SKT Episode 26: Jump The Shark

Starring Avengers Anonymoose (and Jake):

• Alice as Celdar the Rogue – <sigh> I’m just going to turn around and slowly walk away…
• Jake as Abelas the Wizard – I don’t like to tell you how to Druid…
• Adam as Joffrey the Druid – Oooh! Hang on!!
• Mike as Regulus the Artificer – We waited three weeks for that…
• Christina as Elvira the Arcane Archer – No, it’s really funny!

With:

Gary as the DM – And your strength is… well, it’s a bit shit, frankly

Author’s Note: Back after a three week break as 2021 landed the DM in hospital yet again. The DM started the session a bit nervous that we might run out of content tonight. That did not happen. Actually, it wasn’t even close <sigh>

During the week, the jaundiced DM had sent a sarcastic message to Kraj on Steam, Kraj responded with “I’m more Alice than you Homer!” he did later correct it to ‘alive’ but the damage was done.

That Which Must Be Repeated: This campaign contains hard encounters. It is often not required for all of you to kill all of them in order to succeed!

Season Recap: Chapter 1 – A Great Upheaval

– The party have saved the fortified village of Nightstone from goblins following an attack by Cloud Giants from a floating castle (that went east).

– The characters travelled to Triboar and on the way met a cloud giant called Zephyros who travels in a floating tower. He explained that the Ordning (which regulates giant society) is broken and the players are destined to fix it.

– They helped defend the town of Triboar from a fire giant attack and travelled to Everlund to bring word of the attack to the Harpers there. They were given access to the Harper’s teleportation network.

– They arrived at Goldenfields to find it under attack by Ogres, Bugbears and Goblins. Having fought off the attack they proceeded to seek allies against the giants but then didn’t and then did. Slowly and badly.

Pre-session Guff

Matt couldn’t make it because he was tired. I don’t think I need to say any more about that.

Kraj Alice joined and told the DM that the Steam summer sale had just started.

DM> Well… shit.

Mike joined and the DM told him the Steam summer sale had just started.

Mike> Well… shit

The ridiculous price of graphics cards was discussed. Thanks Bitcoin!

• Mike> Adam said he won’t be here till seven.
• DM> Yeah, sorry, if I’d thought about it we could have delayed kickoff until seven.
• Mike> We could just talk shit about Adam for half an hour…
• DM> <laughing> Yeah, bore the tits off Christina.
• Christina> No, it’s really funny!

The ‘chicken ride’ at Brands Hatch was discussed. I’m not going to go into the circumstances of how that came about, this is going to be long enough as it is.

Jake warned everyone he had ordered a pizza and so would have to disappear suddenly at some point to take delivery.

The DM warned everyone that nausea was a side effect of his recent tribulations and so he might have to disappear suddenly to make a delivery.

The Return of the Seven Snakes!

We rejoin our intrepid adventurers (and Jake) on the riverside road to Nesmé where they once again come face to face with The Seven Snakes, a Zhentarim special ops unit that they first ran into way back at the start of the campaign in Nightstone.

Now this encounter was supposed to be relatively quick. The DM upped Mornbryn’s Shield into a much bigger event at the cost of reducing this relatively pointless skirmish to an actually pointless skirmish that should have been over really quickly.

The adventurers (and Jake) are now level 7 but the Snakes are only equivalent to CR ¼ Thugs and one Fireball and a few stabby things should end it in the first round of combat allowing us to swiftly move on to the meat of the session at Nesmé and Kryptgarden Forest. Well, that was the plan at least.

The DM quite liked the idea of the Seven Snakes but the book only gives them a fleeting appearance right at the start so the DM figures he can lay some groundwork to maybe, perhaps have these guys as recurring villains in this or other campaigns. To this end they need a method of coming back when defeated and they need personalities, probably not for this encounter but, if things escalate, maybe later.

