Acupuncture Gone Horribly Wrong

The deadly volley of javelins enveloped Tribby like an acupuncturist on crystal meth.  Her skin screamed in pain and protest as her body was put through a veritable pincushion level of puncturing.

"Holy crap!" Yelled Jay El, the bloodlust and adrenalin banishing his thoughts like heroin to a drug addict's childhood pains.  It was in these moments of heightened aggression and violence that the sadness of his life was temporarily replaced with survival instinct.

In an odd way, when he saw the spear heads pierce through Tribby's back, and saw that she was in need of his skills, he felt a sense of... joy.

To be needed.  To have no issues with moral ambiguity or dichotomous decisions.  She was hurt, he could help.  It was simple, and without thought.

"Don't worry!" Jay El yelled, "I'll heal you!"  And, as he did so, he felt no inner conflict.  No difficulty in using his abilities.

He realized it wasn't others that were difficult to heal.  No, helping others was a simple, easy to make choice.  It was the question on weather or not he himself deserved the same service.

But, if he were not here... would Tribby not have fallen to the spears?

If he were doomed to become more and more callous to the world, and if he were destined to bring more sadness than joy...  Would he still not be able to cancel these destinies out by saving one purer than himself?  By accompanying those with a benevolent mission of their own?

"TRIBBY SMASH!" yelled the targets of his spells.  Perhaps "purer" was a little generous... but, the point remained.  Even if he was lost to darkness himself in the process, he would help this party save the world, and get his daughter back.  In the end.  All that mattered were the results he had, not the deeds that got him there.

I feel like we're forgetting something...

The party made their way down the stairs.  Jay El clenched his calf and breathed in sharply.  What was wrong with him?  Why wasn't his healing working?

He quickly put on the stern look to which he'd grown accustomed, and barked at Tribby to take the lead.

Upon reaching the next floor, the group voted to head to the armory over the mines.

Tribby opened the door and walked inside.  "Wow, that's a lot of javelins!" she exclaimed, as the group of 14, well built and fairly well equipped Kobolds launched their assault upon her.

Hydroponic Depression

The party continued forward, joking and laughing about the liquid nature of some of their opposition, and found a small hydroponics section.

Eventually, it donned upon Jay El that they were in a cave, and, after voicing this to the group, Ash discovered that there were 4 daylight stones being used for photosynthisis.

Jay El felt a twinge in his gut, remembering a time where he'd shared an apple with his daughter and wife.  She'd squirted lemon on the slices so they didn't go brown...

It seemed like an entirely different life.  A life that was becoming less and less relevant the more he fought to reclaim it.

He picked an apple off one of the trees, closed his eyes and took a bite.

"Hey Jay!" Tribby interrupted, "Wanna pee on the plants, too?"

Jay El sighed.  The moment was lost.  "No, taking the source of light should be sufficient.  Besides, if all goes as planned there will be little left to eat the fruits of their labors regardless." he turned abruptly, and marched down the hallway, hurling the apple into a nearby wall in a harsh manner, holding back the pain in his chest.  

LOOT

4 daylight stones

CR: 0 - Spell overcompensation: 12

Satisfied with the level of starvation and racial cleansing they'd accomplished, the party headed over to the Barracks - ready to do battle with a few Kobolds who would likely be able to defend themselves.

The partially deaf Ash placed his ear against the door of the Barracks.  "IT DOESN'T SEEM LIKE ANYONE IS IN THERE!" he deaf-yelled.

Tribby sighed and shoved him aside.  "There are indeed Kobolds inside.  More than 3, some of which are wearing armor."

"WHAT!?" he attempted to whisper.

"Nevermind." she said, making the motion for Ash to take out his spear and prepping to open the door.

(if Tribby had been in her original, fairly fetching Half-Elf form, this may have led to yet another sexually charged misunderstanding between Tribby and a male, but, thankfully, aside from other Ogres, not much would wanna get with an Ogre.)

Jay El concentrated and clenched his teeth.  "HEAL YOU HEEL!" he grimaced, his wound finally closing.

