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The Adventures of Baabby and Sam - a Skylanders Campaign
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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 7049293" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 3: THE FOREST OF DESPAIR</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Baabby, humanoid sheep barbarian/cleric (life) 2</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Sam Crow, humanoid crow ranger/rogue 2</p><p></p><p>Game Session Date: 4 March 2017</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>"That was a great party!" said Sam enthusiastically. Baabby just nodded his agreement and kept walking at his brisk pace, forcing Sam to almost run to keep up. "Wasn't that a great party, Baabby?" Sam insisted. "The cake, the balloons, the genuine appreciation of an entire town...I could get to like being a hero!"</p><p></p><p>"It was a great paarty," Baabby conceded, still headed in a beeline for the forest up ahead.</p><p></p><p>"Um, hey, look at that mist ahead," said Sam, finally getting his head out of the clouds and noticing where his noble sheep-man partner had been leading them unerringly.</p><p></p><p>"They said there was mist in the Forest of Despair," Baabby reminded his little crow partner. "It's been there for years, remember?"</p><p></p><p>"Yeah, yeah, I remember. I just thought, you know, maybe we could wait for a bit before we do something as foolish as willingly go into a forest called the Forest of Despair. Couldn't we, maybe, go visit the Forest of Really Friendly Bunnies? Or the Forest of Rainbows and Puppies and Cute Little Kitties..." Seeing the expression on Baabby's face, Sam gave up his attempts at humor. "Okay," he agreed. "The Forest of Despair it is."</p><p></p><p>The mist was so thick the two heroes could only see about 30 feet ahead of them. There was a natural pathway through the trees, and as usual, Sam let Baabby take the lead. The baabarian trudged through the forest, stepping over logs and ducking beneath low-hanging tree limbs, his magic greatsword held in readiness. He didn't have long to wait before putting his sword to good use, for popping up behind a log were what looked to be two long finger-bones - with black, blinking eyes at the end of each!</p><p></p><p>"Wh-what?" asked Sam, hardly believing his eyes. Then the creature stood up and the heroes got a good look at it. It had a stocky, round body with white, bony projections covering its torso like a pair of ribs worn on the outside. What had first looked like giant finger-bones proved to be long eyestalks, and the majority of the creature's torso opened up into a gaping maw with long, thorny spines for teeth.</p><p></p><p>"It's a chompy!" cried Sam. "Let's get 'im!" Sam knew from personal experience that these chompies were real pushovers.</p><p></p><p>Baabby stepped forward and swung his blade at the odd-looking chompy. Surprisingly, the creature ducked under the blade and it passed harmlessly over the chompy's eyestalks.</p><p></p><p>"Ha! You missed!" chuckled Sam, drawing his bow and taking aim at the little black-and-white chompy. He let fly with the arrow...and it, too, sailed over the chompy's head. "Hey!" groused Sam. "No fair!"</p><p></p><p>In return, the bone chompy jumped up and snapped its bony thorn-teeth at Baabby. Then another bone chompy stepped forward from the mist. This one also approached Baabby, who had stepped the furthest into the Forest of Despair. However, despite the heroes' initial failures, Baabby soon returned to form. He swung again at the bone chompy that had tried to bite him, cutting through its body and continuing on into the body of the other one. The second chompy cried out in pain - for the first time, the heroes were facing a chompy they had failed to slay with one strike. Attracted by the cries of the wounded bone chompy, two more such creatures stepped out of the mist.</p><p></p><p>Sam, however, had noticed something odd about the fog: it was thicker, and darker, in little strands that were interspersed throughout the all-encompassing mist. As an experiment, Sam pulled out a monkey wrench he'd taken from the body of a slain troll and poked at the dark strand of mist. When nothing happened, he reached out and dared to touch it with his bare hand - and felt a zap of life-draining energy absorb a small portion of his life force. "Hey!" he cried out in alarm.