The never ending story of ...

rgoodbb · Dec 23, 2017

"Wait. Does that mean we are in hell?"

"Either that or the Abyss"

"What’s the difference?"

"I dun’no. Demons and Devils"

"Uhm I thought there was only one Devil"

"No, no. There are chain devils, bone devils, bea.."

"Hang on there’s a bone devil?"

"Uh yeah"

"Hahahaha! HOL"

"What’s HOL"

"C’mon dude. Ha Out Loud"

"Why?"

"A Bone Devil. I suppose that is just one giant Di.."

"…Anyway! There are ice devils, barbed devils and the Pit Fiend"

"Why not the Pit Devil? Sticking with type and all. Why does this one get a fiend tag?"

"Possibly because this one is sixteen feet tall and has 300 hit points, a strength of 26, a fear aura, magic resistance, innate spellcasting, a fly speed of 60 feet, Multi-Attacks and a challenge rating of 20"

"What. How do you know all that?.........Oh.............It’s behind me isn’t it.” Replied Nord….."

BoldItalic · Dec 24, 2017

"Good morning, gentlemen," said the pit fiend.

Herewulf quickly pulled himself together (it didn't take long - he wasn't very far apart) and dissembled mightily, convincing himself that, just because he was technically a paladin, it didn't mean he had to be particularly good at this particular moment. He concentrated on thinking lawful thoughts and remembered his military training. "Sergeant Herewulf, reporting for duty, sir!"

Excellent !

Nord, meanwhile, became subtlely more piratical and very unsubtlely very obsequious. "I wanted to take slaves, but they wouldn't let me!" he gabbled.

Really ?

"Would you care to hear the Devil's Hornpipe?" offered Od, pulling out his flute. "Or the March of the Slaves, from Nabucco?"

Perhaps some other time. As you three are here in Hell, wandering about aimlessly, we have a little job for you.

"We are at your service."

That is indeed true. Now listen carefully ...

rgoodbb · Dec 26, 2017

That is indeed true. Now listen carefully ...

As the Pit Fiend outlaid demands, the party listened attentively.

1st you will return the the house of wood
2nd you will kill the ram'ed one
3rd you will kill the druid accomplace
4th you will take all their stuff
5th you will be relieved of your servitude to me.

"..........Uhm.....OK." Od responded. It wasn't like they weren't going to do that anyway the first time they encountered the druid and goat. "We got a little slapped about last time."

"Do not worry. One more little encounter beforehand and you will almost certainly level up. Oh and here, have this magic item which is by no means cursed in any way at all. Just needed to put that out there"

"Oooh! What is it.

"Well.....You find a magical _____, it does _____ .......

BoldItalic · Dec 26, 2017

Meanwhile ...

Xena the Wolf Rider (age 8¼) had rejoined Jeli and the other girls and they had found a strange thing. There was a hill, the sort of hill that you paint green keeping inside the lines, and there were lots of people pushing boulders up the hill and letting them roll down again, puff, pant, rumble, rumble thud. They were polyhedral boulders, like huge dice but with no numbers. "Stop that!" said Amanda bossily, "You're making a mess!"

"We aren't allowed to stop," explained a man whose name was Sisyphus, "We have to roll the boulders up this hill over and over again until we get a natural 20."

"But there aren't any numbers on them, silly!"

"Yes, it could take some time."

"Why?"

The man looked crestfallen. "This is the private place in hell reserved for players who secretly fudged their dice rolls. I once tried to pretend that I'd rolled 18's for every attribute but it wasn't true. This is my punishment. Now, if you will excuse me, little girl, I'm a little busy."

Everyone jumped out of the way just then, as a boulder came rumbling down the hill near them. "Nineteen!" called a voice from somewhere up at the top of the hill but no one believed it.

"I don't like hell," decided Amanda. "It's horrid."

rgoodbb · Dec 26, 2017

"Let me try. SEVENTEEN!" exclaimed a highly magical girl with long red pigtails as she pushed a boulder down the hill.

"Bigby. Are you cheating? Stop shielding that roll with your Hand, this instant." Demanded Xena.

"Seventeen?" Now looking down at her nails and picking them slowly.

"Mage Hand is not good enough. I can see the result."

"Sev.."

"Darkness? Really. And don't try fog cloud or an illusion. Or any other magic."

" ......Hmumf..........OK. 7!"

"Good. And just for all that trouble, you get Moo-Moo the wounded unicorn and have to stay at the back of the pack."

