The elves had
met up with an older Wizard in one bed chamber, who was advising them on how to confront the building
levels of evil preparing for a ritual within these very walls. Meanwhile, the rest of the party was in the other section of the suite
having met up with two female adventurers claiming to be on a similar mission
to their own.
Metzen, as usual
putting the “Wild” in his Wild Elf hunter, immediately wanted to start trying
to make moves on the two women, but was busy talking to the Wizard.
One of the women,
who were (obviously to anyone who wasn’t a teenaged boy) Thieves of the non-benevolent
type succeeded in picking Smokey the Barbarian’s pocket. El Chicho, being a Thief (whether or not he preferred “guide”) noticed this as they made an excuse
to leave the room and continue “fighting evil.” Not noticing the robbery, the
two holy warriors were on their way back to see what the Elves were up to with the
Wizard.
The Gnome yelled
up to Smokey that he was robbed, and he went chasing after the ladies at full Barbarian sprinting speed. The recently arrived Johny Bigfeet hopped up and rode along on the much larger forest dweller's back. Smokey hurled a spear at the fleeing women, missing completely.
In what would set
a precedent for almost all future combat actions, the bold Acrobat in training yelled
at the top of his Halfling lungs, “THROW ME AT THEM!”
Smokey the
Barbarian hurled his new little friend at the escaping cutpurses (rolls a four)
and missed completely with him as well. Johny slammed into the wall next to the
door the women were absconding through with a satisfying thunk.
The Paladin and
Cleric, trying desperately to maintain some level of sanity, or at least keep
everyone from making enough noise to summon every evil creature infesting the Palace,
continued running back and forth between the two groups based on who seemed to
be having a larger disaster, ensuring they were frequently away from where their
direction and combat abilities would provide the most help. This scenario, with
its constant swapping between locations and which ones had enemies in them, was
the greatest early example of Wild Elf Hunter Metzen’s character defining behavior of switching between his bow and sword without attacking with either.
While the chaos
with the lady robbers was going on, Murcielaga entered the room with the Wizard, and
used her Paladin’s ability to detect evil. The Wizard (obviously) positively glowed with malevolence. This would be another “on the fly” moment as I forgot Paladins
could do that, and the “Wizard” was supposed to join them and betray them
later, in a sneaky fashion.
His
cover blown, the Doppelganger (for that’s what it was- an evil shape shifter)
instead of relying on subterfuge and replacement per the species preferred modus
operandi, transformed to its maximum size as a seven-foot, terrifying monster. 
Freynarfir panicked
(standard combat tactic for a low level Magic User) and ran from the room,
tossing the oddly shaped, smoke filled glass bottle over his shoulder. The bottle shattered and released…
Big Djinn Slade
(cue "Avenu Shalom Aleichem" from Kentucky Fried Movie)
The large, afro
clad, muscle-bound Genie in a red speedo pounded the four-hit dice (very dangerous
for a first level group) Doppelganger into goo.
No one at the table got this reference, but it made me laugh- meaning I didn’t care.
El Chico put on his
invisibility ring and tried to follow the two thieving women secretly while Smokey
scraped Johny Bigfeet off the wall. They laughed at him immediately. He dashed
back to the group, and reassembled his Gnomish leather armor while Metzen informed
him,
“They see your 'dinky winky.'
They must not be human."
The Paladin and
Cleric were following the gang, yelling ahead to tell them to detain the women
in order gain useful information from them about the cult, the Palace or
anything else. Smokey the Barbarian prevented any of this when he caught up
with the Larcenous Ladies and cut them both in half with his huge axe.
One might think altercations
like this set the bar too way too high for this adventuring party’s ridiculousness
in combat to be surpassed.
One would not know this gang well enough then.
The climactic
battle was a multi-phased hoot.
The party formed
up, ready to enter what they had somehow figured out was the main chamber where
the evil ritual was to be conducted. They were close- it was the preparation
chamber next door. They burst in on the Evil Cleric readying to go to the
nearby temple with the also evil ruby to summon up the even more Evil Demon that
most of them had forgotten they were trying to stop by this point.
Cusquena, as
usual actually paying attention to what was supposed to happen, cast a Clerical
Command spell on their startled foe to “SLEEP.”
The roll was perfect, and the dark one slumped where he stood. In what was definitely NOT standard combat tactics for a low-level Magic User,
Freynarfir went full on psycho and leapt on the leader of the evil forces with
a dagger in each hand (in spite of having zero skill dual wielding) planning to hack him up.
His moment of
foolhardy bravery coincided with a horde of Orcs led by a Werewolf charging
into the room from the chamber where the ritual was to be performed. 
Ready to help by
being his most stealthy, El Chicho donned his ring, shucked his clothing, and
tried to position himself for a sneak attack. Being fluent in Orcish, Cuzquena overheard
two of them say, “Hey, what’s with the little naked guy?”
At this point the
game had to stop, because I handed Rosa a note with that translation, and she
laughed hard enough to almost fall out of her chair. The ring was very effective
to turn its wearer completely invisible to GOOD and only GOOD aligned individuals
(That is- the Party.) but not neutral or evil individuals (That is- EVERYONE
ELSE.)