It seemed as though his powers were returning.  He glanced around, deciding not to chance the voicing of his concerns to the party - sensing they might turn on him at any moment; Jay El cast a spell upon Tribby's weapon, her huge club sprouted giant, enchanted, cruel looking spikes.  Next, he attempted to bless the group with divine energy.  It was a struggle, but, it seemed to work.

Ready, the group politely opened the door, and launched their assault.

The 6 tiny Kobolds screamed and attempted to fumble with their weapons.  Tribby ran towards their leader and smashed him with a blow so powerful that, if one were inclined to calculate such a figure, would have been capable of killing 9 of him.  The blow was so powerful that Captain Kobold (which sounds like a very strange superhero) was reduced to a fine mist.  His items also, were smashed beyond all recognition, as was the floor below him.

No doubt this helped to alert people in the floors below as to the scuffle.

The rest of the party followed suit and demolished the petty resistance.

The party laughed.  If this was the best the Kobolds had with which to defend themselves, they really had very little to worry about.

The happy party noticed, and picked up a few pieces of loot.

LOOT

Masterwork Manacles

Two good locks

One superior lock

Jay El takes the genocide route

The group descended into the depths, and entered into what appeared to be something of a storage room.  They deducted this by reading the label upon the door.  Which said "storage."  And it was a room.

Tribby smiled.  Her ogreish appetite swelling "lookit all da rice!" she drooled, before realizing what she'd said "it... er, looks delicious and of an eastern variety."  It wasn't.

Jay El flinched from the pain in his leg.  He'd been having trouble summoning up his healing spells as of late.  His hatred of the Kobolds and of himself was making it difficult for him to focus.

"Damn scaled rats don't deserve to eat." he spat.

Tribby laughed "Yeah, we should like, pee on their rice or something."

"Yes." Jay El smiled.  "Or something."

Jay El searched the room throughoughly.  Chances were that this room might be where some of the party's stolen gear would be located.  "Ah..." he sighed, sighting the poison sacs they'd taken from some spiders.

He paused.  Those were such different times.

For a moment, a brief essence of light shone across his eyes.  It had been such a different adventure for him then.  He'd felt... he'd felt... 

He shut his eyes and grimaced.  These Kobolds had taken from him in many ways, and he aimed to return the favor.

Grabbing the poison sacs, he emptied them upon the food stores of the cave.  "Damn rats.  I hope you get to watch your babies writhe in agony before you die." he spat again.

Tribby set down Shitanya and Manbearpig and stretched her back.  "oy!" she exclaimed.  

LRLRLRLRLR... clearly no ascertainable pattern.

The party entered the hallway and was presented with the option of going right, or left.

This would be a question which they would ask themselves again, and again, and again, as they traversed the maze.  Ultimately, they would choose incorrectly upon each, and every option; setting off traps again, and again, and again, and again... and again.  Fortunately, the party was hardy enough so as not to really be all that bothered by them.

Throughout the entire trip, Jay El limped upon his wounded leg, occasionally wincing from the pain.  "On my oath as a cleric and on my ability as a healer, BOY does that hurt..." he mumbled.

After setting off traps like they were going out of style, Ash suddenly perked up.  "Oh!  We just had to alternate each time.  Go left, then right, then left again, and so on!"

The party groaned.  "Well that was simple!" Ash laughed, setting off one more trap just for fun and then heading down the exit which was now fairly easy for him to find.

"Oh great." moaned the fairly adept healer.  "More stairs..."

The other shoe, or in this case, druid/rogue, drops

Manbearpig sighed, and silently surveyed the area.  Clearly this party would have need of his skills of squinting.  There would be no margin for error.  No rest for his soul until he'd discovered each and every...

Manbearpig stepped on a pressure plate and was hit with a dart in the neck.  "Dammit." he muttered, losing consciousness.

Tribby sighed.  "Don't worry everyone *I'LL* carry him..." she said, slinging him over her other shoulder.  Shitanya let out a little "hheey didja see da purdy starzzz..." before losing consciousness again.

Don't worry, I have two crowbars.

