some pus coming out from the places where the ointment was given. He expressed his dismay to the group, further cursing the wretched Dr. Scott. Gulliman saw this, and fixed his arm up with a quick spell.

Even further down the river, they found a submerged shipwreck. Gulliman and Tedcrag briefly investigated, but couldn’t find anything of note, and the group pressed on. Little did they know, their old friend George’s entire extended family was inside this ship and drowning inside, and they had inadvertently left them to die. Or perhaps that was a dream.

Anyway, several days later they arrived at Baştir. The group braced themselves for many hard-fought days and nights of adventuring, knowing after the library, the pirates, and Basdun that it *always* takes several D&D sessions of work to obtain a rod. First things first, they needed to get in. But in order to do that, they needed to slay a beast for the elves in order to be granted passage. Since Horace and Gralak were the only ones who could speak Elvish, they did all the talking and negotiating while the other three stood there in the background twiddling their thumbs.

With their Witcher Contract obtained, the group set off back down the river toward where the elves said the beast resided. Eventually, they heard a loud bass-like screeching. Getting off their boat, they headed forward and found a cave where the noise had come from. Horace, in both a smart and a cowardly move, decided to defend the boats, while the other four recklessly headed inside the cave.

Inside the cave was a large room, definitely large enough to house an enormous beast. In the center was a nest with three giant green eggs. No ham, unfortunately. Suddenly, the group heard, and I quote, a “foosh foosh” and then a huge slam. The four ran off into a side-corridor and watched as the beast made its way inside. It was as enormous as they feared, perhaps moreso and rivaling the Balrog, with countless scales, spikes, and a pair of giant wings. While they couldn’t identify its species at the time, it was quite clearly a dragon. But not the Tedcrag kind of dragon, more of the actual dragon kind of dragon.

Whispering to each other, the four realized they needed to come up with a plan. They laid it out as three separate plans, each being a fallback plan of the one preceding it. First, and most boldly, they would attempt a Hail Mary one-shot, where Tedcrag would use the full force of his power along with the hammer he had gotten from the Balrog’s lair to slay the dragon in one strike. But knowing his horrible track record under pressure, this was highly unlikely, and the aforementioned backup plans were much more probable.

The first backup was a four-pronged assault, wherein after Tedcrag inevitably failed, the other three would jump out from hiding spots and attack it, hopefully enough to weaken it for them to then finish it off. And the final plan was the “fuck everything and run for your lives” strategy, where they would still try to grab a scale or something as fake proof of defeating it, but run like hell and hope not to die.

And so, everyone got in position. Gralak did an incredibly perfect backflip, showing prowess straight out of Super Gralak Odyssey. Nesi, of course, immediately one-upped him with platforming of her own. The two got aimed from above, and Gulliman from behind a rock. And Tedcrag, visibly nervous, stood in front of the dragon, feeling the strong wind from its nostrils exhaling. He took the hammer in both hands… er, one hand and a stump... and lifted it over his head. He spoke: “Dragon… it’s time to meet Mr. Hammer!” and swung his sword down.

Time stood still. Mid-swing, thoughts raced into Tedcrag’s mind. Countless failed fire attacks, George's death, vainly yelling at a demon to kill itself, and all the events surrounding Olgierd and Iris. Time and time again, he had experienced failure. These past several months, Tedcrag had not been dealt the best hand, no pun intended. And he caught a brief glimpse into the future: where he failed miserably, missed the hammer strike, the dragon awoke, and it killed him and his comrades in gruesome fashion.

*“Not today.”* Tedcrag’s mind returned to the present. Something changed in his mind, and he found himself feeling inspired from within. The hammer crashed down and connected to the dragon’s head with earth-shattering force. Everyone could both see and hear the dragon’s skull being crushed from the mighty blow, and an electric shockwave soared through the dragon’s body, killing it wholly and instantly.

For the next few seconds, everyone was in awe… including Tedcrag, who stood there in stunned silence. After the shock wore off, the LBG cheered triumphantly, and went on to loot the dead dragon for all it was worth. Gulliman, in a frenzy, collected several of its scales, and Tedcrag took off one of the horns on its head to hold onto as a trophy. Nesi set her sights on the three eggs, but quickly realized she was going to need help carrying them.

In their attempts to get the eggs down, one slipped and fell to the ground. Nesi was pissed, not at the sudden abortion of an unborn dragon but at the financial loss because of it. Still, they had two eggs, and the four carried them out. But after trying to fit them in the boat, they realized they couldn’t bring them back to Baştir. They buried the eggs nearby, and our heroes headed back to Baştir.

They spent the night in an elven barracks, although Nesi had to sleep in a convent. The next day, she returned with a smirk, which everyone knew could only mean bad things. But no one pressed her, and the five headed into Baştir proper. They could see the large tree, and the vast lake. Gulliman stopped by at a nearby merchant store and inquired about the prices of scales, and his eyes turned into golden coins as the merchant explained how much they were worth. When Gulliman told the gang about his findings, they urged him to first focus on the mission before that. The LBG headed across the lake to the temple in the center. They were not stopped along the way until they tried to enter the temple, barred from entry because they weren’t members of the faith.

Gralak used - you guessed it - his locator spell to find the rod, and saw that it was indeed inside the temple being the object of the elves’ worship. Through Tedcrag’s urgings, Gulliman also noticed some magical wards inside. They waited until nightfall in the beautiful garden, full of flowers and trees, and knew it was time to devise a plan. Gralak investigated, and the group deduced that they had two options: sneak inside using the invisibility cloak and nab the rod from under their noses, or join the faith by doing a trial for them and steal it that way.

Horace did not want to mess up things with either the elves or his own religious values, so he opted to return to the city and tell Nesi of Gulliman’s get-rich-quick scheme. If there was one sure-fire way to get Nesi to cooperate, it would be with the promise of gold. The LBG who remained decided for themselves that they would rather take the quick but risky option of the invisibility cloak. The alternative trial was much safer, but seemed too long and boring, and the group was determined to get a world record on the single-segment Baştir speedrun at this year's AGDQ.

It was decided that Gralak would sneak inside, and he donned the cloak. He snuck inside the temple, walking past the room with Dumbledore and the mirror, and made his way into the central chamber. He gasped at what he saw: fifteen elves in shining golden armor, in a circle guarding the rod… but looking away from it. Not smart. Gralak began sneaking around, but tripped up a ward. His cloak was about to burn up, where he would then be caught and imprisoned by the elves. Gulliman and Tedcrag would be arrested outside for being filthy foreigners, and the lich would succeed in its evil plans.

*“Not today.”* Gralak thought, flashing back to the present. Remembering his life-or-death instincts when he had a cannibal’s knife to his throat, he inspired himself and managed to mentally fend off the magic ward. Breathing a sigh of relief, he snuck forward to the rod, and grabbed it. He retraced his steps and snuck out.

Outside, the others were surprised at how quickly Gralak had done it. Gralak handed the rod to Tedcrag, who put it into place with the others. Four MacGuffins down, one to go. The LBG realized that they had to get the fuck out of Baştir, as it was only a matter of time before one of those fifteen guards decided to look in a different direction. To make matters worse, Tedcrag could swear he saw glowing green eyes behind them as they were leaving.

They quickly sailed back and met up with Horace and Nesi. Nesi wanted to make some gold after learning about the scales, but quickly understood the situation and recognized the need for them to GTFO of Baştir. And so our three lich slayers (with the brother and estranged girlfriend in tow) did just that.

On their way out, Tedcrag’s and Gralak’s minds were both racing at the thought of what the timelines and events would be looking like right now if they hadn’t inspired themselves dealing with the dragon and the magic ward, respectively. They both rested easy knowing they were in the better timeline, though a certain godly figure was probably grumbling about all the missed opportunities and wasted pages of prep work.

Only one rod remained. Next stop - Senten!

## Episode XXIII: My Dad the Cloud

The chase was on. The gang had to get away from Baştir as fast as possible before the elves caught wind. Nesi and Gulliman, however, wanted to make some bank by selling shit, but were fortunately out-voted by the other three. They kept rowing down the river, even through the night.

On the second night, Gralak fell asleep and straight into the water. As he sank to the bottom, Tedcrag quickly dove in after him and saved his life. Gralak was thankful, and they pressed on. On the third night, Gulliman did the exact same thing. Drifting off, he fell to the ground like a sack of bricks, Horace and Tedcrag went in after him and only barely managed to get him out, and Gulliman escaped after a brush with death.

Later down the river, the group was stopped by a pair of elven guards. The LBG tried to play dumb, but they were ordered to step out of the boat and be searched, as the filthy non-elves they were. Disembarking, Tedcrag came face to face with a guard, and not desiring combat or surrender, he opted to use his command spell and say “Leave!”... it didn’t work...

But he tried it again, and this time, the guard complied. He got in the boat and started rowing away. Naturally, the other guard was confused and infuriated, and demanded answers from Tedcrag. Tedcrag simply told him to “Leave!” too. And yet again, the guard complied. Without a boat, though, he walked into the water and started drowning, and the group's moral compasses Horace and Tedcrag pulled him out and simply knocked him out instead.

Tedcrag’s command spell had been proving its worth as of late, quickly rivaling Gralak’s locator spell in terms of usefulness and utility. Some innocent fishermen who were watching nearby rowed away like their lives depended on out. The LBG and co. pressed on, deciding to take a sea route to Senten.

Before continuing, though, it was time for the non-combative Horace to be written out of the campaign. He decided to return to Mariven and help deal with the Basdun situation. After learning of this, Gralak chastised Gulliman for not lying to his brother about their involvement, as it would likely come back to bite them later down in the road. Gulliman took the lecture like a man.

They arrived at a rather small city with human guards. In a campaign first, they were able to get in without having to provide papers or identity. They found several boats there, and picked one at random. Finding one that looked rather unsavory, Nesi looked right at home. As they negotiated a ride, she kept the group from getting ripped off when paying for the ride.

They boarded the boat with no issue. Later on, on the sea, Gralak saw a terrifying sight. “It’s the cloud, you know, the one that’s your dad?” To this, Tedcrag gave him a confused glance, but he rushed to the side and indeed saw a large fog on the water, and he could somehow feel that it was similar to the one that took his dad all those years ago……. or became his dad, as some might believe.

Tedcrag, in a panic, yelled at the crew to get away from it, but they were all like “Nah, you trippin” and ignored him. Sure enough, the cloud got closer, and as it came upon the boat, they all heard a horrifying screech which petrified almost all of them. All of them, save for Gralak. Gralak quickly snapped the LBG back to their senses, and the group looked on in horror as a floating siren monster with snakes in her hair emerged. In its hands was a strong trident, and it looked hungry for blood.

Bright lights emanated from the siren, and she killed some of the crew members, including the captain. After killing them, the siren started to eat their corpses. With most of the other crew out of commission, it was up to the LBG to stop this terrifying beast. They all hid behind conveniently-placed boxes throughout the map like they were in a stealth shooter video game, and prepared for combat. Gralak, taking initiative, ran out and slashed at it, and Tedcrag did so as well from behind. Gulliman meanwhile tried to sweet-talk one of the non-petrified crew members into distracting the siren with a bow and arrow, but the man wasn’t having it.