</p><p></p><p>Baabby took no notice of Sam's fog-poking experiments; he had bone chompies to slay! Faced with three such enemies, he managed to kill two of them on his own before Sam took notice and shot the other one with his bow. "Got one!" Sam called out.</p><p></p><p>"Got three," Baabby replied. "Let's check out the rest of the forest."</p><p></p><p>"If we must," grumbled Sam, but he moved ahead to check it out.</p><p></p><p>Up ahead a bit, Sam could make out two more bone chompies moving about on their stumpy little legs. He ducked back to tell Baabby what he'd seen, and together the two snuck forward. "I got this one!" said Sam, using his bow to shoot a bone chompy standing under a tree while Baabby ran up to attack the other with his greatsword. Both were quickly dispatched, but another two came forward out of the mist to take their place. Baabby stepped up to deal with one of the newcomers, when he noticed the ground under his feet was crunchy. Looking down, he saw he was standing in a pile of broken crystals. "That's weird," he said to himself, then devoted his attention to the battle at hand - which he won quite easily.</p><p></p><p>Sam shot at the last bone chompy with another arrow from his shortbow, but missed. The bone chompy raced up to the startled crow and bit him with his thorn-teeth. Sam responded with three words he'd been using a lot lately: "Help me, Baabby!" The baabarian ran over to his friend and killed the bone chompy that had been biting him. "Thanks!" said Sam. "Say, I have an idea: LET'S GET OUT OF HERE!"</p><p></p><p>"We need to check this place out," calmly replied Baabby. "Don't be so afraid all the time."</p><p></p><p>"I can't help it - I'm a crow!" replied Sam. "I don't usually admit this, but I'm actually part chicken, on my mother's side."</p><p></p><p>"Come over here and look at these crystals," said Baabby, ignoring Sam's discussion of his family tree.</p><p></p><p>Sam followed his friend over to the pile of shards, then bent down to examine them closely. "These are all smashed up and worthless!" he complained - he'd secretly been hoping the Forest of Despair had expensive diamonds just lying around for anyone to help themselves to. But no such luck.</p><p></p><p>Baabby looked at the pile of crystal shards. They were all aimed in the same direction. The baabarian looked over in that direction, but could see only the strange fog with those weird streaks of extra-darkness scattered throughout. Nevertheless, he strode over in that direction with Sam calling for him to wait for him. Whether or not he was really part chicken, he <em>definitely</em> did not want to be left alone in a creepy Forest of Despair!</p><p></p><p>As the two traveled to the southeast, they heard a strange whistling sound. "What's that?" asked Sam, looking around fearfully in all directions.</p><p></p><p>"I'm not sure," admitted Baabby.</p><p></p><p>"Wait a minute," said Sam, looking over at his burly friend. He cocked his head to the side, listening intently. "It's coming from you!" he accused.</p><p></p><p>"Me? I'm not whistling!"</p><p></p><p>"Maybe not -- but your sword is!" Holding his sword in front of him, Baabby could see that Sam was right: there was a wind blowing some of the fog into one of the holes of his sword - specifically, the one in the ancient symbol of the Undead element. As the fog swirled into the symbol-space, it made a whistling noise.</p><p></p><p>"This is weird," admitted Baabby.</p><p></p><p>The two continued on down the path they were following between the trees. Before long, they found a strange figure standing in front of a tall, clear crystal structure with smaller crystals jutting out of it in all directions - rather like a crystalline cactus. The dark strands of life-draining fog seemed to be seeping from the crystal. The figure in front of it gave off a terrible stench, like rotting meat. This wasn't too surprising, once the heroes got close enough to see that the figure was made of rotting meat himself.</p><p></p><p>"It's a Rotting Robbie!" exclaimed Baabby.</p><p></p><p>"What are you talking about?" demanded Sam Crow. "That's a zombie!"</p><p></p><p>"They're called Rotting Robbies," argued Baabby.</p><p></p><p>"What, they're <em>all</em> named Robbie?" demanded Sam. "That's just silly." The zombie - or Rotting Robbie, take your pick - made no notice of their argument, standing mostly motionless in place as if guarding the crystal cactus. Baabby strode up to it and cut at it with his greatsword, and that finally got it to respond: it slashed at the baabarian with its sharp claws.