Ever the gentlemen, Jay El stepped to the side to allow the drooling Tribby to step into the room.  This chivalry, perhaps anticipated by the designers of the dungeon's security system, promptly allowed Jay to step onto a false tile, which broke, and, due to newton's law of gravity, caused his foot (and, ergo, the rest of him) to fall about a foot.  Which, coincidently, was almost exactly what the leg-hold trap into which he fell, nearly cost him.

"GWAAAGH!" Jay El squeeked, succinctly, "MY FOOT!"

Ash peered over at him.  "Wouldn't that hurt your shin area more than your foot?  I mean, the claws are clearly digging directly into your..."

"YES!  YES MY LEG!  MY LEG IS WHAT HURTS!  FORGIVE ME FOR YELLING THE FIRST APPENDAGE THAT CAME TO MIND!" Jay El barked back, attempting to survey the damage to his now quite-favorite foot.  (Jay El had always had a heightened appreciation for that which he  feared he could  lose.)

Tribby perked up.  Everyone had made fun of the fact that she'd purchased darn well two of everything way back when.  "I have two crowbars!" she beamed.

"GOD!  IT HURTS!  ITS INSIDE TH... th... you have TWO crowbars?"

"Yep!  They're pretty tiny now, I mean, I'm kinda big, but, yeah!  I also have two sets of flint!"

"Who buys two crowbars?"

"Well, it seems pretty logical NOW, doesn't it footless?"

"...yes.  Thank you.  Please pry the leg trap apart for me oh wise one." He sighed.

Ash snorted.

Tribby, in mid-pry, paused and looked at Ash.  "What?"

"Hm?  Oh.  Oh nothing.  It's just... why two crowbars?  Who buys two crowbars at a time?  What, were you worried one would get wet?"

"Aggh!  Talk about purchasing habits when we aren't prying metal from my leg, please!" Jay El whined.

Tribby returned to her task, deciding not to mention her matching fanny packs, and promptly freed the limping Cleric.

"Crap this hurts." Said the healer.  "I mean, it really, really hurts!"

Deathstroke does this one time with the Atom and a laser pointer

Tribby, like many a mario brothers player, suddenly realized that she was unable to sufficiently halt her momentum, asplodes Shitanya into the wall with all 900 pounds of her girth.  In a panic, she let out a quick yodel of apology.

"ooOoh cuh-raaa-haaap, I'm sooOoory!" she attempted, realizing that not only did the apology seem either insincere or insane, but that she was also quite terrible at yodeling.

The party all shrugged and paid little heed to the incident.  It was good to have Tribby back, but, it seemed that now Shitanya would be out of it for the foreseeable future.

Everyone looked expectantly at Manbearpig.

"What?"

There was a pregnant pause, but, nothing happened to the stalwart avenger, and so, after another expectant pause, they decided to carry on.  Tribby hoisted Shitanya up onto her back.

zzzzz huh!? WHA!? Oh right. We play this game called DND...

Tribby scampered up the pathway, delicately prancing and mincing her way towards the party.  How would she best surprise them?  Would she jump in one of their ears and yodel?

She stopped her brainstorming right there, because, quite honestly, there was no way there was a better idea than that.

She targeted Shitanya and flew at her ear.

It was at this exact moment, that the evil Fairy's shrink spell... wore off on the 900 pound Ogre.



[DM NOTE: Tribby's player was gone, and now Shitanya and Manbearpig's players are MIA]

Ultimate Alliance 2: Review

Tribby neared the entrance to the caves, when a rather disheveled spiderduck trundled into her field of view.

"HEY!" it screamed at her.  "HEEEEY!"

Tribby had never encountered a spiderduck before, but, it was nice to talk to something in Common for a change.  Being tiny for so long had let her feeling somewhat isolated and alone.  Almost as if she'd had no contact for months, instead of hours.

"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ULTIMATE ALLIANCE TWO!?" The spiderduck screamed at her.

"Uh..." Tribby grunted, not being aware of an alliance of an ultimate, or even penultimate nature.