The siren looked down on Gralak, who stared back up at it defiantly. “Omae wa mou shindeiru” it said in its siren language. Jack could barely let out a “nani?” as he was pierced by a beam of light, instantly falling unconscious and on the brink of death. This siren definitely wasn’t taking prisoners. But the other crew member by Gulliman manned up, distracting it with an arrow before it could eat its Gralak Sundae, and in an act of heroism Gulliman leapt out of cover and poured the elixir (the one they had bought from the merchant) down Gralak’s gullet…

...and nothing happened. Fucking snake oil merchants. The LBG collectively decided in that instant, that if they were to defeat the lich, their next target would be that fucking merchant. Tedcrag witnessed this, tossed his snake oil elixir aside, and pulled out his real one from the headmaster - the last remaining true elixir. With the siren occupied elsewhere, he too leapt from cover and poured it down Gralak’s gullet.

And Gralak, who moments ago was bleeding internally and dreaming about walking towards a light, came back to the land of the living, his wounds all fully healed. Everyone raced back into cover, and the stealth game continued. Gulliman cast a spell that enhanced everyone’s stealth abilities, and the gang took turns running in and out of cover, attacking it from behind at a stealth disadvantage and running back to cover. Several times during this, Gralak seemed tired, and kept forgetting the current situation, multiple times running at it head-on.

Pissed off at the guerilla warfare, the siren did its shriek again, this time paralyzing only Tedcrag. The other two failed to notice, sadly, and continued their attacks. Fortunately, Nesi came out from below the decks and snapped him awake. The combat continued. As the battle wore on, the siren kept removing the boxes of spice. “Could it have a weakness to spice?” Gralak wondered. No, it was just eliminating everyone’s cover! At one point, it had a clean shot at Gralak, but this time he was able to barely dodge the blow.

Tedcrag, having not damaged the monster since his very first surprise attack, knew it was time to prove his worth. He cast the spell “Speak with Animals”, and tried to reason with it. “Leave us be!” he said, but was only met with bestial rage. However, that was only the first part of his plan. He was the Eggman, after all, so he had the master plan. His true aim was to be able to speak to it directly, using - you guessed it - his command spell. “Hey, asshole!” he yelled. The siren turned to face him, her eyes burning and the snakes on her head wildly thrashing. *“Die!”*

Her eyes immediately went cold. She thought back to her days in siren therapy, talking to her therapist about when her minotaur husband left her for a Balrog, and wondering whether or not it should keep on living. Looking down at her trident, she turned it towards herself and plunged it into her torso, committing sudoku.

The siren fell to the ground, fully dead. Tedcrag had slain two of the main enemy monsters in a row, for anyone counting. It almost would have been three, if only Basdun’s Balrog hadn’t had such a good therapist. Clearly better than the one the siren had.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. There the four of them stood, having survived another harrowing encounter. It was then that Nesi came to a realization, to everyone else’s horror. She and the LBG were all standing, whereas the entire rest of the crew was petrified. She opted to mutiny, and everyone else was too exhausted to stop and moralize her.

Ruthlessly, Nesi murdered all the petrified crew members and threw them overboard, and all of them couldn’t do anything but watch. Even paladin Tedcrag. *They were criminals who probably would have killed us in our sleep,* he tried to rationalize to himself, but he knew he couldn’t justify cold blood.

## Episode XXIV: How Not to Brute-Force a Heist

After finishing her murder rampage, Nesi smiled. “Wait… does anyone know how to navigate this ship?” she asked. But before she could go down to the lower decks, Tedcrag convinced her to spare one should they be able to navigate. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, all the crew was already dead. As Gulliman scavenged some scales and nails from the dead siren to sell, Nesi took command of the ship, ordering the other three around to perform various roles. She called Tedcrag “big guy”, which he did not very much appreciate.

“Big guy?” Tedcrag muttered to himself. “For you… you merely adopted the dark…” before he could finish that thought, he and Gralak passed out for seemingly no reason.

**Épisode Cinq: L’habit ne fait pas le Moine**

Après avoir bu du vin, Beecher se leva et vit un spectacle horrible. Il a vu un homme, un homme qui avait ruiné son enfance. C'était la Ruin Johnson! Pire encore, il avait un script pour un redémarrage de Retour vers le futur sur sa table. Beecher ne pouvait pas permettre cela. Il a couru plus vite que jamais auparavant, et Jack a également couru et a essayé de le frapper. Mais Rian a subverti ses attentes, montrant sa vraie force. Il leva les mains au ciel et la foudre tomba. "Snoke était inutile depuis le début!" il a beuglé.

Beecher a fait une course folle pour le scénario, il l'a saisi et l'a mangé. En détruisant un redémarrage de Retour vers le futur, il avait sauvé l’humanité de son vrai mal. Pour preuve, Rian Johnson s'est évanoui comme Voldemort dans le film Deathly Hallows, car seul quelque chose d'aussi vile et pourri qu'un reboot Back to the Future pouvait être le horcruxe d'un homme aussi repoussant et terrible que Rian Johnson.

Beecher et Jack entendirent des sabots. Dans la maison, il n'y avait que des mauvais scripts. Ghostbusters 4, E.T. entièrement féminin et Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom 2 étaient tous là. Les Romains qui venaient d'être initiés à l'histoire arrivèrent et volèrent Beecher pour un crime inconnu. Jack se précipita pour le sauver, mais Beecher et lui perdirent connaissance.

**Fin**

Tedcrag and Gralak woke up, feeling strange. Tedcrag, with an odd taste of paper in his mouth, and Gralak, feeling like he'd been struck by lightning, helped the others throw the siren overboard, and they continued their voyage to Senten. After a whole month at sea, they saw a number of ships blockading Orsus. They decided it was better off to keep heading to Senten, and sure enough, they arrived there soon after. The giant red banner was waving in the wind, and it made Gralak feel nostalgic. He pulled out the necklace that everyone else was so sure he had forgotten about entirely, and went to talk to Nesi.

After Gralak showed Nesi the necklace, she ripped it off his neck and went deep into contemplation. She then embraced Gralak, ran into her room, and slammed the door. Tedcrag and Gulliman could only make out those key details from a distance, but Gralak came back with a smile on his face.

With Nesi preoccupied, the other three set off of the boat to resume their rod hunt. However, first things first - Gulliman, nearly foaming at the mouth at this point, raced forward to sell some stuff and make money, and the group followed suit. First, they sold the spices from the ship. The merchant there offered 35 thousand, but Tedcrag, with his Hydraconian knowledge of spices, managed to raise it to 45 thousand. Their next selling point was the siren scales, and they managed to sell these too to one lucky merchant for a great price.

Finally, they went to sell the dragon scales. After the merchant there learned they had 15 scales, he closed the door to talk business. They sold the scales, and got some nice armor to boot. After making tens of thousands of gold, the group was rich beyond their wildest dreams. But now after making tons of money, the most suitable course of actoin was to rob a bank. Heading to the center of town, Gralak used his locator spell twice and found that, luckily, both the rod and the Senten tapestry were both in the bank’s enormous group of vaults.

But before they could get inside, they were stopped by a guard. The guard asked their names, and they responded with Gralak, Gulliman, and Waluigi. The guard was not fooled by that last one (he'll never get into Smash, after all), so Tedcrag played it off as a joke and introduced himself by name. Upon hearing this, the guard’s demeanor immediately shifted. “In the name of Olgierd!” he yelled, drawing his sword, as two companions of his appeared behind him. They were out for Tedcrag’s blood!

“I thought Olgierd was dead,” Gralak mumbled, before Tedcrag snapped him back to his senses, and he vividly remembered the execution of Iris and that Olgierd had only lost a hand.

Before combat began, Gralak and Gulliman tried and failed to disarm the man, and John tried to bribe them, at which they were met with laughter. Tedcrag tried to intimidate them with his fire breath, but as usual, it was impotent fire. The battle raged, with Tedcrag getting hit by a fireball, Gralak slicing two at once, and Gulliman cutting off one of their arms. After this, Tedcrag was able to intimidate them enough to leave, having offered to spare their lives in exchange for leaving them be.

Deciding not to waltz straight into the bank after causing a scene in the plaza, the gang first headed back to the boat to store some of their gold. At the dock, Tedcrag spotted someone. It was an actual ship of dragons waving the banner of the Fencepost Kingdom!... er, after focusing his eyesight, he saw that it was actually the banner of Hydraco! He walked up to them alone, and exchanged pleasantries with Bartholomule, one of the men working there. It was a fairly simple conversation, but at the end Bartholomule said “Hail emperor Prahringerr!”

This news came as a pleasant surprise to Tedcrag, Prahringerr having been his childhood friend who had always had ambitious aspirations to be emperor. When he mentioned this, Bartholomule was stunned and Tedcrag explained further. They exchanged a few more words, and as a show of good faith and friendliness, he gave Bartholomule 1,000 gold. He was naturally ecstatic, and the two exchanged farewells.

As they finished depositing money in the ship, Gralak could swear he heard “female snoring”, but paid it no mind. They hatched a plan to walk into the bank, with Gralak depositing money, Tedcrag accompanying him, and Gulliman using the second invisibility cloak to sneak inside and steal dat rod.

Walking in, Gralak began negotiations to withdraw from his deceased father’s account, good ol’ ~~Reiner~~ Radovid Braun. Gralak, too, had been presumed dead, so he apparently had lots of taxes to pay, his family being the top 1% of the top 1%. To verify his identity, he called in an old friend Vitorio, the finest sword in Senten, who arrived and dramatically reunited with Gralak. Gralak convinced him to wait outside for them to finish their bank negotiations. The banker, meanwhile, led them down to the vault. Braun's vault was glorious, with literal bars of gold, an ancestral sword, and the tapestry Nesi had asked for!

Gralak took the tapestry out, as well as the sword which seemed incredibly strong. He tried to use his locator spell for the rod, but it wasn’t working. Apparently patch 1.24 had nerfed the spell considerably in magically-secure areas! A cloaked Gulliman then tried to pickpocket the keys from the banker. He failed miserably, and they fell to the ground. He was exposed and executed for robbery, and Gralak and Tedcrag along with him as accomplices. Nesi never left her room, and the lich succeeded in its plans.

*“Not today.”* Gulliman thought, and time reversed. He snatched the keys with the grace of a swan, and began a monumental task: brute-forcing all the vaults. There were countless vaults down here, and the key-ring had about 20 keys, so naturally this took quite a bit of time. But he was determined to brute-force it, much to the dismay of the D&D gods.

Among the vaults, there was one with silver bars, one that had spice, and one that was a horrific torture chamber. Running out of time on the cloak, Gulliman poked Tedcrag and was able to obtain the final cloak from him, giving him another hour to burn. He kept brute-forcing until he realized that this wasn’t going to go the way he thought. He needed a new plan, and made the other two aware of this. They went back to the office - locator spell still not working, damn nerfs - and Tedcrag made a play of trying to set up an account and act like a bumbling idiot.

