Our heroines walk along the path, west, south, deeper and deeper into the jungle. The canopy of trees is so thick, Badia might want to refrain from high jumps. Too bad the party didn’t take the other path.
You can all see it quite well, across the chasm to your left. That must be the way the wizards went.
Wait.
Holy s+~#, is that them?
Yup, when you look across the chasm, the Wizards of the Coast give you friendly waves. Their side is a plateau. You could probably join them, but it would be quite a jump! Besides, didn’t you both decide to split up?
Before anyone can call across (or awkwardly not talk and keep walking southward at the same pace), there is a sound coming from all around…
…that of a solitary drum!
Being a Barbarian, Badia may recognize this drumming. Don’t the human barbarians drum like this at wars or frat parties? Or both?
"Hey Badia. You think, I can ride piggy-back next time you Jump?" Says Randy with warmth and a smile.
Badia suddenly stops and holds a hand up when the drum solo begins. "Hark! Hear that? The human tribes march to the beat of their own drum!"
When Randy requests a ride, the half-orc nods. "Climb onto my back!" She scoops up Emi-na in her arms as she invokes the power of the frog god. "Bangoo!" she shouts, her legs surging with power as she JUMPS across the chasm!
Badia leaps across the chasm with power and grace… but definitely mostly power because of the piggybacking and the carrying!
The Stranger tips his hat, and when Donny exclaims “Whoah Daddy,” Walter does not tell him to shut the f~#+ up.
The drumming stops, and is replaced by a new sound. A wet, sticky, spidery sound rising from the steaming depths of the chasm.
Slimy tendrils of flesh grab the cliff’s edge, and at once, over a dozen human-ish forms volley up onto the plateau.
The men are all broken in some way. Broken ends of limbs are replaced with worming tendrils. One man has only half a head—loose plant-like flesh writhes from his slack jaw, and a single eyeball swivels about on erect sinew, like a periscope.
Those missing entire limbs have logs for arms, or walk ten feet tall on three-or-more gangly branches that protrude down from the waist. Many have mushrooms sprouting from their backs, or their scalps, and two have bushy fungal beards.
The stench of odd fungus and dead flesh is overwhelming!
But now they are conveniently standing at the edge of a cliff. Act first.
Badia sticks out her tongue as the rotting barbarians approach. "Yuck! These definitely do not look like fun-guys!" she declares. She shrugs her companions off of her as she unlimbers her axe and rushes to attack!
Still piggy-backing, Randy projectile vomits left then right. He tries his best not to puke on Badia's massive back.
Emi-na isn't fazed by the stench, though she scrambles away from Randy's vomiting and Badia's dreadful pun.
She chants a brief spell while making complex gestures with her hands, calling up a barrier of sand that solidifies into a low wall. Then she sends it to push against the barbarians, hoping to send them off the cliff!
Badia rushes at the enemy! He’s right there at the edge—it would be almost too easy to knock him off! But… all the axe does is shave the zombarian’s head! Fungus flies everywhere as the enemy wraps Badia in greasy tendrils!
Emi-Na sends a wave of sand straight at the enemy. The one with the periscope eye is rendered blind! Three others slip in the sand and grab the cliff’s edge. Well… two of them do. The chunky thump, thump, splat sounds suggest at least one of the men will not come back up!
About a dozen men rush Emi, Randy and the Wizards, while a couple others slowly approach Badia.
Randy drops to the ground in a three point stance. His right fist causes the earth to ripple outward like a pebble in a pond. The ripple gets more and more powerful as it radiates outward. The barbarians are thrown up in the air in a backward arc. Most of them flail in mid air as they plummet back into the chasm.
Jeff pulls a miniature sun from his bowling bag.
Walter screams, “OVER THE LINE!” and his mouth becomes big, with several rows of shark teeth!
Donny wields his surfboard like a shield. “Are these guys gonna kill us, Walter?”
“No, Donny. These men are cowards.”
The Stranger throws salt over his shoulder.
And Other Jeff whips out a tiny shovel. He glares at the zombarians. “The bums will always lose.”
Adding Randy's theme music Just change Carolus to The Misfit :P
"Argh! Naughty tentacles!" Badia chastises the zombie as she wrestles with its questing tendrils. She growls as she hurls the creature into the chasm! She whirls around and kicks another zombie towards the crevasse!