Jeli and Amanda Smirked.

"id tibi factum est." Piped up an exhausted Sisyphus."

"What's he saying Jeli?"

"I don't know. It's all Greek to me."

BoldItalic · Dec 26, 2017

Meanwhile ...

Od, Nord and Herewulf were making their way back towards the wooden castle when they came across a dungeon in a hollow in the ground. This dungeon was a little unusual in that it had no roof and you could look down and see all the passages and rooms, like looking at a 3D map. There were people down there in the dungeon trying to get out but there weren't actually any exits so they were just going round and round as if they were lost in a maze, which indeed they were.

"What do you make of it?" wondered Od.

"Dunno. How did they get in, anyway?" asked Herewulf. "There aren't any exits, but there aren't any entrances either. Unless they fell in from up here."

Just then, there was a vivid flash and one of the dungeoneers fell down dead. Then the corpse vanished and a new dungeoneer appeared in the centre of the maze and started trying to get out all over again.

"Oi know what this be," said Nord. "Them be the souls of DMs past, as made traps in their dungeons that killed PCs wi' no saves allowed. This be their place in hell."

"That's ... creepy," decided Od. "Let's move on."

They moved on and came to a river. They needed to cross the river but it was full of crocodiles so it was pretty lethal. However, nearby was a convenient pile of styx. "Suppose we throw styx at the crocodiles to drive them away while we wade across?" suggested Od.

"Somehow, I think they might be expecting that."

"Do you have a better plan?"

"We could just kill the crocodiles. The xp could be enough to level up, like the fiend said we should do."

"And you trust him?"

"Pit fiends are lawful."

"Speaking of the fiend, what about his magic item? We haven't worked out what it is, yet. Maybe it's +3 vs crocodiles?"

Od retrieved the item from his pouch. It was a tiny ferry boat with a tiny oarsman inside it. The oarsman was wearing a hooded cloak so you couldn't see his face. "If we put it in the river, will it grow to full size and ferry us across?" asked Herewulf.

"That would be useful. We'd be able to carry on with this adventure and carry it off successfully."

"A sort of carry-on, carry-off ferry, then."

"Is that a punning reference to Charyon, the mythical ferryman who rowed the souls of the dead across the Styx? If so, it's a bit feeble."

"As if I would."

"Hmm."

"Go on then, put the tiny boat in the river. Mind the crocodiles, though."

rgoodbb · Dec 26, 2017

It emerged slowly from a large milky egg buried beneath the blood bones on the shore. Its many eyelids opened and closed and its first instinct was to call for its mother in a rather annoying but mildly cute yipping noise. Its mother ignored it. Its father Sobek on the other hand, took great pride in his first son. He nurtured and educated and dressed him in all of the best fineries that hell could offer. That was a few years ago now.

Snappy was of course the best dressed croc on the river. Bowtie and small round goggles. Teeth polished and picked. Eyes all beady and tail extra swishy. He was suave, sophisticated and as such was the obvious first choice to meat..meet and greet newcomers.

Snappy’s favourite game was ball, but this particular area of Hell was low on balls and so he had arranged Styx on the nearby bank as a way of nurturing new playe/members to Hell.

One of these newcomers had something in his hand. Oooooh! Was it Styx? Was it Styx? Snappy thought in glee. The man threw it into the river. Yeees! It is Styx. Snappy opened his mouth as wide as he could in a wondrous smile……

BoldItalic · Dec 27, 2017

... and snapped what he though was a Styx, ready to throw it back playfully. But it tasted funny and it crunched in a way that Styx don't crunch and a crunchy bit got stuck between his teeth, which is always annoying and there's never an Egyptian Plover around when you want one. He thrashed his tail to show that he was displeased by this turn of events.

"So much for the magic ferry boat," said Od ruefully. "Now what?"

"We could try Animal Friendship? Or Speak with Animals? The crocodiles might be impressed with our Charisma."

"Go on, then."

There followed a lengthy exchange of views between Nord and Snappy, the upshot if which was, that Snappy would let them cross the river if they paid him one football each but they had to be real footballs, not prestidigitated ones. Nord put it to the others. "Seems a fair offer," he suggested.

"Where in hell do we get three footballs?"

"Lang ... oh, I see. I don't know."

"I vote we just kill all the crocodiles."

"They might fight back."

"Just thinking out loud, what happens when lightning hits flowing water?"