Meanwhile, Gulliman was stuck inside the office with the banker, who fortunately left not long after. John browsed through some names inside the office and found one that seemed faintly familiar. Timothy Dalton, former Bond and Time Lord! Naturally, only a man like him could own a lich-defeating rod. Gulliman made his way back down to the vaults and found Dalton’s vault. He opened it up and headed inside.

To prevent unintentional metagaming, the exact details of this endeavor were not described to this writer’s eyes. In short, Gulliman sneaked through some darkness, had some close calls with one of Kirin Jindosh’s clockwork soldiers, and obtained the fifth and final rod. Sneaking out, he put everything the way it was, even returning the banker’s keys. The perfect crime!

Outside, they made their way to a hiding place, and Gulliman handed over the final rod to Tedcrag, who connected it with the others. Nothing appeared to happen, but it was complete! While it had taken them a whole eleven episodes to eventually find a single page of a book, they had secured five mythical rods in just thirteen. Also in the vault, Gulliman had found a silver metal hand, perhaps to replace the missing hand of a certain dragon? That’s right, it was Olgierd’s time to shine and become the true hero of this story!

With the rod quest completed, only one task remained for our heroes - to slay the lich! Will it take two sessions? Three? Four? It remains to be seen, but eventually the group will find a day where everyone isn’t dead and start the final chapter of this saga!

## Episode XXV: Top 10 Anime Betrayals

Fresh out of the bank, the next order of business was for Gralak to meet at the cafe with Vitorio, the finest sword in Senten. He asked many questions of Gralak, many of which he did not receive straight answers to. He was initially quite skeptical, but they were slowly starting to convince him. The discussion continued, until it was abruptly halted by an arrow whizzing through the air into a glass, shattering it.

Vitorio, the finest sword in Senten, raised the table and ducked under it as cover, and everyone else did the same. Gralak noticed the arrow had a note attached to it: “Olgierd will have his revenge. -JB”. While Gralak pondered who this could be, Tedcrag bemoaned how Olgierd’s misplaced vengeance was rearing its ugly head once more.

No arrows followed, and the group hastily ran back to their boat. On the way back, Tedcrag thought he saw those eyes again. Back on the boat, Tedcrag explained his history with Olgierd to Vitorio, the finest sword in Senten, but fudged the details by leaving Gralak out of the story. Gralak, meanwhile, had an epiphany, and realized that JB must be Jay Bowman, former leader of the Red Letter Bandits and the scourge of Senten. If he was working for Olgierd, the LBG would surely be in for some trouble.

They set off, and bid goodbye to Vitorio, the finest sword in Senten, who gave Gralak the Senten city seal which would help them enter many areas. Gralak couldn’t help but believe he could have recruited him on their quest, but I suppose having two companions with relations to Gralak and none for the others would be a bit unbalanced. To continue this Gralak-centric trend, Gralak went down to the captain’s quarters to talk to Nesi.

Hours passed, and Tedcrag and Gulliman grew impatient. Gulliman, fed up, went downstairs and heard some rhythmic drumming through the door. Realizing they must be practicing for the Senten Music Festival, Gulliman left them be. Left to their own devices, Tedcrag and Gulliman managed to get the ship sailing themselves, albeit with some difficulty.

The next day, Gralak emerged. He was suddenly blonde now, not wearing pants and in a red-and-yellow suit that didn’t look like anything from this world. Mistaking Tedcrag for a green alien, he told him to inform the men that he had mated with a woman. Tedcrag did so, to the one other man aboard the ship.

Suddenly nervous for no apparent reason, Gulliman stood up, making weird statements and actively being paranoid. “You must be exhausted,” Tedcrag told him. “I advise you get some sleep.” And so he did, but not before the crew collectively decided where they were headed. They decided to head to the twin cities to meet up again with Esir, despite an angry king and an even angrier dragon both residing there.

That night, Gralak in a frenzy awoke the other three. There was a fire on one of the sails! Logically, they inferred that it must have been a strike of lightning, and after putting it out with Gulliman's smoke spell, went back to sleep. The next day passed uneventfully, and on the second night, Tedcrag was overcome with an intensely dark and hazy sensation…

Gralak and Nesi were sleeping peacefully in their bed. With some keen senses, Gralak somehow awoke, and saw a dark figure looming over him, with a sword out towards Nesi. Gralak determined that this must be Jay Bowman himself, come to kill them in their sleep. In an instant, he leapt out of his bed, tackling him away from Nesi while also trying to stab him. This Bowman fellow wasn’t giving up without a fight, however. The stab did not connect, and the figure pulled out his sword, slashing it down towards a naked (and now awake) Nesi, who screamed and rolled out of the way, with her pillow being sliced in her place.

Through the window, the moonlight seeped in at the perfect angle, and the dark figure was illuminated. This assassin was 6.5 feet tall, dragon-like with red scales, and stunningly handsome - that’s right, it was Tedcrag! Furious at Tedcrag’s sudden but inevitable betrayal, Gralak swung his sword at Tedcrag, who effortlessly parried it. Nesi took the opportunity to duck through and run out of the room.

In retaliation, Tedcrag, whose eyes were glowing a deep red, successfully used his fire breath attack at Gralak. It singed him a bit, but more importantly it lit the bed aflame. He followed it up with a sword swing, which nicked Gralak, who had no choice but to do an acrobatic swan dive out through the window and onto the deck. Tedcrag gave chase, slamming down the door. Tedcrag was acting insane, raving madly about nonsense. Gulliman, awoken from the commotion, showed up on the deck, too. A ferocious battle was about to ensue.

Tedcrag lit things off in a way only Tedcrag could by failing another fire breath attack. Mad at his own failure, he charged forward like a bull towards Gulliman, striking his sword down upon him. Gulliman barely managed to parry it. Gralak swan dived back into the room to grab his sword and armor, though he had to settle for chainmail since his fancy dragon armor would take too long to equip.

Gulliman took a rope, and tied it to form a lasso. He attempted to wrangle Tedcrag like a cowboy, but failed miserably, the rope just lazily falling off of Tedcrag. The two traded blows, until Gralak swan dived one final time back through the window and performed a sneak attack on a distracted Tedcrag… who dodged it anyway, and then in a clean stroke wounded Gulliman with his sword.

“Where were all these rolls before, Beecher?!” Gralak proclaimed furiously. The fight stopped for a moment, as the other three gave him a confused look. Gralak snapped out of it, though, and the fight continued as if nothing happened. The battle raged, and as Tedcrag fought his companions to the death, their arena was lit by both the moonlight and the raging flames from Gralak’s bedroom.

The fight continued until Tedcrag received a blow to the jaw, losing a tooth. This awoke something in Tedcrag, and he suddenly remembered a large host of magical spells he had always had access to but forgotten about. He formed a large blue shield around himself. “En Taro Tassadar!” he wildly roared, attacking Gralak. Nesi, now with a crossbow, shot an arrow at Tedcrag, which hit him… but he barely felt it. Tedcrag used another spell to heal himself.

Tedcrag, with a maniacal grin, met eyes with Gralak. He pointed his one hand towards Nesi, and uttered one word. *“Kill.”* Gralak was suddenly entranced, and headed towards Nesi, then swung his sword at her with killing intent. She easily dodged it, but started yelling at him incredulously. Immediately, Gralak snapped back his senses, and took time out of the battle to start apologizing to Nesi, explaining he was under Tedcrag’s influence.

Pissed off, Gralak stabbed at Tedcrag. “When this is over, I’m going to pimp slap you so hard,” he said. Gulliman laid on the pain, and Tedcrag, feeling his wounds starting to add up, let out one desperate plume of fire which engulfed most of the ship in fire. Gulliman tried to knock him out twice, but kept missing as Tedcrag's fire breath continued to destroy their ship. With a third and final blow, Gulliman knocked Tedcrag out and then put out the fires with his smoke.

Tedcrag lay there, bleeding profusely. He would die if untreated. Gulliman used a spell to heal him, at which Nesi strongly objected. She advised that they should kill him, but Gulliman and Gralak defended the dragon. They tied him up, planning to interrogate him once he awoke. And soon after, he did.

They had hoped like, in most stories, someone in a trance would be back to normal after being knocked out, but this was not the case. Tedcrag was still clearly possessed, so he started writhing and desperately trying to free himself. His fellow LBG members slapped him, but he was still acting mad. Gralak held out his sword, the pointy end pressed on Tedcrag’s neck. But all he was met with was a shit-eating grin, and the face of a madman looking back at him, doing his best clown laugh.

Tedcrag started to go further off the deep end, with dark circles forming under his eyes. For a moment, he thought he was Nesi, and accused Gralak of cheating when he saw the real Nesi. Then he thought he was the College of Zanko's headmaster, reminiscing about that fascinating Arnold Palmer drink. Gulliman finally grabbed the rod out from Tedcrag’s possession, and Tedcrag finally snapped out of it. Back to his senses, he explained that he was being controlled by someone - presumably the lich - and while he saw everything, he had no control over any of his actions.

Gralak interrogated Tedcrag, asking him several very specific questions about their journey together, from Ben the bandit, to George, to Gulliman’s tab, and of course the mysterious dragon Tedcrag had sworn he saw. Tedcrag still stood firm that it was actually a dragon and not in fact a fencepost, and after several questions Gralak finally concluded that this was the real Tedcrag, and he freed him from his bindings. Gulliman and Gralak decided they would swap out carrying the rod in shifts, so that they wouldn’t fall under its influence like Tedcrag did.

Nesi was naturally angry about their decision to free Tedcrag. Thankfully, the other members of the LBG stood up for him and talked her down. Their ship, meanwhile, was destroyed by all the flames, so they took some rowboats to go back to land and find a new ship. They shamefully returned to Senten, getting inside thanks to the seal they had gotten from Vitorio, the finest sword in Senten, and went to the temple for a place to sleep.

When they awoke, they realized that the maesters had stolen the rod! They were investigating it with intense curiosity. Using his fog, Gulliman tackled the grand maester and got it back, and they all ran out and made it back to the docks. They bought a new ship - a smaller one, but one undamaged by fire. They dubbed it the SS George, and set sail (again) out of Senten.

Later that day, while Tedcrag was reading his relaxing spider book, Nesi came in, and threatened him, talking about how she didn’t at all buy his “transformation.” She walked out, and Tedcrag didn’t respond. He then realized that this entire campaign was an allegory for Avatar: The Last Airbender. Gralak being the oldest (Aang) with a clear love interest (Nesi), Tedcrag being the fire-based man who wanted to settle things with his father (Zuko), and Gulliman being the foolish but also dependable warrior (Sokka). By extension, it was clear that in their next campaign, there would have be two female main characters who would eventually get together at the end and cause a controversy because certain members of the audience were unable to read signs set up from as early as season 2 #TruthBomb #NesiEllie.