So the DM has sketched out some really basic personality traits that may get expounded upon depending on any future interactions:

No’Baconne Beutay is the leader; he is a vicious bully, smart but but not nearly as smart as he thinks he is. Copperhead, Viper and Python are just standard thugs (at the moment). Anaconda is really strong but really stupid. Cobretti is just like the movie character; vain, obsessed with looking cool, quite stupid but also quite tough (he also has the way OTT growly whisper from the movie).

Black Mamba is a half-orc and she is not quite sane, a bit of a psycho, afraid of nothing (including death) and absolutely tough as nails. She is the strongest of the snakes and the one you really don’t want to piss off.

Absolutely none of that should matter here though, beyond the customary exchange of unpleasantries before we get to the customary exchange of pointy objects. The DM had a bit of witty banter and some quality insults lined up, we’d get that out of the way and the Snakes would go down faster than Kraj’s mum on the DM’s birthday.

Absolutely nothing could go wrong, right? Right.

It immediately went wrong, obviously.

Aggressive Negotiations

DM> The Seven Snakes are waiting for you, blocking the road. Would you like to engage in hostilities from where you are or would you like to advance for the customary exchange of insults?

Now this is a no-brainer right? Insults are fun and expected. There’s a structure, a formality to this kind of thing, right? Right.

Sadly, ‘and Jake’ seems to be starting to rub off on the rest of them.

• Regulus> Right, we made this mistake last time didn’t we? I just reckon Jake launches a Fireball at the middle of them!
• <laughter>
• DM> <sigh>
• Abelas> It’s not a bad idea…
• Abelas> We’ve established that they are just dicks, haven’t we?
• Adam> Are these ten foot squares?
• Mike> You’ve got Black Mamba there and Python but I don’t think… I think Anaconda wants some!
• <Groans. The DM didn’t get it>
• DM> Black Mamba is… ah, watch out for Black Mamba.
• Regulus> Although Anaconda doesn’t want any… unless we’ve got buns.
• <Sad, pathetic laughter. The DM still doesn’t get it>
• Abelas> I tried to ignore that joke the first time you made it, I was just going to leave it be and hope he just leaves it… but nope!
• Regulus> Never! Not until I’ve beaten it to death!
• DM> Right, hands up, I don’t understand it, but I am very tired.

Things You Didn’t Want To Know But Have Been Forced To Find Out About Anyway

So the DM is old enough to remember when MTV was a music channel and his musical tastes are fairly eclectic and run from jazz to country to metal to 80’s soft rock pap but mainly singer songwriter stuff, music that tells tales from all genres including, brace yourselves, some rap (but not much).

Anyway, at this point in the write up I decided to watch the video for Anaconda.

I now feel really old.

And somewhat pervy and mildly censorious, which is new.

But mostly just old.

Now John at the bar is a friend of mine
He gets me my drinks for free
And he’s quick with a joke or to light up your smoke
But there’s some place that he’d rather be
He says Bill I believe this is killing me
As a smile ran away from his face
Well I’m sure that I could be a movie star
If I could get out of this place

Piano Man – Songwriter: Billy Joel

---

Oh my gosh, look at her butt
Oh my gosh, look at her butt
Oh my gosh, look at her butt
(Look at her butt)
Look at, look at, look at
Look, at her butt

Anaconda – Songwriters: Clark Ernest / Palacios Marcos Enrique / Maraj Onika Tanya / Jones Jamal F / Ray Anthony L / Myvett Jonathan

Like I said, really old <sigh>

Obviously all the chapter titles for the rest of this write up are going to be lyrics from Anaconda. Some of them are scarily appropriate. Others… not so much.

Who wanna go first? I had ’em pushing daffodils

Abelas lobs a Fireball straight into the Snakes without any preamble, style or sophistication.

It was rather effective though and it burned up a bunch of Snakes and all the DM’s prepared dialogue <sigh>

• Abelas> I would like to do the customary warning that it is a very low DC save.
• Regulus> We’re going to have to hear you say it!
• Abelas> <laughing> It is a DC14 save…
• Regulus> FOURTEEN?!

Never. Gets. Old..