Emi-na gestures, and the sand wall dissolves. The grains of sand flow back toward her as she continues to sweep her arms in graceful patterns. As it surrounds her, she spins in a pirouette-like dance, causing the sand to swirl and blow upwards in a column. She spins and spins, speeding up the grains so they will scour away anything trying to get close to her.
Badia kicks a guy off the cliff, and Randy’s magic sends several zombies into the air! Two get caught in Emi’s whirling sand, and while her spell is defensive, the combination of earth and sand magic rip one zombie to bloody chunks and send another over the cliff’s edge! Of those that simply fall, one is impaled on a jagged stone turned pointy-side-up by the earth spell.
The wizards are inspired by our heroines’ prowess!
Jeff bows a ball of sunlight at a zombie. “F&#*ing fascist!” he yells as flaming limbs twirl in the air.
Walter sees that Badia is outnumbered. “Am I the only one who gives a s+~+ about the rules?!” He charges to aid the Leaper!
Donny casts Skipping Stone. He beans a zombie off the head. It tips over and does not move. “WOO! I’m throwing rocks tonight!”
The Stranger casts Salt on Wounds. It just pisses the zombies off more.
Other Jeff casts Castle Wall. The wall of sand pushes against three zombarians and keeps moving with three zombarian-shaped holes in it. The zombarians blink sand from their eyes and charge angrily!
The whirling sandstorm proves to be extremely powerful! Zombies charge the source: Emi-Na!
Randy could help keep the wall up… but there is another threat! From behind, the earth is beginning to split under Walter’s feet! Oh, and the cracks are forming straight at Randy too!
Badia is surrounded from all sides. Good thing she has a lot of space to dodge up!
Badia leaps several feet straight up in the air, getting clear of the horde! She comes down hard on the head of one of the zombies, trying to crush its skull as she bounces off of it!
Though these undead were a far bit "juicier" than the desiccated corpses back in Imhotopia, she didn't let them rattle her. With her arms still waving to keep the vortex spinning, she stomps her foot to send a smaller spear of hardened sandstone lancing at one of the zombies.
Two more zombies are crushed! One’s head is bashed concave and neck snapped from Badia’s stomp. The other remains one-half-standing as the other half is planed away and mashed into jam by a falling brick. When the remaining half finally crumpled to the ground, insides fall one way, and the outside falls the other.
Safe for a bit longer, thanks to Emi’s defensive magic, the Stranger observes, “These barbarians wear the mark o’ the clan killed last year by the Velvet Ape.”
"Then we must be close to the Purple Primate," Badia says, nodding sagely. She scrapes some zombie brains off of her boots. "Good fight, friends! We press on!"
Randy reaches down and grabs the tear in the earth like a snake. He turns and hurls it at the zombies. The ground opens from a crack to an explosion of rocks that rips at their shroomy flesh.
Randy not only stops the earth from swallowing Walter—he slams it shut with such force, two of the minions surrounding Badia topple over the cliff’s edge! He then uses a strip of earth to strike again!
Walter runs up alongside Badia, agreeably replying, “Damn good fight, lady! An honor and a privilege to fight at your side.”
Apparently his idea of honor involves biting a zombie’s ear off and spitting it high into the air. Aside from Walter’s foe, only three zombarians remain.
And those three see they cannot get through Emi’s barrier. So they attack the source! They point their fists at Emi—and the fists launch straight at her! They expand in flight—and as they strike the barrier of swirling sand, they burst into a splash of acid!
A rather large ape is leaps from the trees, across the gap. He’s about fifteen feet tall, clad in a warrior’s helm and a violet cape, and when he roars, lightning shoots from his mouth!
Badia hurls herself aside, narrowly dodging the lightning. ”Aha! Now that is a worthy foe! Bangoo!” The barbarian leaps at the ape, axe raised!
Emi-na twists her body as the grotesque fists launch at her, instinctively drawing the sand barrier in closer to create a more solid barrier against the projectiles. Thankfully, the denser sand creates an ablative field against the spattering acid, and she dances out of the way.
She lets the vortex drop fully, casting a spell to make the sand a smaller whip that she lashes out at the closest zombie, trying to lop off its other, intact hand to lessen its threat.
An Iron rod bursts out of the ground in front of Randy. The tendrils of lightning ignore the rod as impurities in the metal make it all but useless. "His cape! Take his cape!" Randy knows it's the best way to throw the ape off kilter. The cape may even be a source of power. "Without it, He's just a dirty, smelly, crap-flinging monkey."
Emi-Na dances away from the splashing acid with uncanny grace!