While the Gnome was
jumping back into his leather armor, The Magic User remembered the Web Scroll,
which he decided to cast instead of saving to add to his spell book. However,
he was stuck at the center of the melee at this stage, due to his earlier, oddly
psychotic action.
Once again using
standard low-level Magic User tactics, Freynarfir ran like a crazy man from the
battle to give himself casting room. Unfortunately, the casting was delayed while the battle against this horde continued. This was due to a huge argument between
Freynarfir and Murcielaga.
She was screaming at the Grey Elf in a highly unpaladinly fashion that if he cast the spell, while
the rest of the group was using missile weapons (or getting dressed) the Web
would catch her and Cuzquena in with the monsters, making it more likely they'd get bitten and turned by the Werewolf. The constantly shifting notion
between Metzen needing to help with the melee and needing to provide distance
weapon support led to another round of sword and bow switching.
By the time they
finished arguing (and Murcielaga realized that Paladins are immune to disease…which Lycanthropy is one) she and the Cuzquena, with eventual ranged support from the rest
of the gang, had killed everything. Based on “Web” being on top of the list of
Second Level Spells on the back of David’s character sheet, he never did cast
it. There is also an addition of “Wolfsbane” to his items list in his own
handwriting (I wrote up the character sheets as we created them together)
indicating that was another of his additions after this fight, before their next adventure.
In the room the
horde came from next door, with the magical evil altar and magical evil ruby on
it, there was also its non-magical but still excessively evil (and ten-foot-tall)
Ogre. Once again, this was a fourth to fifth level monster facing these newbies,
who no longer had Big Djinn Slade to help them out. (Hee Hee.) 
By this point of
the quest and the afternoon they were all tired, cranky and fed up, but were at
least working as a team.
Upon entry
Freynarfir cast “Feather Fall,” a spell usually used on one’s self or friends
to allow a safe, if short term, decent from a height. However, casting it on
the Ogre set on attacking them was an ingenious solution.
Smokey the
Barbarian charged directly at the beast, who was now as light as a feather, and
tossed him into the air leaving him to waft slowly upward.
The entire party
let loose with a collection of missile weapons, battering the semi-hovering and
completely enraged (if incapacitated) monster.
The spell wore
off and the Ogre plummeted, taking damage from the fall as well. As the hulking
beast tried to reorient itself what should have happened was that the powerful, well armed and well protected Paladin and Barbarian moved to finish it off at close quarters
while the rest of the party continued peppering the huge menace with ranged
attacks.
However,
What did happen was
Johny Bigfeet lost his little Halfling Acrobat mind and charged all three foot
nothing of himself towards a royally pissed off humanoid monstrosity over triple
his height and about ten times his mass thanks to the square-cube law.
His reasoning:
No one at the table got this reference, but it made me laugh- meaning I didn’t care.
“They see your 'dinky winky.'
They must not be human."
One would not know this gang well enough then.
“It’s
on the ground.”
Full of anger and
justice, Johny swung his short sword at the creature as it got up…
And missed horrifically, barely holding on to his weapon.
Honestly,
I have never seen such consistently, astonishingly bad rolling for a collective
group of players in my entire gaming life. It continued every time we played. This is the reasoning the highest number of kills was initially racked up by the Gnome running between the larger party member's legs with his sling. (At least that was true when he was dressed.)
The Ogre grabbed the
little guy and lifted the soon to be eaten Mr. Bigfeet towards his mouth as he
stood fully up to tower over the party.
The dice gods finally
smiled on the team and Johny smashed the creature in his gaping maw with his short (but effective) sword. (Natural “20!”) The Halfling was dropped and before the
Ogre could recover yet again, Freynarfir hurled the magical throwing dagger he
found earlier. A rare continuation of good rolls indicated it stuck directly in
the monster’s face, finishing it off.
A final bit of
acrobatics from Johny Bigfeet was required to get out of the way before the huge thing fell on him.
I have no memory
of the destruction of the ruby and freeing of the princess. This is likely due
to the Werewolf and Ogre related chaos they just had passed through. Additionally,
many of the players were at the age where their parents had to come get them or
call for them, meaning we likely rushed the closing. There were three ways to succeed.
I’m guessing their solution involved using the magic Ice Harp to shatter the
gem. None of them had the ability to wield the Knight’s enchanted two-handed sword,
and I don’t recollect the inevitable argument when they would have wanted to keep
it. With that crowd, freeing a Dragon, even one aligned with a good warrior (forgot
White Dragons were neutral in the Basic Set, how ‘bout that?) would have led to
several other sessions, and likely a decent percentage of the party being frozen,
eaten or both. This gang would have offended the Ice Dragon, if not
straight out attacked him.
The quest was a
success, and everyone had fun Now, all I had to do was find an adventure for a gang
of second to third level characters, which have always been hard to come by.
Luckily, by that
point I had enough experience to write my own.
And missed horrifically, barely holding on to his weapon.
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