• Abelas> Ok, I’m going to cast it… but them I’m going to run down stairs to pick up my pizza! Good luck!
• DM> No’Baconne Beutay says “Ah, we meet again friends! You’ve done well for yourselves since we first met and you were lowly caravan guards pretending to be adventurers (and Jake). What brings you to MY road at this…” WHOOSH!
• Regulus> Yeah, that’s pretty much it!
• DM> The Fireball streaks into the middle of them…
• Regulus> I think that’s a DC14 save…

Two of the Snakes made the save and the DM applied some cheese to decide who made it for half damage; No’Baconne and Black Mamba. The rest took 30 damage and had 2 hit points left each.

Roll initiative!

The DM determined that Abelas would go last in exchange for getting the Fireball off uncontested.

The DM also decided not to fill out the initiative board on the table because we wouldn’t need it, right? Right.

Real country-ass <deleted*>, let me play with his rifle

*Ok, I really don’t want to put in the actual lyric here. However, my search for an alternative led me to the Urban Dictionary page which, as usual, renders up some pure gold:

“Term used amongst African Americans to denote companionship, sort of like mate is used by Brits or cunt by Australians.”

Epic.

• Elvira> I’ll go for the front guy.
• Joffrey> Everyone can kill-steal from Jake!
• Alice> By the time Jake gets a go they’ll all be dead.
• <You would have thought so, right?!>
• Abelas> It’s the only way half-casters can get kills.
• <gasps>
• Elvira> Twenty eight to hit?
• <laughter>
• DM> No’Baconne Beutay dies in the middle of a screaming rant about how he will pay you back for this, as two arrows hit him mid-chest THWOCK-THWOCK. Down he goes. Elvira, you just casually lean on your longbow and cock an eyebrow at Alice.
• Alice> <laughing> What could possibly go wrong?

And then, dear reader, it starts to go off the rails.

By the way, what he say?

• Regulus> Can I suggest that we possibly keep one of them alive? To interrogate them to see what else is going on?
• <The DM dies inside a little>
• Alice> If we have a prisoner…
• Regulus> Christina will shoot him the next turn but we get one turn to question him!
• Joffrey> Well, just kill them because I can bring them back with Healing Word…
• Alice> Right, longbow shot, I’ll go for Anaconda…
• <Alice rolls a 2>
• <The DM starts laughing hysterically>
• Regulus> <invokes a heathen deity> We waited three weeks for that…
• DM> <having lost it completely> I feel so much better all of a sudden!
• Alice> <sigh> I’m just going to turn around and slowly walk away…

Gun in my purse, bitch, I came dressed to kill

Joffrey moves forwards and cuts loose with the WoMM, upping it to three charges and thus getting 5 x d4+1 missiles. Five of the Snakes that only had two hit points left were hit and killed.

• Abelas> Kill-stealing little bitch!
• Joffrey> I’m going to bonus action blow on the end of my WoMM and pocket it while spinning it and winking at the wizard.

Jake was too busy stuffing his face with pizza to offer a suitable retort.

This did however, give the DM an idea… er, Joffrey with the WoMM, not Jake with the pizza. More on that next session.

Look at her butt, look at, look at, look at, look at her butt!

DM> It’s the Snakes turn and Black Mamba screams “You bastards! The Seven Snakes will rise again” and then she turns, dashes and dives into the river and disappears beneath the surface.

So Black Mamba has escaped, the fight is over and we just have to wrap up the looting and move on to Nesmé right? Right.

• DM> Regulus?
• Regulus> I don’t suppose I can see her by any chance?
• DM> No… did you want to tinker a depth charge?
• Regulus> No, I was thinking that if I knew where she was I could magic missile her.
• DM> Erm… ok, now we’re playing battleships. You have to guess the square and launch an attack there and hope you get lucky.

Now, in my defence I really didn’t seriously think they’d be able to find Black Mamba once she was in the water and so I wasn’t thinking about it much and I kind of fucked up here. The description for Magic Missile says “Each dart hits a creature that you can see within range”.

Eh, rule of cool and all that and is didn’t make much difference to the outcome. Adam made a difference to the outcome. Oh yes he did.

DM> There are 16 squares there, I’ll number them and you get to pick one.

