Episode 387 - The Elite Forge

That rascal Tiamat is in our business again. Wish she would just like, buzz off. But we must get to the Elite Forge regardless of whichever god of chaos stand in our way!

## **Story**

### Long Story

Tiamat is attacking The Elite Forge! It's up to the Tower of Grey to save the Tower of Day! After an unceremonious goodbye to Lucious Incendous (the last time we ever see him, in fact), the party absconds with his newly-resurrected Bone Card Battlers. As they approach the nearby Elite Forge, they can actually see Tiamat, locked in titanic battle with a figure familiar to Skud and the audience. It's the iron skeleton belonging to Master Alder, Bone Champion of the Unova region! This time, however, it's massive, and punching Tiamat's many heads. So this leads to the natural question: Now what? Do they sneak through, or attempt to fight. It seems impossible to fight Tiamat, and it is impossible, so they don't do that, and elect to try to run past.

Approaching the Forge, the doors seem to give away, allowing them access. This is just in the nick of time, too, because Tiamat, having defeated the giant skeleton, has spotted them, and nearly yums them up! Not to worry, though, because their are finally, after all this time, IN THE ELITE FORGE!!

The air is pleasant, the floor sanded. It's a bit smaller than one might expect, but no matter. In the center of the room rests a magical anvil, with the perfect indentation up top to fit their newly acquire Fire Badge! And so, Skud places it there (a bit clumsily), and after a second, something strange begins to happen. A mystical glowing fills the air, that becomes a blinding flash of light. And when it clears, resting before them, is the Artifact they have been after! Lahni whips out The Orb, touches it to the Artifact, and the two fuse together. Now, they are only missing one last piece!

A loud booming sound coming from outside reminds the group that they don't have much time. It's a this point that they realize they all have badges, so they can each place theirs on the anvil and receive a gift! First up is Toby, who receives a strange purple book. It has a weird leather texture on top, and is locked shut with a clap that has a deep, dark diamond on. Toby reaches out for it, and the book snaps open! It begins speaking to him, introducing itself as... I'm just gonna go for it, here... Tsugrix Zelentiri. This is a name Toby recognizes, and accuses it of being *very naughty*. He also begins to refer to the book as Suzy, but I think it's funny if there's a silent "T" at the beginning, so, Tsuzy. Makes me giggle. Anyway, this is an Arcane Grimoire (+3), which gives Toby a spellcasting bonus, as well as some new spells that Toby can learn, such as *Meteor*, *Time Stop*, and *Reverse Gravity*. It's cursed with an undead Dwarven Wizard! And it can fly! What a great gift!

Rowan goes next, flipping the badge into the slot, and appearing before her is a needle. It has a little handle, really deep dark red, encrusted with rubies and gold. The needle itself is a dark red metal. Rowan pricks her forearm with it, and the needle sinks into her skin, morphing into a tattoo that begins to spread across her body. Eventually, the tattoo seems to cover her everywhere, leading up the neck slightly to her ears on either side. There's some color to it, and it appears to be in the shape of vines and flowers, and thorns. This is a Blood Fury Tattoo, and it allows her to suck some of the life force from her enemies! The tattoo is glowing slightly, and glows brighter when she hits an enemy.

Next is Lahni, who runs throguh the anvil and leaves the badge behind. Before her, a small, old-looking index card flutters down and lands on the anvil. She takes the card. Written on it is something that Lahni thought she would never see again: The Caplain's Secret Ferret Pie/Cake Recipe! (It can double as either a cake or a pie) Using the card, Lahni can communicate with the spirits of Caplains past, and channel their speed unto herself. This way, she can DOUBLE HER SPEED! She'll also do a ton of lightning damage, and has a chance of STOPPING TIME FOR 1d6 ROUNDS! This is too powerful. Lahni can now run 1000 ft per round. That's 166 ft/sec, or 113.6 miles per hour! Holy Beans!

Finally, Skud goes again, since he had 2 badges. He eagerly places his badge, holds his arms out expectantly... and nothing happens. He waits. He waits for about an hour, despite the Dragon God attempting to get in at them. Eventually, he gets tired of waiting, so he begins to rummage around a small pile of random junk nearby. He brushes aside the old shoe, the Thomas the Tank Engine toy, the hat that says "Toby Sucks" on it for some reason, until he finds a box. A strange, small box. It has the word Bicycle written on it. And inside, is a deck of cards. Skud pills one out and suddenly, there's a burst of fire! Skud has drawn The Card of Flames, and because of this, there's a demon out there somewhere that suddenly and pertinantly despises Skud, and will stop at nothing to see him dead. Whoops. Turns out this is a (highly customized) Deck of Many Things! This will end well, I'm sure.