Next time on D&D: the lich? Guess again, motherfucker, there’s a certain hack fraud who is about to come into play in order to ensure that the campaign doesn’t end so soon...

## Episode XXVI: Half (a Dragon) in the Bag

The gang was now finally heading down the river towards the twin cities. Not long into their journey, though, Gralak heard a thud, and found another arrow-attached letter - it gave them instructions on which forks to take down the river, but was not signed. Foolishly, they decided to heed the words of this anonymous note.

Later on, they reached the first fork mentioned. With a new spell he had learned, Gralak Christ walked on water to investigate, going down the path but finding nothing of note. They followed it, and later found a mysterious cove. Tedcrag and Gralak took a rowboat to investigate, and found some dead humanoid bodies within. They got the fuck out of there and the voyage continued.

They took the second fork, still following instructions, but at this point they were unfortunately running out of food. *If only we had bought more rations,* some of them thought, and they silently cursed the sacred law passed down by the gods that disallowed them from carrying more than 50 rations at once. Even the rations from their previous boat were running thin. Gulliman decided to go spearfishing, but instead of a spear or a knife he decided to use one of the siren’s claws, and managed to get a day or two’s worth of fishes this way.

Not to be outdone, Tedcrag used his command spell to order the largest fish to surface. Through the combined efforts of the LBG, they were able to get it on board, and it was enough to last them a whole month! But they decided to eat Gulliman’s fishes first. Before Tedcrag could even think to cast “Detect Poison” or anything like that, everyone else was already ravenously eating, and he cast the thought aside.

The next day, the group was deathly ill. There had seemed to be something in the fishes that was making them all puke endlessly. They weren’t sure what, but whatever it was, they all decided to themselves that they would someday get to the bottom of it and punish whatever, or whomever, was responsible. Gulliman and Nesi had the worst of it, with Nesi foaming at the mouth, and both of their eyes being purple and bloodshot.

Gulliman started looking up a cure, until he too started foaming at the mouth. Gralak and Tedcrag, while still sick, still had control of their faculties, and found the cure - it would require bark from a certain tree, some sand, some gold, and some fish scales. They had access to all but the tree bark, but discovered thanks to some nice indexing work that they could find the tree about two miles offshore. Leaving the other two to puke their guts out, Tedcrag and Gralak began their most exciting quest yet - to find some tree bark!

They set out, and eventually did find it. They retrieved the sample and headed back, but at this point, the two of them were also starting to feel worse. Gralak was starting to pass out, and Tedcrag managed to drag him back to the boat. But when they returned, some intense shit was going down. Four pirates armed with crossbows were on a rowboat headed towards the ship! Tedcrag climbed on board, but his strength was fading and he wasn’t able to bring Gralak up with him. He left him there on the side of the ship, which was not the smartest idea in hindsight, and he immediately set to work on the cure.

Gulliman meanwhile had set up some nice cover, but even through this he was getting pelted with crossbow bolts. He tried to distract them while Tedcrag concocted the cure, with Gralak meanwhile puking. The pirates made their way towards Gralak, who attacked in the only way he could, with projectile vomit. It missed, of course, and one of the pirates put a knife to Gralak’s throat.

At the sight of this, one of the pirates identified himself. Gralak, even in his sickly state, recognized him immediately - the scourge of Senten himself, Jay Bowman! “Give us the dragon and he won’t have to die!” Jay ordered to the boat.

While this was going on, Tedcrag had managed to finish the cure, which was fortunately enough for four people. He drank his share, and gave it to Gulliman, who also drank it and gave it to Nesi. Nesi looked like she was on death’s door, but she got it down and Gulliman returned to the deck. Jay was not keen on waiting, however, and continued his commands. Gulliman tried to negotiate, but failed. Bowman started a countdown, and Tedcrag realized he had no choice but to surrender himself. He did so, dropping his weapons and stepping down, allowing them to tie him up. But thanks to some persuasion, he was able to convince Jay to let Gralak go first.

Gralak started returning to the ship. Gulliman, not willing to wait five seconds until Gralak was fully onboard, tried to hand Gralak the cure. He ignored a warning from Jay, who thought Gulliman was up to something, and he got hit by an arrow in the process. Once Gralak was on board not ten seconds later, Gulliman was able to successfully hand him the cure.

Not even able to say a farewell, Tedcrag was fully tied up and dragged away, taken away from the others. They were all too weak recovering from the combined assault of the poison and the ambush to give chase, so Tedcrag’s fate was left on a cliffhanger. Gralak raised his fist to the sky and shook it angrily, yelling “Bowman!”

Tedcrag was to be taken, no doubt, to Olgierd, and so the two dragons, a very long way from home, would have a climactic reunion. How this reunion would go remained to be seen, but probably not well. And so the Lich Burning Group had one final obstacle to overcome before they could burn the lich - rescuing Tedcrag and dealing with the Olgierd situation!

While the LBG has successfully synced their schedules up to be dead on most weekdays, Episodes XVII and on will happen eventually, and this dramatic and intense campaign will assuredly be reaching its conclusion soon. Perhaps on a nice and even Episode XXX ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)? Only time will tell...

## Episode XXVII: Saving Private Tedcrag

Tedcrag had been kidnapped. Or dragon-napped. After taking a moment to themselves to recover from nearly dying from food poisoning, Gralak and Gulliman came to their senses. They had to save Tedcrag - but more importantly, they needed to figure out how they got poisoned. Through some detective work, they discovered that Gulliman was the unknowing perpetrator, having speared the fish with some extremely poisonous siren claws.

After chastising and mocking Gulliman for a bit, Gralak went to check on Nesi, who had been hit the hardest by the poison. She still seemed in a bad way, but was slowly improving. Gralak cleaned up her puke, but slipped and fell while attempting to do so, killing her in the process. To hide his shame, he erased all memory of her from history. But thankfully, that didn’t happen, and he left her be after cleaning it up. Meanwhile, Gulliman aggressively polished his axe, and chopped up the big - and poison-free - fish into rations.

Now it was time to go after Tedcrag. They sailed into the twin cities, with Gulliman disguising himself as Tim Higgins once again, and Gralak assuming the heroic identity of one Adolphus, a man who could do no wrong, complete with dyed hair and a signature mustache. Nesi, still sick, opted to stay on the ship, and they managed to make it past the border guards with no issue.

Meanwhile, Tedcrag had been blindfolded and gagged for days. He heard whirring, mutterings between Bowman and his men, sounds of running water, and city sounds. After an unknown period of time, his blindfold was eventually removed, and in front of him was none other than Olgierd. Wasting no time at revealing his intentions, Olgierd stabbed Tedcrag’s remaining hand, and talked about Iris. He moaned about how Tedcrag had taken everything he loved away from him, and he wanted to ensure that Tedcrag would suffer until his dying breath.

The torture continued. Oil, bleaches, hot irons, you name it. Even Jay Bowman had a little fun with it. This went on for days, until Tedcrag’s gag was finally removed and he had a chance to speak. While Olgierd was at first having none of it, Tedcrag managed to convince him to let him talk for thirty seconds. Tedcrag first attempted a logical explanation of how his rage should be targeted at the king, and not him. After all, the king was the one who decided that an innocent woman had to die over some idiots trying to steal a book.

Olgierd was not convinced. He knew from his little birds that Tedcrag had given Olgierd’s name up, though he didn't know exactly why or in what context. His back literally and figuratively against the wall, Tedcrag pulled out his ace in the hole. He explained how he had a childhood friend named Phahringerr who was the current emperor of Hydraco, and lied that the rest of the LBG would send him a letter if they didn’t hear from me. This did give Olgierd much pause, but it wasn’t enough. “It doesn’t matter. You’ll be dead either way… and so will I…” he ominously said. Tedcrag pondered the meaning of those words, as he sat there in captivity for the days to come.

Gralak and Gulliman successfully made it into the twin cities, but they couldn’t remember where Olgierd’s house was or where to meet Esir. However, the gods granted mercy, and through sheer random searching, they managed to find Olgierd’s burnt-up estate. They saw it was guarded, and figured either Tedcrag or a clue to his location were in there. They waited until nightfall, with Gralak buying a coat and Gulliman repairing his armor.

At night, their plan began. Gralak walked up to a guard with killing intent, but saw it was a teenager. Instead, he taught the boy the meaning of the word “haberdashery” and then choked him out from behind until he passed out. Gralak then used his handy-dandy locator spell on Tedcrag’s trinket. During his Brain Blast, Gralak saw a library. Inside the library was a bookshelf with a secret passageway, because what self-respecting library *doesn’t* have a bookshelf with a secret passageway? This lead down to a concrete room, where the trinket and some other being were inside.

Gulliman ran forward, and the two entered the estate sneaking their way through. Making their way through the kitchen, Gulliman was eventually spotted. He tried to pass off as a wanderer, but Olgierd happened to come across him and recognized him immediately. Gulliman used a fog spell to escape, and ran out of the mansion and all the way back to the ship… or, at least, just outside the mansion.

Gralak, meanwhile, had abandoned Gulliman immediately and spent those valuable seconds looking for Tedcrag. He found the secret passageway towards the basement, with a lone guard at the door. Gralak smoothly managed to pass himself off as a guard to relieve the guard from his shift, and then went inside and locked the door. Inside was none other than Tedcrag, severely wounded and unconscious but alive. He woke him up, and the two had a heartfelt reunion. But there was little time, and they could hear more guards coming.

Gralak tried to hide in the corner but was immediately spotted by the first guard to enter. Gralak attacked, but stumbled and dropped his sword. Tedcrag healed himself and then returned the sword to Gralak. Once more, Gralak attacked, but stumbled and dropped his sword. Tedcrag healed himself and then returned the sword to Gralak. Once more, Gralak attacked, and the third time was the charm… until the guard parried it anyway. Fed up with this, Tedcrag ordered the guard to kill himself with a command spell, and he did just that. Tedcrag took the dead man’s sword and the two prepared for more battle. But the other two guards had seen this, and simply closed the door to lock them in.

Meanwhile, Gulliman had worked up his courage to return inside. Sneaking through, he saw Olgierd and one other guard, the rest being busy with Gralak and Tedcrag. With his supreme stealth skills, he killed one guard in one shot instantly, but failed to kill the two outside the door. Inside the basement, Gralak and Tedcrag combined their strength and shoved the door open. It was tough, but thanks to all the door-opening training that Gralak had learned from Vitorio, the finest sword in Senten, they managed to pull through.

Gralak then used magic on his sword to create what was essentially a purple lightsaber, cutting off a guard’s arm. Gralak Windu then intimidated the other one, who surrendered in fear of his life. There he saw Gulliman at the top of the stairs, and the two had a witty back-and-forth. Gralak sensed a plot to destroy the Jedi, so he interrogated the surrendered soldier, learning that there were only six guards in the mansion as opposed to their previous claim of twenty. He and Tedcrag cauterized the arm of the other guard. “Goodbye, son,” Gralak told him, before ranting and raving about big swinging dick energy.