The DM picked square 2, Regulus attacked square 9. He chose… poorly.

But this is pointless right, 15 to one odds, Black Mamba is over 100ft away and underwater. On her next turn she’ll dash again and the odds of hitting her go up exponentially. It’s all over bar the swimming, basically.

Joffrey> Elvira is going to kill this dude with her Seeking Arrow anyway.

Ok.. the DM now thinks two things:

• A) Shit, I didn’t think of that.
• B) What the fuck is it with Adam constantly mis-gendering the NPCs?! Black Mamba has repeatedly been referred to as ‘she’ throughout the session and it’s a female model. WTF dude?!

The DM happens to know a thing or two about ballistics but despite his warnings, Adam decides to have Clay fire a longbow into the water at a flat angle from over 100ft away and Black Mamba is at least 10ft down. Maybe if fired straight down from close to the surface it might penetrate far enough to do some damage (bow fishing is a thing after all) but from where they were, no chance.

Abelas has a bunch of options including Fireball into the water or a Storm Sphere on top of it. He dithers for a while and then decides to not do anything. This is actually the sensible choice I think.

We then had a digression into the fact that everyone but Mike thinks greyhounds are spectacularly ugly dogs. Mike’s point that they are better than people was uncontested but the original point stands.

• DM> Top of the round, are you going to continue to pursue her?
• Abelas> Nah.
• Joffrey> Elvira will! Oh my <heathen deity>! Elvira, use your stuff!
• DM> <sigh>
• Regulus> Joffrey desperately wants Elvira to use her Seeking Arrow.
• Abelas> I feel Adam wants to be Elvira…
• Joffrey> I’ve had a taste of power ok?
• Regulus> Adam’s rolling an Arcane Archer next time!

Yes but then Adam will blow everything in the first round of combat and then complain that he has nothing else to do except shoot arrows for the rest of the fight.

Fuck me, D&D is complicated. So now the DM rules that it is still just an arrow. It is magically guided, not magically propelled so it will head towards the water but will still have issues penetrating when it gets there (much like the DM with Kraj’s mum). However, it will give an indication of where the target is because they will all see where it hit the surface.

During the session the DM was rather preoccupied looking stuff up for the shit show the players were busy creating out of a pretty fucking simple fight and missed some stuff. As noted previously the DM thought that Adam was the cause of the main derailment but no, it was fucking Alice <sigh>

I’m high as hell, I only took a half a pill, I’m on some dumb shit

So the problem is that soon Black Mamba will get another go and properly escape. The only things stopping her are Elvira, Alice and Joffrey.

• Abelas> He’s got a WoMM!
• Regulus> <triumphant> Yes! <despondent> Oh, he just used most of the charges…
• Alice> Do you have anything melee wise?
• <The DM notices that Alice, being a northerner, manages to repeatedly mispronounce melee as meelee <sigh>>
• Joffrey> I don’t think I’ll be able to get to him…
• Alice> I… er.. I can help you with that!
• <Silence as the full potential consequences of that sink in>
• <Slightly hysterical laughter>
• Joffrey> <dubiously> I don’t think you want a…
• Regulus> Octopus?
• Joffrey> <starting to see it> … er.. oh yeah, hang on!
• <more laughter>
• Joffrey> <wetting his pants> Oooh! Hang on!!
• Abelas> He’s seen the cheese everybody!
• Joffrey> I can turn into swimming stuff now!
• Regulus> Shark!
• Joffrey> Giant Octopus! Hunter Shark! Get me in there, Hunter Shark is going for it!

