A Game of Fartsmellum
Listen to a podcase recap of our latest adventure.
A month can be a very long time, or so Raistlin reflects in his journal. Holed up in some deep dungeon chamber, packed like sardines with his fellow adventurers and their various subconscious behaviors and disgusting habits, waiting for the next adventure, and waiting. Those interminable, barely sufferable minutes that crawl into hours, hours which claw themselves into days, days dragged unwillingly into weeks that never seem to end, somehow. Raist is not sure what part of it all is the worst.
Maybe it’s the snoring.
Raistlin sleeps as far away from the infamous dwarven snoring as possible, of course, but to his keen elvish ears, every time someone mumbles or snorts in their sleep, he is awake, awake for hours, worrying about which spells he should have had prepared and if perhaps Tenebrus is secretly mad at him. But inevitably, one dwarf or another then really gets going, a snore that is more song than snore, or scream. And then the others will join in, like some dwarven pack chorus, rising in volume until the very stone beneath the bedrolls shakes.
And then there are the bears. They always decide to bed down, or “den” as they call it, right beside his bedroll. When Caerwyn and Owlby aren’t making passionate, noisy love, they are arguing, and when they aren’t doing that, they usually are snoring in sprawling poses of hibernation. Raist can barely bear Caerwyn’s sighing bear snore, but Owlby’s snore is somewhere between a strangled hoot and a choked roar, to Raistlin’s terrified ear. But it is the inexplicable cooing and chuckling late at night that really baffles him. If it weren’t for his enchanted earplugs and a daily nap, Raisty would have long ago gone insane.
And the smells, oh, the smells! Owlby in the corner over the bucket, finally working out that giant pellet full of protruding bone and fur and other things no longer recognizable, but very smellable by all. And the damned dwarves playing their drinking game Fartsmellum, competing to see who can concoct the stinkiest fart, getting louder and smellier the more they drink.
All the ways you get to know a party of adventurers when you’re packed into some giant’s forgotten pantry with them for a month.
Raistlin would never have known, for instance, that Gabba suffers from horrible athlete’s foot, a condition that evidently calls for rubbing the bottoms of his feet on his crusty blanket for hours at a time, while moaning. He would never have known that Dirtbag liked to get up first thing every morning to go through his jazzercise routine, an endeavor that somehow necessitated turning on every single light source in the room. And Raistlin would rather not have known that Gowron had a pair of elven panties he liked to stuff in his mouth as he wrestled himself to sleep in his bedroll every night.
Raist could go on. But he snaps his journal shut for now, pulling out a book he’s reading about spell performance anxiety, squinting at the words in the low, flickering light of his dancing light orb. He can hardly focus on the words, however, as his mind keeps turning to tomorrow. Finally. The month-long wait is over; the adventure begins. Tomorrow. He must get some rest! And as he blinks sleepily at the words on the page, Raistlin finds that the familiar sounds and smells and warmth of his companions blend into some dream-borne connection, something supportive, a weave that supports him and lets him know that he is not alone as he faces who knows what unknown horrors on the morrow…
28th day of Planting – Freeday
Although they had all agreed that this time they would get off at first light, it isn’t until elevensies that the party finally finds all their parts and pieces and agrees on a marching order that doesn’t block the dwarves from seeing around them and then just when everyone is ready to go, Caerwyn has to run back for more pads, saying her period is heavier than normal.
The adventurers finally fall into step, and they find their way back to the hall ending in four shimmering doors. There, a decision awaits them. Behind any of these doors, they may come face-to-face with Eklavdra herself, clutching a glowing skull and smiling evilly, ready to unleash her hatred upon them all. Without the option of asking Bob Barker or the audience which door they should choose, they are forced to rely on their own careful decision-making skills. A quick bout of Rock, Paper, Scissors (best 2 out of 3) chooses the second door.
The door swings open upon a hallway of tan stone, directly across from a 20′ x 30′ opening. Rich soil covers the floor of the alcove in front of the portal, a soil that looks somehow unnatural, as though brought here from far away over a period of many years. The soil has been packed reverentially into a carefully shaped mound, about 8′ x 15′. In front, there are carved posts, with a rope barrier between, and many smaller mounds of dirt, as though offerings had been laid before this threshold. In the large hall beyond, the adventurers can easily see the giant flakes of shedded worm castings.
“Obviously,” Gowron muses, “we are in the Earth Elemental chamber.”
Alistair responds, “And remember, we are trying to find the elemental crystal of each element!”
“Huh. No, it’s you who’s gotta worry about the weight of my sack…” said Raistlin, looking somewhere far off over his shoulder. Sometimes, no one knows what Raistlin is talking about, or with whom.
“Or at least keep ’em out of that hag Eklavdra’s dirty paws!” grunts Harvey.
Just then, a xorn rips itself away from its stony surroundings and in a gutteral, marbled common, tears from his throat, “I… wannnt… your…. yummmmmy… meeetttaaalllll!!”
Not really wanting to engage this subterranean Rocky Balboa in combat, the adventurers alternate throwing the xorn bits of unwanted metal for him to pounce on and greedily gobble, while they engage him in conversation, such as it is. Meanwhile, Raistlin vanishes into a corner, covered by his cloak, and begins the meditation needed to learn the Move Earth spell that can vanquish this rocky beast.