There was one thing left to do - deal with Olgierd himself. Running ahead, Gralak tried to surprise attack, but was swiftly parried by Olgierd. Tedcrag ran in, and easily managed to intimidate the last remaining guard to leave. Olgierd was seething with rage. “I’m gonna kill you, boy,” he said, before launching a fire breath that damaged the two. Finally, Gulliman ran in. Gralak attacked twice and missed twice, and Tedcrag used a “die” command spell, but it had no effect. Olgierd repeated the fire breath, this time knocking out Tedcrag. Gulliman fired two arrows that aimed true and hit their target, and this was enough to do Olgierd in. He slumped to the ground on his knees, conscious but incapacitated.

Gulliman healed Tedcrag, much to Olgierd’s dismay. Tedcrag, still feeling remorse for everything that had happened between them, offered Olgierd one chance to convince them (mostly Gralak) to not kill him. But, determined to kill Tedcrag no matter what, Olgierd let out one final fire breath attack, which yet again knocked Tedcrag out. This was perhaps for the best, as he did not witness what was about to transpire.

Gralak, with the look of death in his eyes, stepped forward. He ripped off Olgierd’s trinket, putting a dagger to Olgierd’s throat. Olgierd, now a broken man who knew he was about to die, looked up at Gralak and uttered some chilling final words: “I hope the death of my family weighs heavily on your soul…”

Without any hesitation whatsoever, Gralak immediately replied, in an almost gleeful manner: *“It doesn’t!”*

And waiting not a second longer, he stabbed Olgierd in the heart, and the old dragon died then and there. Gralak then healed Tedcrag, who woke up yet again. Tedcrag saw Olgierd’s dead body, and felt regretful. He lamented all the final things he would have said to Olgierd had he had the chance, and this gave Gralak a nasty idea.

Wanting to ensure Tedcrag got his last word in, Gralak *propped up Olgierd’s dead body and told Tedcrag to give his speech to it*. What the fuck. Tedcrag, fearing Gralak would kill him if he didn’t comply, did just that. He told Olgierd’s corpse about why he gave out Olgierd’s name back then, that it wasn’t with ill intent and was a foolish mistake. But he explained that he had a lich to kill, and that he and Olgierd were done. One of the poor guards happened to witness to this, and ran for their life in pure fear.

Gulliman and Tedcrag wanted to leave it at that, but Gralak was not done. Finding a deck of cards, he pulled out a Jack of Diamonds card. Gulliman suggested they burn down the mansion (again)... but Gralak was not done. He needed the body to be found. After much debate, they settled on leaving Olgierd on the chair in the basement... *but Gralak was not done*. He placed the Jack of Diamonds card *in Olgierd’s mouth* as a killing card. The two guards still in here witnessed this, and our, uh, “heroes” let them go, as Gulliman made sure to threaten them on their way out.

Finally done with this ordeal, they headed back to the ship. Nesi was oddly concerned for Tedcrag's well-being considering everything that had happened with his previous lich-possession episode, and then Gralak explained everything to her, leaving out the more sociopathic details. Gulliman then gave Tedcrag the metal hand he’d been holding on to, which everyone had almost forgotten about. Tedcrag put it on, and after some intense pain, this metal hand became movable as if it was his own!

The next order of business was to find Esir. They searched for him in the city with no success, but fortunately Tedcrag then remembered the meeting place outside of the city. Esir found them there, but this was a different Esir than they were used to. Cold, uncaring, and acting strange, he explained that he’d been undergoing a ritual to find and defeat the lich. They decided to meet him in the harbor in a few days.

And how did they spend those few days? What else but *shopping*! They all got some healing potions, Tedcrag got a new sword, they all got new horses named Macaroni, BoJack, and Hollyhock, and Gralak bought several decks of cards and, strangely, orange and black paint. While Gulliman was out buying literally everything in the twin cities, Gralak was hard at work painting, and Tedcrag read Iris’ diary. Tedcrag learned all the details of Olgierd’s and Iris’ dramatic life stories and their hopes and dreams, all their aspirations shattered by Tedcrag being dumb enough to give away Olgierd’s name. He shed a single tear.

Gulliman and Tedcrag returned to the ship, and saw what Gralak had done. He had painted many things on the ship, such as the acronym “LBG”, some large flames, and the ship’s name “SS George.” Esir later boarded, not commenting on the decor and instead demanding a room for himself. This made Gulliman and Tedcrag bunk buddies. Esir did some magic shit with the rods and identified the lich’s location - up north in the mountains. Without wasting any more time, our five heroes (if we can even still call them that) set sail for the north!

## Episode XXVIII: Spiders, T-Rexes, and Liches, Oh My!

But wait, they weren’t done shopping! Gralak bought a guitar and wizard hat; Tedcrag bought a helmet and fashioned it with the dragon's horn, and Gulliman continued his quest to buy everything that could be sold in the city. On the ship, Nesi had a talk with Gralak about his recent actions, inquiring about the meaning of “LBG”, and while Gralak did his best to explain it, his explanations did little to answer her questions.

Now officially setting out, Gralak saw Nesi spying on Esir on the fourth night. She had gathered he was keeping to himself and not sleeping much, and after hearing about this Tedcrag noted it was quite similar to his experiences being rod-controlled. Soon after, the ship pulled into a small city. Esir bought a wagon, and they found the commander of the guard, who Gralak convinced to give them a “special government contract,” which would protect the ship for a year for one Mr. Frank Reynolds. They continued their trek north on foot.

Soon after, they found the remains of a battle. Finding a survivor, Gulliman healed him and gave him water, and then interrogated the poor guy about the history of the war. It was started by the elves, who outrageously claimed that the humans had stolen their object of worship! “That’s horrible,” Esir proclaimed. “I can’t believe the elves would accuse the humans of such an act.” Thankfully he did not notice Gralak, Tedcrag, and Gulliman all nervously whistling off to the side.

Later on, they found a large black cylinder three miles long. Going up close, it was pure obsidian with no openings. Not even “Nucer” opened it. As they stood there puzzled by it, Gralak was struck by a momentary condition called “Discordcuttingout-itis”, and as he took a minute to recover from it, some strange sensation overtook Gulliman and Tedcrag...

**Caput I: A Deo Natus Est**

Et quinque stetit ibi. Et occidit Gulliman Nesi esir. Tedcrag Gralak occidit. Gulliman magicae usus ad vivifica eius George. Dedit in virga George, and George ascendit. George despicitur, ubi pascebat greges, dicens: "Ego reforge in se imaginem mundi". Gulliman conspiciendo suarum erant Georgii.

**Finis**

...Everyone composed themselves, and the journey continued. Gulliman saw a banner, and thought it was the banner of Quendog Smarantino’s troupe! Upon hearing this, Gralak charged toward the city, excitedly yelling “Quendog!” at the top of his lungs. After some confused exchanges, they learned from the border guards that it was the city of Ream. The LBG claimed they were merchants, and were let inside instantly. Inside this city was a large coliseum, and they heard a propaganda man promising riches and rewards for those who can face “the beast" in the coliseum.

Something inside Tedcrag compelled him to look inside. Everyone but Esir followed, and they took a seat. In the arena, men were getting slaughtered. They were being ravaged by a giant spider. Upon seeing this spider, Tedcrag knew what he had to do. His entire life had been building toward this moment. He pulled out the spider book and started ravenously flipping through the pages to learn more. The spider was a giant Black Nazeebo, and was very vulnerable to fire. Tedcrag, unable to contain his excitement, stood up. The four of them decided they would fight their way through the ranks to face it, and actually do a sidequest for once.

They easily fought their way through the first rounds. Goblins, trolls, and the like were no match for them. Before the second-to-last round, the MC came out and gave them some info. He told them not to kill the beasts, but instead gravely wound them and then give a signal. They agreed, and the next round began. The hype man introduced them once more to the crowd: The Bitch, Bigbeard Thundercock, Ravix of Fourhorn, and Lord of Thunder. Immigrant Song softly played in the background as gates opened up in the coliseum, and out came the spider.

Gralak made the first move, trying to slice a leg. It didn’t work, so he instead tried to wrangle the thing. Gulliman fired an exploding crossbow bolt, which connected. Enraged, the spider charged at Gulliman. Tedcrag distracted it with fire breath, which hurt it somewhat, then cast Speak with Animals. He immediately learned that the spider felt depressed, and Tedcrag felt a deep emotional connection with it there. But more on that later.

Gralak tried to swing his sword once more, but of course dropped his sword, hitting Gulliman’s foot. The spider attacked Gralak, ramming him into a wall. Tedcrag tried to command it to stop, but it didn’t work. He then spewed out another fire breath attack, and this one severely damaged it. Nesi then hit Gralak with an arrow “accidentally”, but he laughed it off. Gralak then moved in to secure the finishing blow, and did so in a way that pleased the crowd and appeared to kill it without him actually killing it.

With Speak with Animals still active, Tedcrag mentally went through all the same feelings that the spider did. Sadness, the feeling of giving up, and wanting the suffering to end. Tedcrag had felt similar feelings back in the torture chamber and after the king's punishments; so Tedcrag made a vow that he would save this spider one way or another, the consequences be damned. He didn’t divulge this to the rest, of course, as they would assume him to be crazy, and the group prepared for the true final challenge.

As the spider was taken away, Tedcrag and Gralak, perhaps exhausted from the fight, collapsed…

**Épisode Six: Chacun Voit midi à sa Porte**

Beecher était pris! Les Romains parlaient le latin, bien sûr, alors Jack a lu un livre et a appris le latin. Il les a convaincus de libérer Beecher en se faisant passer pour Rian et en leur offrant un redémarrage 100% féminin de Back to the Future. Rian étant un dieu romain, ils ont accepté. Mais Beecher a vu le script et, comme il était de son devoir d'empêcher tout redémarrage de Back to the Future, il l'a saisi et l'a déchiré.

Jack était fou, alors Beecher et Jack se préparèrent à se battre. Jack fit un uppercut qui frappa Beecher à travers le toit de la maison de Rian, l'envoyant au ciel. Beecher réalisa alors qu'il pouvait voler, mais Jack aussi. Les deux volèrent dans le ciel et se préparèrent à un combat DBZ. Mais Jack se calma, affirmant qu'il agissait uniquement pour défendre les Romains. Beecher a accepté, en disant que ce serait réglé avec un coup final. Avec la destruction de son rival Man of Steel, il envoya Jack s'écraser au sol. Jack est tombé à travers la Terre, jusqu'au centre. Là, il trouva Rian, coincé là-bas en enfer.

**Fin**

...after recovering from the exhaustion of the battle, Tedcrag and Gralak woke up. Our four heroes were met by the MC, who gave them an ominous warning: “don’t let it bite you.” The four re-entered the arena, and Gulliman had a cup of water to drink while he was waiting. He set the cup down on a nearby boulder, but then thought he saw something and kept staring at the cup. There was a rumble. Then another rumble, and another still. Gulliman nervously stared at the cup, and saw that the water was vibrating from the rumbling sensation. The large gates open, and out came a beast that I am going to be calling a T-Rex, which let out a fearsome roar. Gulliman, realizing the cup wasn’t canon, tossed it aside. Everyone set themselves up on top of large rocks, and Tedcrag pulled out his trusty thunderbolt hammer. And a deadly and ferocious battle began.