The DM is having one of those bouts of nausea as he realises this has now gone completely sideways and he has to fill out the initiative board after all. This is going to be complicated <sigh>

• Abelas> I love that we are about to burn everything in order to do this!
• Regulus> I know, it’s great!
• Joffrey> How often am I going to be able to turn into something that can swim and be useful?
• Regulus> For once I fully support this…

So what they referred to as ‘the plan’ but the DM thought of as ‘the fucking disaster’ was for Alice to Dimension-Door Joffrey to the water, Joffrey would then adopt the shape of a giant octopus and drop into the water where he would search for Black Mamba. The DM missed the octopus part of that because he was distracted making a rushed shark mini because Adam had clearly said “Get me in there, Hunter Shark is going for it!” <sigh>

Prior to all of that was Elvira’s turn and the Seeking Arrow was fired. The DM rules that the arrow hit the water on the correct bearing but Black Mamba then rolled high and made the Dex save so Elvira was not certain of her position BUT the adventurers (and Jake) clearly saw where the arrow hit the water BUT we are dealing with a 3D grid so the DM draws a line from Elvira to the impact site and then on through the area where Black Mamba might be. She can only be in one of three squares and they’ve already eliminated one of those.

“One Fireball” the DM had foolishly thought at the start, “One Fireball and a few stabbies and we’re done”.

I wanna see all the big fat ass bitches in the motherfucking club

If our two intrepid teleporters attempt arrive in the same square as Black Mamba, they will take a hefty 4d6 damage and fail to teleport. Since they don’t actually know where the target is they elect to teleport in just above the water of square 2. Square 2 is where the DM put Black Mamba.

• Adam> This is almost as good as Operation Electric Ferret!
• Jake> This is much better than Operation Electric ferret.
• Adam> You watch your mouth!
• Jake> Electric Ferret was a really badly thought out operation! Didn’t it achieve fuck-all?
• Adam> No! It went down in D&D history!
• DM> It failed because they were in a wooden boat.
• Adam> I thought they were swimming weren’t they?
• DM> <sigh> No, they were in a boat going under the chain. You sent the ferret out to cast lightning on the chain but the guy holding the chain was standing in a wooden boat.

The DM now has to expound on the properties of electricity, especially the bit about how current needs to flow and how non-conductive material e.g. wood, stops that current flow.

Say he don’t like ’em boney, he want something he can grab

• Abelas> Right the, the moment of truth!
• DM> Alice?
• Alice> I stroll up cockily…
• Joffrey> You stroll up with what out?!
• Alice> Shout “HOW HARD CAN IT BE?” and touch Joffrey on the shoulder…
• DM> Wait… you touch Joffrey on the shoulder and ask him how hard it can be?
• Regulus> Is that both hands… one on each shoulder, yeah?
• <sniggers>
• Regulus> And then you whisper into his ear “brace yourself!”?
• DM> <sigh> Ok, so you then Dimension Door to where?
• Alice> Umm… is it best to be on the beach and then you can go in Joffrey?
• <Sigh, there’s no beach, it’s a river, it has a bank>
• DM> <losing it> Are we still talking about the same thing?
• Joffrey> Wherever you like… I’m taking a free ride here.
• DM> <incoherent babble> … free ride! <loses it again>
• Alice> <sigh> Get your fucking mind out of the gutter.
• <The DM has to take a moment to gather himself>
• DM> <deep breath> Joffrey, are you willing? Or… <loses it again> are you going to just watch him swan off into the distance?
• Joffrey> I consent!

Joffrey appears in the air above square 2 and Alice arrives in an adjacent square. They instantly drop into the water.

He keep telling me it’s real, that he love my sex appeal

• DM> How high above the water?
• Alice> Er… like, an inch?
• Regulus> It’s just an inch to start with, but once he gets…
• Joffrey> Once he gets excited!
• Regulus> Just the tip, yeah?
• <several seconds of dirty laughter>
• DM> <sigh> For fuck sake… Er… <train of thought last spotted going thattaway →>
• Joffrey> Er.. can your character swim?
• <silence>
• <hysteria>

It’s a tad late to ask that question 🙂

We then had to deal with Joffrey wanting to be an octopus but the DM made a shark mini, so tough.

The DM has an idea and deploys some stands used for flying monsters to represent the 3D underwater positions of the shark the psycho and the emo. The shark swims down to the psycho and attacks her for 19 damage while the emo wallows about on the surface.

Spoilers: there’s an hour of this session left yet and most of it is spent still on this map.

So the DM has to decide if a shark can knock out an opponent with a bite attack. Frankly, at this point, the DM just decided to let it all happen.