The wizards are inspired to help finish the one-armed minions. Donny quips, “You guys are dead in the water” as he casts Tidal Wave.”[/b] Other Jeff says to a seemingly demoralized zombie, “Your revolution is over, Mr. Zombarian. Condolences.” He buries the creature up to its neck in sand.
Emi’s attack finishes that last of the minions!
Emi-Na’s sandstorm persists… but it looks the the Velvet Ape might easily thwart her defenses. Then again, the four wizards bear her are unscathed… well… almost! It seems Other Jeff was splashed below the waist. He drops to his knees.
Walter—who’s cropped hair and bare chest are singed from lightning—yells, “We got a man down!”
O.J. looks up at Emi meekly. “I may have lost the use of my legs… but I… went ahead and achieved…… anyway.” He collapses, but is still breathing.
The other wizards are torn between battling the ape and getting their wounded to safety.
As for the Velvet Ape, he is unscathed by Badia’s attack. He takes advantage of her failed attack and Randy’s being stunned from the lightning——and grabs each!
(Sorry Randy, no matter how you narrate it, you gotta beat the difficulty. You rolled less than 10 so the rod was too slow.)
Randy gathers his energies to turn himself into liquid. Instead he only sweats.
”Get your hands off me, you damn, dirty ape!” Badia shouts. Her struggles are in vain, though, and soon her head impacts Randy’s with stunning force!
”Ow! Our heads are not a pair of coconuts!” she growls in pain, hacking at the ape’s fingers to make it pay!
Randy calls on the minerals in the ground to leach up through the Ape's feet. The ape gets viagra enhanced. His body becomes rigid.
Badia recovers from the blow quickly and strikes with brute force and amazing accuracy. Sparks fly as axe cuts flesh! A flap of skin peels from the hacked ring and pinky, revealing a gleaming skeleton and strange veins that bleed sparks and oil.
As for Randy, he’ll be in dreamland if he takes another blow. But it would not be in vain—after attempting metal and water magic, Randy tapped into one of the stronger earthen spells: petrification! The ape’s purplish body hair starts to grey, and even take on a hint of a dull bluish green—the ‘grape ape’ is turning teal.
In case it was unclear, you don’t need to defend yourself this round. After Emi lopped off the other hand of the last zombie, it was so weak it just collapsed.
The acid blood that splashed Other Jeff in the legs was from the attack that you very luckily dodged with a d12. So not a failure on your part. Actually, your decisions—particularly the defensive use if sand—along with your amazing luck are the reason we don’t have any dead wizards.
Also, you have the teal, fuchsia and copper scrolls. If you ever want to see what any of them do, you can just activate one with the appropriate color of sand. (Difficulty is “1.” So you can activate a scroll without a die roll—or even with a nat.1 or any roll from 1-20.)
I’m not pushing you to do that now or at all. Just thought I’d clarify that since this game is moving faster than expected, and I felt I could have clarified that more.
Emi-na's relief at the destruction of the zombies is fleeting, as the giant ape is bearing down on her... team? Are they a team? What are those people to her anyway? A hiss in her ear silences her dithering as Naja calls to her attention that the ape was turning a different color. Teal.
"I'm curious too, Naja," she agrees, pulling out the teal scroll. She causes some sand to shift to a matching color, activating it and letting the magic surge.
Naja transforms into a creature with the body-shape of a woman, but her flesh remains scaled and her face is the same, only enlarged to fit her new body! The scroll wraps her body like clothing. Emi gets the feeling this scroll can never be used again.
Naja’s eyes meet those of the lone enemy—and her gaze, combined with Randy’s power, stiffens the large ape completely!
The Velvet Ape does nothing.
What do you do?
Badia takes advantage of the ape's paralysis by burying her axe in its face!
The stone around the Velvet Ape cracks! The teal shell crumbles into sand and the creature’s raised fist starts to shift downward… but not to attack.
Its face has been cleaved in two, and the split spreads throughout the still-hardened body.
With a CLANG, both haves slam to the ground. The insides of the ape are a combination of hardened innards, gelatinous blood (gradually reverting to liquid) and oil, dead wires and mostly metal bones.
The Wizards are all very grateful. They look at our heroines with awe… Randy who, though horribly wounded, discovered the Velvet Ape’s weakness!—Emi-Na who transformed Naja into an amazing creature whose gaze holds the same earthen magic!—and Badia, whose might took full advantage of the turn of events!