Gralak once again set things off by firing a crossbow bolt, which hit near its eyes. The T-Rex roared, knocked Gralak off the rock, and grabbed him with his mouth. He shook Gralak around like a ragdoll, eventually letting go and throwing him into the wall. Nesi and Gulliman were next, firing crossbow bolts and chipping away at it.

Tedcrag, with some sick acrobatics, jumped from one rock to another, then fired some fire breath at the T-Rex. However, it barely hurt it, only singing its tail a bit. Gralak fired a bolt, but this one missed and “accidentally” hit Nesi, who reacted angrily. The T-Rex set its sights next on Gulliman, but got its head caught between rocks in the process. Gulliman threw a molotov at it, lighting its head on fire. It thrashed about in pain, but shrugged it off.

Behind the T-Rex, Tedcrag stood there alone atop a rock, watching it desperately try to free its head, its tail thrashing about wildly. He looked down at the hammer, thought about the dragon he had slain with it, and looked back up at the T-Rex. He sighed, and said to himself: “Nothing ventured, nothing gained…”

Tedcrag leapt off of the rock and landed on the ground. He barreled forward, dodging the thrashing tail with the grace of an Olympic gymnast. He baseball dove through the tail and arrived at the beast's behind. Raising his hammer, he yelled at the top of his lungs: “STOP!”

The world stood still. The crowd went silent, the other three stood there in awe, and the T-Rex tilted its head down at Tedcrag with a confused face. “HAMMER TIME!” Tedcrag roared, slamming the hammer down and missing. The T-Rex turned around and ripped him in half in one bite, killing him instantly.

*“Not today.”* Tedcrag said to himself, going back through time, swinging the hammer down and missing again. This time, the T-Rex simply crippled Tedcrag, then killed everyone else and made Tedcrag watch.

*“I said not today!”* Tedcrag’s inner voice yelled once more. Time once again reverted and Tedcrag slammed the hammer down with the strength of a thousand Mr. Hammers. In that moment, Tedcrag thought about his late mother, his missing father, and the tragedy of Olgierd and Iris. All of these horrors filled him with determination. With *Hopes and Dreams* playing in the background, a bolt of lightning appeared from the heavens, crashing down through the T-Rex’s skull. Its skull burst open with blood, and the T-Rex slumped to the ground, dead.

After a few seconds of stunned silence, the crowd went wild, chanting “Ravix” over and over, and throwing flowers and gold into the arena. Tedcrag raised a fist to the sky and yelled out a primal roar of excitement and adrenaline. He looked down at his hammer; this deadly weapon was now 2 for 2 on giant beast slaying, and it only took a little bit of time travel to make that happen. He wondered to himself if the lich was gigantic as well, and wanted to see if he could go for the triple crown.

But as the hype died down, out came a pissed MC, veins about ready to burst on his forehead. He demanded they all leave, with no reward. After some protesting, Tedcrag and the others convinced the MC of the buzz and hype that this would give the arena, and the crowds it would draw in the future. The MC begrudgingly offered one obsidian axe. But Tedcrag was not done. He told the MC about the location of two dragon eggs that could be a great replacement for the T-Rex, and this seemed to persuade him. Now, what Tedcrag should have done is asked for the remaining obsidian weapons and walked out of there with the prizes. But Tedcrag, still riding the high of defeating the T-Rex, had one more thing he had to do, something worth far more to him than some obsidian weapons.

In the arena’s dungeons, a gravely wounded but still breathing spider lay there in a cage. Tedcrag still wanted to free this spider, and revealed this, much to the shock and horror of everyone, including Gralak and Gulliman. Tedcrag used Speak with Animals to communicate with it. He healed it, and explained they were going to set it free. It was happy, but it was not very smart kind of beast, and couldn’t exactly be tamed so easily. This wasn’t going to be like the Hydraconian play “How to Train Your Spider”, which was written by dragons btw. But it seemed to understand enough. The guards carried it out through to the exit of the city, with the townsfolk all running away in terror.

At the exit to the city, Tedcrag, feeling many stages of regret at once but committing to his actions, managed to communicate to the spider that it could “follow us, or be free.” He freed it from its restraints, and it set off on its own… but then seemed to want to follow Tedcrag and the group. Everyone, even Tedcrag, was terrified by this, but they nevertheless set out again to the north… except now there was a giant spider following not too far behind them.

The spider had two meals while they were on their way there, one of a gazelle and one of a elven warrior who seemed to have been long dead before the spider found it. Thankfully it hadn’t killed any living humanoid, so Tedcrag didn’t need to take any drastic measures just yet. They came across a few other landmarks, like a large square hole four miles across, and a high elf camp. However, at this point the group was too exhausted to pay them much mind. Eventually, they arrived at the mountains Esir had described. Esir, rod in hand, lead the group to a large black obsidian gate that stood four stories high. Gralak yelled “Nucer!” almost sarcastically, not really expecting it to work, but it did!

The gate slowly opened, green lights emanating within from the floor. Our five heroes went in, and the spider did not follow inside. If a deadly spider was afraid to go in there, it did not bode well for what was ahead. As they pressed forward, they recognized some inactive clockwork soldiers cut to the side, one of them even being cut in half. They eventually found another door, this one iron. They pushed it open, and inside was a pure white room. Once all five of them had stepped inside, the doors slammed themselves shut. Again, not a good sign.

And then, just ahead, another door opened. Inside was a large stone room, lit up by more green lights, and a hatch with a ladder nearby. Gulliman’s ears perked up, and he heard heavy breathing at the end of the chamber. Looking towards it, in front of yet another door, he found a mysterious figure standing there, hunched over. “There’s a dude over there, hunched over!” Gulliman told the group in those exact words.

“Hey, who goes there?” Gralak said. And Gulliman followed suit with “I love the decor in here, it looks great!”

The decor comment seemed to catch the figure’s attention. There was a rat in its mouth, and the figure was covered in dirt, dressed in rags and filth. “I was so close,” it said to itself madly. “So close, I know it’s here. Come here, my sweet. My sweet... my sweet!” And the figure finally turned to face the group. This figure was not that of a human, not a dwarf, nor an elf, goblin, or cloud. This figure… was a dragon.

Upon seeing his face, Tedcrag immediately knew. It was the one and only Iorveth, his dad, who had gone missing over a decade ago, standing right in front of him.

“...Father?”

Stay tuned for the **grand finale** of D&D, once a certain someone stops having a busy week. We will laugh, we will cry, and we may very well all die. But one thing’s for certain, things will absolutely go out with a bang. Until next time!

## Episode XXIX: Wrath of the Lich

Well, here we are. Myself, the writer, and you, the dear reader. I apologize to anyone who has wasted their time reading this mini-novel of a writeup, but the long road is almost over. So sit back, grab some Arnold Palmer, and enjoy the show. This is the two-part finale, and combined it’s over twice as long as the previous longest chapter. I'm serious - strap yourselves in.

“...Father?” Tedcrag asked. He couldn’t believe his eyes. He hadn’t seen his father in over a decade; most in Hydraco presumed him dead, but Tedcrag had spent half of his life looking for him. And there he was… or was he? His father, Iorveth, definitely didn’t look normal. All of a sudden, Iorveth’s eyes, which were previously darting back and forth, fixed in on the group.

“Oh, I didn’t know there’d be *friends* down here!” said the dragon. Tedcrag stepped forward to get a closer look. Iorveth’s face was scarred all over, with yellow and broken teeth, and long and dirty nails. He looked like he’d lost his mind years ago, and his body was only barely keeping up.

Upon Tedcrag stepping forward, Iorveth mockingly wagged his finger at Tedcrag and the group. “No, no, no, it’s *mine*.” Tedcrag, though he could see that madness had clearly taken his father, stepped forward nevertheless. He tried saying the names like Iorveth and Tedcrag, to see if he would make any connection to them, but he didn’t. At the continued approach, Iorveth violently hissed. Tedcrag prepared to take another step forward, and…

*Schwing!* There was the sound of a crossbow bolt whizzing through the air, right past Tedcrag’s head. It nailed Iorveth right between the eyes, launching itself straight through his brain. Tedcrag’s father slumped to the ground, dead.

Tedcrag fell to his knees in shock. His entire body shaking, he slowly turned around, and saw Gralak had fired the shot. “Wh...why?” was all he could mumble. But Gralak wasn’t fazed. “Tedcrag, your dad’s not dead,” he boastfully proclaimed.

Tedcrag, all emotion gone from his eyes, stood up. “What makes you say that?” he asked Gralak.

“Why, isn’t it obvious?” Gralak said, sporting a Dreamworks grin. “That’s not a cloud.”

There was a deafening silence. Tedcrag stood there, not moving a muscle, but the air in the room was still, and everything grew cold. But the tension in the room felt red hot. Finally, Tedcrag bellowed “*Graaaalaaaak!*” as he tackled Gralak to the ground. He clamped his hands around Gralak’s neck and started choking him out. Nesi angrily screamed and tried to push Tedcrag off, but one does not simply push a 6.5 foot tall dragon away. Tedcrag continued his death grip on Gralak, who vainly struggled, and then Gulliman raised his crossbow.

Clearly conflicted, Gulliman took aim. “Tedcrag, stop!” he yelled, but there was no response. “I’ll shoot!” he continued, and still no response. Gulliman reluctantly shot the dragon in the back. Tedcrag keeled over in pain, and Gralak took the opportunity to get free.

Tedcrag stood up to face the other four. “*My dad... was not a cloud!*” he roared, taking out his platinum longsword. In a blind rage, he charged, and while at first it seemed like he was headed for Gralak, he redirected himself at the last second and drove his sword straight through an unsuspecting Nesi. Everyone gasped. Nesi, mortally wounded, turned to Gralak with a sad smile. Her face growing pale, it seemed like she was trying to tell him something - something *important* - but he couldn’t tell what. All life then faded from her eyes, and Tedcrag removed his sword as she fell to the ground, dead.

Gulliman and Esir loudly yelled at Tedcrag, weapons pointed at his head, demanding he stop. Tedcrag took a breath, and turned around to face Gralak, but at that point it was already far too late. The very second Tedcrag had killed Nesi, Gralak had drawn his lightning rod. And as Tedcrag turned around, Gralak fired both of its remaining charges into Tedcrag’s stomach at once, both strikes piercing his heart. Tedcrag keeled over again, falling to his knees.

Tedcrag coughed up a load of blood, and stared Gralak in the eyes. With a bloodstained grimace, he said “You kill my father, I kill your lover. We’re even.” But Gralak didn’t respond. Instead, he walked forward, looking down at Tedcrag with rage written all over his face.