• DM> Ok, Black Mamba is now unconscious and I’m quite disappointed that she didn’t get a go because on her turn she was going to grapple Alice… and manacle herself to him.
• <shocked and disappointed laughter>
• Joffrey> Can I drag her to the surface?
• DM> How are you going to do that?
• Joffrey> With my teeth…?
• DM> Ok, that’s a death save….
• <laughter>
• DM> Alright, not really.

Yes, the DM might be going with the flow but he has also decided that as the adventurer’s (and Jake) want to be awkward twats, the DM can can play that game too. Yes, it’s petty but it’s also quite funny and hugely satisfying and that makes it ok, right? Right.

Fuck you if you skinny bitches. What? Yeah. Ha-ha, ha…

• Joffrey> I’m just going to grab her gently by the back of the shirt…
• Regulus> <laughing> Because sharks are known for their fine motor skills!
• Abelas> I don’t like to tell you how to Druid…
• <Abelas immediately tells Joffrey how to Druid>
• Abelas> But can’t you just un-shark at any time?
• <Ok, that’s un-shark added to the DM’s custom Word dictionary <sigh>>
• DM> It doesn’t actually matter because you’ve had your turn. It is Black Mamba’s turn and she is bleeding. So that’s a death save… <DM rolls a 3> and that’s the first failed save.
• DM> Regulus?
• Regulus> Umm…
• DM> All you’ve seen is these two idiots disappear into the water and a pool of blood appears on the surface of the river.

Regulus casually wanders over to Elvira, says “’sup?” and does nothing else.

Wise man.

Clay and Abelas do the same thing and the DM plonks a nice campfire down on the road so they can roast some marshmallows while they are waiting for Alice and the shark to finish fucking about in the river.

• DM> Elvira?
• Elvira> Can I shoot the prisoner?
• <laughter>
• DM> Absolutely but we still have the ‘arrows into water’ issue. Interestingly I think if you fire the arrow from in the water, that’s a little different.

Elvira had a think about it and decided that roasting marshmallows sounded like a great idea.

Alice swims to the bank and Sharkfrey drags Black Mamba up alongside him, they are all still in the water. Black Mamba fails her second death save. The DM took this moment to point out that Black Mamba is a large half-orc, dressed in armour, soaking wet and a dead weight, and that Alice has a Str modifier of -3, so dragging her out of the river is going to be interesting.

See? Being awkward is funny!

Regulus runs up the river bank towards the site of the ongoing disaster adventure.

• Regulus> I kind of want to use my Bag of Tricks because if I get a big enough animal, I can get it to drag her out of the water couldn’t I?
• <silence>
• <laughter>
• Abelas> <incoherent babbling>… another bite…<incoherent babbling>
• DM> I was a little worried we’d run out of content this session…
• Regulus> I choose you… cmonAnonymoose, cmonAnonymoose <rolls an 8> ANONYMOOSE!
• DM> <sigh>
• Regulus> Now, can I instruct Anonymoose to go and pull Black Mamba onto the shore?
• DM> <casually> Anonymoose doesn’t want anything to do with that, there’s a shark there. No self respecting Giant Elf is going to go anywhere near a shark! Anonymoose just kind of looks at you sceptically.

At this point the DM realises that being a dick just for the sake of it may be funny but it aint getting this map finished any faster.

Little in the middle but she got much back

• Regulus> I look at Anonymoose and say “It’s ok, it’s a friendly shark”
• DM> Ok make <loses the plot> make a persuasion… make a persuasion check… <descends into hysteria>… with advantage!
• Alice> Is it more of a deception check… because it is Adam?

The persuasion check was passed and it turns out that Giant Elk have a pretty hefty Str modifier and Regulus cheeses Flash of Inspiration to add +4 to that and Black Mamba is successfully dragged from the water.

• DM> Clay?
• <silence>
• <more silence>
• DM> <sigh> Abelas?
• Adam> Oh shit, that’s me, sorry!
• <laughter>

Everyone not re-enacting Baywatch stayed by the fire with the marshmallows.