Walter points out a body of water up ahead and says, “You know… I got a spell that my ex-wife used to love. It changes women into mermaids.” Looking at Randy and remembering an overheard conversation with the marshal, he adds, “Oh… and I think the magic works on some men too.”
Donny steps in and says (without Walter telling him to shut up), “I got another spell that works with water. A couple of our guys really need it, but…” Noting Badia’s wounds and especially Randy’s, “You need it more.”
He then says, “I am the walrus!”
Donny is not a walrus. Instead, the body of water up ahead is steaming hot and very pink with blossoming lily pads, falling sakura petals, and fuchsias surrounding what is now a hot spring with a rock garden.
Jeff gives Randy a pat on the back. “Oh, s&%*. Sorry, man. No harm intended. Uh… that water will fix ya. We’re leaving the hunt, so best o’ luck.”
Walter shrugs. “Yeah, f~$& it, Dude. Let’s go bowling.” The wizards help Other Jeff to his feet (Walter is sure he can walk), and look about to leave, presumably to go bowling.
Emi-na watches with astonishment as Naja is transformed and helps petrify the ape. She takes several steps back from the grotesque halves after Badia cracks it in two.
"Um, well struck," she offers. Naja slinks back to her side, still in her new shape. She whispers something in Emi-na's ear.
The sand sorceress nods, but still seems unsure. "Ahem. Well done, team." Naja hisses again. "I mean, well done team!" she repeats with more enthusiasm. She throws a very awkward fist in the air.
She turns her attention to the beautiful spring and garden the wizards made. "Thank you. It has been a long while since I have soaked in a spring. Southtopia does not have nearly enough. I hope to see you again before I leave."
She lowers herself into the water to enjoy a soak. "What's a 'mermaid'?"
She lowers herself into the water to enjoy a soak. "What's a 'mermaid'?"
"It's a mix between a "Turkish Snow Cone" and an "Irish Facial" He says as he gets naked and soaks in the pool.
”Ha ha! That’s what you get for monkeying in our business!” Badia declares as she stands over the fallen body of the robot (?) ape! ”Well fought, indeed! You and me and Daddy Sweetie, we are a great team!”
Eager to soak her wounds, Badia divests herself of her bikini and leaps into the hot spring. ”Cannonball!” she cries as she comes down with a huge splash!
O.J. looks Naja up and down. He seems deep in thought, but does not say why. After Emi expresses her wish to see him again he says, “You are invited to dine with my wife and I after the hunt is over.” Gesturing toward Naja he says, “It will be dinner for four if you prefer.”
The wizards leave with the healing spring as their parting gift.
Our heroines get a little break. There is a fuchsia glow about Badia and even brighter glow about Randy. Though Emi-Na is not wounded at all, her skin glows the same color as the others, however briefly. Naja had noticed the teal magic of petrification matched the scroll that gave her that very power. This spring has a fuchsia aura. It is not difficult for the snake to deduce that a connection exists between Emi-Na’s colored sand and the natural auras found in other types of magic.
Naja also finds she may hold onto this almost-human form while in the bath, though she could revert to her natural form before the spell ends.
Emi-na's eyebrows furrow in some confusion over Randy's explanation of mermaids -- the former desert-dweller not familiar with aquatic creatures. "That's very odd. Why would Walter's ex-wife want to beeeeeYAA
The giant, sinewy tail covered in iridescent scales and ending in a wide fin that has replaced Emi's lower half thrashes in her surprise. She pitches off the smooth stone she'd been sitting on and splashes fully into the pool. She surfaces with a sputter, nearly in a panic over the strange sensations coming from her new mermaid's tail.
"What's happening?!?"
”Huh? What do you—ahh!” Badia cries when she sees her own legs have been transmuted into a broad, scaled tail as well. ”Wicked sorcery! How is Badia the Leaper to leap like this? Bangoo! Must I now become Badia the Swimmer?”
Naja rises gracefully from the water, sporting her own finned tail. She whispers to Emi, who calms down some. "Well, of course! You're used to not having legs! This is--" she notices herself swimming effortlessly in the spring "-- not unpleasant, I suppose."
Emi-na hears Badia bemoaning the fact that she also has a fish tail. "I think this is temporary. Walter did this for us to have... fun." she says to her.
Emi dips underwater, letting her tail propel her through the water to pick up speed, then launches out of the water over Badia's head. She splashes back in the pool, spinning around underwater before breaking the surface, a glint of joy in her eyes. "You can still leap, Badia! How high can you go?"