</p><p></p><p>Sam shot an arrow at it, and while it sunk into the undead creature's body down to the shaft, the zombie barely seemed to notice. Deciding that arrows didn't do it much damage but Baabby's greatsword certainly did, Sam grabbed the short sword from the scabbard at his belt and circled around to the side of the zombie. As Baabby and Sam got closer to the zombie while fighting it, they could see a round shape some ways behind it. This was an arched structure with a 20-foot circle of darkness in its center.</p><p></p><p>Again the zombie scratched at Baabby, but the baabarian dodged its clumsy attacks and struck at it with his greatsword, killing it. As the zombie fell lifelessly to the ground, Baabby and Sam inspected the crystal cactus-thing. It was standing on a circular bit of stone almost 20 feet in diameter; on closer examination, it was sticking <em>through</em> the stone circle, piercing it through the middle. Looking back from the pierced stone to the black circle in the upright stone platform, Sam guessed that the stone circle had been struck by the giant crystal when it was plugging up the black circle, and had been knocked to its present position.</p><p></p><p>"So where did the big crystal come from?" asked Baabby.</p><p></p><p>"I guess from...the sky?" speculated Sam.</p><p></p><p>"Do you think I should try breaking the crystal with my sword?" asked Baabby.</p><p></p><p>"If you want to," agreed Sam. "But hold on a minute!" He backed up a good 20 feet, just in case this wasn't a particularly good idea. Once he guessed he'd be out of the way of any blast zone, he gave his baabarian friend a thumbs up. "Go ahead!" he called.</p><p></p><p>Baabby swung his magic greatsword at the crystal cactus with all of his might, and upon touching it, it reverberated with a massive noise like the world's largest gong being struck by the world's largest gong-banger by the world's strongest man. The crystal shattered and the whistling wind turned into a veritable torrent, as the mists encompassing the Forest of Despair raced into Baabby's sword, completely filling up the Undead symbol carved into his blade.</p><p></p><p>"Whoa!" cried Sam.</p><p></p><p>"Wow!" cried Baabby.</p><p></p><p>"WHO TOOK ALL OF MY MISTS?" cried a horrid voice from somewhere north of the heroes.</p><p></p><p>Now that the forest was no longer covered in fog, the two heroes could see an armored warrior come stomping through the woods. He held a mighty war axe in his hands and a furious expression on his face. And that wasn't all about his face: judging from its ghastly yellow-green complexion and the way his skin was pulled tight onto his skull, this fellow was no more alive than had been Rotting Robbie.</p><p></p><p>"Go get him, Baabby!" suggested Sam, while staying exactly where he was himself. That wasn't just from fear, though - the crow was trying to remember how to work the explosive part of his Dynabow 2.0. He held down a switch with his thumb, and watched as the arrow already nocked and ready to be shot started magically being filled with explosive energy. "Oh yeah," the crow mumbled to himself, remembering how it worked.</p><p></p><p>Baabby stepped forward, then took a striking stance and waited for the armored guy to step within range. "NOBODY STEALS FROM <strong>BARON DESPAIR</strong> AND LIVES!" threatened the undead warrior. Sam gulped in fear a bit, but let his arrow fly. It struck Baron Despair and exploded. He staggered a little from the explosion, and Baabby took the opportunity to cut deep into his armor with his greatsword. Then he stepped back again, making the Baron -who, in his clunky armor, wasn't as fast as the baabarian - come to him.</p><p></p><p>Baron Despair did come to Baabby, but was struck by the sheep-man's sword before he could get in a strike of his own with his war axe. Sam circled to his left, setting himself up for a normal arrow-shot; he shot, but the arrow merely clinked off the warrior's thick, metal armor. Gulping in fear, the crow backed up to the edge of the trees - and saw a bunch of green lights, kind of like the glow of fireflies, glowing at him from among the trees.