• DM> Alice?
• Alice> I will get myself up out of the water…
• DM> Ok, make a Strength check to see if you can pull yourself out.
• Alice> <laughing> Oh you dick!
• <Hey, you started this shit Mr I Can Help You With That!>
• DM> What? You’ve never tried to pull yourself out of a swimming pool? It’s not easy is it? And your strength is… well, it’s a bit shit, frankly.
• Alice> It… I… I… It’s a fucking beach!
• <At no point in this session has the DM referred to a ‘beach’ because it’s a fucking river and it has a fucking BANK!>
• Alice> <rolls> That’s a 6 <sigh>
• DM> You fail to make it out and are still floundering about in the river.
• Alice> Well fuck you! I’ll Misty Step up the fucking hill…
• <Hill? <sigh> Don’t they have river banks up north?>
• DM> You are at water level, the bank is two feet high, you have to Misty Step to somewhere you can see I believe?
• <sympathetic laughter>
• Alice> <sigh> Can I see Anonymoose’s horns?
• <Horns?! It’s a fucking Elk they have fucking ANTLERS!!>
• DM> Yes. Ok, you take 1d6 damage from landing on the pointy ‘horns’.
• Alice> Roll away!
• DM> <rolls a 5> Get in. You are now impaled…
• <laughter>
• DM> … on Anonymoose.
• Alice> <laughing> Can I stabilise her?
• DM> Not from up there.
• Regulus> Can you still move, do you have any movement left?
• Alice> Can I use my movement to get down?
• DM> Yes… but you used half your movement trying to get out of the river and Anonymoose is huge…
• <more sympathetic laughter>
• DM> <rather self righteously> You fuckers did this, I’m just following the physics of the situation! So huge beasts are 15ft wide and I’d say somewhat taller… 20 feet?
• Regulus> Plus the horns and Anonymoose is a magnificent beast so I’d say at least 30 feet high.
• Alice> <sigh>
• DM> We’ll call it 25 so 2d6 falling damage <rolls> so 7 damage… and you land prone.
• <laughter>
• <Alice falls from Anonymoose and lands adjacent to the unconscious Black Mamba>
• DM> You do not have enough movement speed to stand up.
• Abelas> I feel like we are watching a Carry-On movie!

I let him hit it ’cause he slang Cocaine

• DM> Joffrey?
• Joffrey> Ok, this is what I want to do… I want to swim as fast as I can to launch myself…
• DM> No.
• Joffrey> …out of the water…
• DM> No.
• Joffrey> …bonus action…
• DM> No.
• Joffrey> …sorry, action to turn into Joffrey…
• DM> No.
• Joffrey> … and stabilise her.
• DM> No…. Wait.. hang on, <sigh> let me check YouTube.

Some moments later…

DM> Well according to the Internet, great whites can jump up to 8 to 10 feet out of the water. Well, shit. <sigh> How big a run up do you want?

Fucking D&D.

So now we get Sharkfrey backing up 20ft to get a proper run at it and the DM has to calculate how far a shark can jump onto land. Yeah, didn’t see that one coming at the start of the session.

• DM> Right you can jump your strength.. actually, sod it, you are going to jump your strength distance so you leap majestically out of the water. Unfortunately for you, Anonymoose has lowered its head to shake off Alice…
• <giggles>
• DM> .. and you then end up spiked on Anonymoose’s antlers as Joffrey. It doesn’t do you any damage but you are now dangling off of the antlers by your robes.
• <some players seemed lost for words at this stage>
• Joffrey> Right.. erm…
• DM> You can just put your arms up and slip out of your robes.
• Joffrey> I can’t get de-robed! I’m just going to air-gun Healing Word at the unconscious and dying Black Mamba
• <The DM starts to get quietly excited about this as Adam doesn’t seem to realise that it is Black Mamba’s go next so if he heals her, she is going to dive straight back in the river again>
• Alice (AKA The Fun Police)> No one is there to hold her, she’ll run away.
• Regulus> Yes!
• DM> <sigh>
• Joffrey> Right, I drop out of my robes and use Healing Word on her…
• Regulus> NONONO!
• Alice> WOAH!
• Abelas> Lol!
• Regulus> Stabilise her!