Gralak pulled out a baseball bat covered in barbed wire that he had been holding onto for some reason. “Ted… you can breathe. You can blink. You can cry. Hell, you’re definitely going to be doing that. This is for Nesi, you fucking cloud spawn.” He raised the bat over his head, and imbued it with some powerful big swinging dick magic, but in the few seconds he had spent on his speech, Tedcrag had taken the opportunity to pull out his hammer of thunderbolts from behind his back. Gralak briefly froze, taken aback by this.

Tedcrag then gave a speech of his own. “This hammer… it can topple giants in one blow, you know that? You might not be a giant, Gralak, but you’re one giant son of a bitch.” With just enough left in him for one attack, Tedcrag swung the hammer straight up at Gralak, who responded in kind by swinging down the baseball bat. The hammer and bat clashed, and waves of lightning and magic burst out from them, enveloping the entire room in a bright light.

...Months later, six bodies were discovered in a strange bunker. The local investigation uncovered that a battle had taken place here. It appeared that the combined force of a thunderbolt hammer and an oddly magical baseball bat had unleashed a shockwave that caused the room itself to cave in, killing everyone in the room. Entering further into the crypt, investigators then discovered a sentient chess piece who seemed to preside there. It paid them off to look the other way, and the investigators left in peace, a few thousand gold stuffed in their pockets.

And so ended the campaign, taken to a brutal end by a vicious battle between Tedcrag and Gralak all over a fucking cloud. It was such a sad demise, and one so easily avoidable. Buried amongst the rubble, on top of Gralak’s rotting corpse, his trinket briefly glowed. With the light glowing on and off repeatedly, it spelled out "NOT TODAY" in Morse code.

...back in time, Gralak stood, crossbow in hand, aimed at Iorveth’s head. *Wait,* a thought suddenly consumed him. *What if Tedcrag’s dad isn’t a cloud?* And he lowered his crossbow, deciding to wait and see how things played out.

Tedcrag, oblivious to Gralak’s inner thought process, took another step towards his dad. Iorveth shrieked, and started angrily charging at him. A father vs. son battle had begun! Iorveth shot fire at his son, severely damaging him, and then swung his sword at his neck. The insane dragon was fast and wily, easily dodging attacks from Gralak and Gulliman. Tedcrag, regaining his composure, tried to command Iorveth to “sleep”, but it failed.

Nesi shot Iorveth in the shoulder with a crossbow bolt, and he cried out in pain. Gralak tried to disarm him and failed, then looked at him in the eyes. “Hey, friend, we’re all friends here, so let’s chill out, friend,” he said all cool-like to the fellow kid. Iorveth paused for a second in confusion, then spit on Gralak’s face. He shot out more fire, and everyone dodged… well, everyone but Esir.

Esir was damaged by the fire, and this awoke something in the young mage. “You should have aimed for the head,” he told Iorveth, snapping his fingers. Half of the universe’s population faded to dust, but luckily it was no one important. A side effect of this was that Iorveth immediately fell to the ground unconscious.

Tedcrag tied his father up against a column in the room, deciding that it would be best to deal with him after they take care of the world-destroying lich. Gulliman investigated the corner of the room, finding a strange nest. He placed his hand on it, getting it covered with feces. Grossed out, he started wiping it off. Tedcrag took some potions to heal up, and Esir spoke out that he needed the rod for them to progress.

Esir extended his hand out, expecting Gralak to give him the rod. Gralak shook his head, pointing towards Tedcrag. Tedcrag shook his head, pointing towards Gulliman. Gulliman, still distracted by the shit on his hands, looked up, oblivious to the situation. He drank some potions to buff himself up, and then when he was done, realized what was going on, and finally handed over the rod.

Esir pressed his hand against the door, and it opened up. The chamber was four stories tall, with a large altar with green symbols in the center. The room had clear evidence of cave-ins. There was a pile of boxes to the left, a mysterious locked box to the right that they would ignore, and a whole series of openings in the wall on the second floor. Further down in the room, there were some trenches, and finally an enormous gate.

Esir explained the situation: the lich had magical shields protecting it. In order to defeat it, Esir would need to perform a ritual on the altar to take it down. He would need to be protected while undergoing the ritual. Everyone agreed; Esir started preparing the ritual, and everyone else started getting into position. But Nesi was clearly nervous about something.

Gralak asked her what was wrong, and she told him that *everything about this situation* was wrong and that they could all die. Gralak did his best to reassure her, but as he did so she clearly looked nervous about something, and then she dropped this bombshell:

“Gralak, I’m carrying your child!”

Tedcrag, Gulliman, and even Esir all stopped what they were doing and turned around to look at Gralak and Nesi’s conversation. The large iron gate even cracked open a little bit and a blue eye peeked out to look at what was going to happen. After several seconds, Gralak picked his jaw up off the floor, and responded: “Under normal circumstances, I’d be happy, but right here, right now… I’m overjoyed!”

Nesi was bewildered by Gralak’s behavior, but he continued to act jubilant and merry. He tried to hand her the thunder rod for safe keeping, but she decided it was best he hold onto it. Nesi agreed to stay and help, but said: “I’m fighting for two now here.” Gralak replied with something that didn’t make much sense when you think about it but still sounded cool: “Yes, but we’ll be killing for three.” The lovers embraced, kissed, and finally separated.

The three founding members of the LBG had a quick conversation, making some final farewells and promises to each other should anything go south. And so everyone got into position. Esir’s ritual began in earnest, with Tedcrag standing guard at the foot of the altar. Gulliman and Nesi would take vantage points on the second floor, and Gralak would hide in the back of the room like a lil' bitch.

The ritual very quickly started to take its toll on Esir; he began grunting in pain and screaming in agony. As if in response, the giant gate started opening slowly, and everyone braced themselves. Out of the darkness of the hall, an enormous figure emerged. It stood 20 feet tall, and was levitating from the ground. It was the motherfucking lich, here at last.

The lich was a towering figure indeed, one that looked like it could only move one square forward at a time, or perhaps two at the very start of a battle, or perhaps even diagonally if an opponent happened to be there. And no one wanted to find out what would happen if it reached the other side of the room. Regardless, the only discernible feature they could make out was its two piercing blue eyes that looked down upon our heroes.

It had donned a giant black rag that served as a cloak, and it pointed a very long arm towards Esir. From a pit below, a large metallic object flew out and into its outstretched hand. It was a giant fucking sword. Next, the lich pointed at the group. Semi-transparent skeletal beings emerged from the trenches, in massive numbers. “*SUSUME!*” the lich yelled in an unknown language, and the skeletons started advancing.

Tedcrag heard a noise, and looked back at Esir, who had summoned a shield. The shield was blue, had multiple layers, and looked extremely powerful. Tedcrag could swear he heard Esir mutter something about “the blades of Aiur”, but he couldn’t be sure. Meanwhile, looking down at the advancing army of spooky skeletons, Gulliman fired off a crossbow bolt. And this, ladies and gentlemen, was the bolt that began the final battle. Starting things off with a literal bang, the explosive bolt hit its target and blew up four skeletons at once. He fired another bolt in the center of the army’s vanguard, blowing up even more.

Tedcrag, standing alone as Esir’s faithful guard, knew he had to put in everything he had. For the first time, he used a spell Destructive Wave, in which he pounded his fists together and then into the ground, creating a ripple of thunder and lightning through the ground towards the army. It eviscerated the first two, and the ensuing shockwave of shrapnel and electricity eliminated several more. Tedcrag smirked and pointed at the lich. “You’re next!”

Gralak, who had picked probably the worst starting position, spent quite a few seconds running forward from the back of the room. He fired a crossbow bolt, but it only grazed a skeleton’s thigh. The skeleton started laughing at him, that is until Nesi fired another crossbow bolt that killed it instantly. The skeleton army continued its advance, using their numbers to gang up on Tedcrag and Gralak. To make matters worse, more still were emerging from the trenches

The lich wasn’t about to be left out. It took action, pointing at Tedcrag and Gralak. A rock behind them exploded, and a blinding cloud of yellow gas enveloped them. Gralak managed to barely get away, but Tedcrag was caught in the thick of it. “You used *sarin gas*?” Gralak asked incredulously. One of the skeletons nodded, and said “We *used* sarin gas.”

Tedcrag, surrounded by the gas, felt like his eyes were burning, and his mouth was foaming. Gulliman meanwhile was getting swarmed on the second floor, and fired a last-ditch shot in desperation, which aimed wide and hit a railing. During this time Tedcrag managed to escape from the sarin gas and return to his senses. He heard something shatter behind him, and looked to Esir. There was a big thick pool of red surrounding the altar - Esir was bleeding everywhere! But despite this, the man was still giving everything he had, being the total badass he was.

Even more skeletons emerged from the pit, and things were looking dire. The lich set its sights on Tedcrag, firing a red beam of light through him, severely wounding him and also setting him on fire. Thinking back to his days in Hydraco Elementary, Tedcrag stopped, dropped, and rolled, and used the opportunity to roll into some of the skeletons. While he did manage to put the fire out, this didn’t affect the skeletons too much. But having recovered fully, he swung his sword and took a few skeletons out.

Gralak cut down a skeleton, pointed at another skeleton and said “You’re next,” clearly being inspired by Tedcrag’s heroic line earlier. He then cut down that other skeleton. A horde of nearby skeletons then rushed for Esir’s shield, and started pounding on it to break it down. The shield, though strong, was starting to waver, but only Tedcrag was in a position to defend it.

And the lich was determined to keep it that way. He flew over a short distance, pointed at Gralak, and made a choking motion with his hand. “I find your lack of faith disturbing,” it said in a low, droning voice. Gralak started to feel his lungs emptying, and was forced to desperately gasp for air.

Gulliman also had his hands full with some skellies; in a desperate move, he fired a shot at a dynamite-filled canister, which exploded and killed many of them, but also sent Gulliman flying down to the first floor. Back at the altar, Tedcrag was desperately trying to defend Esir, and managed to successfully use his fire breath and burn down a handful of them. Gralak miraculously recovered from the force choke, laughed it off, and said: “Cat got your tongue?” Even though, again, the line really didn’t make sense when you thought about it.

While Gralak was standing there seemingly talking to himself, the lich had diverted its attention to Esir, clearly recognizing him as the primary threat. It pointed its fingers at him, and all the skeletons changed course to head for the shield. Esir was really feeling the pressure now; his hood had fallen off, and his face was finally exposed. His hair had completely grayed, blood was dripping from his mouth, and his face looked incredibly strained, but there was also a burning fire in his eyes, and he looked *pissed*.

Esir the badass paused the ritual for a second and performed a spell, creating a shockwave which disintegrated most of the skeletons surrounding his shield. He then resumed the ritual as if nothing happened. He and the lich stared daggers at each other, and the rest of our heroes could only stand in awe at the clash of champions. Gulliman tried to distract the lich with a crossbow bolt, but it was nullified by the lich’s shield. Tedcrag failed a fire breath attack, because he *had* to fail it at least once during the final battle, it was tradition at this point. Gralak killed the final standing skeleton, then, like a complete idiot, turned his back to the lich to give Nesi a thumbs-up. Realizing that Gralak’s back was turned and that it would be able to roll at advantage, the lich immediately turned its attention towards him. He fired out an enormous black javelin that completely impaled Gralak.