</p><p></p><p>Baron Despair stepped up to the frightened crow and swung his axe, causing Sam to cry out in pain. Baabby stepped forward to defend his friend, cutting down at the Baron with all of his might. His sword cut through the Baron's armor, into his shoulder, and halfway through his chest and back, causing the Baron to drop his own war axe. "YOU...DARE...?" began Baron Despair, but never got to finish his sentence, for he crashed to the ground, dead.</p><p></p><p>"Thanks, Baabby!" said Sam, glad to have been spared any further damage by the Baron's war axe. The baabarian took the opportunity to cast some healing spells, getting the heroes back closer to their full strength. They'd not only each taken damage from their enemies, but also from the life-sapping mist that had filled the Forest of Despair for the past couple of years. Sam was glad to see the end of the mist, and was intrigued by the Undead symbol now filled in on Baabby's new greatsword. "You know," he marveled, "if we can find a way to fill in all seven of the other symbols, you'll probably have the most powerful sword in all of Skylands!"</p><p></p><p>Before Baabby could answer, a horde of ghosts erupted from the trees - what Sam had thought were fireflies were actually the glowing eyes of the floating spirits. "GHOSTS!" cried Sam. "LET'S GET OUT OF HERE, BAABBY!"</p><p></p><p>"Thaaaaaank yoooou," moaned the ghosts. "Yooou haaaaaave freeeed usssss!"</p><p></p><p>Sam did an immediate about-face. "Oh!" he said. "Friendly ghosts! Yes, you're quite welcome! Baabby and me, we help people like you all the time! Heroes - that's us!"</p><p></p><p>"Freed you?' asked Baabby. "From who? Baron Despair?"</p><p></p><p>"Yessss," replied one of the ghosts - a figure with a hood and a long beard, Sam noticed; probably a wizard or a sage. "He waaas impriiiiisoned for yeeeears on the ooooother siiiiiide of the elemeeeeental gaaaate," said the ghost-wizard. "Wheeeeen the cryyyyystal smaaaaaashed throoooough the gaaate, heeeee waaaaaas releeeeeeased."</p><p></p><p>"So where will you go now?" asked Baabby.</p><p></p><p>"Baaaack to our hoooomes," replied the ghost-wizard, pointing to the elemental gate, the other side of which was an Undead village where the ghosts had lived before being trapped in the Forest of Despair. "But yoooou muuuuust huuuuuuurry, to the Museeeeeeum, befoooooore yooooour enemieeeeees geeeeet theeeeere!"</p><p></p><p>"Which way's the Museum?" asked Sam, hastily adding, "Just point, it'll be quicker." The ghost pointed north, as his fellow ghosts all started drifting through the black circle in the middle of the elemental gate. Now that the mists had been absorbed into Baabby's sword, the elemental gate was functioning normally once again.</p><p></p><p>A sudden shadow overtook Baabby and Sam. Looking up, they could see a battered-but-hastily-repaired airship floating over the tops of the trees. It was flying a little crooked, but the fact that it was flying at all was a concern, given that this was the troll pirate ship that had been looking for the Museum of Mystical Mysteries back in town. Now it was moving slowly over the adventurers, heading north, no doubt to the Museum.</p><p></p><p>"Let's go!" cried Baabby, grabbing up his greatsword and racing after the airship.</p><p></p><p>"But-- but we didn't get any treasure! Or congratulatory parties in our honor!" whined Sam. "At least back in town, they gave us cake!"</p><p></p><p>"Come on!" yelled Baabby, heading over a hill to the north. Sam reluctantly followed. "Stupid forest!" he complained to nobody in particular.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>Next adventure, we'll apparently finally get to see this Museum of Mystical Mysteries for ourselves.</p><p></p><p>Some Skylanders backstory for those (who, like me) haven't spent any ranks in Knowledge (Skylanders): back in the "Skylanders: Trap Team" game (two games previous), <strong>Kaos</strong> - the main enemy in the game - blew up a prison made of "traptanium" to rescue the bad guys held within. The traptanium crystal shards went flying all throughout the Skylands, which are a bunch of floating islands, some the size of continents and others only as big as a rowboat. Logan took that pre-established "fact" of the video game universe and tied this adventure into it: the "crystal cactus" and the shards scattered in the Forest of Despair are all traptanium from the prison explosion.