So, sadly, naked Joffrey stabilises Black Mamba. Fuck you Alice!

It has been 1 hour and 7 minutes since Black Mamba dove into the water and this is where we have got to:

Brace yourselves, dear reader, we aint done yet.

• DM> Ok, what are you stabilising her with?
• <Silence>
• <Profound silence>
• <The kind of silence where everyone is thinking “uh-oh, Adam didn’t buy a healers kit!”>
• Joffrey> <somewhat shamefully> I don’t think… er… I don’t think I’ve got a healer’s kit…
• <Groans, swearing, laughter, mockery>

Joffrey elects to make a Medicine check and rolls a 5, luckily he gets plus 7 to that and only needs a 10. Black Mamba is finally stabilised.

He keep telling me to chill

DM> Right, here we are again, what are you going to do?

Black Mamba is searched but Regulus rolled rather low on the Perception check and he missed a few things. They did find her manacles and promptly used them on her and they also found what at first looked to be a tattoo on her inner forearm but on closer inspection was more like a brand. It was deeply unpleasant to look at and appeared to writhe slightly and made those observing it quite uncomfortable. They find the same brand on all of the Snakes.

They drag her across the road to where the bandit tents are. We then lost more time because Mike wanted to search the tents and Alice wanted to search the fucking boat <sigh> They found nothing, amazingly, and then remembered they had a prisoner.

They spent some time trying to remember why they thought taking a prisoner was a good idea and what exactly they hope to learn from her. They pretty much came up blank and the DM reluctantly agreed to summarise the Nesmé plot points. The DM wasn’t reluctant because he thought they should have remembered, it has been a month since the last session due to the sick DM being sick again, but more because the DM knows what is about to happen. Anyway:

They mercenary forces under the command of Oboth the Zhentarim that they fought in Mornbryn’s Shield were originally guarding this road to prevent anyone going into Nesmé. There some kind of big important meeting happening there but only Zhentarim personnel are allowed in the town. That’s about it.

Black Mamba was manacled with her hands behind her and Joffrey casts Healing Word. Black Mamba, upon regaining consciousness, immediately stands up, runs over and attempts to head butt Anonymoose. She missed and fell over again.

Abelas attempts to question her but she tries to kick him, she missed again. They tell her they are going to kill her if she doesn’t stop, so she immediately tries to kick Abelas again. She lands it but Abelas casts Shield. Abelas decides to brag about how powerful he is <sigh>, she tries to kick him again, misses again and so spits on him instead. They are starting to realise they aren’t getting anywhere.

• Joffrey> We could drag her over to the river and waterboard her! No, hang on, I’ve got the flagon… not flagon…
• Regulus> <sigh> The Alchemy Jug?
• Joffrey> That’s it! I could waterboard her with vinegar.
• <laughter>
• DM> <Dismissively> But obviously vinegar isn’t one of the things in the Alchemy Jug.
• Joffrey> Is it not?
• DM> No. It’s your magic fucking item!
• Joffrey> But it is, I’ve got two gallons of it!
• DM> <Dubiously> Vinegar is in the Alchemy Jug?
• Joffrey> Yeah! Two gallons of it!
• DM> Well Adam, I apologise. You do know your magic fucking item!

They discussed the merits of the various liquids until the DM stepped in and told them she was clearly a bit unhinged and not remotely frightened of any of the adventurers (and especially Jake) and didn’t seem unduly bothered by dying either. They simply picked the worst Snake to interrogate. Their options were to either let her go, kill her or try and torture some information out of her.

Abelas stabbed the helpless prisoner to death. As she dies she stares deeply into his eyes and promises to come back for him.

End of Session.

I’ll cover theNesmé set up next week.

Next time on Ten-foot Squares:

• – How, exactly, will they fuck up in Nesmé?
• – Will Matt be too tired?
• – Will Alice hit anything?

Tune in next week to find out!