"Some fish die. and some whales get quite annoyed."

"And crocodiles?"

"Po-ss-ibly."

"There's no call to be like that," interposed Snappy. "i'm not ansking much There's a sports store half a mile up the road -just do me a favour and go to the store and get me three footballs."

And so, with a collective sigh, the three adventurers set off to find a sports store that sold footballs. It started to rain.

rgoodbb · Dec 27, 2017

It started to rain. And of course it rained cats and dogs.

Avoiding the baby Hellcats and Hellhounds that began dropping from the dark red sky, the triumvirate moved hastily but warily.

"This is how they are born. When it rains. Thats canon."

"What's canon?"

"I just said. How cats and dogs in Hell are born. That's canon."

"No I mean what is cannon."

"Oh you don't know the word. It is...hang on. I will Dragopedia it. canon is the material accepted as officially part of the story in the fictional universe of that story. There."

"Does that mean we are fictional?"

"Did someone request my presence?" Called a mysteriously creepy boatman in a dour and slow voice.

"No Canon, not Charyon."

BOOM! Before them a figure of a woman wielding a long boomstick which was pointed their way. Nord, jealous of the thundergun felt his toes hurt a little as if someone was stepping on them.

"Did someone call for a cannon."

"Oh my gods no! I said C.."

"Shut it. You really think I give an imps nutsack what you said?"

They were standing in the carpark of the sports-store, the sign proclaiming The Goal Gaol. The woman in front pointing the boomstick at them wore a high-collared long-coat and a wide brimmed hat.

"Uhm. We've come for some balls."

"Are you giving me grief." She lurched her weapon forward menacingly.

"No, no. we need three footballs. you see we have this problem,.."

"Snappy, no doubt. Well tell that pampered dinosaur that I'll take another of his teeth the next time I see him." She played with the tooth on her necklace. "Come on it then. I guess I'll open up for ya." There was a No Dogs sign outside the shop but inside there were hellcats galore. "Right." she said moving towards an old Cronenbergian cash till. "Three footballs. That will be 21,000 EP."

"Uhm.........

BoldItalic · Dec 27, 2017

"Uhm........ ", began Od, "have you by any chance got the locale on your till set to European? With a comma for the decimal point? Can you give change for 11GP ?"

Char-Ging (for it was, indeed, she, doomed to reside in hell for all eternity because she wasn't a very nice person) looked confused, then relieved. "What a clever boy you are, I never could understand the user manual for this thing. It's three million pages in every known language before you even get to the ON switch, which is the one labelled OFF and marked with a death's head. Do you know who writes these things? They must have evil, twisted minds, mustn't they?"

"Whoever it is, there should be a special place reserved for them," agreed Od sympathetically. He felt strangely drawn to this woman, which was quite surprising. Could this really be the infamous Char-Ging of the bardic tales? She hadn't mentioned tax at all. At least, not yet.

To Od's surprise, a tear ran down Char-Ging's cheek. "I'm sorry," she sobbed, "You see, there are no taxes here in hell. What would be the point? If souls refused to pay, what could I do to punish them that was worse than already being in eternal torment? I miss it all so terribly!"

Od patted her gently on the arm and offered her a copper piece. "Football tax?" he suggested. But she only sobbed even louder at the suggestion, well-meant though it was. "Just take your footballs and tell Snappy that that's the last. I'm out of stock. It will have to be golf clubs next time."

On the way back to the river, they passed an abbey where an army of scribes, who had been sent to hell for abusing apostrophes, were busy scribing enormous books. The abbot (who had committed six of the seven deadly sins in his lifetime) proudly (oops, there goes the other one) showed Herewulf and his companions what they were doing. They were up to Vol. MMDXIV of the user manual for a self-assembly flat pack teaspoon.

"Those quill pens they are using," asked Od innocently, "do they come with instructions?"

The abbot blanched, reddened, and blanched again, horror-struck. "Lads," he shouted across the scritchy-scratchy noise of thousands of quill pens on parchment, "there's a change of plan!"

"I think we had better leave quickly," suggested Nord.

So they did.

When they got back to the river beside the piles of Styx, the crocodiles were nowhere to be seen. They waded across the river which forgot to flow so they didn't get wet, and reached the other bank. "What shall we do with the footballs?" wondered Od. No one had a good solution, so they kicked the problem into the long grass and carried on.

As the wooden castle came in sight over a rise, something very odd happened ...