</p><p></p><p>Bone chompies exist in the Skylanders universe, and although chompies are plants, bone chompies are basically skeletal chompies, which makes no sense. Logan turned them into plants that absorbed a lot of undead energy and thus began growing bonelike fragments on their exteriors - which, in game, granted them a slightly better armor class and the damage reduction of a skeleton. Harry's enjoying these adventures because they allow him to run his own Skylanders character through the Skylanders universe; I'm enjoying watching Logan make design decisions to incorporate the square peg of the Skylanders universe into the round hole of the 3.5 D&D system. (And spending time with my son and my nephew is always a plus.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 7049293, member: 508"] [b]ADVENTURE 3: THE FOREST OF DESPAIR[/b] PC Roster: [INDENT]Baabby, humanoid sheep barbarian/cleric (life) 2 Sam Crow, humanoid crow ranger/rogue 2[/INDENT] Game Session Date: 4 March 2017 - - - "That was a great party!" said Sam enthusiastically. Baabby just nodded his agreement and kept walking at his brisk pace, forcing Sam to almost run to keep up. "Wasn't that a great party, Baabby?" Sam insisted. "The cake, the balloons, the genuine appreciation of an entire town...I could get to like being a hero!" "It was a great paarty," Baabby conceded, still headed in a beeline for the forest up ahead. "Um, hey, look at that mist ahead," said Sam, finally getting his head out of the clouds and noticing where his noble sheep-man partner had been leading them unerringly. "They said there was mist in the Forest of Despair," Baabby reminded his little crow partner. "It's been there for years, remember?" "Yeah, yeah, I remember. I just thought, you know, maybe we could wait for a bit before we do something as foolish as willingly go into a forest called the Forest of Despair. Couldn't we, maybe, go visit the Forest of Really Friendly Bunnies? Or the Forest of Rainbows and Puppies and Cute Little Kitties..." Seeing the expression on Baabby's face, Sam gave up his attempts at humor. "Okay," he agreed. "The Forest of Despair it is." The mist was so thick the two heroes could only see about 30 feet ahead of them. There was a natural pathway through the trees, and as usual, Sam let Baabby take the lead. The baabarian trudged through the forest, stepping over logs and ducking beneath low-hanging tree limbs, his magic greatsword held in readiness. He didn't have long to wait before putting his sword to good use, for popping up behind a log were what looked to be two long finger-bones - with black, blinking eyes at the end of each! "Wh-what?" asked Sam, hardly believing his eyes. Then the creature stood up and the heroes got a good look at it. It had a stocky, round body with white, bony projections covering its torso like a pair of ribs worn on the outside. What had first looked like giant finger-bones proved to be long eyestalks, and the majority of the creature's torso opened up into a gaping maw with long, thorny spines for teeth. "It's a chompy!" cried Sam. "Let's get 'im!" Sam knew from personal experience that these chompies were real pushovers. Baabby stepped forward and swung his blade at the odd-looking chompy. Surprisingly, the creature ducked under the blade and it passed harmlessly over the chompy's eyestalks. "Ha! You missed!" chuckled Sam, drawing his bow and taking aim at the little black-and-white chompy. He let fly with the arrow...and it, too, sailed over the chompy's head. "Hey!" groused Sam. "No fair!" In return, the bone chompy jumped up and snapped its bony thorn-teeth at Baabby. Then another bone chompy stepped forward from the mist. This one also approached Baabby, who had stepped the furthest into the Forest of Despair. However, despite the heroes' initial failures, Baabby soon returned to form. He swung again at the bone chompy that had tried to bite him, cutting through its body and continuing on into the body of the other one. The second chompy cried out in pain - for the first time, the heroes were facing a chompy they had failed to slay with one strike. Attracted by the cries of the wounded bone chompy, two more such creatures stepped out of the mist. Sam, however, had noticed something odd about the fog: it was thicker, and darker, in little strands that were interspersed throughout the all-encompassing mist. As an experiment, Sam pulled out a monkey wrench he'd taken from the body of a slain troll and poked at the dark strand of mist. When nothing happened, he reached out and dared to touch it with his bare hand - and felt a zap of life-draining energy absorb a small portion of his life