"Okay, the gameplay is what it is.  's fine.  But what the crap is up with the non-skippable cinemas?"

"The who and the whatnow?" Tribby prompted.

"The NON-FREAKING-SKIPPABLE... and, might I add, the repetitive, considering you gotta watch 'em again if you DIE... CINEMAS!  And don't even get me started on the complete and utter USELESSNESS of their so-called "save" function..."

"What the hell are you blathering..." Tribby attempted, seeing if she could circumnavigate the clearly distraught creature.

"oh sure... they LET you save...  But when you load your freaking game, it sets you back a few hours and replays a cinema to boot!  Oh... WHAT YOU MEANT TO WRITE... was something along the lines of KIND OF SAVE BUT REALLY JUST CHOOSE AN ARBITRARY CHECKPOINT, THEN REWIND A BIT BEFORE THAT TO SHOW OFF YOUR !@#$ING CHEESY CGI!"

Tribby hit the spiderduck with a rock.

--Author's note:  This isn't a sponsored slot.  I just needed to vent.  You're just lucky I wrote this before I played the debacle of a video game "Sacred 2".  THAT piece of duck excrement is likely the worst game I've played in the last several years - and that includes flash games online.  Horrible. --

Mini-adventure 8

Grunting, huffing, and yes, even puffing, Tribby tugged and yanked herself up, up, and out of the seemingly huge saddlebags, of which Gluestick was a tad touchy about, and breathed in a large gasp of fresh-ish air.

Fresh-ish, because, honestly, the air smelled of sweaty horse, Kobold pee and coal smoke.

Suddenly, the sound of a huge, stone door smashing to the ground was heard, shortly thereafter, the sound of pounding, coughing and gasping.

Tribby scanned the immediate area, and jumped down, using her feather fall spell to slow her descent.  It sounded like someone needed her help, and, odds were, those somebodies were her friends.

"I'm coming!" She squeaked, running as fast as her lil' legs could carry her.

Mini-adventure 7

Tribby roared in frustration, but realized that a frontal assault on the creature would only end in tears.  Or, more likely, a stabbed, snouted, dissolved torso and a less hungry wormbirdpig.

Perhaps, she thought to herself, if she utilized every braincell in her head and pinky, she would be able to out-think the creature.

"Oh right!" She snapped her fingers.  "I'm totally smarter than a worm!" and, with that, she cast magic missile on the thing and blew it to little pieces.

"Yeah, that was definitely the way to go." She smiled, wiping the liquefied creature off her face and chest.

She paused.

"Yeah...  I was killing that thing for its rib..." she looked around, and realized that her magic weapon hadn't left enough of the creature to fashion a hat or muff, let alone a grappling hook.

"I guess I'll just use the fishing hook then." She sighed, grabbing it out of the supply kit and attaching it to her wormbearpig-juice covered pube-rope.

Mini-adventure 6

The Wormbirdpig (whose name was Susan, but it was one of those stupid "no, its pronounced "FKfkfksOSsquaaaacksquee!" type snobbish, yuppy names which cause endless frustration to school teachers and seem to exist only so that the child can grow up annoying, constantly correcting people when they pronounce their name like a sane person) barred its snoutbeak and swished from side to side, clearly not wanting to initiate the combat, but equally as clearly being entirely ready for one.

Tribby used the "lunge at it and see what happens" approach, and dove at the creature in an attempt to hold it to the ground.

The wormbirdpig would have none of it, and stabbed into her chest with a thrust from its beak, then, using its powerful snout, wrenched a huge bite of flesh from her abdomen with a squeal of victory.

Tribby screamed in anguish, as she felt the acid left behind from its maw, but the gaping wound only emboldened her efforts, as she swung at the creature again, this time smacking it upside the head.

The creature, though clearly offensively strong, lacked the fortitude necessary to trade blows with the mini-troll, and it backed off quickly, and once again reared up to await her approach.

Tribby glanced down at the burning chunk missing from her torso, and debated approaching the creature again.