Toby also grabs the Alchemy Jug, because why not? It can make mayonnaise, who wouldn't want that! Who know who else is here? Bercy Hamhands. He's being a real buzz-kill, all "Ooh, we have to leave, there's a giant dragon about to burst in and eat us!" Ugh. Fine. He's worse than Frank. Anyway, they head out of the Forge to meet up with Lucious Incendous's crew outside, and this prompts a discussion of what to do next. Ideally, they all need to get to their new airship, The *BTS*, but that's in another plane, so they can't just teleport there. Ultimately, Toby casts *Plane Shift* via *Wish*. Despite the fact that it's *Wish* and he could hypothetically modify the spell to suit his needs, Toby is only allowed to take 8 creatures with him. Let's see, we have Lahni, Toby, Skud, Rowan, and Bercy. That only leaves 3 more, which means they have to choose 3 of Incendous's crew to take with them. This surely means certain death for the 3 they leave behind, but what can you do? They choose, Duclaw Honeypaw (because of course), Pandora Thorne (because she's the most interesting one), and finally Wordsworth Zics (after they are reminded that she's a hot bad-ass woman).

This, of course, strongly suggests that Sharpe Lestat, Killian Dred, and Ysla Caine are doomed to die. Less of a suggestion in Caine's case, as the blue head of Tiamat comes down and bites her straight in half! Holy shit! The others GTFO and Plane Shift out of there.

### Short

Having defeated Lucious Incendous and gained acces to The Elite Forge, the Tower of Grey head off there to stop it being destroyed by Tiamat. They sneak past the dragon (who's distracted fighting Master Alder's iron skeleton), and get into the forge, where each of them are given a special gift. Toby gets a magical book cursed with an ancient evil wizard, and an Alchemy Jug. Rowan gets magical tattoos that allow her to suck life from her enemies. Lahni gets her hands on her family's lost secret recipe that allows her to travel insanely fast speeds. And Skud gets a Deck of Many Things! Oh yeah, and they also get the piece of the Artifact they needed! Finally, they Plane Shift away, taking Pandora Thorne, Duclaw Honeypaw, and Wordsworth Zics with them, leaving behind Sharpe Lestat, Killian Dred, and Ysla Caine, who's killed by Tiamat.

## **Trivia**

* Skud's nipples are pierced now, after the javelin thing
* The senator from Fiasco! that Bachmann played was, of course Senator Rick Stevens, everyone's favorite senator
* Akkio isn't here with them, but Squelch is, and always has been
* Rowan is trying to fly Toby's Broom of Flying
* Michael's line about the tattoos being the two Fairly Oddparents fucking is a reference to Dear Internet, not just a random throwaway line
* The party is level 20! Or rather, they are going to be after they sleep...
* There's now a devil after Skud. Cool.
* Toby's book can hover around, but only near Toby. It can't fly away from him or anything
* Toby leaves Sharpe Lestat and Killian Dred with a gallon of mayo and 1 Scroll of Teleportation, so hypothetically, one of them could still be alive somewhere, and have a gallon of mayo with them...

## **In This Episode...**

### **Cast and Player Characters**

* Michael DiMauro - *Dungeon Master*
* Tim Lanning - Toby Treacletart
* Jennifer Cheek - Rowan Grey
* Mike Bachmann - Skud Derringer
* Nika Howard - Lahnik "Lahni" Caplain

### **Non-Player Characters**

* Lucious Incendous
* Pandora Thorne
* Sharpe Lestat
* Ysla Caine - *dies*
* Duclaw Honeypaw
* Wordsworth Zics
* Killian Dred
* Tiamat
* Bercy Hamhands

### **Pets/Familiars**

* Squelch
* Tsugrix Zelentiri

### **Locations**

* The Elemental Plane of Fire
	+ The City of Brass
		- The Bones Arena
		- The Elite Forge
* The Elemental Plane of Air
	+ The *BTS*

### **Quest Log Updates**

* [On-Hold] - Stop Tiamat!
* [Active] - Destroy The Orb!
	+ [Complete] - ~~Find the first missing piece~~
		- [Complete] - ~~Gain access to the Elite Forge~~
	+ [On-Hold] - Find the final missing piece
		- [On-Hold] - Investigate the final location
* [On-Hold] - Find Adira Harper
* [On-Hold] - Return to Catherine Beanlord's graveyard in The Elemental Plane of Earth get the body of Tuck Frump
* [Active][Jaeludra] - Investigate the Great Colosseum in Caer

### **Quotes**

* **"Michael, just a question that's not to do with what's specifically happening right now: Is this skeleton based on the big skeleton from Home Depot?"** ~ *Jennifer*

* **"I have not seen *Hellraiser*, and now I'm very concerned."** ~ *Michael*

* **"Some devil is just doing his thing, like fuckin, watching his stories, and all of the sudden, he's like, 'I fuckin hate Skud. I gotta go!'"** ~ *Tim*

## **Rolls**

* **Recap**
	+ Tim - 12
	+ **Bachmann - 2**
	+ Nika - Nat20 - Bapped - Chooses Bachmann
	+ Jennifer - 17

* Everyone rolls various things in regards to Tiamat
	+ **Lahni** rolls *Insight* - 26
		- Knows that Tiamat is calling in backup
	+ **Toby** rolls *Nature* - 27
		- Knows that Tiamat is calling in backup
	+ **Rowan** rolls *Insight* - 17
		- Senses nothing
	+ **Skud** rolls *Religion* - 24
		- Knows that Tiamat is calling in backup