force. "Hey!" he cried out in alarm. Baabby took no notice of Sam's fog-poking experiments; he had bone chompies to slay! Faced with three such enemies, he managed to kill two of them on his own before Sam took notice and shot the other one with his bow. "Got one!" Sam called out. "Got three," Baabby replied. "Let's check out the rest of the forest." "If we must," grumbled Sam, but he moved ahead to check it out. Up ahead a bit, Sam could make out two more bone chompies moving about on their stumpy little legs. He ducked back to tell Baabby what he'd seen, and together the two snuck forward. "I got this one!" said Sam, using his bow to shoot a bone chompy standing under a tree while Baabby ran up to attack the other with his greatsword. Both were quickly dispatched, but another two came forward out of the mist to take their place. Baabby stepped up to deal with one of the newcomers, when he noticed the ground under his feet was crunchy. Looking down, he saw he was standing in a pile of broken crystals. "That's weird," he said to himself, then devoted his attention to the battle at hand - which he won quite easily. Sam shot at the last bone chompy with another arrow from his shortbow, but missed. The bone chompy raced up to the startled crow and bit him with his thorn-teeth. Sam responded with three words he'd been using a lot lately: "Help me, Baabby!" The baabarian ran over to his friend and killed the bone chompy that had been biting him. "Thanks!" said Sam. "Say, I have an idea: LET'S GET OUT OF HERE!" "We need to check this place out," calmly replied Baabby. "Don't be so afraid all the time." "I can't help it - I'm a crow!" replied Sam. "I don't usually admit this, but I'm actually part chicken, on my mother's side." "Come over here and look at these crystals," said Baabby, ignoring Sam's discussion of his family tree. Sam followed his friend over to the pile of shards, then bent down to examine them closely. "These are all smashed up and worthless!" he complained - he'd secretly been hoping the Forest of Despair had expensive diamonds just lying around for anyone to help themselves to. But no such luck. Baabby looked at the pile of crystal shards. They were all aimed in the same direction. The baabarian looked over in that direction, but could see only the strange fog with those weird streaks of extra-darkness scattered throughout. Nevertheless, he strode over in that direction with Sam calling for him to wait for him. Whether or not he was really part chicken, he [i]definitely[/i] did not want to be left alone in a creepy Forest of Despair! As the two traveled to the southeast, they heard a strange whistling sound. "What's that?" asked Sam, looking around fearfully in all directions. "I'm not sure," admitted Baabby. "Wait a minute," said Sam, looking over at his burly friend. He cocked his head to the side, listening intently. "It's coming from you!" he accused. "Me? I'm not whistling!" "Maybe not -- but your sword is!" Holding his sword in front of him, Baabby could see that Sam was right: there was a wind blowing some of the fog into one of the holes of his sword - specifically, the one in the ancient symbol of the Undead element. As the fog swirled into the symbol-space, it made a whistling noise. "This is weird," admitted Baabby. The two continued on down the path they were following between the trees. Before long, they found a strange figure standing in front of a tall, clear crystal structure with smaller crystals jutting out of it in all directions - rather like a crystalline cactus. The dark strands of life-draining fog seemed to be seeping from the crystal. The figure in front of it gave off a terrible stench, like rotting meat. This wasn't too surprising, once the heroes got close enough to see that the figure was made of rotting meat himself. "It's a Rotting Robbie!" exclaimed Baabby. "What are you talking about?" demanded Sam Crow. "That's a zombie!" "They're called Rotting Robbies," argued Baabby. "What, they're [i]all[/i] named Robbie?" demanded Sam. "That's just silly." The zombie - or Rotting Robbie, take your pick - made no notice of their argument, standing mostly motionless in place as if guarding the crystal cactus. Baabby strode up to it and cut at it with his greatsword, and that finally got it to respond: it slashed at the baabarian with its sharp claws. Sam shot an arrow at it, and while it sunk into the undead creature's body down to the shaft, the zombie barely