Mini-adventure 5

Little did Tribby realize, that the methods of which she had used to gather her... rope... would be utilized in tropical parts of the world decades later for aesthetic purposes.

"Now, all I need is a grappling hook...  something that resembled a... chicken... wiiiish... booone..." she turned her head, and looked back at the wormbirdpig, which hisschirpsnorted at her defensively.

"Heeeere kind-of-birdy-birdy-birdy-who-hopefully-isn't-an-invertebrate...  heeeeere chicky-chicky-wormy-piggie-who-hopefully-has-ribs-or-something..." she motioned, making random "cht chit" noises, "oink glonk" noises and just snapping her fingers.

Not liking this sudden show of confusing attention, the wormbirdpig hissed and rared up, flashing its snoutbeak menacingly.

"Lets dance you winged pigworm!" she yelled, getting the species general gist down, if not the exact name itself.

Mini-adventure 4

Tribby flashed back to her days back in her original home, where she'd been a moderately apt basket weaver, and rope fashioner.

"It... juuust... miiight... work!" she said to the wormbirdpig, who had gone back to eating its apple.

Not wanting to seem crazy for talking to worms, she decided to focus on weaving the Orc-pubes instead.

Mini-adventure 3

Tribby surveyed her surroundings a bit more.  Her heightened sense of smell was definately picking up something putrid.  Something decidedly Shitanya, which, she had thought, had been bathing a little more regularly as of late.

"Ooooh MAN!" She wigged out, jumping up in alarm as she suddenly realized that she had been sitting on a rather gargantuan, severed Orc penis.  "She said she threw this out!"

"HkkkKkkSQUAWK! grunt grunt sQUEEE!" came the cacophony which could only be compared to the equivalent of wormbirdpig laughter, or, perhaps, a spirited debate about the environmental concerns which dragons tended to create.  (considering the likely intelligence level of the wormbirdpig, Tribby assumed it was the former)

"Gross!  Icky icky gross!" Tribby mini-waved her hands in a way most un-trollishly.

Then, she saw the pubes.

"Hmmmm..."

Mini-adventure 2

Tribby paused, realized she didn't speak wormbirdpig, and assumed it had said something to the effect of "Yes, but, how do you know you aren't still dreaming?"

Tribby laughed.  "Well duh.  I'm not creative enough to envision a half worm, half bird, half pig like... creature.  So obviously you must be real."

The collaboration of crazy looked at her, arched what could only be compared to the wormbirdpig version of an eyebrow, and nodded.  She was right, after all.

Immediately, she realized that she had two pressing matters.  One, was escaping out of the pouch and finding out where she was, and the other, was if the rest of the party (which had presumably put her in the bag for safe keeping) was in need of the type of assistance only a puppy-sized Troll sorcerer barbarian could offer.

She paused, and wondered what specific event or challenge would match such an exact criteria.

"Meh." she shrugged.  Either way, she didn't want to hang out with the less than loquacious wormbirdpig, who, admittedly, would be considerably less scary if she were her regular size.

Gazing upwards, she wondered to herself just how she was going to climb out of her pint-sized cavern.

Mini-adventure 1

Nick walked by.  "I may be joining your group some day..." he whispered in a creepy "the killer is still inside the house and that makes me want to touch myself suggestively" kind of way.

"Who the hell was that!?" Tribby squeaked as she worked over the last, rather specific paragraph.

Tribby paused.  "Was... was that a... did I just... squeak?"

Tribby looked around.  Why was everything so huge?

There was what appeared to be a mountain of rope, and, to her delight, a mountain of jerky in her immediate vicinity.

"Man.  I'd hate to meet the duckcow they made that sucker from..." she squeaked again.

"Why the heck am I... ooooOOooh." She oooh-squeaked.

"I'm still tiny.  Right."

Tribby paused, and surveyed her surroundings.  "And, I'm guessin' I'm in Gluestick's saddlebags..." she finished, shrugging and taking a bite out of the mountain of Jerky.

"fffffHKkKKOINK!" hiss/squawk/oinked the huge, acid spitting wormbirdpig that had been residing in one of the apples within the pouch.