Meanwhile, Harvey sees the opportunity finally arise for him to practice his art, his study, his life’s passion. All those years lying awake in bed, dreaming of this opportunity, and finally, the moment is upon him. He draws his daggers and charges in for his very first assassination, the sound of the adoring praise of his companions already in his ears. The xorn just watches Harvey do his best upon his rocky hide, mutters something that sounds like “Hinckley” in his garbled, rock-gargled throat, and then throws three rock-trunk arms about Harvey, pinning him to his side.
Then, two things happen at once: the beast’s horrible cave-white eyes fasten upon Harvey’s vorpal blade, and Owlby crashes into the xorn. Latching on with her muscled, tawny arms and crooked beak, Owlby manages to dislocate one of the creature’s great arms. Nonetheless, the xorn has drawn its great toothy maw around Harvey’s enchanted sword and is sucking it down like a sword swallower giving head, and now satisfied, sinks into the floor with a contented “Mmmmmmmmmm…” in a voice that sounds strangely like Herb’s.
From down the hall from where the party had just come, six clay golems charge the distracted party. Whipping their heads around, the adventurers quickly assess that there is no outrunning these fleet-footed golems, and grimly turn to face them. Raistlin, who has been looking for the opportunity to put his Joy of Painting correspondence courses to use, quickly slips on his apron, slides his palette from the bag of holding, squirts out some van dyke brown and just the tiniest bit of cadmium yellow, and mixes it all with his stash of Nolzur’s Marvelous Pigments. With these, he quickly paints a yawning chasm between his friends and the charging foes. Three of the golems tumble right in, but the other three manage to hold themselves back, teetering on the edge.
“Dammit,” says Alistair, “XP.”
The party hems and haws about all the many reckless ways they can go about luring the remaining three golems into their now obvious trap to get more awesomeness points, and are on the verge of trying to surf a Tenser’s Floating Disc over to lure them onto it with them, when Raistlin, more out of boredom than anything, Polymorphs himself into a super hot female clay golem, and giving in to every gender stereotype ever, he thrust out his now ample hip, hitches up his nightgown, and bats his eyelashes.
“Wontcha come over and see me sometime, big boys,” he says in his best husky bedroom voice, which unfortunately sounds more like a hungover Justin Bieber calling for a late-night DoorDash delivery rather than anything so provocative. Raistlin, unabashed, gives it his best go. “I got plenty lovin’ for all three of you, if you think you can handle all of meeee….”
The golums suddenly find their own fingernails of high interest for careful study, and mill about, waiting, on the other side.
Hoping to turn these living beings into easy profit later, the adventurers turn their back on the golems and sally forth.
In a room of dirt, they find a large stone slab upon which is written some obviously important message, but in strange runes. Caerwyn, who had studied Morse code as a Cub Scout, thinks she can make them out, but the dwarves just scoff and rib each other and make frequent mention of something called Hammer Talk. Despite their professed fluency, they don’t do much more than a lot of beard scratching and knuckle popping and muttering something about, “now if these were capital letters, this would make total sense, but since they’re lower case… I just don’t know…”
Beyond the dirt room, a door, and beside the door, a lever in the upward position. Deciding to leave the lever be, they perform a hasty door protocol and yank the door open. Gowron is narrowly missed by a giant spear. The catapult is plainly visible just beyond the door. With a little experimentation, they can see that the lever changes whether the door is a push or pull open, thus activating or deactivating the catapult trap.
The door leads into a large room, full of countless holes dug into the floor. Dirt has been flung carelessly about the mouths of these holes, as though someone has been digging for something. Halfway out of one of the holes is an iron chest. Gowron’s staff of opening opens it readily enough, only to find empty innards. Raistlin peers over Gowron’s shoulder, however, and with his Gem of Seeing, can clearly see the thousand gold pieces hidden, invisible, inside.
For some time now, the adventurers have been feeling a heavy rhythm deep within the stone beneath their feet. Finally, a dwarf thinks to put their ear to the stone and truly listen.
“The… Earth… Speaks… ” Harvey sounds out slowly, translating from Hammer Talk.
“Oh, great, thanks, Chief Seattle,” Raist scoffs and keeps walking.
Just then, three ropers come clambering down the hallway, quickly snatching each of the party in turn with their horribly tentacled arms and dragging them toward their gaping maws. Having never descended into such depths as to find themselves, late at night, looking up kink porn terms like “gaping maw”, the adventurers blissfully never fully realize the horrifying danger they are truly in, and, after several near misses, countless Magic Missiles, and the hard work of hacking swords, the ropers are vanquished.
And then, beyond. The intrepid adventurers find themselves in a huge chamber hewn from the stone, and under a great pile of broken wood, skeletons clutching a battle ax. Bar fight, they wonder? On into a kitchen, pantries, crockeries. Harvey, having heard tales of wondrous treasures hidden in the chimney, sticks his full head up into a charred chimney, only to be bitten by a poisonous snake.
As most of the party stands around wringing their hands and talking about what a good guy Harvey was, Alistair thinks quickly. He first slows the poison so Harvey actually won’t die, and then neutralizes it.
Having had quite enough adventure for one day, the adventurers decide its time to kip back to the tower for the evening, before realizing that no one brought the golden Beholder rod they were using for transportation. Tenebrus is not about to sleep in another pantry, though, by god, and he figures out a way to scry to Kada who mirrors the tired, bloody party back to their camp in the tower.
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