Turning to face Esir once more, the lich extended *both* of its hands towards him. A ball of energy formed from his hand, and an enormous beam of energy shot out towards Esir. But Esir was ready, and sent out an energy beam of his own. The two beams collided in midair, causing the ground beneath to quake from its sheer power. A power struggle had begun. I’d make a DBZ reference, but no one reading this would get it, so instead I’ll be referencing something even more obscure.

With Esir a.k.a. Kerrigan firing out a beam, the lich a.k.a. Narud was firing back with a null zone of his own. The tug of war between the beams continued, and the others stood there in awe at how insanely beyond them this power struggle seemed. “Get him off of me!” Esir roared down at the group. The LBG had no idea what to do, but they tried their hardest anyway.

Gulliman yelled “Hey, stupid lich!” and shot his crossbow, trying to distract it, but the result was the same as before. Tedcrag whistled and hoped he’d hear the clicking sounds of a spider bro coming to the rescue, but nobody came. So instead he tried to command the lich to die, but it wasn’t even fazed. Determined not to have a useless turn, he decided to use an Aid spell to heal Gralak, Gulliman, and Esir simultaneously. Gralak had hacked away at the javelin, managing to recover from it and get back in fighting shape. And as the three finished these actions, they all happened to end up standing very close to one another...

The lich couldn’t believe its luck. All three of Esir’s companions were standing there grouped up like a bunch of fucking morons! Both of the beams stopped, and the lich seized the opportunity and fired the same exact death beam straight at the trio, who unlike Esir did not have death beams of their own to fight back with.

Gulliman dodged. Tedcrag and Gralak, on the other hand, caught the full brunt of the blast. *“Not today!”* they both yelled in unison and managed to dodge too. But even by dodging the blast, they still felt the intensity of the enormous death wave and took a lot of damage anyway. It was enough to knock the squishy tank Tedcrag out. Gulliman healed him back to consciousness, and the group split up far away from each other so that wouldn’t happen again.

The lich wasn’t done yet; it made a strange motion with its hands towards Tedcrag and caused his trinket to explode, nullifying his ability to use magic. It then fired some more black javelins at Gulliman and Gralak, but both were skilled enough at dodging at this point and were only grazed by it. Gulliman fired a crossbow bolt at the ceiling above the lich, successfully causing a cave-in above it. The lich had to hold both its hands up to save itself, but in the end it still ended up unscathed.

Tedcrag, realizing the time was soon, pulled out his hammer of thunderbolts to attempt an all-or-nothing charge at the lich the second that the shield was down. Gralak, too, was ready to pull out his lightning rod at a moment’s notice. Everyone else readily awaited the time to strike.

The lich turned towards Nesi, who had mostly been doing her own thing this entire fight, and prepared its mega beam to fire straight at her. But before the lich could fire, a bolt of lightning struck the lich, causing its cloak to fall away. With the cloak gone, the lich was fully visible - it appeared to be a larger version of those skeletons, but something about it seemed off. Just… *off*. It was very strange.

Everyone turned towards Gralak to see if he had caused the lightning bolt, but he hadn’t used his lightning rod yet. “Wasn’t me.” They then turned towards Tedcrag, who just held his hammer and shrugged. “Wasn’t me.” They finally looked to Esir - his ritual was complete, and he had collapsed to the ground. He was coughing up even larger amounts of blood and was clearly on the verge of death. “Was... me,” he barely managed to get out.

And then something strange happened with the lich. Its blue eyes turned to grey, its arms fell to its sides, and it spoke in a blaring voice:

“[CALIBRATION SUCCESSFUL. PLEASE ENTER COMMAND]”

As everyone else stood there in silence, Esir, with that fire in his eyes still burning bright, said but one word: *“Die!”*

“[COMMAND ENTERED. COUNTING DOWN. FIVE… FOUR… THREE… TWO… ONE… ZERO.]”

There was a brief pause, and then a blinding white light enveloped everyone instantly.

## Episode XXX: The World is Changing

After what seemed like forever, the white light faded. There, everyone was - Tedcrag, Gralak, Gulliman, Esir, and Nesi. They were in a courtyard. They could see rolling hills and a valley in the distance. Esir was still on the brink of death, so Gralak and Gulliman used what remaining magic power they had to help heal him. In an oddly melancholic manner, Esir let out a peaceful “Thank you...” and passed out, unconscious but alive.

The sun set in the distance. There was a peculiar object in the center of the room they were in. Gralak inspected it, and an oddly obscured, but very humanoid figure was seemingly projected. “You are not Prothean,” it said. “But you are not machine, either. This eventuality was one of many that was anticipated. This is why we sent our warning through the beacons.”

It was then made clear to everyone at this point that this entire D&D campaign had been an elaborate set-up for a Mass Effect fanfiction. Esir stood up, perfectly fine, and revealed himself to be the famous Commander Shepard, and he enlisted Tedcrag (who was actually a Turian), Gulliman (who was actually a Volus), and Gralak and Nesi (still human) aboard the SR-3 Normandy to defend the galaxy from the Reapers in the upcoming *Mass Effect: Pernimius*, only for Xbox One X and PlayStation 4. A new squadmate named “George” was announced as a Day 1 DLC character who would be integral to the story.

Er, I might have gotten a bit carried away there. What actually happened was that the figure was indeed a virtual intelligence, or VI, but it did not ramble on about Protheans and Reapers. Instead, it explained that this group had managed to defeat a “Class-B Defense Drone” (the lich) and were sent here for this reason. It then proceeded to drop a shit-load of information on them at once, much of it telepathically.

They were all inhabitants of the planet ~~Ilos~~ Venus (oh, and there are other planets btw). There were many nuclear bunkers set up on the planet to protect from an extraterrestrial invasion. Venus had been terraformed in the year 2231, and these mysterious extraterrestrials had no known name. The group had been teleported to the island nation of Valerius, more specifically inside the royal pleasure palace of the king that was built over three centuries ago.

The LBG was nervous as being inside of a king’s palace was likely to give them PTSD flashbacks, but they continued their questioning. They had been the first to fully defeat a class-B defense drone, and learned many more things, including how these virtual intelligences had helped build society to a certain point, and that it was the year 2,239,321, give or take 10,000 years. They belonged inside the Sol star system, and the nearby planet “Earth” had been destroyed 2 million years ago because of ~~their population polluting the atmosphere and destroying the environment~~ the extraterrestrial invasion. Their trinkets were “matter manipulation devices”, and so was any object that had magical properties.

The visions they had had of the lich were actually sent over a neural network through these matter manipulation devices. The rods that they had spilled blood and tears collecting were actually *military-grade* matter manipulation devices. And many of the more fantastical and terrifying species of this world were in fact sent here by the extraterrestrials in an attempt to incapacitate the UN before their next full-scale attack. These species included the Balrog, the siren, the wampa, the giant wolf, the enormous dragon, and the spider bro and his species. It was a lot to take in at once, so I apologize if I missed anything.

During all of this, Tedcrag learned that there was a sixth person beamed up with them - his father, Iorveth! He was in the hallway just outside and was still tied up. Unfortunately, he still seemed to be acting like a deranged lunatic, but when Tedcrag asked the VI about Iorveth, it offered that it could attempt to cure his mind. It theorized his madness was brought about by something going wrong with matter manipulation. It seemed that matter manipulation was capable of causing many strange things, from Iorveth’s insanity, to the LBG’s many visions, even to the strange dreams that Tedcrag and Gralak often shared of another world with baguettes and hack filmmakers.

The VI cleansed Iorveth’s sin-filled mind with beams of light that may or may not have been sent by Jesus, and Iorveth flailed about madly as if he was being exorcised. When it was all completed after about 10 minutes, he became calm, and emptily stared at the sky. After a moment, Tedcrag began to talk to him and tried to explain everything. Iorveth’s memory apparently stopped at his disappearance via the cloud, and he didn’t remember anything beyond that - in fact, he believed he was still serving in the navy. He did not believe that it was Tedcrag standing there so much older than he remembered, and because a certain someone had not written enough father-son bonding into Tedcrag’s backstory, there was no way for Tedcrag to easily prove that he was truly Iorveth's son.

After some more attempts from Tedcrag at explaining things, Iorveth gave up and went off to the side to contemplate things. Everyone then continued to learn more things from the VI, including but not limited to Gulliman learning all about economics and modern business tactics. Eventually, though, everyone was done questioning. The VI signed off, and everyone prepared to leave. As they did so, they all looked wistfully back at the valley beyond. They mentally reminisced about all their experiences together - the good, the bad, and everything in-between.

There was Tedcrag, a man who’d been through radically different highs and lows throughout their adventure. He’d utterly ruined the lives and led to the deaths of a fellow dragon and his wife, killed an innocent wagon owner on the side of the road, gotten possessed, gotten kidnapped, tortured *twice*, and even temporarily lost a hand in the process. But he had also killed a giant dragon, a siren, and a T-Rex single-handedly, made friends with a spider monster, and most importantly had finally found his father after a decade of searching, and even managed to return his mind to sanity. The future looked bright for good ol’ Ted.

There was Gralak, a man who sometimes seemed to prove the age-old adage that humanity is naturally evil. He’d shown some truly dark sides of the human psyche throughout this campaign, but also some moments of genuine compassion. He was the biggest defender of Tedcrag after the possession fiasco, and had of course found the love of his life after almost two decades of searching. It wasn’t the easiest of goings with Nesi at first, but with the necklace and a lot of charm he managed to win her heart back, and now they were expecting a Gralak Jr. on the way. The ashen-haired lovers prepared themselves for this mysterious new world together.

And of course, there was Gulliman. Oh, Gulliman. Whether he was accidentally putting an entire bar on his tab, or conducting long-term negotiations with businessmen, or even getting his own brother imprisoned and then lying to his face about it, you never knew what this dwarf was going to do next. With his trusty crossbow in one hand, and *Lusty Backdoor Miner Woman* in the other, Gulliman was always ready for anything. Unlike the others, he didn’t have a father or a love interest that he was spending decades trying to find. Instead, he was simply a dwarf caught up in the mix, never afraid to put his life - or his balls - on the line for what he thought was right. And sometimes, those are the most compelling stories of all.

But together, our three heroes, along with an unconscious badass of a mage, a pregnant former pirate, and an amnesiac father, stood there in the palace. They had been triumphant in defeating ~~the lich~~ the class-B defense drone. However, they knew that their battle had only just begun. There was a far greater threat looming beyond, and they all walked forward into the unknown to face it.

And so concludes an eventful and unforgettable season of D&D. The question remains, where to next? Will we immediately pick up where we left off in Season 2? Or will we perhaps take a detour into a Beecher Feature? But whatever the answer, before that can come to pass, it’s time to do what this entire campaign has been helping us put off - that’s right, it's finally time to get back to GTA heisting, boys!