seemed to notice. Deciding that arrows didn't do it much damage but Baabby's greatsword certainly did, Sam grabbed the short sword from the scabbard at his belt and circled around to the side of the zombie. As Baabby and Sam got closer to the zombie while fighting it, they could see a round shape some ways behind it. This was an arched structure with a 20-foot circle of darkness in its center. Again the zombie scratched at Baabby, but the baabarian dodged its clumsy attacks and struck at it with his greatsword, killing it. As the zombie fell lifelessly to the ground, Baabby and Sam inspected the crystal cactus-thing. It was standing on a circular bit of stone almost 20 feet in diameter; on closer examination, it was sticking [i]through[/i] the stone circle, piercing it through the middle. Looking back from the pierced stone to the black circle in the upright stone platform, Sam guessed that the stone circle had been struck by the giant crystal when it was plugging up the black circle, and had been knocked to its present position. "So where did the big crystal come from?" asked Baabby. "I guess from...the sky?" speculated Sam. "Do you think I should try breaking the crystal with my sword?" asked Baabby. "If you want to," agreed Sam. "But hold on a minute!" He backed up a good 20 feet, just in case this wasn't a particularly good idea. Once he guessed he'd be out of the way of any blast zone, he gave his baabarian friend a thumbs up. "Go ahead!" he called. Baabby swung his magic greatsword at the crystal cactus with all of his might, and upon touching it, it reverberated with a massive noise like the world's largest gong being struck by the world's largest gong-banger by the world's strongest man. The crystal shattered and the whistling wind turned into a veritable torrent, as the mists encompassing the Forest of Despair raced into Baabby's sword, completely filling up the Undead symbol carved into his blade. "Whoa!" cried Sam. "Wow!" cried Baabby. "WHO TOOK ALL OF MY MISTS?" cried a horrid voice from somewhere north of the heroes. Now that the forest was no longer covered in fog, the two heroes could see an armored warrior come stomping through the woods. He held a mighty war axe in his hands and a furious expression on his face. And that wasn't all about his face: judging from its ghastly yellow-green complexion and the way his skin was pulled tight onto his skull, this fellow was no more alive than had been Rotting Robbie. "Go get him, Baabby!" suggested Sam, while staying exactly where he was himself. That wasn't just from fear, though - the crow was trying to remember how to work the explosive part of his Dynabow 2.0. He held down a switch with his thumb, and watched as the arrow already nocked and ready to be shot started magically being filled with explosive energy. "Oh yeah," the crow mumbled to himself, remembering how it worked. Baabby stepped forward, then took a striking stance and waited for the armored guy to step within range. "NOBODY STEALS FROM [B]BARON DESPAIR[/B] AND LIVES!" threatened the undead warrior. Sam gulped in fear a bit, but let his arrow fly. It struck Baron Despair and exploded. He staggered a little from the explosion, and Baabby took the opportunity to cut deep into his armor with his greatsword. Then he stepped back again, making the Baron -who, in his clunky armor, wasn't as fast as the baabarian - come to him. Baron Despair did come to Baabby, but was struck by the sheep-man's sword before he could get in a strike of his own with his war axe. Sam circled to his left, setting himself up for a normal arrow-shot; he shot, but the arrow merely clinked off the warrior's thick, metal armor. Gulping in fear, the crow backed up to the edge of the trees - and saw a bunch of green lights, kind of like the glow of fireflies, glowing at him from among the trees. Baron Despair stepped up to the frightened crow and swung his axe, causing Sam to cry out in pain. Baabby stepped forward to defend his friend, cutting down at the Baron with all of his might. His sword cut through the Baron's armor, into his shoulder, and halfway through his chest and back, causing the Baron to drop his own war axe. "YOU...DARE...?" began Baron Despair, but never got to finish his sentence, for he crashed to the ground, dead. "Thanks, Baabby!" said Sam, glad to have been spared any further damage by the Baron's war axe. The baabarian took the opportunity to cast some healing spells, getting the heroes back closer to their full strength. They'd not only each taken damage from their enemies, but also from the life-sapping mist that had filled the Forest of Despair for the past couple of years. Sam was glad to see the end of the mist, and was intrigued by the Undead symbol now filled in on Baabby's new greatsword. "You know," he marveled, "if we can find a way to fill in all seven of the other symbols, you'll probably have the most powerful sword in all of Skylands!" Before Baabby could answer, a horde of ghosts erupted from the trees - what Sam had thought were fireflies were actually the glowing eyes of the floating spirits. "GHOSTS!" cried Sam. "LET'S GET OUT OF HERE, BAABBY!" "Thaaaaaank yoooou," moaned the ghosts. "Yooou haaaaaave freeeed usssss!" Sam did an immediate about-face. "Oh!" he said. "Friendly ghosts! Yes, you're quite welcome! Baabby and me, we help people like you all the time! Heroes - that's us!" "Freed you?' asked Baabby. "From who? Baron Despair?" "Yessss," replied one of the ghosts - a figure with a hood and a long beard, Sam noticed; probably a wizard or a sage. "He waaas impriiiiisoned for yeeeears on the ooooother siiiiiide of the elemeeeeental gaaaate," said the ghost-wizard. "Wheeeeen the cryyyyystal smaaaaaashed throoooough the gaaate, heeeee waaaaaas releeeeeeased." "So where will you go now?" asked Baabby. "Baaaack to our hoooomes," replied the ghost-wizard, pointing to the elemental gate, the other side of which was an Undead village where the ghosts had lived before being trapped in the Forest of Despair. "But yoooou muuuuust huuuuuuurry, to the Museeeeeeum, befoooooore yooooour enemieeeeees geeeeet theeeeere!" "Which way's the Museum?" asked Sam, hastily adding, "Just point, it'll be quicker." The ghost pointed north, as his fellow ghosts all started drifting through the black circle in the middle of the elemental gate. Now that the mists had been absorbed into Baabby's sword, the elemental gate was functioning normally once again. A sudden shadow overtook Baabby and Sam. Looking up, they could see a battered-but-hastily-repaired airship floating over the tops of the trees. It was flying a little crooked, but the fact that it was flying at all was a concern, given that this was the troll pirate ship that had been looking for the Museum of Mystical Mysteries back in town. Now it was moving slowly over the adventurers, heading north, no doubt to the Museum. "Let's go!" cried Baabby, grabbing up his greatsword and racing after the airship. "But-- but we didn't get any treasure! Or congratulatory parties in our honor!" whined Sam. "At least back in town, they gave us cake!" "Come on!" yelled Baabby, heading over a hill to the north. Sam reluctantly followed. "Stupid forest!" he complained to nobody in particular. - - - Next adventure, we'll apparently finally get to see this Museum of Mystical Mysteries for ourselves. Some Skylanders backstory for those (who, like me) haven't spent any ranks in Knowledge (Skylanders): back in the "Skylanders: Trap Team" game (two games previous), [b]Kaos[/b] - the main enemy in the game - blew up a prison made of "traptanium" to rescue the bad guys held within. The traptanium crystal shards went flying all throughout the Skylands, which are a bunch of floating islands, some the size of continents and others only as big as a rowboat. Logan took that pre-established "fact" of the video game universe and tied this adventure into it: the "crystal cactus" and the shards scattered in the Forest of Despair are all traptanium from the prison explosion. Bone chompies exist in the Skylanders universe, and although chompies are plants, bone chompies are basically skeletal chompies, which makes no sense. Logan turned them into plants that absorbed a lot of undead energy and thus began growing bonelike fragments on their exteriors - which, in game, granted them a slightly better armor class and the damage reduction of a skeleton. Harry's enjoying these adventures because they allow him to run his own Skylanders character through the Skylanders universe; I'm enjoying watching Logan make design decisions to incorporate the square peg of the Skylanders universe into the round hole of the 3.5 D&D system. (And spending time with my son and my nephew is always a plus.) [/QUOTE]
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The Adventures of Baabby and Sam - a Skylanders Campaign
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